The regular season is over. The Dodgers finished with a 98-64 record, best in the majors. That earns them a first-round bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Their offense finished first in 2B, HR, BB, OBP, SLG, OPS, and total bases. With Taylor’s homer today, they finished with 233. Their pitching was a totally different story. They finished 6th in ERA, 3rd in saves, 2nd in innings pitched, 3rd in hits, and 6th in strikeouts. And we all know what a huge toll injury took on the staff this year.
Offensively the team’s obvious leader was Ohtani. .310 BA, 1.036 OPS, 54 HRs, 59 SBs, 130 RBIs, 411 total bases, 5 short of the team record, 197 hits. 99 extra base hits. Teams OPS leaders, Ohtani, Betts .867, Muncy .865, Freeman .854 and Teo .838. Teo had 99 RBIs. Freeman had 89 and Mookie and Smith tied with 75. Ohtani, Hernandez, Freeman and Smith finished with 20 homers or more. Mookie had 19. Nine Dodgers finished with 10 or more. Lux 10, Kike 12, Pages 13 and Muncy 15.
The teams ERA leader was Yamamoto at 3.00. Gavin Stone had the most starts with 25. He also led the team in wins with 11. Glasnow led the team in strikeouts with 168. Paxton walked the most hitters among the starters with 48. Blake Treinen had the most wins in the pen, 7. Phillips had 18 saves and Hudson 10. Kopech had 6 in his limited time with the team. Fourteen different pitchers recorded saves including rookie, Edgardo Henriquez who earned his first MLB save today. Vesia led the team in appearances with 67.
Now they have five days off before the first game of the LDS on Saturday at Dodger Stadium. Sometime this week we will learn the status of three players who are on the roster but currently are banged up. Freeman and his ankle, Miggy Ro and his balky hamstring and abductor muscle which he will need surgery on this winter and Kevin Kiermaier who suffered a dislocated finger on Saturday.
The only thing left to be decided is which of three teams make the cut. If the Mets and Braves split their doubleheader on Monday, Arizona is the odd man out since both teams hold the tiebreaker over the D-Backs. If the Mets or the Braves win two on Monday, the D-Backs back into the playoffs. The 6 seed would play the Brewers and the 5 gets the Padres. The Mets pulled off an exciting come from behind win over the Braves in game one, winning it on a 9th inning 2-run homer by Lindor. Chris Sale was unable to start game two because of a back issue. Grant Holmes, the former Dodger got the start instead and pitched four scoreless innings allowing just 1 hit, a walk and striking out 7.
Game was 1-0 Braves going into the bottom of the 7th inning. After a walk to Murphy, Albies got aboard on an error by Brazoban and ended up on second with Murphy on third. Ozuna then singled them both home. Despite a single by Iglesias to start off the 9th, Raisel Iglesias got Nimmo to hit into a double play and Alonso grounded out to end the game. Braves are in the playoffs playing the Padres. Mets go to Milwaukee to play the Brewers.
Now the Dodgers will await the winner of the Braves-Padres series. The Braves were 3-4 against the Padres during the regular season. They open the series in San Diego tomorrow at 5:40 Eastern time. Dodger fans will be pulling for the Braves to upset the Padres. LA was 5-2 against Atlanta this year. Defending NL Champion Arizona is going home for the winter.
So now the first-round matchups are set. AL Det-Hou, KC-Balt. NL SD-Atl, Mil-NY. Should be an interesting first round. Braves had to fly to San Diego after the game. Much longer flight than the Mets had. It is the seventh straight year the Braves have been in the playoffs. They and the Dodgers both go into the playoffs missing major pieces. Flaherty is probably starting game one on Saturday. Dodger regulars should be well rested and ready to go. We will learn just how healthy Freeman and Rojas are later in the week.
Glad Az was eliminated. Made my day. Haven’t liked those guys since ever.
We learned yesterday that Pete Rose had passed away. I saw Pete play many times. I remember one time when I was at Dodger Stadium that the fans were throwing stuff at Rose. He was playing left field that day. I always admired his hustle and the way he played the game. But he changed a lot when he became a manager. Many think the game did him wrong. I believe Pete did it to himself. He was arrogant through the whole gambling scandal and never did apologize to the fans or the game. He is at peace now. Maybe there will be a time when he can go into the hall since he is no longer here. It would not bother me to see him inducted for what he did on the field. But I also think like with Joe Jackson, the game itself might not be so forgiving.
Are we witnessing the end of Justin Verlander? He was left off the Astros Wild Card roster. If Houston goes on to the ALDS maybe he makes the roster, but he was not effective at all going down the stretch. Verlander was torched for a horrendous 8.89 ERA over his final six starts, which included individual games that saw him yield four, five, six and eight runs.
This could be an end of an era. What if Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw all decided to retire at the end of this season. What a HOF induction that would be. Similar to 2015 with John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez. And Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux in 2014.
Then again, none of the three may want to retire.
It’s much too early and there’s not nearly enough data to weigh in on the relationship between it and arm injuries, but WRT the pitch clock:
3,617 stolen bases: The most since 1915.
2:36: The quickest average time of nine-inning games since 1984.
Total attendance this season was 71.3 million, largest since 2017.
MLB says 24 of 30 clubs have increased average attendance since adoption of the pitch clock.
https://www.mlb.com/dodgers/news/how-the-2024-mlb-playoff-teams-were-built?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage
Nice article on how playoff teams have been constructed. Categories analyzed were:
· Homegrown – Draft, International Draft, Undrafted free agent
· Free Agents
· Trade
· Waivers
· Rule 5 Draft
The Dodgers may have been the best team in MLB based on wins and losses, but talent wise, they come in 3rd. Philadelphia (50.1 WAR) and NYY (50.0 WAR) edge the Dodgers (47.7 WAR). San Diego is right behind LAD with 47.6 WAR. The least talented (in terms of WAR) are the Brewers at 34.4 WAR and Detroit 34.5 WAR.
Every NL playoff team has less homegrown WAR than any of the AL playoff teams. The Dodgers at 6.4 homegrown WAR is the lowest. Atlanta at 7.0 WAR and San Diego at 8.3 WAR are just slightly better with homegrown talent than is LAD. Houston (30.8 WAR) and Cleveland (25.4 WAR) have the most homegrown talent.
NYY with 11 trades (19.7 WAR) was the only AL playoff team with more WAR from trades than any NL playoff team. The Dodgers acquired most of their players via trade (12 and 16.9 WAR) which tied San Diego with the most in number. However San Diego dwarfed LAD’s trade WAR with 25.3. In the NL, only NYM (13.6 WAR) and Philadelphia (14.8 WAR) had less WAR via trades than did LAD.
Of course the Dodgers acquired most of their WAR via free agency (8 players with 25.0 WAR). The Dodgers have the number 1 WAR via free agency of all the playoff teams. Only Philadelphia with 21.5 WAR is close.
Every AL playoff team generated more WAR from homegrown talent than any other category. Only NYM has generated most of their WAR via homegrown talent.
It is fun to see how each team develops their roster. It is clear (at least to me) that the Dodgers need to rely on free agency and eschew homegrown talent to stay at the top of the standings. Although next year, I can see some additional homegrown talent on the roster. Mostly from pitchers.
Chris Sale not on Atlanta’s Wild Card roster. He has not pitched since September 19 against Cincinnati. His velo was way down in that game, and Atlanta shut him down for an emergency needed win. They had that yesterday, and they did not use him. Could it be that Sale is another done for the year? Reminiscent of Max Scherzer in 2021 with LAD???
Atlanta has named 21 year old rookie RHSP AJ Smith-Shawver as their Game 1 pitcher in the Wild Card series against San Diego. Smith-Shawver has all of 4.1 MLB IP this year. He is Atlanta’s number 2 prospect. Advantage Michael King and San Diego.
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MLB listed their top 49 players and five additional key closers for the playoffs (all in NL and not with LAD).
Philadelphia – 7 plus 1 key closer
San Diego – 6 plus 1 key closer
Baltimore – 5
Houston – 5
ATL – 4 plus 1 key closer
LAD – 4
NYY – 4
KC – 4
Milwaukee – 3 plus 1 key closer
NYM – 3 plus 1 key closer
Cleveland – 2
Detroit – 2
The wildest stat to me is the team leads the league in wins and the top pitcher only had 11.
Houston-Detroit is the game of the day. Skubal vs Valdez.
Detroit is up 3-0 in the top of the 5th inning.
How about Nick Ahmed. Started the year with the Giants, released and signs with the Dodgers, released again and signed with the Padres. He is on the playoff roster. Kim is out, so he is nothing more than a defensive replacement. Whatever they get from his bat would be a plus.
Extra good thread today.
The Pete Rose belongs in the Hall debate is heating up again. Giants parted ways with their GM, Pete Pitula. Several teams changing coaches. Corbin Burnes should be the Dodgers #1 target in free agency. Tigers win game 1. Heyward hit a screaming liner right at the first baseman with 2 outs and the bags juiced.
Is it true that Fernando died? I’m not sure, but I read something
I guess I’m traditional, my 2 hated teams are the Giants and Yankees.
The Big Red Machine was a good team. I was a kid, and I barely started watching baseball (Dodgers) when they were still together.
Some shocking Dodgers splits this year:
Edman against RHP .181/.256/.267/.523
Lux against LHP .152/.220/.174/.394
Taylor is bad against both, but against LHP .183/.289/.256/.545
Kike’s bad against both.
Pages against RHP .213/.277/.370/.647
Rojas against LHP .260/.316/.375/.691
Muncy against LHP .172/.289/.453/.742
Now for the discussion, how do you platoon those guys defensively? If Rojas can’t be platooned then that’s fine because his lowest is the best of the bunch. Even Muncy can be excluded because of the power.
Everyone probably went to bed, so I might post this again tomorrow.
Braves lose 4-0. They had to be very tired from their cross-country flight to San Diego. They struck out 15 times. Nice win by the Tigers.
Working on the next post guys, so there most likely will not be one tomorrow.
34 minor leaguers have elected free agency. Some are veterans who have played in the majors like Andrew Knapp and Andrew Knizner. Thairo Estrada, former Giant, Cole Tucker, Billy McKinney and Christian Pache. Former Dodger pitchers Phil Bickford and Mitch White, pitchers, Ty Blach, Cole Irvin, Matt Koch, former Dodger, and we wish he wasn’t, Yohan Ramirez, Trevor Richards, and Jordan Weems.
9 Dodgers eligible for salary arbitration this winter. May, Kopech, Graterol, Gonsolin, Phillips, Lux, Vesia, Brogdon, Banda. I don’t believe they will bargain with Brogdon who spent the entire year at AAA.
Dammit, I hate it when the Brewers lose games. Not because I especially like the Brewers but because it means less opportunities to watch their home games at Family Friendly Park and get a look at Front Row Amy (Williams). She’s always there by herself, keeping score. She makes such a nice couple. She is a major visual improvement over Dennis Gilbert who sits in the same area, but at Dodger Stadium. Amy may be the most interesting fan in MLB. Go Brewers.
Great TV day for a baseball junkie. What a great time of year:
I love it when the Asstros lose. Skubal was an Ace, as usual for the Tigers.
The pitching match up of the day was the Royals Cole Ragens vs Corbin Burnes of the Orioles. Both were great. Burnes gave up one earned run in 8 innings which was 1 too many. Ragans left after 80 pitches with a calf issue but 3 relievers threw up goose eggs to seal the 1 – zip win. Great post season pitcher’s duel.
I’m afraid Atlanta is toast. Chris Sale being out is the final nail in a tough season
.
Gawd, I hate the Padres. But Michael King is the real deal. He dominated Atlanta with 12 K’s over 7 innings. His cross-fire stuff is filthy.
Who is this guy? He came to the Padres from the Yankees in the Soto deal. In 5 years as a mostly middle reliever with the Yankees, he was 13 and 17 with a 3.38 ERA. Nothing to really write home about. Suddenly at 29, he becomes a Dude with the Padres going 13 and 9 in 30 starts with a 2.95
.
I really enjoy Ben McDonald in the booth. He’s doing the Orioles series along with Jess Mendoza. It’s a treat having her compare thoughts on pitching with Ben in that series. Actually, it isn’t. Sean McDonough and McDonald cover the game and allow Jess to pitch in some ideas which they ignore. Ben and Sean would have sufficed nicely without Jess.
I think I’ll do it again Wednesday.
Game 1 set for 530pm Saturday and Game 2 at 5pm Sunday