Houston Astros-New York Yankees in ALCS a matchup for the ages

Isn't this what we expected all along? Is it not, in fact, kind of what we wanted?

A Houston Astros-New York Yankees American League Championship Series has seemed almost inevitable ever since projections started coming out during the hot stove season. Not everything turned out exactly as we expected. We didn't know that Aaron Boone's Bombers would have to circumnavigate an ocean of injuries, and we didn't know that the Astros would unleash rookie masher Yordan Alvarez on American League pitchers, or that they would trade for Zack Greinke. But this matchup at this stage of the MLB playoffs is really no great surprise.

Fans of the Red Sox, Indians, Twins, Rays and Athletics all may disagree but, let's face it, from a pure baseball standpoint, there is no reason to dislike this ALCS showdown, which opens Saturday night at Houston. In fact, we can think of 10 reasons to love it. There are probably more, but these things tend to be presented in 10-packs.

Consider this a teaser:

1. Chicken-or-egg pitching matchups

All such analysis tends to oversimplify, but in broad strokes, we can look at this series as a matchup of pitching staffs with divergent strengths and similarly complementary weaknesses. That would be the Astros' powerhouse rotation as contrasted with the Yankees' fire-breathing bullpen. Conversely, you're looking at Houston's bullpen, tepid by comparison, and a New York rotation that has been the source of much consternation this season.

If we accept those observations at face value, then we're getting into chicken-and-egg dichotomies. The Yankees need leads to protect, and their high-powered offense is proficient at supplying them. But to get those leads, those hitters are going to have to get to Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Greinke.

Of course, it's not really all that straightforward. The Astros actually had the better bullpen this season by ERA (3.75 to 4.08) and win probability added (4.68 to 3.77), though the picture changes if you look at the larger track records and pare the numbers down to the pitchers we'll actually be seeing in the series.

Meanwhile, the Yankees' starters indeed fall short of their Astros counterparts, but if you pull out and look at the past couple of years combined, it's not as much of a mismatch as you might think. Since the beginning of the 2018 season, the New York foursome of J.A. Happ, Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and Luis Severino has gone 98-50 with a 3.93 ERA and 9.61 strikeouts per nine innings. Houston's top four starters -- Verlander, Cole, Greinke and Wade Miley, though Miley might not get that fourth-starter role because of his recent struggles -- have gone 124-49 with a 2.89 ERA and 10.51 strikeouts per nine. It's a decided edge for Houston, but it's not like the Yankees don't have starters with track records.

There are other considerations; it's not like the only function of New York's bullpen is to protect leads. Still, we're talking about the game's highest-octane rotation (Houston) against baseball's highest-octane bullpen (New York). That's pretty good.

2. Jose Altuve vs. Aaron Judge

This one is always a great facet of Yankees-Astros meetings. The two leading candidates for the 2017 AL MVP award (which Altuve won) will forever exemplify the physical inclusiveness of baseball. Judge is listed at 6-foot-7; Altuve is listed at 5-6. Yet since the beginning of that 2017 season, Judge ranks fourth in the AL by fWAR (18.0) while Altuve is seventh (16.0). Very different packages, but both deliver the goods.

3. Homers, homers, homers

The Yankees probably didn't get enough credit for how good their offense was this season beyond home runs, but that'll happen when you go deep 306 times. That versatility was on display during New York's sweep of Minnesota. The Astros, on the other hand, get deserved raves for an offense that augments elite top-to-bottom power with MLB-best totals in batting average and walks, plus the lowest strikeout total in baseball. It's an outrageous combination. The Houston offense makes no trade-offs, but to a lesser extent, the Yankees are like that too. (Let that be a lesson to you "three true outcomes" proponents.)

Both teams also feature power-based pitching staffs that ranked among the leaders in strikeouts -- Houston struck out more batters than anyone, while the Yankees ranked fifth. Both teams also ranked in the top 10 in limiting walks. However, here there were trade-offs: Both teams allowed more home runs than the league average. Given the difficulty in even making consistent contact against these staffs, it feels like the team that wins the home run battle will have a leg up, no matter how well rounded the two offenses are.

Who is hot at the plate? Who misses with the wrong pitches at the wrong time? In a matchup this electrified with power bats and power arms, forecasting the answers to those questions is a fool's errand. The power can come from so many spots. Twelve of the 100 leading home run hitters over the past three seasons will be featured on the respective rosters in this series. Nine hitters in the series have slugged at least .500 during that span. Sure, some of this is a product of the current major league landscape, but we have not often seen this many elite power bats in one seven-game matchup.

4. Star power

Many of the most decorated players in baseball will be on display during the ALCS. There are a lot of ways to illustrate this. At the most simple level, you could simply list some of the names: Verlander, Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Alex Bregman, Altuve, Greinke and so on. For quite a few players in this series, you don't have to write out the full name for fans to know who you're referring to. But for a proxy to star power, let's consider awards recognition.

Using the voting history data from Baseball Reference, we constructed a table of every player to receive awards support over the past four seasons. We don't know how the voting came out for 2019, so to approximate those anticipated results, we used the end-of-season numbers from the Awards Index, an ESPN.com recurring feature.

There are 189 names that have popped up in voting for either league's MVP, Cy Young or Rookie of the Year voting since 2016. Twenty-two of them (12%) could be on this season's ALCS active rosters. (We included Astros reliever Chris Devenski here, though he did not make Houston's ALDS roster against Tampa Bay.) Here is the full list, with each player's overall rank in awards points compiled over the past four seasons:

AWARDS POINTS, 2016 TO 2019
4. Justin Verlander, Astros (796)
7. Jose Altuve, Astros (641)
12. Alex Bregman, Astros (462)
16. Aaron Judge, Yankees (439)
27. Giancarlo Stanton, Yankees (306)
29. Yordan Alvarez, Astros (300)
37. Zack Greinke, Astros (233)
60. Gerrit Cole, Astros (146)
66. DJ LeMahieu, Yankees (128)
73. Gary Sanchez, Yankees (92)
80. Zack Britton, Yankees (83)
83. Luis Severino, Yankees (74)
110. Gleyber Torres, Yankees (25)
120. George Springer, Astros (17)
126. Aledmys Diaz, Astros (14)
127. J.A. Happ, Yankees (14)
135. Edwin Encarnacion, Yankees (11)
138. Carlos Correa, Astros (9)
141. Chris Devenski, Astros (7)
142. Didi Gregorius, Yankees (7)
147. Masahiro Tanaka, Yankees (6)
154. Yuli Gurriel, Astros (5)
Note: Includes forecast 2019 voting totals based on the Awards Index

5. Megapower

OK, we know we're probably going to see some home runs. But there are home runs, and there are bombs. And this series features a few of the most devastating long-ball hitters in baseball in terms of sheer raw power. Just looking at average exit velocity going back to the beginning of the 2018 season, we've got three of the top 13 mashers in baseball in the ALCS:

AVERAGE EXIT VELOCITY, SINCE START OF 2018 SEASON
1. Judge, Yankees (95.3 mph)
4. Stanton, Yankees (93.6 mph)
13. Alvarez, Astros (92.2 mph)
Source: baseballsavant.com

If you want to zero in on individual readings, there have been 12 balls struck with an exit velocity of 117.9 mph or more since the start of the 2018 season, per Statcast. Five of those 12 rockets came off the bats of players in the ALCS: two by Stanton, one by Judge, one by Alvarez and one by Sanchez.

6. George Costanza vs. Astros management

Honestly, we're not trying to start something, and this isn't very analytical, but there is a long-simmering feud dating back to the 1990s between the Yankees' travel department and certain members of the Astros' management team. It's hard to get specific, but profanities were thrown around with impunity.

7. Verlander and Cole vs. Yankees

Just as the Rays found out, as many ways as the Astros have to beat an opponent over the course of a series, the No. 1 to-do item for any Houston opponent is to figure out some way to steal a game or two against the double-headed onslaught of Verlander and Cole. The math is simple for the Yankees: In a seven-game series, you're going to see both of those starters twice, at least (not counting any surprise relief appearances). If you don't steal one of those four games at a minimum, you're toast.

Verlander and Cole have been the American League's top hurlers all season, but their dominance has only accelerated as we've gotten deeper into the campaign. Counting the postseason, the pair are a combined 25-2 since the All-Star break, and both have sub-2.00 ERAs. Sometimes traditional measures tell a pretty accurate story.

As good as the Yankees' offense is, they have their work cut out for them. The combined career batting average against Verlander and Cole for players likely to be on the New York ALCS roster is .200.

8. Combating the heat

As mentioned, the Astros' hitters don't just hit for average, hit for power or draw walks. They do it all. And they do it against all kinds of pitchers. The Astros ranked third against pitches classified as fastballs or hard sinkers by OPS, according to TruMedia. They were first against the soft stuff -- changes, curveballs, etc. The Yankees are good against all speeds as well. In fact, New York led the majors in OPS against hard stuff. But only one team threw fewer fastballs this season than Houston. New York ranked fourth against soft pitches, so that will be a fascinating battle in itself.

But the marquee matchup in this area is the one between the Astros' hitters and the Yankees' elite velocity pitchers. The teams ranked 1-2 in average fastball velocity (94.7 mph for New York, 94.2 for Houston). But because Houston relies so heavily on secondary pitches, the Yankees easily led the majors in both average velocity (90.8) and velocity at the 90th percentile of their pitches (97.5).