Nationals Arm Race

(Whoops!  forgot to post this on friday.  I have a good excuse; it was my kid’s 3rd birthday and we have family in town.  I swear I didn’t “cheat” on the Harvey prediction in game 1 from last night … and I still think the Cubs win the series).

Post season predictions so far:

• Wild Card Games: (link to my prediction post): got both Houston and Cubs WC wins right.
• NLDS: (link to my prediction post):  Got LA in 5 games wrong, got Cubs in 4 exactly right
• ALDS: (link to my prediction post): Got Toronto in 4 correct, got KC in 5 exactly right

Lets get to it; this series is going to be fun.

Mets-Cubs:

• Game 1: Harvey vs Lester
• Game 2: Snydergaard vs Arrieta
• Game 3: Hendricks vs deGrom
• Game 4: Hammel vs Matz/Colon?
• Game 5: likely Harvey vs Lester
• Game 6: likely Snydergaard vs Arrieta
• Game 7: likely Hendricks vs deGrom

Thoughts: Here’s a fun stat: The Mets went 0-7 against Chicago this year.  *Winless* in seven games.  New York dodged a major bullet by only  having Snydergaard have to throw one inning in the NLDS game-5 clincher; when he got up in the third to warmup, that could have blown their NLCS rotation plans (even though he apparently threw 100 pitches between the pen and the game).  Now as it stands, even though the Mets havn’t announced anything their rotation for the NLCS lines up so that their three best arms each will get 2 potential starts, with their best arm (deGrom) in line for crucial game 3 and game 7 outings.  I see Harvey dominating in game one behind a raucous New  York crowd, Arrieta being Arrieta in game 2, then having the strategic fun start.  Do you throw Matz in game 4 with Chicago’s heavy lefties or go to the veteran Colon?  Can New York steal one in Chicago somehow?  Maybe the deGrom game 3?

I dunno; if the Cubs have already shown themselves capable of handling the Mets pitching staff, why would we think anything would change?  Something just “feels” different about this Cubs team; they’re a bunch of kids on offense who have no connection to failings of yesteryear and their pitchers all made their bones primarily with others teams.  I can see the Mets sneaking one or two games but think this is Chicago’s year.  Prediction: Chicago in 6.

Good reference links for the above analysis:

• Baseball-reference’s post season page:
• SportsonEarth.com’s Will Leitch’s previews on the ALCS, NLCS
• Depth Charts at Baseball Prospectus.com
• MLB Probables:

As we did with the ALDS, Lets look at the NLDS series with pitching matchups and make some quick predictions:

New York Mets-Los Angeles Dodgers:

• Game 1: Kershaw vs deGrom
• Game 2: Greinke vs Snydergaard
• Game 3: Anderson vs Harvey
• Game 4: likely Matz/Colon vs Wood
• Game 5: likely Kershaw vs deGrom rematch

Prediction: I like Los Angeles in this series, in 5 games.  I can’t see NY winning either game in LA, I see them easily winning Harvey’s start but then the Matz/Colon question for Game 4 could come back to haunt them.  Matz hasn’t pitched in 2 weeks and Colon is 42 … but Colon dominated the Dodgers in his sole start against them this year.  Meanwhile, Wood has plenty of experience with the Mets lineup from his time in Atlanta but has performed pretty poorly against them this season, so I could see this going game 5 in LA.

Chicago Cubs-St. Louis:

• Game 1: Lackey vs Lester
• Game 2: Garcia vs Hendricks
• Game 3: Wacha vs Arrieta
• Game 4: Lynn vs Hammel
• Game 5: likely Lackey vs Lester rematch

St Louis won the season series against Chicago … but lost 4 out of 6 in their two September Series.  St. Louis is banged up, they have questions about some of their starters, and their all-important catcher will be playing with a split on his thumb.  Hmm.  Meanwhile. Chicago’s bats are just all-out fearsome; Schwarber-Bryant-Rizzo, each of which can hit the ball 450 feet at any moment.  Lester pitched excellently his last time in St. Louis and Lester doesn’t scare anybody, while Garcia could control Chicago’s lefties in game 2.  Honestly, I think Chicago gets a split in St. Louis and then takes care of business at home; they’re going to win Arrieta’s game 3 start (StL wastes perhaps their best starter against Arrieta) and then the season is on Lynn’s shoulders.  Lynn’s last two Chicago starts: 6ip (total), 9 runs.    Prediction: Chicago in 4.

Arrieta makes for a great WC matchup this week in Pittsburgh. Photo via mlb.com

Welcome to playoff baseball.  Lets look at the playoff rotations of the 8 playoff teams.

Reference links: MLB post-season schedule, Depth Charts for all teams, baseball-reference for stats.

NL Divisional Winners:

• New York Mets: deGrom, Snydergaard, Harvey, Matz (Colon)
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Kershaw, Greinke, Wood, Anderson (Bolsinger)
• St. Louis Cardinals: Lynn, Wacha, Garcia, Lackey (Lyons)

Discussions/Thoughts

• NY Mets: Only the Mets so far  have announced their rotation order.  Matt Harvey has quelled shut-down-gate talks by finishing out the season and saying he’d take the ball in the NLDS: hard to see him getting beat in his home game 3 start against the Dodgers, especially given his last outing (6ip, 11Ks).  deGrom struggled somewhat down the stretch and Snydergaard is only 22; hard to see them beating the seasoned vets Kershaw/Greinke at home.  We still don’t know if Matz is going to be healthy for game 4, but the potential LA opponent isn’t exactly scaring anyone, so I could see this go to a game 5 back in LA with Kershaw getting a 2nd divisional start.
• LA: We say this every year: Kershaw is the greatest … and he has a 5+ post-season ERA.  I’ll never bet against him in the playoffs, especially not after the September he had.  Greinke either wins the Cy Young or finishes a close second, and Wood is an effective 3rd starter.  This is a tough rotation to handle.  But they’re going against probably the 2nd best rotation in the post-season, meaning this could be a tight 5-game set.  Or not; watch every game will be 8-7.
• StL: They don’t look tough … but this rotation led the Cardinals to a 100 win season in a division with two other 97+ game winners.  That’s pretty amazing.  Bet against them at your own peril.  They were 11-8 versus the Cubs, 10-9 (and got outscored) against the Pirates, so I’m guessing they’re rooting for a Pittsburgh win in the WC play-in game.

NL Wild Card

• Chicago Cubs: Arrieta, Hendricks, Haren, Lester (Hammel)
• Pittsburgh Pirates: Cole, Liriano, Happ, Burnett (Morton)

Discussion/Prediction: Arrieta has given up 3 runs in the last month … and two of them were in his road start in Pittsburgh on 9/16/15.  I could see a similar start from him again in the Wednesday WC game.  So what can the Cubs do with Cole?  They have also seen him twice in the last month, got shut down at home but got to him on 9/15/15 in Pittsburgh.   Tough one to predict but I’m going with your presumptive Cy Young winner to hold serve in Pittsburgh, sending home the 97 win Pirates for the 2nd straight year in the play-in game.   Prediction: Cubs win.

If the Cubs win, they’ll be at a huge disadvantage against the Cards.  If the Pirates win, Liriano and Happ have been pitching well enough to get them back to their ace quickly and make a series of it.

AL Divisional Winners

• Toronto: Price, Estrada, Buehrle, Dickey/Stroman
• Kansas City: Cueto, Ventura, Volquez, Young (Medlen)
• Texas: Hamels, Gallardo, Holland, Perez/Lewis

Discussion:

• Toronto is setup for the playoffs and will get Price twice.  The back-end of their rotation doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a playoff series, but Toronto isn’t about top-notch pitching.  They hope to bash their way to the title and just may do it.  Would you roll the dice and sit Dickey for the 4th spot in favor of Stroman and his live arm?  Do you insult the veteran Buehrle and leave him off your playoff roster (probably not).
• Kansas City: blew Cueto in an attempt to keep home field and were successful, so Ventura likely gets two NLDS starts.  Nationals re-tread Young suddenly looks like the #4 starter for a WS contender.  Who would have thought that?
• Texas burned Hamels just to get to the playoffs; they’ll struggle to compete against two David Price home starts.  Who is their #4 in the playoffs?  Will Toronto average 6 runs a game against this staff?  Could be a short-post season run for the Rangers; no judgement here; they’ve done fantastically just to get into the playoffs given the number of rotation injuries and their poor start.

AL Wild Card

• Houston: Keuchel, McHugh, McCullers, Kazmir/Fiers
• New  York  Yankees: Tanaka, Severino, Pineda, Nova (Sabathia)

Discussion/Prediction: well, it doesn’t look good for the Yankees; Keuchel is scheduled to start and has thrown twice against New York this year: he threw a 6-hit shutout with 12 Ks against them in June and then threw 7 innings of 3-hit shutout ball in late August.  He’s your shoe-in Cy Young Winner and seems likely to pitch the Astros into the divisional series.   New York counters with Tanaka; in his sole appearance vs Houston he got lit up (5ip, 6runs) and the Yankees seem like they’re struggling just to field a lineup at season’s end.  They get the home game but likely go out a loser to end their season.  And if the Yankees somehow won, they’d have thrown their best pitcher … and one of the presumptive rotation members just checked himself into Alcohol Rehab.  Prediction: Astros Win.

Interesting collection of guys with Washington ties featuring prominently in the 2015 playoffs.

• Dan Haren was nearly released mid-season because he was so bad in Washington 2  years ago, now he’s the #3 starter on a 97 win team.
• Marco Estrada was waived by the Nats after a long and uninspiring minor league career; now he’s the #2 starter for the AL favorite?
• Chris Young played a whole season for Syracuse in 2013, working his way back from an injury.  When he didn’t make the 2014 roster he signed with Seattle and has been pretty effective since.
• Marcus Stroman was an 18th round pick out of HS by the Nats; he was listed as a SS (he’s only 5’8″) but went to Duke, became a power arm and was a 1st round pick by the Blue Jays 3 years later.
• Colby Lewis signed on with the Nats back in the bad years, failing to make the team out of Spring Training in 2007.  He hooked on with Oakland, playing most of the year in Sacramento before signing a 2-year gig in Japan.