2016 AL Wild Card: Baltimore Orioles vs.Toronto Blue Jays

going for the Blue Jays here.

Go Jays.

Rooting O's, think Jays will probably win. Machado has been ice cold lately.

I know AL baseball even less than usual this year.

Not sure if I'm confident or not. First wild card game ever for the Jays--if I'm counting right, one of the last seven teams who've never played one.

Reddit is calling it "bird bowl".
I like it.

c'mon O's. My team as a kid when I lived in Maryland, then my family moved to Seattle, so I've doubled the futility.

Tillman starts I guess?

Stroman's scheduled for the Jays, but maybe it's more like Stroman/Liriano/Estrada as one starter for the first seven innings.

that's a nutty fun fact. the O's are the first AL team to play in a second WC game.

The Yankees and Red Sox have 12 between them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_League_Wild_Card_winners

I see what you mean--I goofed.

Which also invalidates what I said above...what I meant was that the Jays are one of the last seven A.L. teams to go into the playoffs as a wild card team.

I wanna beat down the Rangers in the playoffs so bad.

Don't know how accurate these stats are (or whether they're career or just this season), but according to the Fan this morning, the guy whose turn it is, Stroman, gets belted by the Orioles--ERA over 8.00. Off the guy who'd be on short rest, Estrada, Baltimore's hitting .177. And Liriano (who'd have an extra day of rest) was great against them last week, but overall the Orioles are hitting over .300 against him.

Have a feeling they'll go with Estrada and bring in one of the other two the first time Baltimore clogs up the bases.

I'd expect Estrada.

Tillman on the hill for Baltimore

i guess Estrada is a no-go on three days rest... so either Liriano or Stroman.

it's stroman

fuck. i like Stro – don't get me wrong. but... fuck.

The offense had better show up tomorrow.

kinda rooting for a 17-inning, 14-13 game won by a position player pitching

It could be Chris Davis's second extra-inning win!

kinda hard not to root for a Tex-Tor rematch given last year's insanity

would love a Chris Davis / Ryan Goins pitching match-up!

https://twitter.com/bychrisblack/status/782974191888920576
Key Orioles Career vs Stroman:
Trumbo 5-11 (.455)
Kim 3-7 (.429)
Jones 6-15 (.400)
Wieters 5-14 (.357), 2 HR
Davis 4-13 (.308)

º~º

i may join the voices calling for Gibby's head if we lose this one.

Not crazy about this decision--irrational loyalty has gotten a lot of managers into a lot of trouble.

These are all small sample sizes you guys. If we lose it'll be because Stroman hasn't been consistent all season against anyone. Estrada in the second half has been unpredictable too, and on short rest I like his chances even less. It'll be all hands on deck and I expect two or three starting pitchers to be in the game before handing it off to whatever passes for a bullpen.

That's how I'm trying to think of it too--that whoever starts, he probably won't be left in long enough to fall more than a couple of runs behind anyway.

Guys guys guys, don't you know Stroman is a big game performer?

To be fair to Stroman, he has been a better pitcher than Tillman and he plays at home. I'd be more concerned with the bullpen, heck I'm rooting for the Jays for this game, I am more concerned with the bullpen.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Much ridicule on the radio this morning (from the awful Dean Blundell, so take it for what it's worth) over the idea that everyone was consulted on the Stroman start, including "the analytics guys." If true, you have to wonder what numbers they were looking at (or, more likely, if they lost the argument).

Stroman is a ground ball pitcher pitching in front of a good defense vs a home run hitting team that can't run? It's not rocket science.

ya, i concede there are good arguments for both. still would prefer Liriano on account of how lousy the O's are against lefties. but he'd be super valuable out of the pen as well instead of having to endure Loup/Cecil.

(xpost) In theory, maybe, but they sure did belt him around this year...Anyway, the decision's made, and Liriano in long relief is a plus. Stroman's ability to get the crowd going could help too if he pitches even moderately well.

Gleeman handicaps the game (i think all BP articles are free this week?)

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=30502

Everybody seems to think Toronto has the advantage in this game, and maybe they're right, but as an Orioles fan I have a good feeling about this game. I'd rather face the Blue Jays than the Tigers (though I might rather have faced the Tigers at home than the Blue Jays in Canada.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Never realized how big Matt Sisters is playing catcher. He is huge.

Spellcheck from Wieters...

Bautista's a free agent at the end of the year! Gotta show up in the playoffs.

kinda rooting for a 17-inning, 14-13 game won by a position player pitching

― mookieproof, Monday, October 3, 2016 4:21 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh don't even with the "kinda" you're rooting for this with every fiber of yr being

(it would be kinda amusing tbh)

stroman looks p solid thus far

holy crap i hate this ump

I was just going to say: he's been consistent, but he sure is giving both pitchers a couple of inches on the low outside corner.

oh i'm not talking about his zone, just the sounds he makes

i swear i never hear Ron Darling bring up this 'shutdown inning' crap on Mets games

and Ripken, what it means is Torre shoulda used Rivera the same way in big regular season games too

britton was available

maybe buck just didn't want to win

huh

oh buck

is he gonna give us the matt williams 'he's the closer'

for buck's sakes

"(Britton) was fine... We had some good options."

EEEEEDIOT

to be fair, britton should have been unavailable because he'd already pitched the ninth

"nothing philosophical about it"

Buck accepted death as envitable in do or die.

people pinning this on "it wasn't a save situation" are wrong and dumb, buck really isn't that rigid with it

this was buck fucking up in a way that was totally uniquely buck.

buck has this "this is unconventional but if you just believe in me it'll all work out" complex and it's always brilliant until it doesn't work out

he can be allergic to doing the most obvious thing

https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/783517787595608064

at no point in this season was i expecting francisco liriano to win the AL wild card game

used to think it was his brilliant overmanaging and attention to detail but i'm pretty sure he just goes by feeling, and it didn't *feel* right to use britton then

he believes in orioles magic more than the fans they have left

i honestly don't blame him for not using britton.

tho i am *incredibly* drunk right now

"No one has been pitching better for us than Ubaldo."

That is not an old Rockies quote.

tho i am *incredibly* drunk right now

obviously! ;)

Managers change their reliever usage patterns in postseason all the time, as we've seen. Maybe Showalter won't get to.

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Sunday, October 2, 2016 8:43 AM

obv i am not a sufficiently experienced Buckwatcher

ubaldo held hitters to a .151/.229/.244 line over 35 innings since sept. 1, so it's not like he was a terrible choice

otoh he'd only made 8 appearances out of the bullpen in an 11-year career, and i'd be kinda surprised if many of them began with runners on the corners

Zahn pointed out how much trouble Bautista has with Jiminez--understatement: 38 AB, .079/.222/.105. On the other hand, Encarnacion hadn't had much success either: 41 AB, .220/.360/.366.

obv i am not a sufficiently experienced Buckwatcher

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 5, 2016 12:18 AM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh fuck off, i've explained in about 40 different ways that this isn't a pattern

Yeah I think the decision came down to Britton vs Jimenez no matter what, save or no save, etc. It was still unforgivably the wrong decision and we all saw it coming. Perhaps the real mistake was to not ease up Jimenez and put him in the stretch right away.

otoh he'd only made 8 appearances out of the bullpen in an 11-year career, and i'd be kinda surprised if many of them began with runners on the corners

No, Jiminez came in with the bases empty, he gave up all three hits.

oh yeah that's right. well in that case, take him out. i don't know. it's even worse.

It was right after Duensing was brought in to face (and retire) that lefty masher Carrera -- you definitely don't want that guy facing a righty from the sixth inning on.

the first two hits came so quickly it's easy to forget

britton should've been in to face all three, and then the next three if need be

I like Carrera, he's just a weird guy to be playing matchups with in extra innings (regardless of whether your closer is available or not).

as much as this is on buck, important to remember that the offense did literally nothing after stroman was taken out, and the jays don't even have a good pen

Zahn pointed out how much trouble Bautista has with Jiminez--understatement: 38 AB, .079/.222/.105. On the other hand, Encarnacion hadn't had much success either: 41 AB, .220/.360/.366.

Without checking, I wonder how much of that was in the NL when they were all different players (especially Bautista)? Trusting Zaun to use statistics correctly is like trusting kids with matches.

1 for 12 with 3 walks over the last 2 years, and the hit was a single. a few games where a healthy bautista sat. BVP numbers are worthless though.

people pinning this on "it wasn't a save situation" are wrong and dumb, buck really isn't that rigid with it

this was buck fucking up in a way that was totally uniquely buck.

― qualx, Wednesday, October 5, 2016 12:10 AM (one hour ago)

i mean maybe but when you break it down that's what it comes down to. if it were a save situation he would have used britton. it wasn't so he didn't.

like there is a LITTLE room for being creative but showalter crossed that line a long time before that homer

that's... not what it comes down to. he considered britton at various points. he's used britton in non-save situations many times. you're apparently getting on him for... using him in save situations when they actually exist?

it was a horrible move but rigidity is not the issue at all

like he could've been more rigid probably. rigid would've been using britton before ubaldo. i think even matheny would've used britton before that. 29 other managers would've used britton. showalter likes to get tricksy and it failed.

Not sure why you'd say batter-pitcher stats are worthless (notwithstanding NoTime's point about the bulk of those numbers maybe going back to the NL, which is valid if true--don't know). If the sample size is large enough--and 38 AB is pretty decent--I'd want to know that as a manager, especially at the extremes. Clearly, Bautista does not hit Jiminez well.

I'm guessing 38 abs spread over years is about as worthless as it gets. it takes, what, 150 PAs for numbers to start stabilizing in the season, right? and that's at the low end. and I think it's just for pitchers.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/when-you-should-ignore-the-data/

Batter/Pitcher match-up data has been shown to have no predictive value. In The Book, Tango/Lichtman/Dolphin devote an entire chapter — Ch 6, “Mano a Mano” — to looking for evidence that previous results of specific batter/pitcher match-ups would predict future results in those same match-ups. It wasn’t there. Despite looking at the 30 most extreme examples of matched-pairs where the batter had dominated the pitcher over a three-year period, the group was barely better than average in the fourth season against those same pitchers. When looking at the flip side, where pitchers had dominated the hitters, the results were the same. Most interesting is that there was little difference in actual future performance by the 30 hitters who had dominated their rivals versus those who had been dominated by opposing pitchers. Even at the extremes, specific batter/pitcher data showed no real usefulness in projecting future results.

Thanks, I'll read that over tonight.

I don't know--intuitively, it just seems natural that batters would feel overmatched against certain pitchers (can't figure out their delivery, can't hit a certain pitch of theirs, etc.) and feel like others can't get the ball by them. (Don't tennis players play consistently better than expected against some opponents and consistently worse than expected against others? I don't know tennis that well.) In terms of projecting future results, maybe Bautista does indeed get a hit in that 39th AB--but maybe the data had done a good job predicting the results for AB 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38. Not trying to be difficult or play devil's advocate; when the numbers are as bad as Bautista's are against Jiminez, I'd just rather have that match-up as a manager.

This might be instructive:

http://www.si.com/vault/1955/08/08/604885/the-question-who-is-or-was-the-hardest-pitcher-for-you-to-hit

I'm going to go through that tonight and see what these guys actually did against the pitchers they cite.

gotcha qualx, not a pattern. mlb.com:

"On a certain level, it shouldn't be all that surprising that Showalter didn't use Britton. Like many managers, he has typically refused to put his closers into tie games on the road. Britton entered in a tie game away from home just once all season, which was against the Blue Jays on July 31, when he pitched the ninth and 10th innings of a 2-2 tie (Baltimore went on to win, 6-2, in 12 innings). And that was somewhat of an outlier as he hadn't pitched for five consecutive days before that."

And he looks like such a pleasant guy.

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/36107

He actually looks like a younger Tim Kaine...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/10/05/alleged-blue-jays-beer-thrower-identified-ken-pagan.html

gotcha qualx, not a pattern. mlb.com:

"On a certain level, it shouldn't be all that surprising that Showalter didn't use Britton. Like many managers, he has typically refused to put his closers into tie games on the road. Britton entered in a tie game away from home just once all season, which was against the Blue Jays on July 31, when he pitched the ninth and 10th innings of a 2-2 tie (Baltimore went on to win, 6-2, in 12 innings). And that was somewhat of an outlier as he hadn't pitched for five consecutive days before that."

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 5, 2016 11:43 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow, whopping sample size of 4 whole games

lol let's see how Buck handles him for the next 20 years, i guess

But while Showalter stated in the postgame press conference that his decision wasn’t based on some philosophical issue, the 11th inning suggests differently. Because the only way you rationalize letting Jimenez face Edwin Encarnacion is if you’re dead set against using your closer in a tie game on the road.

Now, here’s the crazy part: no team in baseball history has ever had a better option for this specific situation than the 2016 Orioles....

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-craziest-part-of-showalters-crazy-decision/

https://twitter.com/CespedesBBQ/status/786987856740974592