The hyperbole that surrounds a premier playoff pitching matchup has become a kind of baseball trope. There is just no better hook for an upcoming game than publicizing a battle between a pair of aces.
The reality is that, these days, if you watch game for that microbattle, you are almost invariably going to be disappointed. The game itself might turn out to be a classic, but chances are, one or both bullpens are going to play a key part in how the outcome is decided.
Let's consider this objectively, using the Bill James formula for game score, which rates the performance of a starting pitcher. The average game score is 50. This season, according to baseball-reference.com, there were 520 outings in which a starter had a score of at least 60, or a little less than one in three. There were 179 starts of 70 or better, 42 of at least 80 and just two that reached 90.
Given that distribution, let's call a "very good" start any outing in which a pitcher puts up a Game Score of at least 65. This season, there were just 35 games in which both starters hit that mark in the same game, or one every 51 games.
Generally, we get between one and three such games in a postseason. We've already had one in 2020: Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series between the Reds and Braves featured gems from Trevor Bauer (87 Game Score) and Max Fried (70). Last season, there was just one -- St. Louis' Adam Wainwright (77) against Atlanta's Mike Soroka (76) in Game 3 of the NL Division Series. There were three such games each in 2016 and 2017 but none in 2015. There were five in 2001 but none from 1957 to 1962, or from 1951 to 1955. (Granted, before 1969, when the postseason was simply the World Series, opportunities were far more limited.)
Could things be different during the last three rounds of the 2020 playoffs? After all, we're in uncharted territory. Once each series begins, there are no days off for travel because there is no travel. If a five-game series goes five games, then that's five games in five days. The League Championship Series also will feature no days off, with the potential for seven games in seven days. (The World Series, if it goes the distance, will feature two off days.)
The unprecedented format could mean managers have to ask more from their starters, or else they will grind their bullpens into a fine powder. That's the theory, anyway. In the early stages of the playoffs, including the first two games of the LDS round on Monday, managers used starters for an aggregate average of 4& #8532; innings. Going back to 1974, the lowest average outing for a postseason starter was 5⅓ innings -- the mark for both 2018 and 2019.
So hopes for the return of the kind of dueling-aces showdown that you think used to happen are long. Still, while the job description has changed, starting pitching is still a crucial element of postseason success.
Let's consider the rotations of baseball's Elite Eight through this largely fantastical, mano a mano construction. First, it's hard to even say what the rotations are. Is it a five-pitcher set-up? Four? Thus far, the remaining managers have been highly circumspect when asked about any rotation plans beyond the first three games of each series. Some haven't named a probable starter for their Game 3.
Still, we have an idea of the possibilities, so let's try to slot the starters who will capture our attention this round and, for the surviving teams, for the rounds to come.
Pitchers are ranked by their total starters points, while their game score win-loss record for their past 50 games is also noted.
1. Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees (42-8, 1074 starter points)
Cole continued to burnish his postseason reputation with an ALDS Game 1 win over the Rays on Monday. He's now 8-4 in his playoff career with a 2.75 ERA and 99 strikeouts over 78 ⅔ innings.
2. Mike Clevinger, San Diego Padres (40-10, 1041 starter points)
The pitcher suggested by these numbers is the pitcher the Padres hope to get by unleashing Clevinger and his balky elbow on the Dodgers, but San Diego's ace left the mound with an injury early in Tuesday's Game 1 loss and very likely won't return this series. Six of his seven career playoff outings have been in relief. In his one start, he gave up one run over five innings with nine strikeouts for Cleveland in a 2018 ALDS matchup against the Astros.
3. Chris Bassitt, Oakland Athletics (32-18, 970 starter points)
The system was built to reward recency, so it understands how the lightly regarded Bassitt earned his Game 1 assignment against the Astros. Bassitt was the American League Pitcher of the Month in September, when he allowed just one run in 26 ⅔ innings. He also pitched well in a Wild Card round start against the White Sox, but the Astros roughed him up on Monday.
4. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers (35-15, 909 starter points)
No stranger to lofty ratings, this ranking underscores Kershaw's return to regular-season dominance in 2020. And he gave every indication that the resurgence will continue into the postseason with his vintage outing against Milwaukee in the wild-card round.
5. Max Fried, Atlanta Braves (32-18, 864 starter points)
One of baseball's breakout performers, Fried's duel against Bauer in the wild-card round showed he's ready for the October stage.
6. J.A. Happ, New York Yankees (33-17, 836 starter points)
We don't know if Happ will get a start in the LDS round against the Rays, but his score here reflects something underreported about him: He consistently keeps his team in games, which might be the most important trait for a team with a high-power offense and an elite bullpen.
7. Mike Fiers, Oakland Athletics (33-17, 821 starter points)
Fiers is a pitcher in the Happ vein. He's a steady veteran who succeeds without the double-digit strikeout rates that are almost a prerequisite for a 2020 starting pitcher.
8. Zack Greinke, Houston Astros (36-14, 813 starter points)
As you can see from his past-50 record, Greinke remains a top of the rotation starter. His recent results push him down the rankings. Over his last seven regular-season starts, Greinke failed to reach a 60 game score, and four times he was below 50. In his start in the wild-card round against Minnesota, Greinke lasted just four innings and posted a 52 game score.
9. Walker Buehler, Los Angeles Dodgers (33-17, 794 starter points)
The pattern for Buehler's 2020 season has been to follow a gem with a clunker. The Dodgers are banking on him stringing some dominant outings together now that the stakes have been raised.
10. Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees (31-19, 792 starter points)
The crux of Tanaka's big league career is probably this: His career regular-season ERA is 3.74. In the heightened competition of nine postseason outings, Tanaka's ERA has been 2.70.
11. Tyler Glasnow, Tampa Bay Rays (27-23, 776 starter points)
Glasnow's so-so game score record is as much as anything a product of relatively short outings. Some of it is a lack of efficiency, a lot of it is simply the Rays' way. There is no questioning Glasnow's capacity for dominance. After all, he struck out 14.3 batters per nine innings this season.
12. Blake Snell, Tampa Bay Rays (32-18, 766 starter points)
Snell has been solid over the past couple of seasons, but he set the bar awfully high with his 21-5, 1.89 ERA season in 2018 that landed him an AL Cy Young Award. Solid didn't quite cut it during his Game 1 ALDS outing against the Yankees on Monday.
13. Sean Manaea, Oakland Athletics (29-21, 763 starter points)
One of baseball's most resilient performers, Manaea keeps popping up in big games for Oakland.
14. Charlie Morton, Tampa Bay Rays (30-20, 720 starter points)
Morton's late-career breakout has been one of baseball's better stories over the past half decade. That breakout trended in the wrong direction in 2020, as his ERA ballooned to 4.74. He's slated to get an opportunity against Tanaka and the Yankees on Wednesday.
15. Zach Davies, San Diego Padres (27-23, 706 starter points)
After serving as a take-the-ball-every-five-days guy who filled out the bottom of the rotation in Milwaukee, Davies emerged as something more than that in his first San Diego campaign. His strikeout rate (8.2 per nine innings) wasn't elite, but it was easily a career high and his ERA (2.73) fell accordingly.
16. Chris Paddack, San Diego Padres (21-18, 682 starter points)
The enigmatic Paddack, based on stuff, ought to be trending differently. His penchant for wavering command within the strike zone continued to bite him in the wild-card round, when St. Louis touched him up for six runs over a brief outing of 2⅓ innings.
17. Framber Valdez, Houston Astros (14-9, 676 starter points)
As you can see, Valdez's rating is built on a short track record, but given his Game 2 assignment against the Athletics, he has already won over the confidence of Houston manager Dusty Baker.
18. Lance McCullers Jr., Houston Astros (28-22, 675 starter points)
The track record of the curveballing McCullers is wrapped around a missed season due to Tommy John surgery. His rate-based numbers for 2018 and 2020 -- with 2019 being the injury season -- could hardly be more identical. Let's take that as a good sign.
19. Tony Gonsolin, Los Angeles Dodgers (9-5, 606 starter points)
Gonsolin generally doesn't work deep into games, but over 173 innings, his career ERA is 2.60. We don't know what the Dodgers' LDS pitching plans are beyond the first couple of games, but Gonsolin has done little to remove himself from consideration to get a start.
20. Pablo Lopez, Miami Marlins (20-22, 599 starter points)
The cerebral Lopez has really come on this season, adding just a tick of velocity that has allowed his secondary pitches to play even better. He was rewarded with a LDS starting nod against the Braves.
21. Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins (19-27, 580 starter points)
The Marlins have a young rotation with a lot of promise and a lot of recent production. Their shortish track records pushes them down in a system like this, but it doesn't make them any less interesting to watch. Alcantara, at 24, showed tremendous strides in consistency this season, even while continuing to flash the raw stuff that makes him so promising.
22. Jose Urquidy, Houston Astros (8-6, 559 starter points)
Urquidy's track record is short and strange. He has appeared in only 14 regular-season games, including 12 starts, during which he has posted a very good 3.44 ERA. Through the wild-card round in 2020, he has also tacked on another five postseason outings, during which he has put up a 1.26 ERA over 14 1/3 innings. The indicators are promising, but it would still be nice to see Urquidy perform in a rotation role over a full season sometime soon.
23. Ian Anderson, Atlanta Braves (5-2, 531 starter points)
What's not to like? Anderson has made seven career starts, including his wild-card round gem against Cincinnati. His ERA in those outings is 1.64, and his strikeout-to-homer-allowed ratio is 50 to 1.
24. Sixto Sanchez, Miami Marlins (5-3, 516 starter points)
Sanchez has some of the most vicious raw stuff of any remaining pitcher in the playoffs. He's still learning his craft. His strikeout rate, while solid, isn't at the level you'd expect given his penchant for hitting triple-digits in velocity. He's also not yet efficient, so Don Mattingly has to start revving up his bullpen by the middle innings even if Sanchez is putting up zeroes. Still, like so many of the short track record pitchers at the end of these rankings, Sanchez is fun to watch.
25. Dustin May, Los Angeles Dodgers (6-8, 482 starter points)
The hard-throwing, frizzy-haired May has already garnered a lot of attention, even as he strives for the consistency of the pitchers at the top of this list. As you can tell from his sub-.500 game score record, he has had an odd habit of pitching just below the performance of his opposing starter.
26. Deivi Garcia, New York Yankees (3-3, 453 starter points)
You have to credit Yankees manager Aaron Boone with boldness in naming Garcia his Game 2 starter against the Rays. Garcia was one of the few New York hurlers Tampa Bay had not faced. While he showed plenty of flashes that demonstrated why he was long considered a top Yankee prospect, Garcia was trending in the wrong direction down the stretch of the regular season.
27. Trevor Rogers, Miami Marlins (3-4, 443 starter points)
The aggressive Rogers attacks hitters with his high-spin four-seamer but needs to find the barrels of opposing bats a lot less often. He has been a bit all or nothing.
28. Jesus Luzardo, Oakland Athletics (4-6, 442 starter points)
Like all of these young pitchers, you sometimes don't know what you will get from Luzardo from one outing to the next. The overall numbers are solid, and the potential is immense. There are few pitchers on this list whose futures you would trade Luzardo's for.
29. Huascar Ynoa, Atlanta Braves (2-3, 426 starter points)
Chances are, Ynoa is just a placeholder on this list, representing the slot that Braves manager Brian Snitker has hinted would be a bullpen game.
30. Kyle Wright, Atlanta Braves (4-8, 423 starter points)
When alarm bells were ringing over the Braves' injury-ravaged rotation this season, at least part of it was because the long-touted Wright didn't look ready to seize his opportunity. Even after Wright allowed just two runs in 13 innings against the Red Sox and Mets over his last two regular-season outings, his 2020 expected wOBA -- generated by Statcast data -- ranked in just the fifth percentile of all qualifying pitchers. By giving him a Game 3 start in the LDS against Miami, the Braves are signaling their belief that Wright's most recent performance is the realest Wright we've seen yet.
31. Ryan Yarbrough, Tampa Bay Rays (11-18, 419 starter points)
The sinkerballing Yarbrough almost breaks Statcast. His fastball velocity (87.3 mph, in the bottom percentile of all pitchers) makes him a stark contrast to many of his flamethrowing Rays counterparts. Every team needs someone with Yarbrough's contrasting style and versatility on its staff.
32. Luis Patino, San Diego Padres (0-1, 385 starter points)
We don't know what the Padres are going to do for a fourth starter in the LDS, in light of Lamet's absence. Patino is a top-flight starting prospect, but he hasn't been used by manager Jayce Tingler as a starter during his brief time in the big leagues, save for one short outing in which he pitched on late notice in place of Clevinger. If he does begin a game for San Diego in the LDS, it'll likely be as an opener. And he might not even draw that gig, given his wavering control so far as a big leaguer. He's a placeholder on this list, but his name is worth remembering.