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The Joe Sheehan Newsletter: Two Swings
Vol. 16, No. 101
October 20, 2024
Five runs on two swings sent the New York Yankees to their first World Series since, and I can’t stop thinking of it this way, I became a father.
The first was by Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton, who hit four homers in five games against the Guardians, fell behind Tanner Bibee 0-2, making a terrible swing on a slider away and then swinging over a changeup down. Those swings were two of the 23 times the Yankees swung and missed last night, a third of all their swings coming up empty. That’s modern baseball, of course, trading off a lot of swing-and-miss for the chance to do maximum damage on contact.
Without running through all the same numbers we did Friday, let’s just say that having Stanton down 0-2 is a very good position. He makes an out nearly 90% of the time, and he strikes out nearly half the time. In fact, he often does so immediately: on 47 0-2 pitches that ended an at-bat, he struck out 30 times against just four hits. Bibee was in a great spot...he just didn’t take advantage. Bibee’s next three pitches were all chase pitches, a slider, a curve, and a change, and none were any closer to the plate than I allow onions to get to mine. There’s such a thin line between a good chase pitch and a noncompetitive one, and Bibee threw three that were just on the other side of that line. Stanton is not a terribly patient batter, but Bibee made it easy for him to wait.
On 3-2, Bibee was supposed to throw a slider low and away. Bo Naylor’s glove was positioned almost entirely inside the border of the left-hand batter’s box. They didn’t think Stanton would take one more pitch, and even if he did, it would mean Jazz Chisholm Jr. batting with runners on fir...it wouldn’t matter, Jazz Chisholm Jr. would be batting. Bibee missed his location from me to you. He left the slider thigh-high, and Stanton hit it sky-high. Hi, tie.
You might expect me to criticize Stephen Vogt for him allowing Bibee to pitch to Stanton a third time. I can’t. Vogt was working with an exhausted bullpen, Bibee had a low pitch count, and there was no obvious loss of stuff or command. Bibee is right around the line where he’s so good overall that his third time around is comparable to a fresh reliever’s first time. Cade Smith was up in the pen, and I have no qualms at all saying I’d prefer Bibee in that spot to the current version of Cade Smith. The third-time penalty matters, and it should be a big part of managerial decision-making. In this case, it would not have been enough for me to remove Bibee.
The Guardians, whose bullpen was far and away the best unit on the team during the regular season, probably defined the outer edges of how much a team can lean on its bullpen in the playoffs. Remember, they were down Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie almost all year, and the back end of their rotation was weak. Vogt was appropriately aggressive all month, and his individual decisions were all defensible. The cumulative effect, come the ALCS, was costly. They needed one more starter, and perhaps for Vogt to let Bibee go a bit longer in his prior playoff starts.
Bibee was long gone when the second swing happened. That’s the one people will remember most. Juan Soto had a remarkable season, he just had it in the shadow of Aaron Judge and against a backdrop of Shohei Ohtani and Bobby Witt Jr. He’s going to be baseball’s main character this winter, hitting free agency just past his 26th birthday as one of the best hitters of his generation.
It’s hard to say Soto’s tenth-inning three run homer is the signature moment of his career. He had three World Series homers, two of them in wins, during the Nationals’ 2019 title run. It is, however, the signature moment of his Yankees career, and it was a quintessential Soto at-bat. Soto took a couple of sliders from Hunter Gaddis to get to 1-1, and then set to work, fouling off a pair of sliders and a pair of change-ups, all in the zone, to stay alive, to get one more chance at a pitch he could drive. Having yet to throw a fastball to Soto, Gaddis pulled one out on the seventh pitch of the at-bat.
It wasn’t a bad pitch, 95 mph letter-high and on the outer edge. There might not be 15 left-handed hitters who can get to and drive 95 in that location, especially given that Gaddis had set the pitch up well. It’s just that Juan Soto is one of them.
Two good swings can make up for a lot. The Yankees hit into three double plays in this game and made an all-timer of a baserunning/coaching error in the first. They struck out nine times and, unusual for them this postseason, drew just one walk. Carlos Rodon got beat by Bo Naylor, a player who had 24 career hits off left-handed pitchers coming into the game, in a ten-pitch at-bat for the Guardians’ first run.
The Yanks had those two swings, though, and the Guardians didn’t. Last night’s Yankee win was a perfect distillation of a guiding principle around here. In October, ball go far, team go far.
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That one swing aside, both these team’s bullpens, ridden into the ground in two games in Cleveland, were fantastic. Vogt did call on Cade Smith, who got two outs throwing 94 again. Emmanuel Clase was limited to one inning. He looked great in the top of the ninth. He just couldn’t be asked for two, which is why Gaddis was pitching the tenth on a third straight day in a tied elimination game.
The Yankees got 5 1/3 innings of just-good-enough from Mark Leiter Jr., Tim Hill, Jake Cousins, and Luke Weaver. They allowed six baserunners but escaped.
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Soto never should have batted in the tenth. With one out, Gaddis walked Austin Wells -- itself a worse play than giving up a homer to Juan Soto -- and then got a grounder from Alex Verdugo that was never hit hard enough for a double play. Andres Gimenez -- who had a ridiculous series with his glove and arm -- snared the ball going to his right and flipped to Brayan Rocchio covering. Rocchio, focused on getting two outs, failed to even get one. He whiffed the catch, the ball glancing off the top of his glove. All runners were safe, and two batters later, Soto Soto’d. Rocchio’s error was both mental and physical, trying to turn two when that wasn’t going to be possible, and taking his eye off the ball long enough to miss the throw.
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It will be forgotten because the Yankees won, but they made the worst baserunning out of 2024 in the first inning. Gleyber Torres singled to right on the fourth pitch of the game, and Soto doubled to right on the fifth. The sixth was slated to be delivered to Aaron Judge, but before it was, Torres was thrown out at home trying to score.
In an April game, that’s a bad send. There’s no reason to make the first out at home plate with the middle of your batting order coming up. There’s no reason to give an out to a pitcher you’re slugging 1.500 against before he’s gotten one himself. Specific to this situation, the next batter is Literally Aaron Judge, the best hitter in baseball. I ran the math, and called in a few statheads to check it, and the breakeven point is that Torres has to be safe 47828% of the time for the send to make sense. Luis Rojas’s decision, and I am not being hyperbolic, was the worst made by anyone, player or manager, in these playoffs.
That is, by the way, before you even get into soft factors. Bibee has been hooked early in every single playoff start, and was now two hits down before he’d broken a sweat. Make him get someone out, worried perhaps that another quick hook is looming. Rojas threw a drowning pitcher a rope, the Yankees ended up not scoring, and had to play, perhaps, a much different game than they might have had Rojas just stopped Torres.
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The Guardians will be back. This team is young and it does a lot of things well. Watching them over the last week, though, it was impossible to not feel frustration over their limitations, most of which are elective. Larry Dolan, who at 93 surely has to worry about his financial future, has long refused to put real money into the roster, undercutting what is one of the best player-development groups in the sport. Give the Guardians a market-value star to pair with Jose Ramirez, or to front the rotation with Bibee, and this series may go much differently.
The Guardians drew more than two million people to the park. They hosted six playoff games. They receive $90 million a year just for existing, and something like $40-50 million in corporate welfare. They really shouldn’t have to bat Lane Thomas cleanup. Here’s hoping this talented front office gets more support in the future.
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We’re a couple hours from NLCS Game Six. The big headline is that Freddie Freeman and whatever is left of his right ankle are on the bench to start the game. Freeman is just slapping at the ball, yet he is a good enough hitter that he’s average-ish in doing so. With Sean Manaea and his from-first-base arm angle, though, there’s not much reason to force Freeman into three uncomfortable at-bats. Andy Pages, off a two-homer game, gets the lineup spot. The Dodgers could use a clinch and an extra day off for Freeman in advance of the World Series.
The Dodgers are going with a bullpen game, their first true pen game -- I continue to insist NLCS Game Two was not a pen game -- since their NLDS Game Four shutout. Dave Roberts will lead with Michael Kopech, who was once a starter and should have some familiarity with the rhythms of throwing the top of the first. Because all these games have been blowouts, the top part of Roberts’s pen is well-rested. None of his top five relievers have pitched since Thursday. Kopech, Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips, Daniel Hudson, and Ryan Brasier can cover most of this game, with Anthony Banda tasked with, perhaps, the Jeff McNeil-through-Brandon Nimmo pocket at some point.
Carlos Mendoza had to use a bit more of his pen in Friday night’s win, and he chose to use Edwin Diaz for six outs. Still, the day off resets everyone, and with the need to win two games to keep playing, Mendoza will have every reason to push his guys the next two days. Identifying the Mets’ top guys is a little harder -- Jose Butto seems to have gone from the circle of trust to a circle of hell in three weeks -- but workload won’t be a concern.
With Freeman out, the top of the Dodgers’ order runs LRRB, so let’s once again talk about Mendoza’s slow hook. Manaea suffered when pitching to a lineup a third time, though not as badly as some of his peers. He mostly gave up more power, while his strikeout rate and K/BB remained good or improved. In these playoffs, he hasn’t been quite as effective the third time through, walking four men while striking out just two of the 15 he’s faced. He put himself into tough spots the third time around against both the Phillies and Dodgers with walks; his defense rescued him the first time, made it worse the second.
There’s a good argument that Manaea is better the third time around than the Mets’ relievers who might come in at that point. The Dodger lineup, though, is a counter to that. Mookie Betts has a typical platoon split, with a career 916 OPS against lefties. Teoscar Hernandez has the same, though he’s crushed lefties even more in recent seasons. Tommy Edman is a switch-hitter in name only, much better from the right side. Leaving the TTP aside, Manaea is going to be at greatest risk through that part of the lineup. Maybe having him face it as few times as possible is a good idea.
