The 120th World Series has the potential of being epic, both on and off the field. The ingredients are similar to the 1975 World Series, when the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, loaded with star players, waged such dramatic games it set the tone for the free agent era and—thanks to a fortuitous rainout of Game 6—for weeknight prime time sports. It helped catapult the sport into an era of huge growth.
Dodgers vs. Yankees has that kind of potential. It marks the first time 50-home run hitters will oppose each other in the World Series (Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge), only the third time in 30 full wild-card seasons that the teams with the best outright record in each league play in the World Series and, given international interest, it could draw an audience that ranks with 2004 and 2016 as one of the best this century.
There are so many star players that the active rosters account for six MVP awards, six home run titles, three postseason MVPs, two Rookies of the Year, two batting titles, one Cy Young Award and one All-Star MVP.
It’s Hollywood meets Broadway.
That’s the marquee. But how will the games be decided? Read on for the nine keys to this World Series:
Yankees fastballs vs. Dodgers hitters
New York starters love their four-seam fastballs: Gerrit Cole (44.5% in the postseason), Carlos Rodon (51.6%) and Luis Gil (55.7%). The average height of their four-seamers is 2.96 feet off the ground—the top rail of the strike zone.
The Dodgers love to hit four-seam fastballs.
Did you see how the Dodgers took away that high fastball from Sean Manaea in NLCS Game 6? The home run hit by Tommy Edman—the highest fastball ever hit for a homer off Manaea—was a great example of the new approach the Dodgers are taking this year.
First baseman Freddie Freeman said after the Dodgers were beaten by velocity in recent postseasons, the team decided before the playoffs this season it would hunt fastballs, especially in the area where the opposing pitcher most liked to work (in, out, up, for example). By sitting on velocity and location, it made it easier for Los Angeles hitters to be on time against those pitches and to stay off chase spin and off-speed.
The Dodgers spend loads of time before games hitting off high velocity machines and the Trajeckt pitching machine that includes virtual imaging of the pitcher.
The turnaround on offense, especially against fastballs, has been spectacular:
Look for Gerrit Cole in Game 1 to lean more on his knuckle curve, especially against the lefthanded hitters. His use of the pitch has risen from 15% in his first two months to 21% in the past three months.
Warning to L.A.: The Yankees are even better on fastballs
While the Dodgers’ adjustment on heaters is impressive, keep this in mind: the Yankees are obliterating fastballs this postseason. They are slugging .563 against them, the highest by any team to reach the World Series in at least 16 years of tracking. Nine of the 13 home runs they’ve hit this postseason have been off heaters.
Said Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior after I brought to him New York’s prowess against fastballs, “I mean, the damage they have in the lineups in general is real, but yeah, it's obviously alarming to see the fastball. They like to hit your fastball. Yeah. So do we sometimes. But, yeah, we know. It's about at the end of the day, we've got to execute good pitches.
“You know, you're going to have to throw your fastball at some point. So, it's about whether or not making sure we do it in the right situations. We try to execute at a high clip to where we know we're going to the safe spots. And we hope we don't miss to these guys who can barely touch it, and it goes out like 30 rows.
“But we're aware of it. We can't hide from it. And we just got to embrace it and, you know, try to do the best that we can. You know, fortunately we have a lot of guys with a lot of good stuff. Some of their fastballs aren't always the straightest and easiest to hit. And so we're going to bank a little bit on that. And we got some really good guys with some sliders. So, we're going to have to do our best to pitch. But we know that they can hit a fastball.”
Much of the Yankees’ damage off heaters against Kansas City and Cleveland came after pitchers fell behind by nibbling. Nobody is beating the Yankees by getting them to chase.
The Dodgers are throwing 51.8% fastballs this postseason. I would expect that number to go down.
“Again, it comes down to count control,” Prior said. “Control on those counts. And hopefully we don't have to give in a predictable fastball where they can really do something.”
Dave Roberts’s use of his high-leverage arms, especially Blake Treinen
The Dodgers manager has been an expert this postseason in playing the long game. He has limited the exposure of his best bullpen arms, which meant it took him the max games to win the NLDS and the penultimate game in the NLCS. It’s time to be more aggressive.
The Juan Soto-Aaron Judge-Giancarlo Stanton nexus is going to force decisions earlier than Roberts would prefer. Rather than worrying about the Law of Exposure, he should fire his best arms in any spot plus or minus three runs. If it means Treinen sees Judge four times in this series—even before the ninth inning—so be it. Bet on his stuff.
Roberts can afford to be more aggressive with his high-leverage guys if he has Alex Vesia and Brusdar Graterol back on the roster.
The Dodgers rotation: Can anybody go five?
Here is the Los Angeles rotation:
Jack Flaherty, who in his last start had the lowest velocity in his past 60 starts. The drop-off in his stuff was alarming. Roberts chalked it up to Flaherty being “under the weather.”
Prior said it was due to a flaw in his delivery. Flaherty wasn’t staying on his backside long enough (over the rubber) causing him to “push” the ball. They think a bullpen session fixed it.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto: He hasn’t faced 20 batters in a start in four months.
Walker Buehler: He has pitched more than five innings once since the end of May.
There is no length here (including a bullpen game for Games 3 or 4).
This stat tells it all:
Juan Soto and the “Red Blinking Light” Zone
Like me, Dodgers personnel were baffled why Cleveland catcher Bo Naylor called for a high fastball after Hunter Gaddis threw six straight sliders and changeups in the 10th inning of ALCS Game 5. It was one of the worst pitch calls in recent memory.
Why? The world knows you don’t ever throw Soto a high fastball—especially not with the season on the line. He is the greatest high fastball hitter on the planet.
“There are scouting reports and there are some pitches that are red blinking lights,” said one Dodgers baseball operations executive. “A high fastball to Juan Soto is a red blinking light. You don’t ignore. You never assume you are going to surprise him with a high fastball. You simply just never throw it.”
Soto has hit 10 career postseason homers—eight of them have come on high fastballs.
Soto is the best high fastball hitter on the planet—always has been. I’d rather have right-handed power sinkers on Soto than the high fastball of the left-handed Vesia. Throw Soto nothing but sinkers, spin and off-speed down.
Giancarlo Stanton: This Year’s Corey Seager?
Like Seager, the ALCS and World Series MVP last year, Stanton is a streak power hitter who is on a tear, especially with how well he is laying off chasing breaking pitches.
There’s another reason to like Stanton in this series if you’re a sucker for boyhood dreams. Stanton grew up in Panorama City, about 19 miles northeast of Dodger Stadium. He went to games often with his dad, Mike Sr., a postal worker.
“This was the place that made me love baseball,” he said in 2017. “I grew up here. I like to perform here.”
One day when he was 10 years old, shagging batting practice home runs in the left field pavilion, he was so enthralled by the way the crowd reacted to the long flies that he told his dad, “Someday I’m going to hit one out of the stadium.”
In 2015, he did: 475 feet worth of a dream come true.
Seven years later, he crushed a home run into those left field seats to win the All-Star Game MVP.
His slugging percentage at Dodger Stadium is .723, the second best among all players to come to bat in MLB’s third-oldest ballpark at least 100 times (trailing only Christian Walker).
The Dodgers had two chances to draft Stanton in 2007. The legendary scout George Genovese pushed hard for the team to pick him. Instead, they took two pitchers, one of whom never made the majors. Stanton went to the Marlins in the second round, No. 76 overall.
The Dodgers had another shot at Stanton in 2017, when he told the Marlins he would accept a trade to the Yankees, Cubs, Astros or Dodgers. But a deal never got off the ground because the Dodgers viewed the salary cost, including luxury tax implications, as too severe.
The stealth MVP candidate: Anthony Volpe
In the spirit of Bucky Dent, the MVP of the star-studded 1978 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees, Volpe looms as a surprise star of this series. He has reached base in all nine postseason games, he is going to see pitches to hit and after finishing the regular season in a 1-for-17 slump, he has found new life in his bat from all the off days the postseason affords. His bat just doesn’t look quicker. It is quicker.
What changed? Here’s what Volpe told me:
“I think having those five days in between [helped],” he said. “You kind of just get to take a deep breath, assess and then just have conversations with the guys. You're not always getting ready for a game. So we worked on some stuff.
“I got to take a couple of live ABs. And then hit a lot off all the pitchers we’re able to face [via Trajeckt]. I think probably for me mainly just getting eyes on the guys you're going to face and being able to keep on facing has helped me a lot.”
About the bat speed he said, “When I feel like I'm at my best, it may sound like counterintuitive, but it feels like I'm taking way easier swings. So that's what I like the feel of. It feels just quick and efficient and I feel like I can lay off pitches and swing at the ones I want to when it's necessary.”
Is that your bat angle?
“Probably. I just feel like I'm in a good spot with my lower half. I'm able to just have two reads in the pitch. One out of hand and one when it gets closer. I'm making my decisions throughout the field.”
The Aaron Judge hot streak
It’s coming. The question is when. Judge hit a home run off Emmanuel Clase in ALCS Game 3 that is exactly the kind of swing that can get him untracked: an opposite-field bullet off a cutter on the outside black.
Judge opened his stance slightly in the ALCS—after tearing the cover off the ball with his feet neutral starting with his May 5 home run off Tarik Skubel. Keep an eye on his feet in Game 1 against Jack Flaherty. If he’s squared up, that’s a sign he’s feeling more comfortable against the steady flow of pitches he sees away.
One thing he needs to do in any case is tighten up his strike zone discipline:
The chess match between Dave Roberts and Aaron Boone
Roberts, 52, and Boone, 51, were born 10 months apart.
They played against each other in college. Roberts went to UCLA (1991–94). Boone went to USC (1992–94).
Both were drafted in 1994: Roberts was taken by Detroit in the 28th round (signing bonus: $1,000); Boone taken by Cincinnati in the third round ($150,000).
Roberts was a .266 career MLB hitter. Boone was a .263 career hitter.
Both are known for an iconic postseason moment—one for and against the Yankees. Both were deadline acquisitions that year and both played only in that season for those franchises.
Boone hit the walkoff homer to win the 2003 ALCS. In March 2004, the Yankees released Boone after he tore his ACL playing basketball. Eight months later, Roberts stole the base in ALCS Game 4 that changed baseball history.
Both will need to make many tough pitching calls during this series. This is not Sandy Koufax vs. Whitey Ford. The lineups are so star-studded and balanced that the opposing manager is going to have to use relievers through “pockets” of hitters as the lineups turn over a third and fourth time.
Boone probably is going to want to use Tommy Kahnle and Nestor Cortes on Ohtani. Roberts needs Treinen, Graterol and Evan Phillips on Soto-Judge-Stanton. The idea that any starter goes fully three times through these lineups seems like a very big ask. This is going to be a huge series to get the pitcher vs. batter matchups right.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Nine Keys That Will Decide the 2024 World Series.