Six players to watch during World Series between Astros and Phillies

The odd thing about legacies is they can be chased and shed at the same time.

In this World Series a cock-sure, long-haired kid who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at the age of 16 is being transformed into a working class hero. A much-beloved yet oft-criticized mis-manager of youth and pitchers is agonizingly close to the final burnishing touch on a marvellous career … and an entire organization is on the verge of expunging the lingering stains of a Very Baseball Scandal. Right?

OK. So two out of three isn’t bad.

Look: it’s just like steroids. If by now you haven’t forgiven the Houston Astros or Barry Bonds, you never will. Doesn’t matter that there are just five members remaining from the 2017 World Champion Astros, one of whom – Alex Bregman – must have been hard of hearing that year because he hit .192 (17-for-78) in the postseason when all that garbage can stuff was going on. Doesn’t matter that everybody loves their manager, Dusty Baker, and dearly wants him to win a World Series. Doesn’t matter that the front office was purged. I mean… It. Just. Doesn’t. Matter. Even those of us who don’t equate getting caught with meaning everybody else is clean … we get where you’re coming from. Joe Kelly, the Major League pitcher who has done his best to fan the flames of Astros hate, reiterated on Boston radio station WEEI the other day that the Astros are “tarnished for life.”

And so a win for the Astros – and the last time the World Series featured a matchup between teams with a disparity as much as this series’ 19 regular-season wins was the 1906 Fall Classic between the 116-win Chicago Cubs and the 93-win White Sox – won’t allow this organization to reach full dynasty status, despite it being their fourth trip to the World Series in six years. Doing it clean since the commissioner’s office rung them up – at least, clean as far as we know – is to this argument what the ‘yeah but Bonds was a great Hall of Fame player before juicing’ sentiment is to Bonds’ Hall of Fame case. So let’s just move on if we’re not going to give the devil or devils his or their due.

Which brings us to the 73-year-old Baker, who has won more regular-season games (2,093) than any manager without a World Series on his managerial resume and who has appeared in 140 postseason games as a player, coach and manager which, as MLB.com helpfully noted, is more playoff games than 22 of the 30 MLB franchises – including the ancient ones like the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds. Yikes. Baker is the 12^th manager in history to win 2,000 games, but his only World Series ring has come as a player: as a left-fielder on the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers. Sorry, Expos fans. Baker was 6-for-19 in that NLCS. Blue Monday, and all that...

The other individual legacy of import is that of Phillies slugger Bryce Harper.

Now, Harper just turned 30 and is under contract with the Phillies through age 38, so it seems silly to spend a great deal of time talking about Cooperstown, beyond noting that he is on the track and adding that a little postseason success adds lustre even in the analytical age. Just ask David Ortiz. And of the 871 players who have made at least 40 plate appearances in a single postseason, Harper’s OPS going into the World Series (1.310) would be seventh all-time behind Barry Bonds (1.559 in 2002); Carlos Beltran (1.557 in 2004); Rickey Henderson (1.509 in 1989); Paul Molitor (1.378 in 1993); Willie Stargell (1.362 in 1979) and Mr. October, Reggie Jackson (1.317 in 1978.)

Phillies analyst Erik Kratz knows his way around a Major League clubhouse. He was born in Telford, Pa., and played for nine teams, with most of his appearances (132) coming with the Phillies. He joined us on Blair & Barker to talk about Harper and Philadelphia and whether he was surprised it’s worked out so well; whether he’s surprised that a Scott Boras client with a 13-year contract and the odd health issue has not only found a home but come to personify a team in a city that…

I mean, you know the stories…

“He left some money on the table, didn’t ask for an opt-out, and allowed the team to build around him,” said Kratz. “It’s almost as if now he’s seeing the fruits of his investment. Without knowing him all that well, when I heard he was signing there I thought: ‘Well, I think he’s got thick enough skin.’ But here’s the thing I tell people about Philadelphia: you’ll love the cheers. You’re gonna get booed - you might get booed striking out after going 3-for-3 - but nobody will cheer louder for you than Philly fans. Hands down. Bar none.”

Harper’s home run in Game 5 of the NLCS is now a bona fide Philly Sports Moment® but he gave all of us a hint of his view of the whole legacy thing when he was asked about that blast and what he thought of it being part of somebody’s history.

“There’s no thought right now, man,” Harper said. “I got 10 more years. I’ve got a long time.”

SIX TO WATCH

Jose Alvarado/Seranthony Dominguez, RPs, Phillies: Part of me is concerned that the games might not be close enough for the Phillies high-leverage relievers to make a difference, but I’ve spent all off-season underselling the Fightins’ so I’m going to go with Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler keeping it close in the first two games of the series, and then somebody emerging as a lock-down guy against Yordan Alvarez and, say, Kyle Tucker. Dominguez scares me; not because of those control issues in nasty conditions at Citizens Bank Park in Game 5 of the NLCS but because he has only been used on back to back days three times since the All-Star break and not once this postseason – the result of missing three weeks in August and September with triceps tendinitis. Alvarado throws gas and he throws it inside: no pitcher with more than 500 pitches in the majors matched Alvarado’s 71.2 per cent of his pitches on the inner half of the plate. He and Dominguez have struck out 30 batters in 19 1/3 innings and combined for 39 pitches over 100 miles per hour.

Jose Altuve, 2B, Astros: You know your postseason woes are a big deal when Fangraphs does a deep dive into your 3-for-16 ALCS and 0-for-16 AL Division Series and a reader comes away thinking: you know, this guy really … actually … honesty … might be due, or at least is closer to his best self than we saw in the ALDS. The Astros received a blast of power from Yordan Alvarez in the division series, but it was contact and balance that carried them past the Yankees: they put the ball in play just a tick under 70 per cent of the time; had Alex Bregman and Yulieski Gurriel go a combined 31 plate appearances without a strikeout (Gurriel has yet to strike out in 30 postseason plate appearances); and saw Jeremy Pena hit .353 en route to winning ALCS Most Valuable Player honours. That’s pretty much what the Astros have done this year – they were fourth in the AL in on-base percentage and had the second-fewest strikeouts in the majors. Altuve’s rate of swings outside the strike zone is up 13 per cent in the postseason to 41 per cent. Putting the ball in play puts pressure on a team’s defence and the Phillies have a bunch of players who’d rather have the ball hit to someone else, thank you very much.

Alex Bregman, 3B, Astros: Bregman, a career .226 postseason hitter coming into 2022, is having the best playoffs of his career: 10-for-30 (.333) with two home runs and a double, and scored six runs in seven games. True, it’s more a matter of when as opposed to what in the playoffs, but in his five previous trips to the postseason, Bregman has hit .192 (that was when the Astros were cheating, which either means he’s hard of hearing or just didn’t care), .184, .234, .220 and .216. His go-ahead RBI off Clay Holmes in the seventh inning of Game 4 of the ALCS was his 43^rd career RBI, which is 11^th-most all-time, and he leads third basemen in postseason homers with 14, so he has hardly been a bystander. Gut call is he wins the World Series MVP Award, visiting the Crawford Boxes, say, three times.

Bryce Harper, DH, Phillies: No team has profited as much from the institution of the designated hitter as the Phillies. As general manager David Dombrowski noted: no DH, likely no Kyle Schwarber and no Harper in the postseason. Manager Rob Thomson is thinking about moving Harper up to third in the order from his usual cleanup spot to allow the team to go lefty/righty/lefty/righty against the Astros predominantly right-handed staff. Thomson knows the Astros relievers have repertoires that mitigate against dramatic splits, but he is also cognizant of removing as many opponents late-inning platoon options as possible. Wherever he hits, it just seems like his time. Game 1 should be a hoot: Harper loves him some four-seamers in the upper half of the zone (slashing .313/.436/.375 on those pitches) and Justin Verlander needs to elevate his fastball to have success. Astros pitchers, in fact, threw the third-highest percentage of four-seamers this regular season. There’s some mystery to this series, too: Harper just hasn’t faced the Astros much.

Cristian Javier, RP/SP, Astros: Javier was better than you know in 2022: posting an opponents average against of .170, which Is the lowest in the AL and 16 points lower than runner-up and teammate Justin Verlander. That was better than his already-stunning career mark of .178, far and away the lowest of any pitcher in the Majors in the past three regular seasons combined. He’s impervious to lefty hitters, holding them to a .189 average, and 12 of his 13 postseason appearances have come out of the bullpen. Javier didn’t allow a run in his last 25 1/3 innings of the regular season, gave up a home run to the Seattle Mariners Eugenio Suarez in his only appearance of the ALDS, then tossed 5 and 1/3 one-hit, scoreless innings against the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the ALCS. The edge that the Astros hold over the Phillies once the top two spots in the rotation are done is massive, whether it’s Javier or Lance McCullers, Jr. Javier might also tip the bullpen balance of power in the Astros favour. Sometimes, a Swiss Army knife can be a good weapon of choice.

Aaron Nola, SP, Phillies: I mean, this might as well have read “Phillies Game 1 Starter,” because whether it was Nola or Zack Wheeler that pitcher was going to be set up to start Game 4 or 5 and positioned to be run out of the bullpen if the series goes longer. I use the word ‘positioned’ because we’ve already seen Thomson go to Ranger Suarez to close out the NLCS, and because there have been 11 starts so far in the postseason in which a starter has gone seven innings. It’s not like olden times – like really olden, 15 years ago – but it’s more than we’ve seen since the 2016 playoffs. In fact, starters have so far logged more innings than last postseason, despite six fewer games being played. Keep in mind that one of those games went 18 innings. Thomson is publicly leaning towards using four starters in the series – Game 4 could be a hybrid Bailey Falter/Noah Syndergaard thing – which means it’s unlikely he’d bring either Nola or Wheeler back on short rest. As Verlander noted earlier this postseason, however, coming back on short rest and pitching out of the bullpen aren’t the same thing. Nola is a beast on extra days rest, too – an ERA that is 1.20 less with five days rest, while Wheeler is more than half an earned run worse on extra rest.

Wheeler’s velocity dipped noticeably around the 80-pitch mark in his two starts against the Padres, which is something to keep in mind, along with the fact that Nola (2-1, 3.12 with 18 strikeouts in three starts this postseason), took a perfect game into the seventh inning on Oct. 4 when the Phillies beat the Astros 3-0 at Minute Maid Park to clinch the NL Wild Card. His knuckle-curve – which comes in under 80 miles per hour - could be telling against the Astros, who are a middle-of-the-pack team against really slow stuff. There’s a massive drop-off with the third and fourth spot in the Phillies rotation compared to the Astros. Nola and Wheeler must deliver, or we’ll be home early. Oh, and as if Nola didn’t have enough going on facing his brother Austin in the NLCS, this series will see him match up against his roommate at LSU, Alex Bregman.

JEFF BLAIR’S PICK: Astros in six.