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The Red Sox and Astros have already entered history, before only one run of this year's American League Championship series is launched. Never before in the history of baseball, two CFL fighters had cumulated as many combined wins as Boston (108) and Houston (103) in 2018.
By browsing the alignments of the two teams, it is easy to understand why. Both are flooded with stars. One team uses the MVP title, the other, probably this year's MVP. Justin Verlander would make his entrance into the Hall of Fame if he retired tomorrow, and several other players from both teams could realistically try their luck in a bit later.
Who will prevail? Let's dig in
The queues
Red Sox crime: 110 wRC + * (t-2nd in AL)
Astros offense: 110 wRC + (t-2nd in AL)
Red Sox Defense: -26 registered defensive tracks (12th in AL)
Astros Defense: 25 rounds recorded (5th in AL)
* wRC + refers to Tracks created more, a statistic that compares each team's offense to the league average, averaging 100. (A score of 110 would be 10% more than the league average.)
These are the types of queue that nightmares pit bulls. You have excellent players in Mookie Betts and Alex Bregman becoming MVP stars. Boston adds an elite power striker with J.D. Martinez, whose 43 circuits ranked second in the league. Houston notched an approach that can not be beaten, with Bregman leading a group of 10 players having finished with long double-digit bullets.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox have placed third in the American League with 125 flights, but Houston's more conservative attack has been out of breath largely due to Jose's more conservative approach. Altuve in 2018. To eliminate the likes of Verlander, Sale, Cole and Price, both clubs can rely on a solid discipline of the plate: the Astros are ranked second among the teams of the league in progress, while the Sox are tied for third place.
If you are looking for a potential difference maker in this series that is unrelated to pitching, it may be an internal defense. Injured Dustin Pedroia and the poor results of Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Nunez and Rafael Devers contributed to Boston's base / berth / third base trio becoming the worst of all baseball players with the glove. In this era of today, the batters are doing everything in their power to make their way to the fence and avoid the guards and soft line coaches. But if the Astros put the ball on the ground, they could reap unexpected rewards.
pitchers
Red Sox Rotation: 84 ERA- * (3rd in AL), 91 FIP – ** (4th in AL), K rate of 25.4% (4th in LA)
Astros rotation: 77 ERA- (2nd in LA), 79 FIP- (1st in AL), 28.2% (1st in LA)
Bull Red Sox: 84 ERA- * (4th in AL), 92 FIP – ** (3rd in AL), K rate of 25.1% (3rd in LA)
Astros Bullpen: 74 ERA- (1st in AL), 75 FIP- (1st in AL), 29,1% (2nd in AL)
* ERA – refers to the EER adjusted to the park. A score of 100 corresponds to the league average, which means that a score of 77 is 23% higher than the league average and 84 to 16% higher than the league average.
** FIP – refers to a pitch independent of the field and adjusted according to the park. This statistic focuses on the factors that a pitcher can better control, such as the rate of commitment, the rate of walking and the rate of home run, and eliminates the effects of the defense and luck. It has the same scale as ERA-.
As talented as Bregman, Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer, the most useful player in Astros may not be a positional player … or even a human being. Thanks to an experienced group of scouts and analysts and coaching coach Brent Strom's advice, Houston has often turned decent pitchers into good guys, and excellent ones into good guys.
That's how Dallas Keuchel passes from the seventh round pick to the winner of the Cy Young 2015. And that's how the Astros built a supercharged spin by taking a group member into the Rockies and turning it into a a swinger (Collin McHugh); a first overall pick after a mediocre season and turning him into an attacker; and a thrower who has gone from being the most valuable player to a year and a half of injury-poisoned battles back to superelite form.
Verlander joined the Astros just seconds before the deadline for the waiver of trading last year, becoming the largest acquisition of the history of baseball on August 31. Since then, he has averaged 2.32 points and 333 absurd flashes in 248 innings and 39 losses. These numbers contrast sharply with the 28 starts he made for the Tigers last season, in which he posted a deserved point record by half, with much less control over the strike zone. So, how did this happen?
To learn more about Verlander, we turn to Nick Pollack, our launcher analyst and runner-up throughout the season, and owner of the excellent website. List of launchers.
Verlander's four-seater fastball has become the most productive field of the majors this season for all starting pitchers. Verlander kept the ball high often, leading to a fantastic 13.7% strike rate on the field, while keeping the batters at a derisory batting average of .218. Of course, the success of a throw depends largely on the effectiveness of the other throws, as the batters may remain muffled if the pitching throws do not work.
The good news for Verlander is that he has significantly improved the position of his cursor since he became an Astro. Check out his locations with the Tigers last year, compared to the way he launched them in Houston:
The same goes for his curveball:
As you can see in these charts, Verlander throws his shots much lower than at the end of his tenure in Detroit. This amplifies the effect of his four designers in the area. By changing the level of the eyes with each throw, the batters are uncomfortable in the surface, with compound results for each throw involved:
We already know the story with the two best pitchers of the Red Sox rotation. For aspiring Chris Sale, the question is whether the shoulder injury that had put him in the summer this summer and prevented him from reaching five innings before his departure from the ALDS against the Yankees prevents him from facing the charged Astros. For David Price, this is a quest to end a series of consecutive victories in the post-season, a product of falling speed and unprecedented predictable repertoire (probably), be a kind of mystical incapacity to cope with the pressure. (unlikely).
That makes Nathan Eovaldi's rotation factor X. Here is Pollack on the potential equalizer of the Red Sox.
Nathan Eovaldi has always had an excellent four-sided fastball. The launch took place in the mid-90s in its early years, averaging 150 km / h in 2015 and a higher peak this season. It's a remarkable feat considering the fact that he missed all of 2017 after his surgery after Tommy John's surgery.
Despite his elite speed, Eovaldi still had his struggles. Each of his previous three seasons has returned a well of energy retention north of 4.00. The culprit was clear: he did not have a good secondary pitch. Eovaldi flirted with a slider, a curved ball and even a splitter during his first six seasons, but nothing was done until 2018, the year he learned the cutter.
In 2018, Eovaldi launched his machine 32% of the time, propelling it to success: an ERA of 3.81 with Fenway Park, ravishing like a pitcher, as a backdrop for his house, and a 22% clip at the bat , his best in career.
Here is an excellent example of Eovaldi's mastery of the field, which slid a back door cutter to the outside corner for a knock called three:
The high velocity of the knife, combined with movements different from those of its four straight seams at 97 mph, gives a second powerful weapon that Eovaldi can use at any time. The simple fact of blowing up the plates at 35% and finding the area nearly 62% of the time means that Eovaldi can score at any time with his cutter.
Having such confidence in the cutter opened the door to the possibility for his four dressmakers to behave like a weapon instead of an early throwing. His four sailors reached career highs in oscillating strike rates (11%), exit rate (30%) and batting average against (0.206).
This two-stage mix of late-stage hot and brutal heat gave the Red Sox a powerful # 3 starter in the ALCS.
Even if you buy Eovaldi as a No. 3-performing option, the Astros are the only remaining playoff team with no apparent weakness. They will crush you to the plate, you will dominate by their rotation, will limit you even more with their defense better than the average, then finish the work with a enclosure which will be fortified with the wire of the season, Roberto Osuna taking over. closer role and Ryan Pressly becoming the latest find to become a beast in Houston, thanks to a slider that could be the best baseball field.
Prediction
It's not often that a team of 108 wins seems to be over, but the 2018 Astros are just as good. Good enough to return to the World Series and good enough to win it again. For this tour, we will call it Astros in 6.
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