It hardly matters that both of the National League Wild Card teams finished the 2015 MLB season with better records than the NL East and NL West division winners. When the former, the New York Mets, and the latter, the Los Angeles Dodgers, face off in the division series of the baseball playoffs beginning Friday, fans could be in store for the best pitching performances seen anywhere in the postseason.
The Dodgers grabbed home-field advantage by topping the Mets in regular-season wins 92 to 90. While Los Angeles was an exceptional home team, most great teams are. And besides, New York wasn't too shabby on the road. Instead, this series will come down to the arms race that will take place on the mound.
New York has already announced its rotation, at least to begin the series. Game one on Friday will be started by likely top-five Cy Young finisher Jacob deGrom. deGrom was sensational in 2015, just his second season in the majors. He was overshadowed by some of the other exceptional pitchers in the NL this year, but he finished with a 2.54 ERA, 2.70 FIP and 0.98 WHIP; all unbelievable figures. He also topped 200 strikeouts, sitting down 205 batters in 191 innings. He was one of the 10 best pitchers in all of baseball this season, and he will get the nod in game one.
For game two, New York will turn to young behemoth Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard threw 150 innings in his rookie season in 2015 and put up great peripherals. He also has some of the best stuff in baseball. In fact, according to FanGraphs, he threw the fastest average fastball of any starting pitcher since the website began tracking the data more than a decade ago (minimum 100 innings pitched).
Because of workload concerns, the Mets will be holding arguably their best overall pitcher back until game three. But that means Matt Harvey will start NY's first home game of the series. The story about Harvey's innings limit for 2015 made waves in the New York press, and it continues to be an issue that is impossible to quantify. Rather than possibly tossing Harvey for two games during the five-game set, he will only be available for one. It also remains to be seen how many pitches or how long Mets manager Terry Collins will (is allowed to) leave him out there in the one outing he does receive.
Nevertheless, Harvey is a peerless asset. He nearly matched deGrom's stats column for column this season and is the undisputed ace of this staff. Six innings of Harvey is better than 90 percent of all pitchers in the sport. The questions about his workload hang over Game 3, though, even more so than a possible injury holding youngster Steven Matz out of Game 4. The problem of a great pitching staff being held back from being legendary wouldn't be that big of a deal if not for the opposing staff in the other dugout.
That group belonging to the Dodgers is headlined by two of the three best pitchers in the NL this year, Zack Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw. Either one may deservedly win the Cy Young award this season, and no pair of pitchers in baseball is better.
Greinke, while going 19-3, led the league in ERA and WHIP. He was half a run better this season than he was during his historic 2009 season when he won the AL Cy Young award for the Kansas City Royals. According to Baseball-Reference, Greinke finished tied with Washington's Bryce Harper as the most valuable player at any position ... and he may not even be the best pitcher on his own team.
Clayton Kershaw started off 2015 slowly, at least based on his high standards. By the end of the year though, everything was back to normal. Kershaw threw a league-leading 232.2 innings and struck out 301 batters. He became the first pitcher since Randy Johnson in 2002 to strike out at least 300 batters in one season. His 11.64 strikeouts per 9 was the 12th-best mark for a qualified pitcher in the history of baseball.
While Greinke arguably had the better year, Kershaw is the ace of L.A. and will likely toe the rubber for game one. The only downside of all this is that Harvey will not face one of the two stars for L.A. The Dodgers will have to turn elsewhere in game three for their starter, likely to Brett Anderson or Alex Wood. The drop-off is huge, but it's made bigger by how good the team's top two is. And the potential New York advantage may be mitigated by the threat of pulling Harvey early to preserve his arm.
This brings the pitching advantage of the entire series down to splitting hairs. Or, more accurately, this brings the outcome of the series down to each team's remaining roster; namely, the everyday players.
Neither team has been great at the plate, although they are trending in opposite directions. New York was atrocious batting for much of the season but got a precipitous boost to its offense after the July 31st trade for Yoenis Cespedes. Alternatively, the Dodgers were flying high during the season's first half before overachievers began to come back to earth. Pre-All-Star Break, six different L.A. hitters created 40+ runs, led by Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson at 55.2 and 54.7 runs created, respectively. After the break, zero Dodgers hitters reached that threshold. Players like Pederson and Yasmani Grandal cratered, along with the lineup as a whole.
For the Mets, the story was reversed in two respects. Their production boomed in the second half, but the boost was widespread rather than top-heavy. While Cespedes was great, he was actually more beneficial in how he buoyed the production of his teammates. Pre-All-Star Break, just seven Mets hitters topped 15 runs created. In the second half, that number jumped to 13 hitters.
So is this series as simple as one hot team beating a cold team? Not exactly. The defenses, benches, bullpens, and managers will have something to say about it as well. With phenom Corey Seager and the now-healthy Yasiel Puig leading the charge, the Dodgers might have enough at the plate to boot.
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