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Fangraphs has their series preview up.
Yankees bats against Tribe pitching and defense. They flesh it out with a lot of numbers. I’ll just add a few more and highlight a few of theirs.
Indians are 18-12 at home; Yankees are 11-18 on the road. The Indians have won 9 of 11 while the Yankees have lost 6 of 8.
The Yankees lead the A.L. in scoring but are hitting .220/.317/.350 on the road. However, they did not have Stanton and Judge for a chunk of the season and had the third most games lost to injury, so with everybody healthy now they should be at the top of their game.
That being said, Judge is hitting .205 and Stanton .200 since coming off the injured list.
Defensively the Yankees are middle of the pack in the Fangraphs rankings but are last in the majors in errors per game. This could be critical in a close game if an error is made at the wrong time. The Indians rank 2nd defensively.
Looking at some of the Yankees players, D.J. LeMahieu is the A.L. batting champion at .364, hitting .448 at home. On the road, however, he’s just a solid hitter with a line of .283/.713.
Luke Voit had a huge year with 22 HR’s in only 213 at-bats, which projects to over 60 in a full season. But on the road he hit .212 against .339 at home. He has only 6 hits in his last 28 at-bats. Very impressive season but not on the road and not lately.
Clint Frazier had a .905 OPS. Same thing; it was 1.068 at home and .711 on the road. He has one hit in his last 16 at-bats.
Aaron Judge played in only 28 games with a home OPS of 1.262 versus .690 away. Giancarlo Stanton was the opposite hitting .968 on the road against .185 at home. He’s 2 for his last 19, hitting .182 in August and .200 in September.
Gio Urshela is hitting a robust .323/820 on the road and is crushing it in September at .390/.924. He looks like their hottest hitter at the moment. He also hit .314/.902 against RHP’s, so he could be an impact player.
As for the starting pitchers, Gerritt Cole is the real deal at 7-3, 2.84, although the Fangraphs preview points out he’s not nearly as dominant as last year. But he seems to be peaking at the right time, allowing only 14 hits in 27 innings in September. He’s allowed three earned runs in his last four starts.
A couple of things about Cole, however. One, his road ERA is 3.67. Two, he becomes progressively less effective as the game goes on.
1st time through the order: .146/.564
2nd time through: .206/.652
3rd time through: .266/.800
He’s also allowed 14 home runs in 12 starts. So the key will be to make him pitch deep into counts and get some runners on base so we get the third time through the order in the 5th or 6th inning and then do some damage. Ideally, Bieber shuts them down and we get a home run off Cole with a runner or two on base.
Masahiro Tanaka, 3-3, 3.56, is the kind of crafty veteran that typically bedevils the Tribe. His road ERA is 2.33. He has the most extreme reverse split I’ve seen as righties are hitting .330/.848 while lefties are at .188/.655. This appears to be a one-year aberration but we’ll be throwing a lot of lefties at him.
In his last two starts Tanaka has gone 11 innings, allowing 15 hits, and 6 earned runs. He’s very hittable, but my observation is the Indians like fastballs and don’t do well against junk. He throws the fastball 32% of the time averaging 92.7 mph.
If it goes to three games I agree with Fangraphs that they’ll probably go with Happ, a 37-year-old lefty soft tosser. It better not go three.
Their bullpen is average in ERA and WAR.
So it’s a classic matchup of power at the plate against pitching and defense. They say good pitching stops good hitting and that has to be true in this series. Add in that the Yankees are 11-18 on the road and are only hitting .220 and it seems possible the Indians pitching could hold that offense in check while the offense scrapes together a few runs.
By the way, Jordan Luplow has a 160 wRC+ in September so he’s got a hot bat right now along with Hosey. Lindor had a miserable year at the dish (for him) with a wRC+ of 100. This is his chance to salvage his season.
My feeling is the Yankees have too many hitters who can kill you with one swing while the Indians need to string hits together to score. A couple of bad pitches, even by Bieber who has allowed seven home runs in 12 starts, could be the difference in a 3-2 loss. But the Yankees have hit 67 homers at home against 27 away, so if the Tribe pitchers can keep the ball in the park that would be a huge plus.
AL Wild Card Series Preview: Cleveland Indians vs. New York Yankees
Will Cleveland’s stellar pitching emerge victorious, or will New York’s formidable lineup come out ahead?
blogs.fangraphs.com
Yankees bats against Tribe pitching and defense. They flesh it out with a lot of numbers. I’ll just add a few more and highlight a few of theirs.
Indians are 18-12 at home; Yankees are 11-18 on the road. The Indians have won 9 of 11 while the Yankees have lost 6 of 8.
The Yankees lead the A.L. in scoring but are hitting .220/.317/.350 on the road. However, they did not have Stanton and Judge for a chunk of the season and had the third most games lost to injury, so with everybody healthy now they should be at the top of their game.
That being said, Judge is hitting .205 and Stanton .200 since coming off the injured list.
Defensively the Yankees are middle of the pack in the Fangraphs rankings but are last in the majors in errors per game. This could be critical in a close game if an error is made at the wrong time. The Indians rank 2nd defensively.
Looking at some of the Yankees players, D.J. LeMahieu is the A.L. batting champion at .364, hitting .448 at home. On the road, however, he’s just a solid hitter with a line of .283/.713.
Luke Voit had a huge year with 22 HR’s in only 213 at-bats, which projects to over 60 in a full season. But on the road he hit .212 against .339 at home. He has only 6 hits in his last 28 at-bats. Very impressive season but not on the road and not lately.
Clint Frazier had a .905 OPS. Same thing; it was 1.068 at home and .711 on the road. He has one hit in his last 16 at-bats.
Aaron Judge played in only 28 games with a home OPS of 1.262 versus .690 away. Giancarlo Stanton was the opposite hitting .968 on the road against .185 at home. He’s 2 for his last 19, hitting .182 in August and .200 in September.
Gio Urshela is hitting a robust .323/820 on the road and is crushing it in September at .390/.924. He looks like their hottest hitter at the moment. He also hit .314/.902 against RHP’s, so he could be an impact player.
As for the starting pitchers, Gerritt Cole is the real deal at 7-3, 2.84, although the Fangraphs preview points out he’s not nearly as dominant as last year. But he seems to be peaking at the right time, allowing only 14 hits in 27 innings in September. He’s allowed three earned runs in his last four starts.
A couple of things about Cole, however. One, his road ERA is 3.67. Two, he becomes progressively less effective as the game goes on.
1st time through the order: .146/.564
2nd time through: .206/.652
3rd time through: .266/.800
He’s also allowed 14 home runs in 12 starts. So the key will be to make him pitch deep into counts and get some runners on base so we get the third time through the order in the 5th or 6th inning and then do some damage. Ideally, Bieber shuts them down and we get a home run off Cole with a runner or two on base.
Masahiro Tanaka, 3-3, 3.56, is the kind of crafty veteran that typically bedevils the Tribe. His road ERA is 2.33. He has the most extreme reverse split I’ve seen as righties are hitting .330/.848 while lefties are at .188/.655. This appears to be a one-year aberration but we’ll be throwing a lot of lefties at him.
In his last two starts Tanaka has gone 11 innings, allowing 15 hits, and 6 earned runs. He’s very hittable, but my observation is the Indians like fastballs and don’t do well against junk. He throws the fastball 32% of the time averaging 92.7 mph.
If it goes to three games I agree with Fangraphs that they’ll probably go with Happ, a 37-year-old lefty soft tosser. It better not go three.
Their bullpen is average in ERA and WAR.
So it’s a classic matchup of power at the plate against pitching and defense. They say good pitching stops good hitting and that has to be true in this series. Add in that the Yankees are 11-18 on the road and are only hitting .220 and it seems possible the Indians pitching could hold that offense in check while the offense scrapes together a few runs.
By the way, Jordan Luplow has a 160 wRC+ in September so he’s got a hot bat right now along with Hosey. Lindor had a miserable year at the dish (for him) with a wRC+ of 100. This is his chance to salvage his season.
My feeling is the Yankees have too many hitters who can kill you with one swing while the Indians need to string hits together to score. A couple of bad pitches, even by Bieber who has allowed seven home runs in 12 starts, could be the difference in a 3-2 loss. But the Yankees have hit 67 homers at home against 27 away, so if the Tribe pitchers can keep the ball in the park that would be a huge plus.