Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the LCS edition of my weekly chat. Yesterday we had a couple of games that got blown open early but tightened up late, and we now have the Rangers heading back to Arlington up 2-0 and the Phillies up 1-0 on the Diamondbacks after Schwaber, Harper, and Castellanos hit about 1300 feet worth of early homers.

Jay Jaffe: Next up for me is a piece on Kim Ng’s departure from Miami and hopefully a Corbin Carroll thing for later this week.

Jay Jaffe: anyway, on with the show

KC Pain: Any info on Ng?  Seems like ownership and her w a rift from what I read…..but was that happening all year?

Jay Jaffe: I’ll have more tomorrow but I think there were a couple of related things going on. Ng wanted to clean house a bit as far as staff to find people she was more in alignment with and bring some new voices into the organization — something that worked out well when she got to hire a new manager (Schumaker) — but owner Bruce Sherman apparently wasn’t amenable to that. He’s planning on bringing in a president of baseball operations, so she essentially would have been demoted to second-in-command, which doesn’t play well when you’ve just guided a team to its first full season above .500 in 14 years and their first full-season playoff berth in 20.

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: The way the playoff format has evolved over the decades, we are now seeing more games featuring lesser teams, and fewer games featuring the best teams. This does not seem desirable to me; I would think the optimal format would be a showcase of the elite teams playing each other.

Jay Jaffe: yes but there’s more playoff games, see, and in the eyes of Rob Manfred and the MLB owners, that means more money regardless of who gets the piece of metal.

Jay Jaffe: It’s important to remember that MLB’s vision of optimizing means more money, with a nod to competitive balance in the “everyone-has-a-chance” version

Jay Jaffe: whereas your vision of optimizing (and mine) is probably something much different

Sad White Sox Fan: Why do the White Sox want to be the post-World Series Kansas City Royals?

Jay Jaffe: Man, it’s a sad thing when your number one aspiration in life is to maintain a vise-like grip on fourth place in the AL Central.

Jay Jaffe: I think Jerry Reinsdorf might look at the Royals and say, “See, they’re not spending a lot of money and who cares?”

Kevin: Do you think there would have been so much outcry about the number of days off for division winners had the series been more competitive? (I myself think the bigger issue was the series lacked drama rather than the underdogs won. Had the series been competitive, I suspect people would be applauding the underdogs for having won.)

Jay Jaffe: I think it’s mostly a reaction to the Dodgers and Orioles geting smoked. The Braves-Phillies series was reasonably competitive in that three of the four games were decided by a total of six runs, but the Braves only led fleetingly. The Twins-Astros series was pretty competitive, too.

Tim: Is the Orioles’ 2024 closer currently in the organization or will he be added this off-season?

Jay Jaffe: With Bautista out due to TJ, it wouldn’t surprise me if they go out and get someone, though at the same time, I don’t think they’re inclined to spend big money on a name-brand closer, so deciding among Cano, Perez, and maybe Hall could be a way to save money and spend it on another area of need.

Sean Malloy: Of the big three active relievers (Kimbrel, Jansen, and Chapman), which one do you think will get the most support on the HOF ballot? How much do you think BBWAA voters value postseason performance for relief pitchers?

Jay Jaffe: I think Kimbrel and Jansen are well ahead of Chapman in terms of likely support, and they have very similar numbers and career patterns, so it’s tough to separate them. As for postseason stuff, the writers do value it for closers, but as Billy Wagner’s climb towards 75% illustrates, a lack of it isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker.

KC Pain: Hoping the fever isnt a double entendre and you are under the weather.  Who do you think has had the easiest path so far in retrospect?  The toughest?

Jay Jaffe: Thankfully I’m in good health other than a perpetual shortage of sleep. In terms of paths to this point, assuming you’re talking about the four teams still standing, it’s clearly the Astros, who faced an 87-win team in their only round compared to the others each knocking off a team with 100 or more wins. As for the toughest path to this point, it’s probably the Rangers, who swept two teams that combined to win 200 games this year.

Too many Mooks: If Ohtani signs with the dodgers, do you think it becomes *less * likely that Kershaw retires this offseason, because of how fun that team could be?

Jay Jaffe: I think Kershaw’s decision will come before Ohtani’s, in part because there does clearly seem to be some medical aspect to it. That shoulder wasn’t right, and I wonder if he needs surgery.

Sammy So-so: So, was the endless refrain about shifting suppressing offense a lot of hot air or was there actually some effect? Can we tell after one season? Thanks, Jay.

Jay Jaffe: Well, year over year the MLB-wide batting average rose five points (from .243 to .248) and BABIPs rose by seven points (from .290 to .297), with slugging percentages rising 19 points (.395 to .414), though that part may have been less attributable to the shift than to rising home run rates. I think it will take a few seasons to get a true grasp on the effects of the ban but it does seem to have stimulated some offense.

Brewers: 20 Pirates: 0: Really impressed with the Texas Rangers postseason so far. Can they possibly win a World Series title without losing a playoff game?

Jay Jaffe: I doubt it. Nobody has done it in the age of the Wild Card, and i’m just not holding my breath expecting that they will.

Schmeeper: What are the odds Houston takes 2/3 or 3/3 in Texas? They’ve played really well in Arlington and I like the pitching matchups for Houston (I believe in JV if it comes down to needing a win in game 5).

Jay Jaffe: Going by the ZiPS game-by-game odds, they have about a 1-in-8 chance of taking the next three games and — did I do this right? — about a 3-in-8 chance of taking two of three.

Insert Witty Name Here: Could Playoff Harper do anything that would surpass him as being greater than Mike Trout?  I know playoff success is team based, but the narrative…

Jay Jaffe: Eh, maybe from a narrative standpoint, Harper could surpass Trout — or already has — but Trout has almost a 40-WAR edge on Harper (85.2 to 46.2 in bWAR) in addition to more individual hardware.

Noah: Is there data that would allow factoring impact plays into assessment of player value? For instance, I’m thinking last night of how Schwarber turning on that first pitch fastball and how it set an offensive tone/approach for the next few innings.

Jay Jaffe: You can look at WPA or Championship WPA if you’re trying to quantify the impact of a play but Schwarber’s homer, as emphatic as it was, doesn’t stand out tremendously. It increased the Phillies’ chances of winning by 10%, tied with the play in which Moreno reached on Dominguez’s throwing error to put first and third with no out in the 7th, with Harper’s homer 9%, and Gurriel’s game-ending GIDP 9% as well. In the ALCS game that preceded them there were at least five plays that swung the odds 10% or more in one direction or another

KC Pain: Thoughts on what ATL does now?  Go big on SP reinforcements?  Give it another go and just pray they avoid Philly next year?

Jay Jaffe: yes, they need to reinforce their rotation, particularly with Wright out for the season due to capsule surgery. They have a $20 million option on Morton that’s probably worth picking up even as he heads into his age-40 season (he was at 2.7 WAR this year) but I think they need at least one more mid-rotation arm.

Homer: Albies at 19.3 fWAR at 26.75 years old, which is a great start, but he seems to be topping out in the 4-4.5 WAR/year range.  Any chance he has another gear that will give him the sort of peak that might result in a spot in the HOF?  Would another 10 years of 4 to 4.5 war get him there, even without the star-level peak?

Jay Jaffe: He’s a good player, and 20.2 bWAR through his age-26 season ranks 23rd among second basemen, with some HOFers adjacent (see https://stathead.com/tiny/1OStr), but he has yet to put up a single 5.0 WAR season and he’s going to have to find some of those to stand out as a candidate.

Smiling Politely: If the Brewers were smart, they’d interview Ng to replace Stearns and then beat the Marlins next year

Jay Jaffe: The problem with your theory is that Matt Arnold is now the Brewers’ president of baseball operations so I don’t see a spot for Ng there. The only POBO opening, I think, is the Red Sox unless the White Sox decide to bring in somebody above Chris Getz — which might be kind of weird given that they just promoted him, but maybe that’s why their search didn’t seem all that extensive.

Vermonty: If a GM’s big moves backfire, shouldn’t they lose their job? I’m thinking Cashman here, and I’ve always defended him , but is now the time for a change?

Jay Jaffe: The problem is that you’re assuming that only the biggest and most publicly visible bets — this signing, that trade — matter, when there’s a whole lot more that goes into the job. Which isn’t necessarily to defend Cashman, who like the rest of us is watching a lot of ex-Yankees have fine postseasons, but it’s just not as simple as “they lost this trade, off with his head.”

Jay Jaffe: Personally I think the Yankees should kick Cashman upstairs and bring in a new GM, and Ng would seem to be well-suited for that possibility.

marginal utility player: thoughts on “playoff performers” in general? Is it sample size? confirmation bias? or are some players just better in the postseason?

The player who is probably most known for being a great postseason performer recently is David Ortiz, whose postseason numbers are a seams’ width away from his regular season statistics. The whole notion of some players being special in postseason just seems like an overrated talking point to me

Jay Jaffe: A lot of it is sample size but I do think some players are particularly well-wired for the postseason, better able to focus and not let the moment overtake them in ways that increases the possibility of success. That said, David Ortiz went 2-for-22 in the 2013 ALCS and had a few other dud series. Harper hit just .200/.360/.400 in last year’s World Series. Mariano Rivera gave up the 2001 walk-off hit to Luis Gonzalez in the World Series and the decisive homer to Sandy Alomar Jr. in the 1997 ALDS. No player is so clutch that they’re forever infallible in the playoffs.

12 to 6: Kershaw/[Giolito]/Buehler/Miller/Pepiot/Sheehan/Grove/Ferguson/Stone/[May]/[Gonzo].

Assuming CK comes back, and even without a topline SP signing (like Giolito, who would be a great fit) am I just silly for being cautiously optimistic. The playoffs were a disaster but the Dodgers *did* successfully break in about 2/5 of a pitching staff this year….

Jay Jaffe: They have a lot of young talent, but the problem — as we’ve already seen — is that young pitchers get hurt, don’t develop evenly, and face workload constraints. They’ll need to find some pitchers to take up significant innings, whether that’s Giolito or Lynn (on whom they have an option) or somebody else. But particularly with Urias gone, they do need another frontliner, which is why it makes sense for them to go after Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Guest: Is Ng a hot enough commodity at this point to make someone like the Padres or Angels drop Preller or Minasian and make a run?

Jay Jaffe: I doubt either of those teams will fire a sitting exec to hire her but it’s worth noting that Preller is POBO in San Diego, while Minasian is just the GM in Anaheim, with no POBO above him.

The Oriole Bird: As an O’s fan, this team came so far out from left field this year to win 101 games, that I say who cares that they got swept by the Rangers.  Let’s enjoy the next 3-4 years!

Jay Jaffe: There’s more talent on the way starting with Jackson Holliday, so it’s a good time to be an O’s fan. Hopefully they can take the success and hard lessons from this season and build upon them.

KC Pain: Odds Kershaw/Verlander/Scherzer retire this year?  All seem to be in spots where playoffs are attainable next year.

Jay Jaffe: Kershaw is a free agent and may well decide he’s had enough. Verlander and Shcherzer are both guaranteed $43.3 million next year, on the other hand, so I’d say there’s a sub-zero chance either retires regardless of what happens this October.

Deck: Regarding blaming the GM — it seems to me, that what isn’t known publicly is how much the GM acts on his own initiative and how much the GM acts simply as an agent for the owner.  It seems harsh to fire a guy because he did what you told him to do.

Jay Jaffe: Yes, very good points. The GM or even the POBO doesn’t set the budget, doesn’t unilaterally make the big signing, etc.

Benny: Last year we had 4 extra inning postseason games. There haven’t been any yet this year. And we haven’t had any winner-take-all games either. Any idea when the last year we had a postseason with no extra innings or winner take all games?

Jay Jaffe: Via Stathead, it looks like the last time we didn’t have a postseason extra inning game was 2006, with 2002 the only other Wild Card-era season without one. It looks like we last lacked what Stathead calls a “sudden death” game was in 2009, with 1998 the only other Wild-Card era season without one.

Farhandrew Zaidman: Do you think 2028 Olympic baseball will compete with 2029 WBC for players/interest/etc? What are the odds professionals actually are allowed to compete in the Olympics?

Jay Jaffe: Doubt they’ll be competing against each other because I don’t see MLB stopping its season to allow active major leaguers to play. Nor should it because **** the Olympics.

Ben: Thinking back to Mike Trout being drafted at 25th, how much of that was he being a kid from NJ versus people just missed it with him?  I know drafts are tricky, but it seems like he was good in pro ball from the word Go!

James: Where would you put the odds the Yordan breaks the all-time playoff home run record eventually? 12 homers at age 26 is formidable.

Jay Jaffe: Well, he’s not even halfway to Manny Ramirez’s record of 29, and the thing I’d worry about with him is injuries; he’s already had one major knee injury, has averaged just 131 games over the past three seasons, and is mainly a DH. Don’t get me wrong, I expect him to keep accumulating postseason homers, but even if he’s averaging over 4 postseason homers a year while the Astros play three rounds, he’s got to go through another four seasons like that — and it seems unlikely the Astros will be that consistently competitive for that long.

Lorenzo: Will Kodai Senga get a higher overall score in ROY voting or CY Young voting?

Jay Jaffe: I think he’ll probably be 2nd in the NL Rookie of the Year voting to Corbin Carroll, but I figure at least Snell, Strider,  and Steele will finish ahead of him in the Cy Young voting, possibly with the two Zac(k)s ahead of him too. Still, a very nice season

12 to 6: oh, without question la needs two arms that can soak up 180-200 innings, which is why i’d think lynn coming back and another mid-range starter is likely (and why urias going out, and justifiably, was a depth charge for them – he was average to solid this year on the mound, but he was basically a guarantee to take the ball every five days). i’d love yamamoto but they still need another innings soaker.

Jay Jaffe: agreed

Mateo: can you share more about your particular distaste for the Olympics, Jay?

Jay Jaffe: the IOC is inherently corrupt in its dealings, with the host city the one that can bribe the most officials. They’ve already shown a disdain for baseball by not having it be a regular medal sport (the 2021 Olympics was the first time since 2008 and it won’t be there in 2024).

mac: what makes the yankees think they’re so special that they don’t have to change personnel when things have gone horribly awry?

Jay Jaffe: money. profit. green.

Jay Jaffe: They’re a money-making machine and perhaps too complacent about the value of the brand as opposed to the need to wield their financial clout in order to fortify their roster.

Benny: You just mentioned Senga, Snell, Strider, Steele, Gallen, and Wheeler in the Cy Young mix. I know Webb didn’t have the shiniest W-L record or ERA, but just averaging bWAR and fWAR together, he comes out ahead of all 6 of the others. I’m sure Snell will win, but do you think Webb will get any consideration from the voters?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t think he’ll be shut out, and don’t wish to denigrate his season at all — it was a damn good one — but an 11-13 record with fewer than 200 strikeouts isn’t going to help him stand out in the current crowd.

Bernardo: In the case of a Phillies-Rangers World Series, who do you think matches up better? Seems like a toss up to me

Jay Jaffe: I’d have to think about that one but it would certainly be a lot of fun to see that matchup!

KC Pain: Any chance they up the pickoff from 2….to at least 3?  I dont want 10 of them but felt that 2 is too few.  Otherwise loved the new rules.

Jay Jaffe: Maybe eventually but i’m skeptical we’ll see a change for next year.

mac: what is the substantive difference between a durable-but-unexceptional starting pitcher racking up a high win total because he played with a great offense his whole career and brian cashman being a “hall of fame gm” because he worked with the highest budget and most resources in the league every year?

Jay Jaffe: For better or worse, flags fly forever, and Cashman has helped fly a bunch of them. They’re celebrated in an outsized way and rewarded as such when it comes to the Hall, especially since executives don’t have a lot of other objective measures to go by. The resources and budget give (gave) Cashman advantages — and certainly he inherited some excellent players who were part of the team’s success  — but as we’ve seen time and again, money doesn’t guarantee anything, and the playoffs are designed to weaken that link.

Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, it’s time for me to roll. Enjoy the rest of the LCSes and we’ll connect again next week!