I’ve sometimes wondered if a solution to the question of how many teams to put in the College Football Playoff is a system in which a committee invites in all the teams with a legitimate claim to being the best. If that’s three teams one year, so be it. If it’s five, let them all in and figure out the bracket from there. If this approach were used in the American League, six teams would be included. One of the excluded—the Houston Astros—is on par with the six on paper, but couldn’t manage a winning record. The other—the Toronto Blue Jays—managed a winning record, but sticks out on paper like a walk-on guarding Zion Williamson back at Duke.
The Blue Jays were a bit of a thrill last year, with young bats that liked to bop. They’re a bit of a thrill this year, with young bats that still enjoy a good bop. Last year, those bats were enough to provoke excitement. Toronto wasn’t making the playoffs, so who cared if they had a pitching staff? This year, they actually made the playoffs. Which means the pitching staff’s an issue.
In a twist, the Jays are starting Matt Shoemaker today. Shoemaker was great to begin last season, posting a 1.57 ERA and 3.95 FIP across five starts before tearing up his knee and missing more than a calendar year. Since returning, he’s scuffled, managing a 4.71 ERA but a woeful 5.95 FIP. The plan is reportedly to go to the bullpen early, but the Blue Jays don’t have much bullpen to go to. They’re playing Rays-ball against the Rays, and one would imagine the Rays are somewhat confused, like a dog that’s just been fed an entire steak.
Due to the three-game nature of the series, the Blue Jays still do have a solid chance. If today works (and there’s nearly a forty percent chance it does), they get to send Hyun-jin Ryu out there tomorrow. Ryu’s not the best pitcher in baseball, but as far as starters in a potential series-clinching game go, a team could do worse (and inevitably will this postseason).
This sense that the Blue Jays don’t belong wouldn’t be so pronounced if the six other non-Astros teams weren’t so equivalent on paper. The Jays are better than the Marlins, after all, and we aren’t going to focus tomorrow’s NL words on the oddity that is the Marlins. In FanGraphs’ playoff odds, seven American League teams fall between a 9.4% chance and an 18.0% chance of winning the ALCS. For much of the year, that spread has been tighter—more similar to the 6.1 percentage points separating the second-most likely pennant winner (the Twins) from the A’s (the 9.4% guys). The Blue Jays, meanwhile, are at 4.6%. For much of the year, that gap has been exactly what it is right now.
We’ll see how that bullpen handles today. We’ll see what Shoemaker does. We’ll see if the bats bop. Fascinatingly unique, the Blue Jays are here. And they’re going to play some baseball.
The other series:
- I wrote a good amount about the Astros in today’s bets, but the gist of it is that it’s hard to know what to expect from those guys. They could continue to play impotently and bow out right away. They could do what paper suggests and give the Twins quite the series. Keep an eye on Josh Donaldson’s calf, Lance McCullers Jr.’s attempt to continue a recent turnaround, and the wind in Minneapolis, which is blowing out today.
- The quality of starting pitching in Cleveland should be fairly even in Games 1 and 3. In Game 2, Cleveland has the edge. You could say that they couldn’t ask for more than Shane Bieber starting Game 1, but they could’ve asked for him to not face a lineup as good as that of the Yankees.
- The White Sox and A’s each looked the part of a pennant winner at some point this year. Neither looks that part anymore. The Matt Chapman injury was as big a deal for Oakland as an injury can be. The White Sox returned to earth these last two weeks. One of them will keep their year alive, but neither should be feeling great about the Division Series, where they’ll either face an Astros team that would have had to at least briefly have figured things out or a Twins team that’s arguably the best in the AL.
