Biggest Takeaways from 2015 ALDS, NLDS Action
We are completely through all but one Major League Baseball postseason division series and have plenty to take away from all four series and all eight participants.
Five teams in this year’s round were completely absent from the postseason a year ago, and those clubs have demonstrated how their systems have developed and acquired talent. They all have the potential to be legitimate threats to future World Series championships.
This round gave us three Game 5s in a best-of-five format, and rules that were unenforced, ignored or unknown played critical roles in each league’s 2015 narrative. This is a postseason that will affect how the sport is played and governed for years to come.
From Chase Utley’s slide to Russell Martin’s throw to Kyle Schwarber’s moonshot to Jose Bautista’s wood chuck, this division series round has been entirely memorable and impactful—and we still have one game left to play Thursday night.
Takeout Slide Rules Will Be Revised, Enforced
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When Chase Utley upended Ruben Tejada at second base in Dodger Stadium during Game 2 of the National League Division Series between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, those watching—players, media, fans, league executives—knew the sport was in for a seismic change.
There are several reasons that this slide got more attention than any other slide of its kind in recent memory. And there have been plenty, including some during this postseason and one last month that ended Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jung-Ho Kang’s season. Maybe it was because Tejada broke his leg, or because he plays for a New York franchise, or because this is the postseason and the game was in prime time.
“We started talking to the union about this,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters (h/t Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune) at Wrigley Field on Tuesday. “It is another example of player safety, which is really high on our radar screen. We’ve got a lot of money invested in ballplayers. The players themselves have tremendous playing opportunities in terms of what they can earn and I think it’s important we protect them.”
The rule will undoubtedly be altered and clarified, and the next step will be getting umpires to correctly enforce it. Once a couple of teams are penalized for illegal slides by having double plays awarded to the defense, the slides will cease almost immediately and conform to MLB’s guidelines.
It is something that has gone ignored for too long, and it’s a good thing that it is being examined and discussed. It’s just unfortunate a player had to break a leg for it to happen.
Jose Bautista’s Bat Flip for the Ages
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The Anti-Bat Flip Brigade now has Jose Bautista as public enemy No. 1. And the pro-bat flipping, fun-loving crowd has Bautista to thank for an amazing Internet GIF that will live forever.
Bautista’s tossing of his bat came after he drilled a go-ahead home run in the Toronto Blue Jays’ Game 5 win of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. It ended up being the winning margin, and it got the approval of even the most old-school baseball fans.
More meaningful is that Bautista’s home run advanced a Blue Jays team that has plenty of offense to entertain the easily distracted and enough quality pitching, in the rotation and the back of the bullpen, to satisfy aficionados of low scores.
The Rangers are a great story after overcoming low expectations to win the AL West. But the Blue Jays have captured the attention of two countries and brought scoring back to the forefront of the postseason. Their video game offense is good for the game, and their continuing participation is good for MLB on an international level.
Plus, it allows for more and more replays of Bautista’s deserved and unforgettable bat toss. That should never be seen as a bad thing.
Clayton Kershaw Sheds Semi-Accurate October Narrative
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The story of Clayton Kershaw in the playoffs has been one of failure and disappointment. The narrative was a runaway train after he allowed three runs over 6.2 innings in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the New York Mets. He also struck out 11 in that game, which made it technically a quality start.
It was not always a fair angle to take, however.
Kershaw has had a disastrous start or two in his postseason career, but he’s been pretty good aside from those. And to drive home that point, he was dominant in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ do-or-die Game 4 win, going seven innings, allowing three hits, one run and striking out eight.
"Glad I did it, I guess," Kershaw told reporters in his postgame press conference, annoyed at the topic of his October letdowns. "I mean, there's no curse or anything."
With that monkey off his back and the pseudo-accurate narrative buried in notebooks (hopefully), if Kershaw gets another playoff start this year, which would come in the NL Championship Series, he is free to be his usual dominant self.
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Cubs on Verge of Being Baseball’s Dominant Offense
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The Chicago Cubs were no secret coming into this postseason. Anyone who paid any attention to the regular season knew this 97-win team had its facets covered and that, when on, its young core of position players could hit with any team in the sport.
Through five postseason games, “on” is an understatement.
The Cubs have a playoff-high .823 OPS and have outpowered every other team with 12 home runs. Anthony Rizzo, the 26-year-old veteran of the lineup, is hitting them. So is the otherwise slumping rookie, Kris Bryant, along with fellow rookies Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler.
The Cubs are now the only team in major league history to have five different players age 26 or younger hit a home run in a single postseason game, which happened in Game 3 when Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber, Soler and Starlin Castro did it.
"There's a day coming when all of our young talent will be here, and it will have all matured," team president Theo Epstein told reporters, including MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat, last September.
That day is just about here. Up and down the lineup, there doesn’t seem to be a break for opposing pitchers. And if this last week-plus is any indicator, the team is going to stay this way for years to come. National League pitchers should be shuddering at the thought.
The Royals Can Count on Cueto
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The Kansas City Royals found themselves in a must-win Game 5 of the American League Division Series on Wednesday, and by all expectations from two months ago, they would have been totally confident in Johnny Cueto starting such a game.
But this is a couple of months later, and Cueto had been a mess entering the playoffs. His ERA in his final nine regular-season starts was 6.49, and hitters pummeled him for a .929 OPS in those games.
Two innings into Game 5, it looked like that Cueto was back on the mound after Luis Valbuena took him deep for a two-run home run. But Cueto, one of the game’s undisputed true aces until that rough stretch, was going to have his defining moment as a Royal.
He went six more innings without allowing a run. He finished with eight in the books, no walks and eight strikeouts as the Royals beat the Houston Astros to advance to the AL Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays.
“He showed up,” Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland told Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star. “He showed up and came up big. He did exactly what we got him to do. He showed up in the biggest moment, and for me, that erases everything else.”
Young Arms Will Have Mets Contending for Years
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Regardless of how the New York Mets come out of Game 5 of their National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, they have proved a point to the rest of Major League Baseball.
Their rotation of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz is on the verge of becoming the best group in the game. They are young. They throw hard. They strike people out. They are not affected much by the big stage, and as they lead the franchise to becoming a postseason regular, they will get more comfortable under these bright lights.
"I've been saying this for a long time," Mets manager Terry Collins told Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, "when you think about what this thing could become, what it can be in a year, night after night after night...the other team's saying, 'We've got to face three of these guys?'"
That could be a recurring nightmare from April through October for seasons to come.
Astros’ Early Arrival Signals Potentially Deep AL West
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The Houston Astros are widely considered a team that arrived on the contending scene a season early, as they were targeted for success either next season or even in 2017. Their young talent was the reason for the upside, but the overall inexperience was the reason for making it wait.
The team blew that theory out of the water in 2015 and led the American League West for 139 days. They made the postseason as a wild-card team and were on the cusp of advancing again in Game 4 of the AL Division Series before the Kansas City Royals made an improbable comeback and then eliminated the Astros in Game 5.
With Houston’s emergence, even opposing teams' beat writers can understand that the Astros are going to be part of a deep division in the next few seasons, as MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez pointed out when we tweeted:
"Rangers a threat again, Astros are on the rise, Dipoto will make the M's better and A's recover quickly. Angels will have their hands full."
Cardinals’ First-Round Loss Not the End of Their Run
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Sure, winning 100 games during the regular season only to flop four games into the playoffs is a huge disappointment. The St. Louis Cardinals are well aware of that.
A great rotation carried the Cardinals during the summer, with four pitchers in their age-28 season or younger. None of them had ERAs higher than 3.38, and they did it without ace Adam Wainwright anchoring the group.
However, the rotation crumbled in the playoffs after showing signs of cracking late in the regular season when it posted a 4.01 ERA in September and October. In four postseason games, the rotation had a 4.32 ERA against the Chicago Cubs. Eventually, that was too big a hole to climb out of as the Cubs’ hitters kept shoveling the dirt via 100 mph-plus batted balls.
The Cardinals have plenty of veterans, health was a concern all season and they are most likely about to lose do-everything Jason Heyward to free agency. But they are in good shape otherwise, even in a loaded NL Central.
That rotation is young and seemingly durable and will continue to be good or even great for the next few years, at least. And with Wainwright back in the mix next season, this team should fight for another division title next September.
Elvis Andrus’ Decline Cemented by Game 5
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A few years ago, Texas Rangers infielder Elvis Andrus was the budding shortstop of the future. He was coming off a second All-Star selection and at 24 years old seemed capable of anchoring the team’s lineup and defense for seasons to come.
Now, none of that seems realistic as Andrus has disappointed with the bat the last two seasons and has devolved into a so-so defensive player, at best.
His decline was highlighted Wednesday in the Rangers’ Game 5 loss in Toronto. In the team’s fateful seventh inning, Andrus made two errors—one fielding and one on a dropped throw. Then he helped botch a third error on a bad throw by Mitch Moreland that Andrus probably should have been able to secured.
Moments after the errors, Jose Bautista hit the game-winning home run to eliminate the Rangers.
"I've got a lot of emotions," Andrus told reporters, including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. "Nothing good is going through my mind right now. We had an opportunity to win and I let everybody down. I should have made the plays. They were easy plays. I should make them 100 times out of 100. There is no excuse. This is the toughest point of my career."
Andrus can rebound from this, but until he does, we will remember him for not making the routine plays that cost the Rangers a trip to the American League Championship Series.
Playoff-Starved Cities Show Up Loudly When Fed
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When the Kansas City Royals made the playoffs last October for the first time since 1985, their home fans rocked Kauffman Stadium just as Pittsburgh Pirates fans did in their ballpark when the team made the postseason in 2013 after a 21-year drought.
This year gave us more Royals raucous along with four other franchises that were making the playoffs for the first time after relatively significant absences. The Toronto Blue Jays hadn’t made the playoffs since 1993, the Houston Astros since 2005 and the New York Mets since 2006. The Chicago Cubs hadn’t been around since 2008 and hadn’t won a postseason game since 2003.
All four cities showed up to turn the home ballparks into parties. The fans were loud, hungry and grateful for their teams finally giving them a baseball team to cheer for in the fall. Cubs fans even partied in the streets around Wrigley Field hours after Chicago clinched a trip to the NLCS on Tuesday.
As the game leans more on analytics and definitive, proven philosophies to build contending teams, more playoff droughts will end, and when they do, the enthusiasm displayed by the fanbases will be equally as wonderful.
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