Dodgers Place Risky $325 Million Dollar Bet with Their Season on the Line
Dodgers Place Risky $325 Million Dollar Bet with Their Season on the Line
Plus, Yankees move on to ALCS, and Guards force a game 5. The Free Friday newsletter!
Hi friends-
As a reminder we will be chatting tonight in the Substack app during the Dodgers vs. Padres game, and meeting over zoom tomorrow for our hour long baseball playoff discussion WHEN THE GUARDIANS VS TIGERS GAME IS OVER. MLB just announced that game has been moved to 10 AM PT due to weather. So, we’ll hop on zoom at 12:30 PM PT or 1 PM PT depending—or whenever the final out is recorded.
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There must be a valid reason the Dodgers are opting not to go with Jack Flaherty to start Game 5 of the NLDS tonight. Maybe they’re worried his velocity is down. Maybe his back hurts or he doesn’t feel as fresh as he’d like right now. Maybe he ate a bad fish taco in San Diego (we’ve all been there)
Whatever the reason, LA has apparently moved on to Plan B. They will start Yoshinobu Yamamoto— the Japanese phenom who signed the longest and largest contract ever for a pitcher in MLB history.
When he has been healthy, Yamamoto has shown he has the stuff to be the ace of the Dodgers staff for the next decade. The problem, of course, is that Yamamoto missed three months dealing with a rotator cuff strain, and by the time he returned in September, he was unable to build up to throwing more than 62 pitches in an outing.
That last part probably won’t matter, as I don’t expect Yamamoto to throw 70 pitches tonight even if he has Bruce Sutter’s splitter and Sandy Koufax’s curveball working in tandem.
But here’s the scary part: The Padres opened the season against Yamamoto in Seoul by kicking his teeth in, scoring five runs and knocking him out after just one inning.
Yamamoto finished the season with a very good 3.00 ERA in 90 innings pitched, with 111 strikeouts and a sterling 2.61 FIP. Take out that first start vs. San Diego and his season ERA lowers half a run to an impeccable 2.53, while his FIP drops just a tick to 2.58.
What this tells us is that the underlying numbers think Yamamoto’s season-opening meltdown against the Padres was a blip, an aberration, and out-of-character f—k up.
The trouble is, if Yamamoto has another bad day today against the same team, the Dodgers season will end the same way it began: with the young pitching prospect shaking his head and staring at the heavens for answers while Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, and Manny Machado circle the bases. Also: the rest of the baseball world will revel in trolling the Dodgers for placing a $325 million bet on a guy who choked when it mattered most.
Does it matter to the haters that he’s still trying to bounce back from a significant injury and probably won’t even be 75% of himself until next spring? Absolutely not. (Nobody feels sorry for the Dodgers, and October is not the time for excuses.)
Yamamoto made 18 starts during the regular season, and faced the Padres only that one time back In March. But, of course, he pitched Game 1 of this series and absolutely stunk, surrendering 5 runs in just 3 innings.
The Dodgers thought Yamamoto might have been tipping his pitches in Game 1, and they insist he’s cleaned it up. They had better be right. But that still doesn’t change the fact that these Padres hitters have scored 10 runs in just four innings against him this year, so they’re not exactly going to be quaking in their cleats stepping up to bat tonight.
For these reasons, I do not know why the Dodger organization has chosen to start Yamamoto tonight. I think it’s as bad of an idea as the Padres starting Dylan Cease on short rest in Game 4. And let’s be clear: for as much as I criticize Dave Roberts, this was not a decision Roberts made. President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman makes season defining calls like this, and if Yamamoto falls on his face then Friedman should be held accountable, not Roberts.
Here’s another way to think about this start, though: the Dodgers would be absolutely dumb to treat Yamamoto’s “start” as anything other than a batter-to-batter experiment. He should be handled with the same courtesy given to any “opener:” lauded as a hero for every out he gets, and yanked out of the game at the first sign of trouble. If the Dodgers do this, then I have no problem with their decision to go with Yoshi.
But this is where my concerns with Dave Roberts in-game managing come in. Roberts has managed a flawless series so far. (My only quibble was subbing in Andy Pages in Game 3 when Rojas and Freeman had to leave the game due to injuries when it should have been Kiké Hernandez, but that did not cost them the game). Roberts has pushed the right buttons and has not been caught flat-footed. I’ve been all over him for mistakes in the past, so it’s appropriate to give credit here where it is due.
If Yamamoto gives up a solo homer to Tatis Jr. in the first but strikes out everyone else then, fine. Leave him in. But if he gives up that bomb, followed by a single to Machado or Merrill, Roberts needs to leap off the bench and make a move. Regardless of how good the Dodgers offense is, LA cannot afford to go down 3-0 to San Diego again, not with Yu Darvish on the mound. And not with the talent they have in the bullpen.
Roberts cannot freeze when the game starts moving very fast. He cannot do what Mike Shildt and the Padres did when they let a shaky Dylan Cease start Game 4 and waited until the Padres were down 3-0 in the second to remove him.
The Dodgers just used eight relievers to pitch a shutout against the Padres to force this winner-take-all game. The days of leaving in a scuffling starter because you need innings or because you think he’ll be better than the relievers behind him long over.
Yamamoto should be on a one-foot leash.
As for the Padres, they just need to hope Yu Darvish is Game 2 2024 NLDS Yu Darvish and not Game 7 2017 World Series Yu Darvish. Even though they were found to be cheating, the Houston Astros laid the groundwork for how to snag a winner-take-all game at Dodger Stadium against Darvish, and that’s to score early and often and take the crowd out of the game.
Is this the game that Ohtani and Betts will go back-to-back in the first inning? Or, is this the game that Profar and Tatis Jr. go back-to-back to lead off the game and we see Blake Treinen come in to get Machado?
I thought the Padres were serious about winning this series until they started Cease on short rest in Game 4. Their refusal to bat Merrill lead off (where he belongs) is also giving me pause. They may be the most talented team left, IMO, but so far they’ve been out-maneuvered by the more playoff experienced Dodgers.
I have no idea what will happen tonight. and neither does anyone else. But it sure will be, uh, fun to find out.
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The Guardians survived an elimination game yesterday because Emmanuel Clase did Emmaunel Clase things.
After blowing Game 2 by giving up a three-run homer to Tigers slugger Kerry Carpenter, Clase was summoned into Game 4 to protect a one run lead with two on and one out in the 8th. When somebody else started the 8th other than Clase, I wondered allowed in our chat if Clase was dead. I really don’t care that he gave up the game losing homer three days ago or whatever. The Guards needed 6 outs to keep their season alive, and I’m giving the ball to the best reliever on Earth in that situation and living with the consequences if we get beat that way. I want the ball in Steph Curry’s hands with the game on the line, not Draymond Green’s.
Anyway, Clase came into the game and induced a ground out and a strike out to protect the lead.
Then in the top of the ninth, Cleveland executed a safety squeeze with David Fry at the plate and rookie Brayan Rocchio breaking toward home from third base.
The squeeze wound up being the difference maker, as Clase was able to ignore the lead-off double he gave up to Justyn-Henry Malloy in the bottom of the ninth and retire the next three batters on two groundouts and a strikeout. Malloy scored, but it didn’t matter. The Guards won 5-4 and forced this series back to a winner-take-all game in Cleveland tomorrow.
I picked the Tigers before this series started, and I’m feeling OK about that choice even though the finale will be played in Ohio instead of Michigan. That’s because Detroit has Tarik Skubal (Skuby Doobie Doo), going for them.
I don’t know who will win, but I’m guessing some fan base will be crushed by a late inning home run, because isn’t that always the way?
Like I mentioned above, the game will start at 10 AM PT. We’ll be chatting in the Substack app, then we’ll move to zoom for an hour chat about all things baseball for the next hour after that game ends. Don’t miss out!
The Yankees won, and advanced to the ALCS yesterday even though Aaron Judge still can’t buy a hit with the $40 million New York is paying him this. Gerrit Cole pitched seven brilliant innings, allowing just one run despite a modest four strikeout total. That doesn’t matter, though. If you go seven innings in a playoff game and give up 1 run or less you are a Big Dog. And maybe an even larger canine than ever, given the sorry state of starting pitching these days.
No offense to the Guardians or the Tigers, but I do think the Yankees will win the AL pennant. Which means a subway series (Subway Series?) is likely.
There’s still a long way to go to get there, however.
And maybe if Judge stays cold the Guards or the Tigers can just pitch around Soto to get to him (which sounds crazy, but yeesh!)
Anyway, I hope you guys are having fun in the chats, and I’ll see you in there tonight starting at 5 PM PT. If you enjoy these newsletters, please share with your friends! It helps me tremendously. :)
Roberts did manage game 4 very well - I never thought using Knack as a bulk guy was a good idea and he wasn’t in until the game was basically over with the high leverage relievers used earlier. Starting Cease seemed like a bad idea in theory and was even worse in practice - he’d had two recent starts against the Dodgers that didn’t go well why have him make a 3rd on short rest?
First, I agree with just about everything here about tonight's game, except I'm not convinced that even the in-game decisions are Roberts's alone, and I'm not referring to input from coaches.
Second, a thought on the choice of pitchers. Think of Game 7 of the 1965 World Series. Walt Alston had to choose between Koufax and Drysdale. I think the world knew it had to be Koufax, but Alston added this explanation, beyond switching left-right and then, if they went to the bullpen, Perranoski as a lefty: Koufax took longer to warm up than Drysdale did. Maybe there are factors like that involved. We don't know.
Eerie trivia: That game was airing on a cable channel the night of July 2, 1993, and I watched, and they showed Big D throwing behind Koufax. The next evening, Drysdale was not on the Dodger broadcast, and then Vin made that horrible announcement.