Do we like the Wild Card Series? I’m not sure. It’s compelling, but I think I still prefer the Wild Card Game, especially because it happened on two weeknights so it was a time for baseball to outshine football.
That said, I get the revenue piece, and I also get that we have eight to twelve sensational games of playoff baseball these next three days. This is March Madness-style stuff. Let’s go through the three series, including their FanGraphs’s Depth Charts probability, their Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS probability, and their implied probability from betting markets.
Tampa Bay @ Cleveland
Depth Charts: 55.9% Tampa Bay
ZiPS: 52.8% Tampa Bay
Betting Markets: 53.3% Cleveland
What these varying probabilities mean, in this instance, is that the Guardians have better starting pitching, on paper, than the Rays. For a three-game series. That’s the key distinction between how Depth Charts approaches this and how ZiPS approaches it, at least as far as I understand those models. It’s more of a guess as to why betting markets are so differed from the projection systems, but to make that guess, I’ll speculate that betting markets are probably putting more weight in Cleveland’s regular season offensive performance, while the projection systems expect regression. Baseball may be a streaky game. But you never know when hot will go cold.
Shane McClanahan is on the bump today against Shane Bieber, and Bieber isn’t getting Cy Young buzz but he threw 200 innings, on the nose, and he did that with a 2.87 FIP and 3.51 xERA. McClanahan did get Cy Young buzz, earlier in the year, but injuries tempered that and have held back his innings since returning. The Rays are going to lean heavily on the bullpen today and every day, and it’s the Rays, so they may optimize this perfectly, but they don’t have the arms, on paper, to make you think the game is over if they lead in the fifth, as some teams sometimes do (none of those this year, oddly).
Tyler Glasnow goes tomorrow for Tampa Bay against Triston McKenzie. Glasnow, like McClanahan, has an enormous ceiling and probably won’t go that many innings. In Glasnow’s case, the innings cap is even lower than McClanahan’s. McClanahan could give you six. Glasnow won’t go more than four, if that. McKenzie, meanwhile, has had a hell of a year but is getting up there in workload, and while he’s thrown some of his best ball of late (13 strikeouts and no walks against the White Sox on September 21st, a 2.39 FIP over the last month of the year), that’s always a question.
In Game 3, it’s unclear who the Rays will start, but Cal Quantrill’s the guy for Cleveland, and unless the Rays’ bullpen is immensely taxed at this point, that’s probably where the series shifts in Tampa Bay’s favor. Home field advantage is significant, and Quantrill’s a good pitcher, but Kevin Cash deploying relievers in their optimal situations is a bad recipe for opponents. Of course, by Game 3 the Rays’ bullpen does stand to be immensely taxed, in which case Cleveland’s starting pitching strength will be paying off even if it isn’t embodied by Quantrill.
One thing to think about, with the betting market/projection system divide? The AL Central has been really bad for a decade now. Maybe more. The AL Central’s out-of-division record is annually terrible. That may be inflating perceptions of the Guards.
Seattle @ Toronto
Depth Charts: 51.0% Toronto
ZiPS: 54.2% Toronto
Betting Markets: 58.3% Toronto
It’s surprising that ZiPS is fonder of the Blue Jays than Depth Charts is, at a glance, because Luis Castillo is the best starting pitcher in this series. Then again, though, I don’t think ZiPS has a way of knowing that Kevin Gausman has that cut on his finger.
Gausman’s the lynchpin for this series. He’s one of the best players in baseball, on par with Castillo head-to-head. He also has a cut on his middle finger that is of great concern, because if you want to make a cut rip open, rub a baseball against it at ninety miles an hour, and if you want to make it hard to throw a baseball effectively at ninety miles an hour, rub it against a cut. This series doesn’t necessarily hinge on Gausman, the projected Game 2 starter, but it could. There’s a decent chance it does.
In Game 1, it’s Castillo against Alex Manoah, and Manoah’s great even if he’s no Castillo. The Rogers Centre is going to be up for grabs. Emotions will be running high. Baseball is a psychological game. Hormones play a role, and they’ll play a role this evening up in Canada.
In Game 2, it’s Robbie Ray against Gausman, and Ray’s quite the storyline here since it was in Toronto in 2021 that he resurrected his career. There is a lot going on in Game 2 tomorrow.
In Game 3, it’s looking like Logan Gilbert opposite Ross Stripling. Gilbert, a rookie last year, has been nothing but solid since emerging from the Seattle farm, and like McKenzie above, he finished the year strong even as he got up there in innings. Stripling, meanwhile, has been defiantly good. I’m not sure he was even supposed to be in the Blue Jays’ rotation this season. At times, he’s anchored it. Both are at the level where excellence is not an expectation, and the bullpen situations advantage the Mariners, which—along with the Gausman uncertainty—escalates the Game 1 leverage.
One last thought here? Don’t underestimate the impact of Jesse Winker’s absence. He may have had a down year, but he was reliably good, and on paper he’s a lot better. The on-paper thing matters just as much, if not more, than what players did in the regular season. The lack of him weakens Seattle.
One extra last thought? Game 3 is scheduled for 10:07 AM Pacific Time.
Philadelphia @ St. Louis
Depth Charts: 56.5% Philadelphia
ZiPS: 51.2% Philadelphia
Betting Markets: 53.5% St. Louis
A second split decision from our prognosticators. And it’s a little odd that ZiPS is lower than Depth Charts on the Phillies, given how good Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are, but Jordan Montgomery (if that’s who starts Game 3) is more than solid, Ranger Suárez is good but hasn’t done it enough to be very certain, and so if it’s indeed Montgomery who starts, as ZiPS expects, the advantage swings to the Cardinals. If it’s Adam Wainwright instead, that’s a scarier situation for the Cards, and is something we’d describe as “too cute,” just as it would be to try to start Jack Flaherty and then use one of the others in a piggyback situation. Just start Montgomery, Cardinals. If you get there.
It’s a little strange to see Wheeler as the Game 1 starter instead of Nola, but the Phillies seem to be playing a long game here, whether that was the design or not. Nola eats more innings than Wheeler, who missed time late in the season and hasn’t faced more than 21 batters in a start since. What the Phillies seem to be thinking (though again, this may have just been how it lined up) is that they’ll need more bullpen in Game 1 than in Game 2, if all goes somewhere near the median expectation, and so starting Nola in Game 2 gives that bullpen a breather before Game 3.
There’s a loud “storybook” element to the Cardinals’ season. Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Wainwright going through one last ride together. But while each of these three may have their moments—you’d think Molina and Pujols certainly will—they are mostly platoon players. Molina’s bat is bad. Pujols had a great year but isn’t in a renaissance so much as he’s climbed back to serviceability. This series has a lot more to do with Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Tommy Edman, and across the field it depends on J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, and a hurt Bryce Harper who’s DH-ing until he likely undergoes Tommy John surgery this offseason. The Phillies are better on paper, even accounting for the Cardinals’ home-field advantage. The Cardinals have bigger stars. A risk the Cardinals are facing is that they get too romantic. Another is that the Phillies jump on José Quintana today before being somewhat big favorites against Miles Mikolas tomorrow.
San Diego @ New York (NL)
Depth Charts: 56.5% New York
ZiPS: 59.8% New York
Betting Markets: 61.5% New York
The most lopsided of these three sets features arguably the two best teams of the weekend. The Padres limped and scuffled to their 89 wins, but do you want to bet against Manny Machado and Juan Soto? What if Yu Darvish and Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove are pitching in front of that lineup? You’d only do it if they were facing Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom? That’s fair.
The lopsidedness of those numbers speaks to just how good these Mets are. They were frustrating for their fans, but they won 101 games, and that was with Scherzer and deGrom combining to start only barely as much as one full-time starter between the two of them.
deGrom does have a blister issue, and given how good Chris Bassitt is, a case could be made for starting Bassitt in Game 2 if Scherzer gets the job done in Game 1. Doing that would give the Mets a chance to let deGrom heal more and also start a potential Division Series with Los Angeles with the best pitcher in the world on the mound. But, it would feel like tempting fate, and caution may prevail. Or, the Padres may prevail in Game 1 and make the question irrelevant. Regardless, this is a star-studded series, one it’s hard to say much more about because it speaks so loudly for itself.
Housekeeping
Yep, doing weekend notes again. Also, didn’t get Gelo up and running for the NHL season kickoff today in the Czech Republic, but it’s fairly quick to get up and running, so I’ll still hesitantly say it should be ready for Tuesday’s Western Hemisphere openers.
We’ll have college football’s Week 6 preview up later today or sometime tomorrow. We’ll talk about Iowa State and the Packers and everything else this weekend. We’ll have bets up later today, though we may have to punt on soccer until next week and we may need to add the college football futures much later today. One of those weeks.
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Viewing schedule for Friday, second screen rotation in italics:
Playoff Baseball
- 12:07 PM EDT: Tampa Bay @ Cleveland, Game 1 – McClanahan vs. Bieber (ESPN)
- 2:07 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ St. Louis, Game 1 – Wheeler vs. Quintana (ABC)
- 4:07 PM EDT: Seattle @ Toronto, Game 1 – Castillo vs. Manoah (ESPN)
- 8:07 PM EDT: San Diego @ New York (NL), Game 1 – Darvish vs. Scherzer (ESPN)
NHL
- 2:00 PM EDT: San Jose vs. Nashville (NHL Network)
Preseason NBA (just the Bulls)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Denver @ Chicago
