Next Up: The Los Angeles Dodgers

I wrapped up my last preview, of the Cubs series, with the line: 

This should be a fun four games.

Yeah, losing three straight, having the home-field wild card advantage slip from four games to two, and losing your best player...that was a freakin' blast.

Now the Pirates head west for three games against the NL West leading Los Angeles Dodgers. There's one word that foreshadows any Dodgers series this year: Kershawgreinke. Do you face the Dodgers's two aces, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, or not?  The Dodgers in games started by Kershawgreinke: 38-20 (.655 winning percentage). The Dodgers in games started by everybodye else: 46-41 (.541 winning percentage). That's the difference between a 106-56 team and an 88-74 team. Unfortunately, the Pirates go against Greinke tonight and Kershaw tomorrow night, meaning that over the course of four days, they'll see the three contenders for the National League Cy Young Award (they faced the Cubs' Jake Arrieta on Wednesday).

How Are They Doing Lately? The Dodgers are 17-9 over the past 30 days, second only to the 19-8 Mets in the National League. (Naturally, the Cubs, Cardinals, and Pirates, in that order, round out the top five.) They've scored just 3.85 runs per game, the third fewest in the league, but their pitchers have been by far the stingiest, allowing just 3.19 runs per game, nearly half a run per game less than the second-best Pirates. If you're thinking, "That's a pretty good won-lost record given that run differential," you're right. The Nationals, Mets, Pirates, and Cubs all have a better run differential over the past 30 days. So the Dodgers have been good, but maybe not as good as their record might suggest.

What's Going Right? The starting pitchers' ERA is 2.66 over the past 30 days, way ahead of the Pirates, in second with 3.29. They have the fourth best strikeout rate, the second lowest walk rate, the highest ground ball rate, and the second-lowest rate of fly balls becoming home runs. But none of that's surprising; we all knew that with Kershawgreinke, the starters' stats would be good. The surprise is that the relievers, the team's key weakness this year, have a 3.10 ERA over the past 30 days, the third lowest in the league. The Dodger bullpen had a 4.20 ERA in June (second worst in the league) and a 6.27 ERA in July (easily the worst), so they've turned things around dramatically of late. Over the past 30 days, the bullpen has struck out 27% of the batters they've faced and walked only 6%, best and second-best in the league, respectively.

What's Going Wrong? The offense. Over the past 30 days, Dodgers hitters have a .232 batting average (last in the league), .313 on base percentage (fifth lowest), and .373 slugging percentage (second lowest). They've hit the fifth fewest homers and struck out at the sixth highest rate. 

Who's Hot? The team's only reliable hitter of late has been rookie shortstop Corey Seager, called up September 3. He's batting .426 with a .526 on base percentage and .617 slugging percentage in 13 games, sending veteran shortstop Jimmy Rollins and his .194 batting average and .280 on base percentage over the past 30 days to the bench. The three best Dodgers starters over the past 30 days are Kershaw (1.15 ERA, 52 strikeouts and six walks in 39 innings), Greinke (1.78 ERA, 32 strikeouts and five walks in 35.1 innings), and Brett Anderson (2.76 ERA). The three starters the Pirates will face are, in order, Greinke, Kershaw, and Anderson. In the resurgent Dodger bullpen, closer Kenley Jansen has 8 saves and a 2.57 ERA, with 18 strikeouts in 14 innings, over the past 30 days, and setup man Chris Hatcher has a 1.35 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 13.1 innings.

Who's Not? Rollins, as discussed above, is cold and benched. Catcher Yasmani Grandal is 1-for-53--one single, so that's an .047 batting average and slugging percentage--over the past 30 days. First baseman Adrian Gonzalez has a .229/.312/.365 slash line. Third baseman Justin Turner's is .207/.333/.287. Second baseman Chase Utley's is .224/.305/.388. With right fielder/lightning rod Yasiel Puig hurt, the four main outfielders are Andre Ethier, who's been OK (.314/.345/.451) and three players--Scott Van Slyke, Joc Peterson, and Carl Crawford--who've combined for .224/.303/.355.

What's the Outlook? The Pirates swept three from the Dodgers when the teams met in Pittsburgh in early August. In the first game, Kershaw gave up four runs in six innings (his ERA in seven starts since is 1.00) as the Pirates won in ten. In the second game, the Pirates scored six runs in three innings off Mat Latos (no longer with the team) and held on to win 6-5. In the third game, the team exploded for nine runs in the seventh inning, erasing a 5-3 deficit and winning, 13-6. Reliever Jim Johnson, who took the loss in the first and third games (allowing eight runs in two-thirds on an inning in the latter), has four holds and a save in 14 games since. Jung Ho Kang was 4-for-11 with a home run and 4 RBI in the series. In other words, if the Pirates are going to enjoy similar success at Dodger Stadium, the script will have to change, because it's not going to repeat itself. In the meantime, the team will hope for mutual destruction this weekend when the Cardinals play three in Wrigley against the Cubs.

Snubs

You got a second? Open up another tab or window, pull up your favorite search engine, and type baseball all-star snubs 2015. You'll get a lot of hits! Just from perusing the search results, here are some of the players whose absence from the All-Star Game (at this point--there's still the Final Vote and the inevitable late injury substitutions):

• Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers pitcher
• Alex Rodriguez, Yankees DH
• Justin Turner, Dodgers third baseman
• Clay Buchholz, Red Sox pitcher
• Brian Dozier, Twins second baseman
• Brad Miller, Mariners shortstop
• Kolten Wong, Cardinals second baseman
• Brian McCann, Yankees catcher
• Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox shortstop

This isn't an exhaustive list. All I did was scroll through the first four pages of search results and pull names from the headlines. I didn't go into the many articles with lists of snubs. So there are undoubtedly more.

Now, Kershaw and Bogaerts could still make their respective teams via the Final Vote. But the other guys--yeah, the only way they're watching to All-Star Game is to score a ticket or tune into Fox next Tuesday.

My question is: How much of a snub is this, really?

I mean, there are guys who have money riding on this. Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer, who's going to the game, gets $50,000 for appearing. So I could see him being disappointed--feeling snubbed seems a bit strong--if he hadn't been chosen. His teammate, second baseman Omar Infante, who isn't going, would've gotten a $250,000 bonus in each of 2016 and 2017. That's a big chunk of cash (his base salary is $7.75 million in 2016 and $8 million in 2017), but it's hard to call a guy who's got a .246 on base percentage (lowest in the majors among 164 batting title qualifiers) and .309 slugging percentage (fourth lowest) snubbed. So yeah, if I'm Dozier or Wong, and my contract pays me extra for going to the All-Star game, I'd probably be annoyed.

But most players? I wonder whether the fans and media mythologize the All-Star Game a bit. I would imagine a player's first All-Star Game is a thrill. You bring your parents, maybe your siblings, your wife or girlfriend, probably your kids. You rub shoulders with all the big names. You get this cool All-Star uniform that you throw into your duffel bag right after the game, not knowing that MLB would have washed and sent it to you anyway. You probably lift the All-Star insignia notepads and pens from the conference room. All that sort of thing.

Once you've done one, though...Take Andrew McCutchen. This'll be his fifth straight All-Star Game. Yes, it's nice to get the recognition and all, but from his point of view, twenty of his teammates get the full All-Star break, four days off next week to relax, hang out with their families, ice down sore muscles, catch the matinee of Terminator: Genisys, and go out for dinner at a reasonable hour, while he spends Monday and Tuesday on the field and with the press. For the fifth straight year Cutch's break will be abbreviated. 

Baseball players have a tough job. Yes, they're playing a game for a living, but they play it 6-7 days per week for six months. That's seven and half including spring training, eight and a half including the postseason. They put in long hours at the office, with most games not ending until after 10 PM, and if they get a day off, it's always a Monday or Thursday and never a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Plus they're living out of a suitcase, on the road, half the time. I know that some of you are going to say, "Big deal, they're paid tons of money to do that," to which I'd reply, "I know, but that's not the point." I'm betting most of you would accept $10 million to step into the ring with Floyd Mayweather, but that doesn't mean his punches wouldn't hurt. Playing baseball pretty much every day for half the year, even if you love the game, is grueling. Think about the last time you had a big project at work that had you coming in over the weekend, then think how much you were dragging by the end of the next week. Then imagine that for 26 weeks. The four days of downtime that Pirates Neil Walker, Francisco Liriano, Tony Watson, Pedro Alvarez and sixteen other teammates will get has got to seem great to them. So yes, you could make a case for Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli making his first All-Star team this year. Among NL catchers with 250 or more plate appearances, he's second in batting average, first in on base percentage, and third in slugging percentage. He also ranks second in Baseball Prospectus's measure for pitch framing, i.e. the ability to get umpires to call pitches on the outer edges of the strike zone strikes instead of balls. So going the All-Star Game would be pretty sweet. But given that we're in early July and he's already 30 games away from setting a career high in games played, at the toughest position on the diamond, I've got to think four days off will be pretty sweet too.

Flyover: Los Angeles Dodgers

This continues a series of looks at each team over the past month. The National League West is the only divisional race I haven't discussed so far. Let's change that, starting with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

How Are They Doing Lately? Their 16-10 record over the past 30 days is the third best in the league and half a game ahead of their divisional rivals, the San Francisco Giants. They've scored the most runs in the National League, 5.7 runs per game, by a wide margin; the Giants are second with 5.0. However, they've given up 4.5 per game, the third most in the league. At 88-67 entering play today, the Dodgers have assured themselves a playoff berth, and any combination of five Dodgers wins and/or Giants losses will give them the NL West crown. They're two games behind Washington and a game ahead of St. Louis in the race for the best record in the league (and home field advantage throughout the playoffs). 

What's Going Right? The Dodgers are first in the league in batting average (.296) and on base percentage (.359) and third in slugging percentage (.454) over the past 30 days, while the league's averaging .253/.314/.386. The pitchers have been pretty middling, seventh in the league in ERA. They have the sixth-highest strikeout rate and fourth-lowest walk rate, but they're third to last in strand rate, as 31% of baserunners have come around to score. They've had good control, as LA's one of four pitching staffs in the National League with over half of pitches in the strike zone over the past 30 days.

What's Going Wrong? Those offensive stats are a little bit of an illusion. The Dodgers have benefited from a .356 batting average on balls in play, by far the best in the league, which is averaging .302 over the past 30 days, and they've gotten home runs on 15% of fly balls, while the league's averaging less than 10%. Neither of those sorts of deviations are usually sustainable; the Dodgers were at .309 and 9.5%, respectively, in the first half of the year. So while they've been hitting like crazy, they're not likely to keep it up. The pitchers are third-worst in the league at inducing swings outside the strike zone, at 30%, and as a result opposing hitters are making contact on 80% of swings, which is above average. 

The Dodgers have also had a pretty easy schedule. Over the past 30 days, entering play today, they've had five games against the worst team in the league (Arizona), three against the second-worst (Colorado), three against the third-worst (Chicago), and six against the sixth-worst (San Diego). They've had only six games against teams with winning records, San Francisco and Washington, and they split them. So there's plenty of reason to take that 16-10 record over the past 30 days with a grain of salt.

Who's Hot? Most Dodgers batters have been swinging the bat well of late. Over the past 30 days, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is leading the league in home runs (eight) and RBI (28), and he's second in runs (21) and slugging percentage (.614). Juan Uribe and Justin Turner have been a formidable tag team at third, with a combined .395/.429/.463 slash line over the past 30 days. Left fielder Carl Crawford's batting .379, right fielder Matt Kemp is batting .310 with seven homers and a .610 slugging percentage, second baseman Dee Gordon's batting .327 while shortstop Hanley Ramirez is at .305. That's six of eight lineup positions where the Dodgers have a .300+ batting average over the last 30 days. 

Three starting pitchers--Clayton Kershaw, Dan Haren, and Zach Greinke--have been almost unbeatable, combining for an 11-1 won-lost record and a 2.40 ERA. Setup man Pedro Baez has a 1.46 ERA over the past 30 days, the only reliever with over eight innings pitched with an ERA below 3.00. 


Who's Not? Much has made of center fielder Yasiel Puig's slump, as he's gone from batting .309 with twelve homers prior to the All-Star break to .283 with three homers since. He was particularly bad in August, when he hit .216 with no homers. He's come alive some in September (.313 with two homers entering play today), and over the past 30 days his slash line is .250/.365/.375 compared to .253/.314/.386 for the league as a whole--not great, but not much different from the league average.

After Kershaw, Haren, and Greinke, the rotation's been a mess. The No. 4 starter, Hyun-Jin Ryu is hurt, and the other three starters the Dodgers have tried (Roberto Hernandez, Carlos Frias, Kevin Correia) have a combined ERA of 7.92. 

What's the Outlook? The Dodgers should win their division, but they're not as good a team, it seems to me, as their recent record would suggest. As things stand now, they'd play the Cardinals, another team that I've described as good but flawed, in a divisional series. The Dodgers' top three starters may give them the edge, but the Cardinals can pitch as well. It could make for an interesting series.