Six players to watch in American League Division Series

There is no shame in taking advantage of someone else’s exit. The Toronto Raptors won an NBA title after LeBron James took his 12-2 post-season record against them out of the NBA East. Couldn’t have hurt. And if you’re the New York Yankees, seeing the Houston Astros knocked out before Aaron Judge has recorded his first post-season strikeout? Got to be a beautiful thing.

The Yankees haven’t won an AL Championship Series since winning the World Series in 2009. Five times since then they’ve advanced… the last three resulting in elimination at the hands of the Astros, who also beat the Yankees in 2015 in a one-game wild-card.

Maybe it’s going to be different in the Bronx this fall. The Detroit Tigers shunted the Astros to the sidelines in their AL wild card, earning a date against their AL Central cousins the Cleveland Guardians. The Yankees, meanwhile, will take on the Kansas City Royals, who shut down the Baltimore Orioles in their series.

Not to be indelicate about it, but, man — has Judge ever spit the bit in the post-season. We’re talking 44 games here, a decent sample size to put up a .211 average with 13 home runs and 25 runs batted in. Over his last 28 playoff games, Judge has a 33 per cent strikeout rate (that’s actually better than his 41 per cent career strikeout rate in 68 at-bats against the Royals) and a .612 OPS. The Yankees have a 6-6 series record in the playoffs during his tenure, not exactly Jeteresque.

On the other hand, Judge hasn’t had Soto hitting in front of him in those other series the way he has this season, when the two became just the third pair of teammates to both post OPSs of 175 or better in the same season. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig did it six times as serial winners with those dynastic Yankees teams while Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark did it in 1989 for the National League champion San Francisco Giants.

'Clutch' isn’t a thing anymore to a lot of folks but high leverage is. According to Baseball Reference, Soto had a .384 batting in high-leverage situations, ahead of both Judge (.307) and Shohei Ohtani (.304). Soto has experienced post-season success, too. He was a beast in 2019 helping the Washington Nationals win the World Series.

The road to the AL pennant is guaranteed to go through the AL Central, home of three of the teams remaining in the hunt. And hat-tip to friend Jon Morosi for this one: MLB Network Research reports that while the Tigers and Guardians — both established in 1901 — have played each other over 2,300 times but this will be their first post-season series. Game 1 will be the first time they’ve faced each other since July 30, the very day that saw the Tigers trade Jack Flaherty to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Tigers lost 5-0 that day and were 14 games out — just one win better than the Toronto Blue Jays with six teams between them and a wild-card berth.

Here, then, are Six To Watch in the AL division series:

• Jazz Chisholm, 3B, Yankees: Jeff Nelson knows the World Series and what it means to be a Yankee. He has four rings from his time as a valued member of the last great Yankees dynasty and has worked as a Yankees analyst. On a recent episode of Blair and Barker, Nelson told a story about how Jazz Chisholm was "like a deer in the headlights" during this year's Oldtimers Day at Yankee Stadium. “If he can prevent his swing from getting too loopy? I really think he can be an 'X' factor for the Yankees in the playoffs,” Nelson said.

Chisholm was traded to the Yankees from the Miami Marlins on July 27 and has been a sublime presence, reaching base safely in 35 of his first 46 games since the trade with 11 homers, 18 steals and 28 runs scored — snapping out of a 2-for-27 late-season funk by closing out 5-for-12.

“He is a better player than I thought,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said in September. Those Yankees teams of Nelson's time always seemed to get timely interventions from what might be called 'support players.' Chisholm has graded out decently as a defender and has a chance to electrify on the biggest stage.

• Tyler Holton, RP, Tigers: I loved Beau Brieske talking to Jason Beck, MLB.com’s excellent Tigers beat reporter, about life as a reliever in A.J. Hinch’s bullpen. “It is chaos at times… so you try to just be ready. The thing I always tell myself is: 'You’ve got to trust that if your name’s getting called there’s a reason for it and you’re the guy for the situation. It’s not just randomness.”

Look at Holton’s usage in the wild card: the opener in Game 2 after a third of an inning’s work in Game 1. This is a guy who has made 63 multi-inning relief outings over the past two seasons and has posted an 0.82 WHIP and a .226 on-base percentage during that time, best among all relievers. His WHIP this season was 0.78 and he didn’t allow a run in July. During the post-season, the next day’s starting pitcher is usually made available to the media in the interview room. Should be fun seeing who the Tigers send in.

• Cade Smith, RP, Guardians: Emmanuel Clase is the best closer in the majors and should get some second or third-place Cy Young votes but Vancouver's Cade Smith is worth watching for more than his birth certificate. Smith — not Clase — led all MLB relievers in FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, which focuses on events the pitcher has control over and not balls in play), third in X-FIP and first in WAR at 2.7. He’s at his best with runners in scoring position, holding opponents to a .087 average that is fourth best among relievers, and has allowed just two of 36 inherited runners to score. That was the best in the Majors.

Smith's four-seam fastball doesn’t light up the radar gun, but it was first in the majors in run value. He is the fourth Canadian-born reliever to rack up 100 strikeouts, joining Eric Gagne (twice), John Hiller (four times) and Matt Brash. The Guardians and Tigers might set records for relief pitching in this series, given the status of their rotations.

• Vinnie Pasquantino, 1B-DH, Royals: I know it’s Bobby Witt, Jr.’s world, and we’re all lucky to be able to sit back and enjoy it. I know Salvador Perez has a World Series ring and an MVP award. But I also know Vinnie Pasquantino bats behind Witt, Jr., and had the third-best average with runners in scoring position in the majors (behind Witt and Luia Arraez). Pasquantino also drove in 97 runs, 26 of which gave the Royals the lead.

The catch? Pasquantino missed the last 27 games of the regular season with a fractured thumb and was considered questionable until the morning of the first game of the AL wild-card series. He drew a walk in Game 1 and was 2-for-4 in Game 2. Pasquantino is expected to be a full-time DH this post-season, with Yuli Gurriel and Perez handling first.

Power and contact aren’t easy to find in the same person — as Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins reminded us this week — but Pasquantino shows it’s possible. His 7.80 plate appearances/strikeout was third-best in the regular season, behind a pair of Guardians: Steven Kwan and Jose Ramirez. Speaking of whom…

• Jose Ramirez, 3B, Guardians: This series is going to be about chaos, as befits two teams with all manner of rotation uncertainties beyond their aces. A team that clinched its post-season berth on Sept. 19 against a team that came out of the nowhere that we used to view as the AL Central.

The question is whether the only, true superstar on either team can carve out the kind of post-season niche that has eluded him. A rain-out on the final day of the regular season cost Ramirez a chance at a 40/40 season and perhaps a 40/40/40 season (40 home runs/40 doubles/40 steals.) Alfonso Soriano (2006) is the only player in MLB history to meet that trifecta.

Ramirez didn’t let up after the Guardians clinched, either, hitting .377 in his last 14 games en route to finishing in the Top 10 in the AL in hits, OPS, runs, slugging percentage and total bases. He is a one-man offensive machine… but his career also lacks the kind of post-season shine that can put players in the pantheon. In 32 playoff games, he has just two home runs, 12 RBIs and a .638 OPS in 134 post-season plate appearances. It's his time.

• Luke Weaver, RP, Yankees: The chatter is about how big a mess the Yankees bullpen became when Clay Holmes suddenly lost it, and while 13 blown saves is enough to make you think twice about handing the ball to a guy in the ninth inning, the truth is that Yankees manager Aaron Boone has had a pretty consistent circle of trust in his bullpen lately. That group includes Luke Weaver, a waiver claim last September who was given $2 million over the winter to be rotation depth but went on to log the most relief innings in the AL (83). Weaver racked up 101 strikeouts and recorded four saves this season, and had two winning decisions in his last seven outings.

After an adjustment to his fastball grip suggested by Gerrit Cole and a eureka moment while trying to find a more comfortable leg-kick, Weaver went on to record four or more outs in 31 of his 61 outings. He held opponents to a .091 average down the stretch and hasn’t allowed a run in 17 of his last 20 games. Weaver's whiff percentage and strikeout percentage are both elite.

"He might be in the biggest moment in a big spot in the seventh and I can’t get him to the ninth,” Boone told reporters this week when asked how he would deploy Weaver and, by extension, Holmes and Tommy Kahnle. “I would expect him to hopefully close out some games for us, but he could find himself in a different inning, if it calls for it."

JEFF BLAIR’S PREDICTIONS

• Yankees def. Royals 3-1

• Guardians def. Tigers 3-2