TT: Rangers remind me of the 2014 Royals

[RZNJ]

45 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Baker since September, including his good 3 inning relief appearance with the Orioles on September 15th:

So this guy hasn't even been pitching well. Would love to understand why he was put on this roster.

I believe Baker struck out the side late in Norfolk’s championship game.  That was his last appearance.   I think they were hoping that might carry through but obviously it did not.   

[Tony-OH]

14 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Baker was really good for about 10 minutes in Las Vegas to help his case.

I think many relievers/Driveline students of the week do reveal themselves about 10 innings at a time, but 10 minutes could be pushing it.

Anyway, in the great meta of emulating the Rays, Baker over Irvin reminds me of the Rays 2021 pitching roster selections for their ALDS with Boston.     They went reliever heavy, and it just took one game of Red Sox hot bats and one 13-inning game (no ghost runners!) to basically leave them without enough pitching to cover an elimination game.

The Rays have lost a lot of playoff games because they are too focused on analytics and not allowing their manager to manage to the situation. The analytics tell you to pull a pitcher in certain situations but it can't take into consideration how that pitcher is performing at that time. Maybe the pitcher is just in a groove? Maybe he can give that extra inning? 

I hate that analytics have made the playoffs this relieverfest. Give me the old days when my horse starter got you at least to the 7th inning where you match up for the 7th, before turning things over to your ace setup and closer to finish off a game.

[Morgan423]

If you're talking about comparing the general feel of this series to the ALCS, I don't think they're the same so far.

The Royals just felt... lucky.  I remember over the course of that series that a multitude of times, they kept getting key, perfectly-timed hits that our fielders missed by literal microns.  Betted balls that were missing Oriole gloves by so little that there were probably quantum effects going on there that we couldn't see.  Over, and over, and over again.

And the other way around too.  Multiple potential rallies just murdered by one of their diving fielders barely catching a ball that they would have missed had it been hit literally a half-inch further away from them. 

It felt like we were doom-cursed that entire series.  Like there was something supernatural that was going to prevent us from any possibility of winning whatsoever.

This series hasn't felt that way.  This series has been simply, Team A has red hot hitters throughout half their line up, and Team B hasn't executed in pitching to them. 

This feels solvable and winnable with better execution by our pitching staff.  I expect our guys to come out fighting hard on Tuesday. 

It does not feel like the weird voodoo-curse oddness that was the 2014 ALCS.  If this were the same scenario as 2014, they could forfeit and it'd make no difference.  That's not where we are.
 

[Fiver6565]

Baker on the roster at all is confusing. Baker in the third inning yesterday, when theoretically the entire BP other than Hall is available, AND you have a long man in Flaherty, was downright stupefying. I disagree that our BP is terrible. The issue is we used literally the worst two pitchers in it, long before we were forced to do so. 
 

Hyde stated in this PC that he was basically trying to steal an inning because the bottom of the order was coming up. I get that against some teams, but this was not your average bottom of the order. Their bottom is like a lot of teams middle. I’m a huge Hyde fan but that was a poor decision, to put it mildly, compounded by bringing in Webb after Baker completely crapped the bed. Third inning Hyde was not the Hyde we’ve seen all year. It was like Zombie Hyde or something. 
 

All that being said, the Rangers might just be ‘that team’ this year so it might not have mattered in the end. 

[Fiver6565]

I have to keep reminding myself that the season isn’t over. Seeing your team in person get their collective asses handed to them will do that I suppose. But as others have noted I expect them to be fighting tooth and nail down in Arlington. 
 

TO THE BITTER END 

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 

I hate that analytics have made the playoffs this relieverfest. Give me the old days when my horse starter got you at least to the 7th inning where you match up for the 7th, before turning things over to your ace setup and closer to finish off a game.

Depending on when you think the analytics revolution started, I feel like this trend predates analytics.   LaRussa managed the Cardinals like that for years.   We certainly saw it with the Royals in 2014.   

That said, regardless of when it started and why, I dislike it too.  Give me Bob Gibson vs. Mickey Lolich in Game 7 of the 1968 World Series.  Both pitchers throwing their third complete game of the Series, Lolich doing in on two days’ rest!  Those were epic performances.  
 

[RZNJ]

3 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

Baker on the roster at all is confusing. Baker in the third inning yesterday, when theoretically the entire BP other than Hall is available, AND you have a long man in Flaherty, was downright stupefying. I disagree that our BP is terrible. The issue is we used literally the worst two pitchers in it, long before we were forced to do so. 
 

Hyde stated in this PC that he was basically trying to steal an inning because the bottom of the order was coming up. I get that against some teams, but this was not your average bottom of the order. Their bottom is like a lot of teams middle. I’m a huge Hyde fan but that was a poor decision, to put it mildly, compounded by bringing in Webb after Baker completely crapped the bed. Third inning Hyde was not the Hyde we’ve seen all year. It was like Zombie Hyde or something. 
 

All that being said, the Rangers might just be ‘that team’ this year so it might not have mattered in the end. 

What are we comparing that situation to?   How many times has Hyde had to go to his bullpen with 2 outs in the 2nd inning?   Sure, in the regular season you go to your long man there and hope he can eat up as many innings as possible.

[Fiver6565]

17 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

The Rays have lost a lot of playoff games because they are too focused on analytics and not allowing their manager to manage to the situation. The analytics tell you to pull a pitcher in certain situations but it can't take into consideration how that pitcher is performing at that time. Maybe the pitcher is just in a groove? Maybe he can give that extra inning? 

I hate that analytics have made the playoffs this relieverfest. Give me the old days when my horse starter got you at least to the 7th inning where you match up for the 7th, before turning things over to your ace setup and closer to finish off a game.

The way to reduce the ‘relieverfest’ is to eliminate the off days within series. This team and others played 17 days in a row just a few weeks ago. No reason they couldn’t play five now. You give these managers basically all the bullets in all the games, and they are going to fire all the bullets.  If they had to play tonight, then reliever usage would have been much different this weekend. 
 

Of course and east coast/west coast scenario would complicate that, but you could alleviate that with a day game followed by a blmight game or something. And both teams are traveling so there’s no advantage there. 

[Fiver6565]

Just now, RZNJ said:

What are we comparing that situation to?   How many times has Hyde had to go to his bullpen with 2 outs in the 2nd inning?   Sure, in the regular season you go to your long man there and hope he can eat up as many innings as possible.

Yes you can, and why can’t you do that yesterday?  Why have a long man if you aren’t using him in the third inning yesterday?  

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

The way to reduce the ‘relieverfest’ is to eliminate the off days within series. This team and others played 17 days in a row just a few weeks ago. No reason they couldn’t play five now. You give these managers basically all the bullets in all the games, and they are going to fire all the bullets.  If they had to play tonight, then reliever usage would have been much different this weekend. 
 

Of course and east coast/west coast scenario would complicate that, but you could alleviate that with a day game followed by a blmight game or something. And both teams are traveling so there’s no advantage there. 

I don't disagree with any of this. I also don't like the five days off thing they have. That's too long for a team to sit idle. 

[RZNJ]

5 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

Yes you can, and why can’t you do that yesterday?  Why have a long man if you aren’t using him in the third inning yesterday?  

I don’t think they consider Flaherty a long man and they apparently didn’t want to burn Gibson or Kremer yesterday.  It would have been perfect for someone like Irvin.  They went for Baker over Irvin thinking they wouldn’t need a long man.  They didn’t plan for a 1.2 outing from Grayson.   It backfired.  Still, the bottom line for me is that the starter went 1.2 and gave up 5 runs.   That’s always bad.

[SilentJames]

53 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

There was one infield hit, and on that Grayson was slow getting to the ball and then tried to lob a throw over the baserunner's head.

The grounder that went up the middle was 112 mph off the bat, w/ .590 xBA

That was a situation where Hyde should've argued runner's interference. Grayson shouldve just plunked him in the shoulder, he was on the wrong side of the line. 

The grounder was hard hit, but the way it rocketed off the mound gave Mateo absolutely no shot at it. 

[SilentJames]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

That's true, everything did seem to go well for the Royals that year, too.  

If I close my eyes I can still see that broken bat flare double into right field that found no-man's land. I knew then we were in trouble. 

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

 

Henderson has been very impressive considering he's facing a lot of lefties. Rutschman has been a disappointment. Mullins has been an absolute zero and is an automatic out right now. It's hard to play against a tough team when two of you better players are not producing. Add in a rookie pitcher, and it was just not a good combination.

 

The results have been disappointing, sure, but Adley hit two scorchers yesterday before breaking through with a double yesterday. 1 for 8 with a BB (to 1 K) and a couple of 100+ EV outs isn't bad. Not locked in Evan Carter level but I can live with that.

Agreed on Mullins, he is failing the results test as well as the eye test. Just looks completely lost. Hopefully facing a RHP helps. For now I might slide him further in the order, kind of like we do with Mateo, making him a "second leadoff" guy at the bottom of the order.

What killed us the first game was double plays, but hard to do anything about that unless you are willing to bunt and give up an out. 

[TopGunnar]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Baker since September, including his good 3 inning relief appearance with the Orioles on September 15th:

So this guy hasn't even been pitching well. Would love to understand why he was put on this roster.

Curious to know how many inherited runners he allowed to score during that stretch as well. IIRC, he had atleast 1 three run homer allowed