By Joe Schackman
Timely hitting and a future MVP candidate will propel one team to the World Series, but it's not the Tigers.
[ALSO READ: Adam Cancryn on why the Tigers will cruise to a championship]
It’s not hard to let the narratives surrounding the Tigers dominate your view of the World Series. They have the reigning American League MVP/CY Young winner heading to the mound three times, if necessary. They have the first Triple Crown winner since 1967 in the middle of their lineup, protected by one of the game’s premier power threats. The San Francisco Giants simply can’t match that star power.
But even without a roster of well-known names, they they're still in perfect position to win this World Series. That’s because the Giants are defined by what they don’t do: make outs.
This past season, the Giants hit the least home runs in all of Major League Baseball. They 103 balls out of the park, which is 145 less than the Yankees. But it was no matter, because the Giants win in a more traditional way: by putting the ball in play and avoiding easy outs. The team ranked fifth in batting average this year, with the eighth-best on base percentage and the ninth-most at bats. They also had one of the highest contact percentages in the league, and with a team built around gap-to-gap power, rather than home-run power, they were able to take advantage of their spacious home ballpark. The result was a league-leading 57 triples.
What this all amounts to is the fact that the Giants’ offense makes the opposing defense make plays. They take control away from the pitcher and force the eight other defenders to stop them. And while it’s not glamorous, it generates a ton of offense.
That strength will help the Giants exploit the Tigers’ biggest weakness: their defense. By signing Prince Fielder, the Tigers made it clear that they had little regard for slick fielders. They moved Miguel Cabrera to third base where he was decent, but far from good. Prince Fielder was stuck at first, where he was expected to earn little of his $214 million salary with his glove. And any time Delmon Young is in left, which manager Jim Lelyand has said we will see in this series, the team's defensive quality takes a sharp turn downward. Take a look at any advanced fielding metric, and the Tigers are one of the worst in the MLB.
Now, it’s not like Justin Verlander just lobs it in there and hopes his outfielders can race under the ball. But Verlander can’t pitch every inning of the series. At some point the Tigers will have to turn to their other starters and, of course, that battered bullpen. Getting those last three outs could prove to be Detroit’s greatest challenge.
Regardless, the edge must be given to the Tigers thanks to Cabrera, no? No. There will be two soon-to-be-MVPs on the field in this series thanks to a monster season by Buster Posey. The 25-year-old catcher came off a season-ending ankle injury to play 148 games, hit .336/.408/.549 and compile an 8 fWAR, second only to rookie phenom Mike Trout. Posey’s 24 home runs accounted for nearly 24% of the total home runs hit by the Giants this entire season. If drawing walks and slashing singles doesn’t work, for the Giants they can look to Posey to blast one out of the park.
There is a fine line in the playoffs between having momentum on your side and just plain surviving. It’s still a little unclear where the Giants fall on that spectrum after having won six straight elimination games this postseason. It took a combination timely hitting, deep starting pitching and a solid bullpen to claw their way out of a hole each time. And now they have to face one of the most dangerous lineups in the game. But whether by luck, skill, or some combination of the two, the Giants have demonstrated that they have one crucial advantage: They are never an easy out.
Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.
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