Scouting has always been part of my pre-playoffs routine. More often than not, it makes no difference whatsoever, as the Baseball Gods' random dice rolls don't give a crap about my scouting. Every once in a while, though, it does make a difference. When it comes to the Tournament of Randomness, I will take whatever small advantage I can get.
Before scouting my opponent, I find it useful to scout my own team. You wouldn't think that would be necessary after managing them for 160 games, but it is. This is the time to set aside my preconceived assumptions about my players and how they will perform based on their 2021 MLB numbers. Instead, I need to face reality and look solely at their BDBL performance this season.
Let's start with our starters. At a bare-minimum, I need my starting pitchers to give me six innings without imploding. In baseball, they call this a "quality start." Unfortunately, I have only two starting pitchers that managed to implode in less than half their starts. Surprisingly, my team leader in QS% was Lance Lynn (57%), followed by Shohei Ohtani (54%).
That's it, folks. We have only two reliable starters on this entire roster.
Luis H. Garcia (43%), Jon Gray (41%), and Steven Matz (40%) are the next three in line. The problem is that I cannot use Garcia in the postseason due to his drastic splits. He allowed a .988 OPS against lefties this year. Any savvy opponent would exploit the hell out of that. I hesitate to use Matz, because I used him mostly against sub-.500 opponents this year. I'm not sure that I trust him to face a playoffs-caliber team.
That leaves Jon Gray as our only viable option as a number three starter. The problem is we have no number four. Sadly, a three-man rotation isn't viable. Ohtani and Lynn have Vg durabilities, and Gray is an Av. There is no way we would be able to swing that.
This leaves us with two options. We could go with a traditional four-man rotation that includes Matz. Or, we could have Ranger Suarez make one start. If we go with Option #1, Matz would start one game, on the road, in a good pitcher's park. Suarez would become our long reliever, which is very handy to have. If we go with Option #2, we could keep Gregory Soto in our bullpen to make up for the loss of Suarez.
I ran several sims pitching Matz against the Ravenswood Infidels, and he pitched well enough to inspire some level of confidence. I have done this same exact exercise in the past, however, and found that it is a complete waste of time. A pitcher can pitch brilliantly in ten sims, but then choke when it counts. In the end, I'd rather have Suarez available in my bullpen, so we'll go with Matz as our Game Four starter.
There is one more option on the table. When Ohtani pitches for us, we get an extra hitter in our lineup. If we're facing a right-hander, that extra hitter would be Andrew Benintendi. If we're facing a left-hander, that extra hitter would be Lane Thomas. Benintendi has been very good against righties (.287/.351/.444), but Thomas has been an absolute BEAST (.371/.511/.614) against lefties.
The question is who Ravenswood will start against us in Game Three. They have used Alek Manoah and Michael Fulmer as their #3 and #4 starters against us all season. However, Manoah is limited to only eight innings in the playoffs, and Fulmer was traded. That leaves Hyun-Jin Ryu (a lefty) and Trevor Bauer (a righty) as the two most likely options.
Skiz has used Ryu only twice against us all season, and both were in relief. Would he use him in Game Three? If so, maybe holding Ohtani back until that game would be a wise choice. Do I roll the dice and start Lynn and Gray in the first two games? Or play it safe and start Ohtani and Gray?
That brings us to the bullpen. I'll need to assign a role to each of our relievers, based solely on their BDBL performance this year. Here goes:
- Joe Kelly: our de facto closer. The only "safe" option with low HR allowed and balanced splits. Also an extreme groundball pitcher, which is something to keep in mind with Devers at third. I may want to use a defensive sub if Kelly is on the hill to close in the ninth.
- Ranger Suarez: as noted above, he is our long reliever, and obviously tough on lefties. He, too, is an extreme groundball pitcher.
- Ryan Tepera: arguably our most effective and well-balanced reliever overall, but homer-prone. We can't use him when the score is tight and a power hitter is due to bat.
- Dominic Leone: another "safe" choice who doesn't allow many homers and has balanced splits.
- David Bednar: our reverse-split weapon, great when we need a strikeout.
- Aaron Bummer: lefty killer.
- Luis A. Garcia: righty killer.
- Jake McGee: ol' reliable, balanced splits, but can be a little homer-prone.
No comments:
Post a Comment