“There was no more extraordinary!”
The New York Yankees, the No. 1 seed in the American League (AL), advanced to the ALCS in the second year by easily quelling the 5th seed Kansas City Royals with 3 wins and 1 loss. The second-seeded Cleveland Guardians also beat the strong team Houston to lead Detroit to 1-2 in the series, but eventually turned the series around and headed to the ALCS as the batters revived with the performances of Kwan, Locchio and Thomas.
The Championship Series, in which the Yankees and Cleveland face off each other, will begin at 8:38 a.m. on the 15th (Korea time).
The two teams have faced off six times in all postseason games. However, the Yankees have won all three postseason games since 2017, including one reverse sweep. In all past games, the Yankees have an advantage with four wins and two losses, and in this year’s regular season opponents, the Yankees have an advantage with four wins and two losses.
New York Yankees (94-68-1 seed) vs Cleveland (92-69-2 seed)
Yankees Team Tuta Regular Season Indicator
Two: 3.76 (8th) WHIP 1.24 (12th) ERA
Other: OPS.761 (3rd) wRC+ 117 (2nd)
Guardians Team Tuta Regular Season Indicator
Two: 3.61 ERA (3rd) WHIP 1.20 (5th)
Other: OPS.703 (17th) wRC+ 100 (17th)
*wRC+ (Adjusted Scoring Creativity) WHIP (Allow Runners per Inning)
Silence of Jersey and Soto duo.. shall we recreate them due to their regular season performance?
In this season, the Yankees recorded the highest rank in various batting indicators, including per-game score (5.03), wRC+ (adjusted score creation ability, 117), and OPS (.761). The biggest reason is that Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, the core players of the batting lineup, performed monstrously. (Jersey and Soto ranked first and third in wRC+ 218, 180 leagues, respectively).
The Yankees are heavily dependent on them, but when they met with Kansas City in the Division Series, neither of them showed particular performances, the team’s batters lost their destructive power. (3.5 points per game).
Nevertheless, Stanton (Tongsan playoff stage OPS.987), who has shown strong performance in the playoff stage every year since the transfer of the Yankees, was able to produce the minimum score needed to win and advanced to the ALCS.
Stanton’s performance is very encouraging, but the anxiety is that there are no other resources to expect a big performance in the Yankees’ batting lineups. The most important point to watch this ALCS is whether Judge and Soto can play as well as the regular season.
Judge’s pitching in the middle of the strike zone is not as good as in the regular season. He is picking out the ball well, but he seems to have lost the sense of hitting, and only when this part improves, he can improve his performance in the postseason, which is his biggest weakness. (Jersey’s postseason OPS 0.762)
Soto, who failed to meet expectations, has also continued to weaken the breaking ball as more and more breaking balls entering the strike zone have lost timing from September to this postseason (OPS.647 against breaking balls in September). In order to reproduce the 2019 performance that led the team to the World Series championship, the team must overcome its weakness in breaking balls.
In the case of the Cleveland pitchers they will face, there are relatively few very dangerous pitches that are concentrated in the center of the strike zone, but the percentage of aggressive pitches close to the center of the strike zone is relatively high on the division series stage. The key to the game is whether Judge and Soto Duo can actively target these pitches (27% of the postseason participating teams).
Will Cleveland’s Wobbly Ironwall bullpen regain its regular-season power?
This season, Cleveland’s bullpen pitcher lineup ranked first in most major indicators including ERA (2.57), hold (116 times) and WHIP (1.05). WPA (+15.62, contribution of expected win probability) showed off its overwhelming power.
However, Emanuel Clase, the best closing pitcher who throws a cutter with an average speed of 100 miles (161 kilometers) in the postseason, has not shown as much pressure as he did in the regular season, allowing a three-run home run in the second game of the ALDS.
In addition, the strongest set-up men such as Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith and Tim Herrin, who relieved Clase’s burden by scoring an ERA of one point side by side in the regular season, also lost their power due to frequent appearances and lost points or created a crisis situation. As a result, Clase, the closing pitcher, had to make multi-inning saves for two consecutive games.
The reason why Cleveland’s must-win team has been sluggish in the postseason is that bullpen appearances have increased frequently due to the poor pitching ability of the starters and that opposing batters have more frequent attacks.
The fact that the team takes fewer rest days than the Yankees, who joined the ALCS, is also a serious blow to the Cleveland bullpen. In order for them to show as good performance as the regular season, the starting lineup must work hard.
Meanwhile, the Yankees’ bullpen anxiety index was very high due to the poor performance of closer Clay Holmes (13th inning), who recorded ostensibly complying performance in the regular season (average ERA of 3.62 and WPA + 5.42 league).
Then, the Yankees, who replaced the finish with Luke Weaver, who showed good performance as a multi-inning setup man throughout the season, succeeded in getting rid of anxiety at the end of the game. In the postseason, Weaver also established itself as a solid finish with powerful changeups with excellent tunneling effects (synergy effects created by different pitch types forming similar trajectories).
Holmes, who gave up his finishing position, also pitched better than the regular season, and Keinley also continued to be good, so the Yankees bullpen is more stable than Cleveland when it comes to the ALDS.
With the stabilization of the bullpen, the biggest weakness, will the Yankees be able to try to win the World Series for the first time in 15 years by banking on their star trio’s strength? Or will Cleveland, which escaped from the jinx of consecutive defeats (a game that is eliminated when it loses), continue its momentum and try to win its first championship since 1948? Baseball fans around the world are paying keen attention to the ALCS, which will be played by both teams, which are desperate to win the championship. 먹튀검증
