The Guardians Approach Should Be A Tough Out
Is the Cleveland Guardians Approach constructed for postseason play?
Postseason baseball is a beast unto itself; different, inordinately stressful, and entirely unpredictable. Since 2010, there have been multiple absurdist WS champions be it the 2010, 2012, or 2014 San Francisco Giants, the 2015 Kansas City Royals, or 2019 Washington Nationals, as the best team in baseball during the regular season rarely wins the World Series. Still, we know that postseason baseball is different and there are a couple of key differences.
First, your 15-20 most important players become, well… more important! Short series and winner-takes-all formats in each round drives innovation, and that innovation is primarily relying on your best pitchers more instead of tapping deeper into your pitching depth. For the Guardians that means more Shane Bieber, Triston McKenzie, Cal Quantrill, Emmanuel Clase, James Karinchak and Trevor Stephan, while seeing less Eli Morgan and Zach Plesac. Essentially, in the first round, the depth of a team’s bullpen and not a team’s rotation is most important.
For the Guardians, this is a clear advantage as their bullpen is undoubtedly in the elite category this season. In 2022, the Guardians pen ranks 5th in ERA, 5th in FIP, and 2nd in xFIP. What drives the success? One place to immediately look is the Guardians having the 7th best strikeout minus walk percentage. Beyond that, this pen thrives on contact management. What is more interesting? Of the Guardians six relievers with at least 50 innings pitched, the Guardians just cut their only pitcher with a strikeout minus walk rate of less that 20%, Bryan Shaw. The Guardians have five of the top 45 in strikeout minus walk percentage among those with 30 IP. Bottom line, strikeouts limit damage, walks increase damage, and the Guardians relievers are flourishing in both categories.
The pitching-offense interaction
If the playoffs are about impact pitchers occupying the mound more often, what changes? Let’s start with strikeouts. If strikeouts are correlated with good run prevention, and playoff pitching is limited to more innings of “good pitching”, strikeouts are elevated in the postseason. For the Guardians, this may not be punitive.
The Guardians offense for 2022 has a wRC+ of 98, two points below what is considered “average” production at the plate. Is that really a reasonable baseline? In some sense, probably. In another sense, no.
The Guardians have experienced various iterations in 2022, perhaps best described as 1. Pre-All Star Break 2. Post Franmil Reyes 3. Will Brennan nuclear.
In the last 30 days, the Guardians are 10th in wRC+, an above average offense. Keep in mind, this current lineup is most similar to what the playoff lineup will look like. It includes Oscar Gonzalez, Will Brennan, and others who were not here in the struggles of May. It excludes the walking windmill that was 2022 Franmil Reyes, and the soft contact savant, Ernie Clement. This is your apex 2022 offense, assembled at just the right time.
Among the Guardians offensive strengths are applying pressure, putting the ball in play, and requiring defense to make plays. In the second half, these strengths have intensified. In the first half, the Guardians led MLB with a low K% of 18.6%, .5% in front of second, and a large 1.5% in front of 3rd. In the second half? More extreme. A K% of 17.8% with second .7% behind.
Stringing hits together is hard in the postseason, and the long ball can trump it, but running elite strikeout rates in small samples can result in wild outcomes, and this Guardians team just might be wild.
For teams relying on the home run ball? As, the weather gets chillier, the ball flies shorter.
“For a ball hit at the typical home run speed and trajectory, a 10 degree [Fahrenheit] change in temperature is worth about a little over three feet in distance,” he says. “It might not seem like very much, but over the course of a whole season, it actually starts to add up.”
For some final context, the league average K% is is 22.4% in 2022. Here is the Guardians projected lineup against RHP with K%:
Steven Kwan LF 9.3%
Amed Rosario SS 16.6%
Jose Ramirez 3B 12.1%
Josh Naylor 1B 16.2%
Oscar Gonzalez DH 19.8%
Andres Gimenez 2B 19.9%
Will Brennan RF 8.6%
Austin Hedges 23.1%
Myles Straw CF 14.5%
The Guardians bullpen is built to limit baserunners and induce strikeouts in bunches, an elite group, magnified by pitching its best arms in October. The Guardians offense has 8 projected starters striking out less than league average, and is a top-10 base running team, intent on applying pressure.
The playoffs are impossible to predict, as better teams often lose, and injured teams ride performances like Josh Tomlin and Ryan Merritt. Still, this Guardians team makes a sneaky amount of sense, and appears to be an insanely tough out. The Guardians are going to strike you out a ton, they are not going to give up free passes, and they are going to apply a ton of pressure. For Major League Baseball, do not be surprised if they out punch their weight.
Yes, the Guardians bullpen is good. The overall pitching staff ranks 11th out of 12 postseason teams in K/9.
Yes, in the small sample size of the last 30 days, the Guardians have a better wRC+. They also are 29th in EV, 28th in Barrel%, and 30th in HardHit%, meaning they've outperformed their peripherals, and don't necessarily have a sustainable top 10 offense.
This team doesn't strike out batters like a postseason team should, you have to finely parse the data to be able to squint to see a decent offense, and even then, the best you can get is "maybe things get wild". There is little to suggest that they should be expected to do well in the playoffs, but since it is the baseball, they've got a 40% or so shot each round anyway. Hopefully they get lucky.
I don't see anything in here other than a shrug of the shoulders and going "who knows?". Which, yeah, anyone could do for a playoff preview.