NEW YORK — With the 2022 MLB season now firmly in the rearview mirror, and teams shifting their plans toward next year, a few lessons from this year’s postseason should serve as a guiding light for front offices on the cusp of fielding a contender.
Obviously, as the postseason teaches us every year, nothing is guaranteed. Three different 100-win teams in the National League bowed out in their first series. The best hitter all season went 5 for 36 in the playoffs. An 87-win club that only got invited because of the expanded playoff field made it all the way to Game 6 of the World Series.
A healthy dose of randomness is always an inherent part of October baseball. But as general managers try to put together the most foolproof rosters they possibly can, there are some things that the four-round 2022 postseason extravaganza can teach them.
Bullpens are king
You cannot simply go to the offseason store and come back with the Astros’ bullpen. A quick rundown of their postseason stats highlights the absurdity of their collective performance, which almost assuredly will never happen again.
The Astros’ relievers pitched 54 1/3 innings in the postseason. They were responsible for five earned runs (0.83 ERA), 70 strikeouts and just 23 hits (.126 opponents’ batting average). Closer Ryan Pressly logged 11 innings and let just nine people reach base, none of whom scored. Bryan Abreu also didn’t allow any earned runs and struck out a ridiculous 44.2% of his opposition.
This was probably a once-in-a-lifetime kismet situation, but the lesson here is that you can never have too many relievers, particularly ones that have an overwhelming swing-and-miss repertoire. The trade off is often a few too many walks for comfort — as both the Astros and Phillies bullpen coaches can attest to — but that sort of typically erratic reliever stuff plays well when it’s near the strike zone.
The combination of postseason adrenaline and narrowed focus can do incredible things to relief pitchers as well. Consider Seranthony Dominguez and Andrew Bellatti, two important pieces of the Phillies’ relief corps. Both were among the top 16 of NL relievers in walk rate during the regular season, and both cut those rates in half during the small sample size of the postseason. That reliever with the live arm but no command may drive you crazy in June and July, but they might also hone it in when the intensity ramps up. You just have to get them there.
Pitching wins rings, but hitting keeps you in it
In addition to relief pitching — the Phillies, by the way, had four more games than the Astros and their embattled bullpen more than held its own, posting a 1.09 WHIP and 2.62 ERA — some frontline starters are needed to deliver a trophy. The depth of the Astros’ starting rotation is one of the chief reasons why they went home happy.
But in the postseason, when games are routinely decided in the late innings and by close margins, merely staying within shouting distance of the lead is of paramount importance. Nevermind the stress it places on the other team, there’s also the confidence it spawns in your own dugout.
When certain players are easy outs or certain stretches of the lineup can’t string hits together, it slowly squeezes that belief away. Two of the most memorable comebacks of the postseason — the Phillies’ in Game 1 of their wild-card series, the Mariners climbing out of an 8-1 hole to beat Toronto — were done by putting the ball in play and seeing what happens. When watching the Yankees try to mount comebacks against Houston, meanwhile, it felt like the only path was a few walks and then a three-run bomb. Speaking of which…
Must have bottom of the order production
While this is admittedly reductive, and there were plenty of other reasons why the Yankees got swept by the ‘Stros, Matt Carpenter, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Jose Trevino and Oswaldo Cabrera going 2 for 37 (.054) with 14 Ks and zero RBIs was a massive stain on the series. This doesn’t even mention Josh Donaldson, who batted fifth or sixth in three of the four losses.
Houston’s bottom-of-the-order crew Chas McCormick, Trey Mancini, Martin Maldonado and Christian Vazquez were only 6 for 29 (.206), but the major difference is they drove in seven runs.
Players only bunt at the wrong time
Bunting is all but extinct now, and hitters also seem to have lost their sense of when it’s appropriate.
Trent Grisham had one of the more memorable gaffes of the postseason when he elected to bunt in the ninth inning of his Padres’ eventual elimination game. With one out and runners on first and second, San Diego having just two outs left in their season, Grisham elected to give the Phillies one of them. With nobody out, the move would have made much more sense.
But with one down, Grisham’s out meant Austin Nola could only get the tying run in with a hit, rather than a sac fly or well-placed grounder. Right on cue, Nola flew out harmlessly, and the Padres were eliminated. We’ll never know what could have happened if Grisham had put a swing on the ball.
In the World Series, perhaps afraid of the precious unwritten rules, the Phillies never tried to bunt for a base hit while getting no-hit in Game 4, even with the Astros using extreme shifts on the left-handed hitters. Then, with four outs remaining in Game 6, Kyle Schwarber squared around for a bunt with two strikes. The man with 46 regular season homers predictably bunted the ball foul for strike three, and just like that, any chance of staging a two-out rally at the top of the lineup went out the window.
As always, the question of “Does the defense want me to bunt here?” should dictate these decisions. When a ball in the gap can give the hitting team a ninth-inning lead, a bunt is foolish. When one of the best power hitters in the game takes the bat out of his own hand, the defense will take that ten out of ten times. And when the defense is trying to preserve a no-no, the last thing they want to see is a well-executed bunt.
Perhaps this horrendous display of bunting will lead to some necessary instructional seminars in spring training.
