It’s not great on paper.
Baseball is an interesting sport. It provides hope even when there is no reason to have hope. But this hope didn’t come from nowhere. In a small sample size of games – of which three certainly qualify – anybody can beat anybody. So even if you don’t like your odds, you can have hope you will win that day. It may not be a lot of hope. But if you’re sitting down watching the game, there is some part of you that thinks “We might win this.”
Kind of a weird way to start a series preview, but I imagine zero of you are wondering why I’m starting it this way. It’s because we are facing the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers, who are of course in first place and destined for another playoff appearance and probably more. In a way, there is no real reason to write a series preview against a team like the Dodgers. For most teams, I am informing at least some of you how good the opponent actually is. Don’t need to do that here. You may not know the names, but you get the gist.
But you probably know most of the names. It’s a lot of familiar names. The Dodgers’ offense is 3rd in baseball, possibly 2nd by the time this comes out. I’m writing this before any Sunday games have been played. The Dodgers’ offense has been led not by Shohei Ohtani, though he has a 164 wRC+. Not by Freddie Freeman, though he has a 138 wRC+. And not by Mookie Betts, who is having a bad offensive season. No it’s led by catcher Will Smith, with a 171 wRC+. Ain’t that annoying?
Andy Pages is having a very promising sophomore year after a not particularly impressive rookie season. He plays a good centerfield, and hits a good amount of homers (19). He doesn’t walk very much, though he only strikes out about an average amount of the time. Top 100 prospect Alex Freeland appears to be the regular starter at 3B now. As of this writing, he has a 195 wRC+ in 11 PAs, but also has an .800 BABIP and 4 strikeouts, so the jury is very much still out on him.
Max Muncy is on a rehab assignment though and we very well might see him in this series instead. He has a 134 wRC+ this year. For those that desperately wanted the Dodgers to prefer Nolan Arenado to Muncy, not really working out. And apparently, they have a top 100 prospect who also plays 3B? Yeah if Arenado is only willing to go to the Dodgers, it ain’t happening.
This lineup does not run 9 deep however. It doesn’t even run 7 deep. Betts, as mentioned before, has an 87 wRC+. He only has a .241 BABIP, but his xwOBA is honestly not a whole better than his actual wOBA. It is better, but like… he should have a .260 BABIP, not a .300 BABIP better. And he has lost all of his power. He can apparently play SS now, so sure. Betts is still leading off though. Matching him is Michael Conforto, who is a bad defender in LF so he’s been below replacement. He still starts every game.
And Tommy Edman, who might be working through an injury or isn’t a full-time starter anymore. He’s started in 3 of the last 6 games. That’s because Miguel Rojas has a slightly above average hitting line this season. Edman has an 87 wRC+. Lastly, on days where Will Smith isn’t catching, Dalton Rushing is. And he has gotten off to a very rough start to his MLB career. So there’s going to be some holes in this lineup no matter what.
As for the bullpen, well it’s kind of similar. They technically rank 4th in baseball in fWAR and I say that because… that must be because of leverage factored in. The team bullpen ERA of 4.21 ranks 19th, the team FIP of 3.97 ranks 14th, and their xFIP of 4.02 ranks 10th. But actually no, it’s not leverage, it’s innings. The Dodgers have thrown 480 innings which is nearly 50 innings more than the next most and almost 100 more than the Cardinals. So it’s a mediocre bullpen who throws a lot of innings.
It is comprised of two different methods of building a bullpen: your random cheap relievers and your expensive relievers. The common theme is throw a lot of them at the wall and hope some stick. The cheap relievers are working better than the expensive relievers. Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates are both making a combined $29 million and are currently injured. Blake Treinen has only been healthy enough to pitch in 9 games and has only been okay. Cheaper relievers are also hurt too though: Brusdal Graterol, Michael Grove, Evan Phillips, and Michael Kopech.
Three different Dodgers have gotten saves in the last week. Although one of them is sometime starter Justin Wrobleski, who got a 3-inning save. The other was by Jack Dreyer, who got his first career save when Dave Roberts was forced to take Blake Treinen out of 5-1 game because he hadn’t gotten a single left-handed hitter out in that inning. Dreyer seems more good than great, though his ERA and FIP are quite good.
Does that mean our third guy to get a save is actually the closer? Left-handed Alex Vesia certainly has the stats to back it up, but it was his first save since June 11th. So I have no idea who is actually closing games for the Dodgers in this series. They have old Reds closer Alexis Diaz, who the Dodgers may have fixed since he’s thrown 4.1 spotless innings with them. They also traded for solid reliever Brock Stewart at the deadline.
They have a fourth lefty, Anthony Banda, who is not very good. 2021 5th rounder Ben Casparius is okay. He kind of got a chance to start in the middle of the year and was terrible, so he’s a better reliever than his stats. Cardinals scored two in one inning off him earlier this season. All in all though, not necessarily a scary bullpen to be honest. Any of them are capable of shutting down a team in any given night, but they aren’t consistent about it.
Monday
Sonny Gray (4.38 ERA/3.09 FIP/2.95 xFIP) vs. Tyler Glasnow (3.38 ERA/4.58 FIP/3.65 xFIP)
Glasnow is currently healthy, which unlucky for the Cardinals. He’s only made 9 starts so far this year and as you might expect, nine starts can result in some funky numbers. In this case, Glasnow has allowed a disproportionate amount of homers, leading to a higher FIP. But he still seems like Glasnow, so he’ll be tough to hit.
Meanwhile Sonny Gray is in a bit of a rough stretch, he’ll be on the road and he’ll be facing the Dodgers. I will forgive you if you are not totally optimistic about this start, because the signs are not great. But is is baseball and maybe Gray can get it together for this start.
Tuesday
Miles Mikolas (4.83 ERA/4.57 FIP/4.61 xFIP) vs. Emmet Sheehan (3.60 ERA/2.74 FIP/4.26 xFIP)
If you’re not feeling great about Sonny Gray on the road against the Dodgers, there is no way you have sunny feelings about Mikolas pitching the next day. The recent trend of the Cardinals starters getting kind of blown up? Yeah not sure it’s going to change in this series. On paper, this is a tougher series for any pitcher
Sheehan, on the other hand, is a little less frightening to face than the other two starting pitchers. He’s only made 4 official starts and pitched in 6 games this year. Really all the stat of the starting pitchers are unreliable in the sense that there’s barely any games that they’ve actually pitched. We appear to be “lucky” to face a relatively healthy rotation. That said, by most metrics, Sheehan is their worst starter so I hope to hit him
Wednesday
Matthew Liberatore (3.96 ERA/3.58 FIP/4.17 xFIP) vs. Shohei Ohtani (2.40 ERA/2.70 xFIP/3.23 xFIP)
If you are facing the Dodgers, you want your starter to be left-handed. This is not because they are a bad offensive team against left-handed pitchers, it’s because they are a worse offensive team against LHP (112 wRC+) than against RHP (115 wRC+). But still a pretty hard team to shut down. Liberatore is going to have a challenge like any pitcher facing the Dodgers.
Ohtani’s stats are misleading in the sense that he hasn’t actually been asked to throw many innings yet. He’s made 7 starts, but only pitched the equivalent of 3 starts with just 15 innings. In his most recent start, he faced 16 batters and allowed 2 earned runs, so good chance he’ll be good for about 4 innings in this start.
So there you have it. This will be a difficult series, but it is still baseball and anything can happen. Just ask the Pirates from a few years ago when they won the season series against the Dodgers.