Rosters stacked behind Judge, Ohtani

It was the beginning of the end of the simpler times for Major League Baseball in 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa went head-to-head in pursuit of the single-season home run record.

It wasn’t quite Bird versus Magic. Doubt we’ll ever see that, again, in any sport. But even the revisionist history that followed couldn’t detract from the truth that the steroid-fuelled homer frenzy put badly needed wind into the sails of MLB. There were two camps: You either hitched your wagon to the dour, fun-sucking McGwire or joined the giddy, joyful ride that was Sammy. Who ya got? I spent a large part of the summer covering the pursuit and I was squarely in Sosa’s camp. Covering McGwire was like a three-hour wait in the dentist’s office before a root canal. Probably should have checked that stuff in his locker at the time but hey, whatever.

The flip side of the pursuit, of course, was that it begat baseball’s steroid scandal and put a cloud over hundreds of careers both brilliant and mediocre. For a while, nothing was real — especially when it became obvious that pitchers were using PEDS as much if not more than hitters.

This most ‘world’ of World Series — Shohei Ohtani versus Aaron Judge — is the closest thing we’ve come since then to having to pick a side. Who ya got? Parity is such a thing in baseball that this is only the first time in a full season since 2013 that the teams with the best records in their respective leagues are meeting in the World Series. In fact, it’s only the fourth time it’s happened since MLB adopted the wild card in 1995.

So, c’mon. Out with it. Who ya got? The unicorn and the Los Angeles Dodgers or the super-sized New York Yankees captain, two megastars who have never appeared on the game’s biggest stage before, let alone won on it?

The BBWAA won’t announce its post-season awards until well after the World Series, but Ohtani will be the National League’s Most Valuable Player and Judge will be his American League counterpart. Since baseball resumed with a wild-card format following the 1994 players strike there has only been one World Series that has featured that year’s eventual MVPs — 2012, when the San Francisco Giants and Buster Posey beat the Detroit Tigers and Miguel Cabrera in an otherwise hugely unremarkable (and, frankly, best-forgotten) World Series.

Toss in Juan Soto and as Fangraphs Davy Andrews wrote in this fun article, it’s the first time ever the World Series has featured the top three players in WRC-plus (weighted runs created plus). Ever.

Look, nobody will ever challenge soccer as far and away the biggest sport in the world or the hegemony of the NFL when it comes to North American professional sports. Truth is, I’m not certain MLB is about to take a run at the NBA in terms of international presence. But Shohei is the closest thing this game has to LeBron — an athlete who can get by on one name. And that can’t hurt at a time when baseball’s regional and national TV reality is undergoing rapid change.

If nothing else, it’s an opportunity for a sport too often on the defensive to puff out its chest a bit. So, c’mon. Pick one team. One guy. Who ya got?

Ohtani?

Judge?

While you’re mulling that over, here are six others to watch:

• Gerrit Cole, SP, Yankees: Erik Kratz, long-time Major League catcher and co-host of the podcast Foul Territory, was a teammate of Cole’s with the Pittsburgh Pirates and told us on Blair & Barker that other than Freddie Freeman (who is still recovering from an ankle injury) he could think of no other player on either team who needed this prolonged layoff more than Cole.

“Everybody made a big deal on the internet about him throwing sinkers (in the ALCS) but here’s the thing: If he’s throwing sinkers in elimination games… he’s searching for ways to get guys out,” Kratz said. “This time off will help him so much. It will help him maybe get a second side session in, or a longer side session where he can ‘feel out’ some pitches. Why am I not getting the punchouts I wanted? Why am I getting flyballs on pitches I normally get swings and misses on?”

Kratz is right: Cole all but eliminated the sinker from his repertoire in 2024, but he threw as many in Game 2 of the ACLS as he did all season long. The road to this World Series is littered with battered bullpen reputations but even with a steady parade of relievers guaranteed, the day might belong in the end to the manager who first gets to use a starter as close to normal as possible.

Cole, whose 21 post-season starts are the third-most since 2013, has a 3.31 ERA in three starts this post-season and hasn’t started a game since Oct. 15. He will get two starts, with Game 1 coming in the shadows of a 5 p.m. L.A. start time. He can write his name large in the Bronx, turn down his opt-out and live happily ever after. Or spend the winter answering questions about health and diminished velocity.

• Max Muncy, 1B-3B, Dodgers: Thank God — or, at least, Rob Manfred — for baseball’s pace of play rules because given the way these teams spit on pitches and refuse to chase we’d be looking at 4 1/2-hour games. Minimum. And that’s even before we add in the six pitching changes per team per game.

And this is the thing about these two lineups: In addition to the stars, the grunts are built the same way. Muncy (and what an old-school baseball moniker Max Muncy is, by the way) reached base 17 times in the NLCS and was just Tommy Edman away from being the NLCS MVP. Muncy reached base on 12 consecutive trips to the plate, a record for a single post-season and drew multiple walks in three consecutive post-season games for the second time in his career, something in common with only Barry Bonds.

The Dodgers drew 42 base on balls from New York Mets pitchers and Muncy had 11 of them, reaching base 17 times and hitting two home runs. The Dodgers’ defensive versatility is a vital part of their DNA and Muncy can play first if Freddie Freeman is compromised or removed for a pinch-runner due to his ankle injury. That means Kiké Hernández is at third — and either way it’s a position of quiet strength for the Dodgers and a huge positional edge over the Yankees and Jazz Chisholm. The Dodgers lineup just seems to be more robust top to bottom than the Yankees.

• Juan Soto, RF, Yankees: If the Yankees win the guess here is Soto won’t have shampooed the champagne out of his hair before his agent, Scott Boras, files for free agency and thus will begin a winter like no other on the New York baseball scene. Let’s be clear: there will be outliers (the Washington Nationals and maybe the Toronto Blue Jays) but if you locked 100 baseball people in a room 99 of them would say Soto will either re-sign with the Yankees or head to Flushing and sign with the Mets.

We asked Mike Vaccaro, the New York Post columnist and long-time chronicler of the city’s sports scene, where Soto leaving the Yankees for the Mets would rate on the city’s cross-town sports shuffle — regardless of the team or sport. Vaccaro noted that when Leo Durocher jumped from managing the Brooklyn Dodgers to the then-New York Giants after the 1948 season it created a “brush fire” that fanned the flames of what was the game’s fiercest rivalry. This was quite a thing: Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey was so tired of feuding with Durocher — who was Billy Martin times two — that he negotiated a deal with Giants owner Horace Stoneham in-season that allowed Durocher to move to the Giants. Beyond that? Vaccaro mentioned the Yankees beating the Mets to Dave Winfield as a free agent and the Yankees overcoming a half-hearted attempt by the Mets to re-sign David Cone.

But we’re talking about a potential $600-million contract with Soto, regardless of how he performs in the World Series. He’ll turn 26 on the day of Game 1. Think about that. His three-run home run in the 10th inning of the fifth game of the AL Championship Series delivered victory to the Yankees… but he’d already extended his post-season hitting streak to 20 games with a first-inning double. He can match Ketel Marte’s MLB record with a hit on Friday. And in a World Series between teams that have made a habit of putting up stubborn, obstinate at-bats, only one player can say they finished the regular season top two in both walk rate and chase rate. That would be Soto.

• Gleyber Torres, 2B, Yankees: Here’s the thing about Torres and the Yankees in general: their DNA includes some happy hands defence and bone-headed base-running, particularly if Anthony Rizzo is compromised by his broken fingers. I mean, I love Jon Berti the story. But I don’t much like Jon Berti the first baseman.

Offensively, there’s a chance that Torres — the other Yankees free agent — does what Tommy Edman did for the Dodgers in winning NLCS MVP. Torres blossomed when manager Aaron Boone moved him into the lead-off spot in the regular season and has reached base safely in 12 playoff games, with an .889 OBP and .636 OPS in the first inning this post-season. He has doubled his walk rate in front of Juan Soto, who hits in front of Aaron Judge, who… you get the picture. But (and there has always been a ‘but’ with him) Torres and the Tampa Bay Rays’ Yandy Diaz each ran into six outs at home plate in the regular season to lead the Majors and he was cut down in Game 5 of the ALCS. Keeping him away from the sharp objects on the basepaths and in the field will be key.

• Blake Treinen, RP, Dodgers: Our friends at Fangraphs have made it official: In terms of win probability added, this has been the worst post-season for relievers since 1984. That is a product of exposure, created by the deterioration of starting pitching throughout the game.

Indeed, in terms of either health or performance, these have been some of the poorest post-season rotations we’ve seen. Actually, check that: I don’t think the Dodgers, Cleveland Guardians or Detroit Tigers even have or had a rotation. Maybe we should all just join Tigers manager A.J. Hinch and simply call pitchers — all pitchers — “out-getters.” At any rate, that same Fangraphs article cautions against the idea that over-exposure alone is the reason so many relievers have been lit up.

The Dodgers certainly view Treinen’s sweeper as being immune to this, and it’s paid off. Treinen is manager Dave Roberts’ most trusted weapon in a bullpen that has given up all of three earned runs in 32 innings — all of which were surrendered in Game 6 of the NLCS against the Mets. Treinen gave up one of those runs in picking up a two-inning save and afterwards, Roberts said that for all the machinations, permutations and calculations he ran through before that game, “at that point, we were going to ride or die with Blake.”

Treinen leads the Dodgers with eight relief innings and, well, there’s a message there, even with Brusdar Graterol and Alex Vesia possibilities to return. Keep an eye out for Treinen against Soto, in particular: Soto’s major weakness is against the slider/sweeper. It’s entirely possible that the two most important bullpen pitches in the 2024 World Series are Tommy Kahnle’s change-up and Treinen’s sweeper.

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, Dodgers: Given Carlos Rodon’s resurgence this post-season, Yamamoto’s start in Game 2 opposite the Yankees southpaw could determine the length of this World Series. His stuff is electric and to beat the Yankees, a pitcher needs to be good in the zone. They won’t chase.

Starting Yamamoto in Game was a no-brainer: It keeps him on five days rest — essentially, his regular routine since returning from injury — and keeps him away from Yankee Stadium. Yes, that’s where he made what was arguably his most effective start of the regular season but it’s a different animal in the World Series than it is in June. Yamamoto tossed five scoreless innings in the final game of the NL Division Series against the San Diego Padres with better velocity after tipping pitches in Game 1. He struck out eight batters in 4 1/3 innings in the final game of the NLCS and it will be intriguing to see how long Roberts lets him go if he’s rolling and Jack Flaherty is able to set up the bullpen with a strong Game 1 outing. Yamamoto’s reverse splits are a neat statistical wrinkle.

JEFF BLAIR’S PREDICTION

• Dodgers defeat Yankees in six games.