Few things in nature exhibit as wide a variation from meaningful to meaningless as Game 162. Some years, teams play with bags packed, ready for a week of coast-to-coast travel or an offseason spent at home. Some years, absolutely no games have any playoff consequence.
This year is one of those latter years, a year in which the entirety of the 12-team playoff bracket is already set entering this afternoon. We even have the schedule. Barring injury, nothing will change as far as who wins the World Series based on the results of these games. But they’ll be played anyway, and fans will attend anyway, and the result of every pitch will be meticulously tracked and categorized and at day’s end, as the sun sets from Boston to San Diego, eighteen teams will step wearily into the winter while twelve others move on towards the moments that will define their lives.
The breadth of consequence baseball can produce is one of the things that gives the sport its beauty. Over the weeks to come, we’ll see baseball at its most dramatic, with championship-changing pitch after championship-changing pitch in front of riotous, nerve-drained crowds. Today, though, we’ll watch lazy day games, games played by the best players in the world with absolutely nothing at stake. Both are beautiful.
62, But No Crown
Aaron Judge got his 62nd home run, but he won’t win the batting title, leaving him one distinction shy of the Triple Crown.
We wrote recently about how Judge is deserving of the AL MVP, a view that seems to have grown much more mainstream in recent weeks. In the NL, I’d take Nolan Arenado over Paul Goldschmidt, given he possesses the better fWAR/bWAR combination, but there’s little to be unhappy about should either of the two or Manny Machado win.
In the Cy Young race, I don’t see how it’s anyone but Sandy Alcantara in the NL, with so much better a bWAR than Aaron Nola and Carlos Rodón and a remarkable 228 innings pitched, something that’s part of that strong bWAR but is still just eye-popping. In the AL, I think it’s Justin Verlander, the 39-year-old we hadn’t really seen since 2019 and are about to see a lot of in October. There’s no one in the American League who had such a distinctively good season that we should look elsewhere than WAR.
For Rookies of the Year, I’d go with Adley Rutschman in the AL even if he didn’t have the fWAR lead (he doesn’t have the bWAR lead). He did it in less time, and he did it in a way that—even with Julio Rodríguez and Steven Kwan also sensational—completely changed the trajectory of his franchise, at least in the public eye. The persistent relevance of the Orioles in the second half was one of many awesome stories in 2022. A lot of that comes from Rutschman. In the National League, I’d take Spencer Strider over Michael Harris, partially because I think we should consider luck on the margins, and Harris’s numbers look luckier than Strider’s. Strider’s FIP was 84 points better than his ERA. Harris’s xwOBA was 33 points worse than his wOBA.
I’m not going to go through all the annual awards, but I do like Manager of the Year, and I’d personally give that to Brian Snitker in the NL and Brandon Hyde in the AL. With Hyde, again, the Orioles were ridiculous. They should not have been where they were. I can concede that managers likely don’t change things all that much, but when a team so roundly outperforms our perceptions of its ability, you have to start suspecting something special is happening in the clubhouse, and that certainly seemed to be the case in Baltimore. With Snitker, I’m not sure we adequately appreciate how hard it is to come back after winning a World Series and win 100 games again, especially when playing in a division with the Phillies and Mets, especially when dealing with all the injuries Atlanta withstood. I’d take Snitker over any other manager in the game, and this doesn’t factor into whether he should receive the award but it’s impressive how well a baseball lifer mans the gap between the analytics department in Atlanta and the clubhouse.
Playoff Injuries
Two meaningful injuries came through the feed just now—or at least, IL designations. Mike Clevinger is going on the IL for the Padres with an illness. Jesse Winker is going on the IL for the Mariners with a neck issue. Last night, Colin Poche was reported to be done for the year for the Rays with an oblique strain, and before yesterday’s games, the Mariners took another hit with Sam Haggerty going on the IL with a groin strain suffered on Monday. None of these guys are the keyest of players for their teams—Clevinger’s not someone the Padres want starting playoff games, Poche has been a below-average reliever, Winker’s had a down year (though his xwOBA/wOBA gap points towards bad luck), Haggerty’s had an up year and it still hasn’t been that good. Of the four, Winker’s the only one who’ll actively be missed. But, the playoffs can turn into a war of attrition, as can playoff series, as can individual playoff games. You want depth right now, and these things hurt.
More thoughts on the playoffs tomorrow I’m sure, and if not then, then on Friday. They’re almost here, friends. They’re almost here.
Phil Nevin’s Staying Put
Phil Nevin will manage the Angels next year, taking a one-year contract to guide the team through its sale year. No franchise in sports is as directionless as the Angels right now, even with more than just them up for sale.
More Concussions
Concussions are back in the spotlight. In the NFL, in NASCAR, it’s like as soon as we get issues of racism out of the public focus these guys immediately have to deal with all the head injuries they’re causing.
The latest big story is on the NASCAR side, and it’s that Alex Bowman will officially be eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday, not racing at the Charlotte Roval as he continues to recover from a concussion sustained two weeks back, at Texas. Cody Ware’s also out for Sunday, also due to injuries sustained at Texas, but those are “lower-leg injuries,” meaning he was able to race at Talladega (where you don’t have to brake or shift anywhere near as much as you do on a road course).
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Viewing schedule for today, second screen rotation in italics:
MLB (just the Cubs):
- 4:10 PM EDT: Cubs @ Cincinnati, Sampson vs. Ashcraft (MLB TV)
College Football (that is happening and is above the ‘painful’ line on the enjoyability chart):
- 7:00 PM EDT: SMU @ UCF (ESPN2)
Soccer (of significance to our futures portfolios):
- 2:45 PM EDT: Swansea @ Watford
