Houston Astros: World Series Preview Against Atlanta Braves

The World Series starts on Tuesday, so let’s preview the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves.

The Houston Astros have advanced to their third World Series in five years despite facing a litany of adversity via injuries and constant jeering at every ballpark they visit. The team they’re facing has also made the World Series against very long odds considering their laundry list of injuries to impact players.

Both have done a great job working with what they have, and it’s truly a credit to both managers for navigating through their losses.  The Atlanta Braves have come this far without arguably their best player, Ronald Acuna Jr., and the Astros have made it this far without the top 60 percent of their starting rotation (Justin Verlander, Lance McCullers Jr. and Zack Greinke).

Before the World Series begins we’re going to break down both teams and how they match up in different facets of the game. We’ll start with the most obvious advantage going into the series.

The Astros have the better offense this postseason by the numbers.

The Astros lead the Major Leagues in runs, hits, batting average, on-base percentage and were third in slugging while striking out the second least in the entire MLB. The Braves conversely relied primarily on their slugging and that trend has continued in the playoffs.

During the regular season, the Braves hit 239 home runs which was good for third in all of MLB. They only scored 790 runs, which puts them at eighth overall. Not a terrible number obviously, but it does show how reliant they are on the long ball, especially considering their regular season batting average was .244.

This was right at the league average putting them in 15th place. Even worse are their strikeouts which were below league average at 20th with 1453 (by comparison the Astros struck out 1222 times.)

This postseason has been more of the same for Atlanta, as 50 percent of their runs have come via the home run. Twenty of their 40 runs scored this postseason have been from the long ball, and it has sometimes been the only difference in the game.

In Game 3 of the NLDS against the Milwaukee Brewers, a pinch-hit three-run jack by Joc “Pearls” Pederson proved to be the only difference in an otherwise pitching dominated game.

On the flip side, the Astros do not have a one pronged attack as evidenced by the fact that in the regular season they lead the league in runs with 863 yet finished with 18 fewer home runs than the Braves during the regular season at 221.

And just like the Braves, the Astros offense is winning the exact same way it did in the regular season. Despite the fact the Braves and Astros have played the same amount of games in the postseason, the Astros have scored 27 more runs than the Braves (67 to 40 is the total tally).

Yet, the Astros only have one home run more than the Braves showing off their offensive versatility. This ability to score without going deep was on full display in their momentum swinging win in game four of the ALCS.

During their ninth inning rally against the Red Sox, the Astros scored eight runs with two outs. None of those RBIs came from hitting it over the fence. In fact, the Astros only had two extra-base hits in that inning.

The Carlos Correa double and Michael Brantley’s three-run double started it all. Five of their runs came on hard-hit singles, which of course is what makes this offense superior to everyone else’s.  They don’t strikeout, and they make hard contact.

I don’t even think Braves fans would disagree that the Astros offense is superior to the Braves in this series, and while Eddie Rosario is arguably the hottest hitter on the planet, the Astros have proven they can send someone on a cold streak as they did with Kike Hernandez in the previous series.

Probably the most telling number of this post season that shows the Astros distinct advantage is that the Braves have scored more than five runs once in their 10 postseason games. The Astros have scored less than five runs once in their 10 postseason games.

And while playing with a designated hitter and not having a pitcher occasionally hitting can account for some of that disparity, the Astros still are clearly the better offense.

The Astros’ and Braves’ bullpens look to be of the same value.

The bullpens seem pretty evenly matched, while both have performed extremely well in this postseason. Their numbers are almost identical in all categories with the exception of saves and save opportunities.

While the Braves’ bullpen has converted four of five save opportunities, the Astros have converted one of just one. That’s a misleading number.

As obviously if there was a runner up for ALCS MVP to Yordan Alvarez, it would be the Astros’ bullpen, which threw 32.2 innings giving up 11 earned runs. None of which came in the final three games of the series, essentially saving Houston’s season.

Cristian Javier has a case for an under-the-radar co-MVP, as he has been amazing coming in and eating innings without giving up anything. He’s pitched the sixth most innings this post season of any reliever at 7.2, giving up zero runs, three hits, four walks and 13 strikeouts.

His impact may not yield big time highlights, but he was absolutely essential to the Astros’ Game 4 turnaround keeping the game in reach. They will most likely once again factor in to helping the Astros should their starters struggle in the World Series.

The biggest weakness for the Astros is obviously their left-handed relieving. Brooks Raley and Blake Taylor are fine, but there’s a reason manager Dusty Baker has used Phil Maton over those two to get lefties out.

Maton has made seven appearances compared to six total for the two Astros lefties. In fairness Blake Taylor was not on the ALDS roster, but the reason he was left off was because of Maton’s ability to neutralize lefty bats from the right side.

The Braves bullpen has been just as lockdown and relies heavily on the trio of Tyler Matzek, Luke Jackson and Will Smith to finish off games. Of the 10 postseason games the Braves have played, Matzek has pitched in nine, Jackson in eight and Smith in seven.

Matzek has only given up two earned runs in 10.1 innings, and Smith has yet to allow a run in his seven innings of work. Jackson appears to be the most vulnerable of their top tier relievers, as he started the postseason strong but gave up two big inherited runners (the only two earned runs Matzek has on his ledger) in Game2two of the NLCS.

This allowed the Dodgers to tie that game in the eighth inning, before the Braves walked it off in the ninth. Then in Game 3 of the NLCS, he gave up four runs as the Dodgers rallied in the eighth inning to avoid a 3-0 series deficit.

All-in-all, the bullpens seem to be evenly matched so we’ll call this a draw.

The Astros’ infield could be the best in the World Series.

Defense in baseball is the hardest to quantify. We have metrics like Defensive Runs Saved and Defensive WAR, but generally an eye test is required to get a gauge on who is the better fielder.

The most important defensive positions are up the middle at catcher, shortstop and center field (right field being a close fourth). If we’re going at the primary positions where you want to have solid arms and gloves, the Astros have the advantage in two of the three positions by quite a wide margin.

What Martin Maldonado lacks in hitting; he more than makes up for with his game calling and defense. He may have had the play of the ALCS in the strike ’em out-throw ’em out of Alex Verdugo in the seventh inning of Game 6.

Travis D’Arnaud on the flip side gave up 11 stolen bases with zero caught stealing in the NLCS against the Dodgers. Staying out of double plays and putting runners in scoring position can make all the difference in a series.

At shortstop, the metrics say the disparity is gargantuan. Correa has 21 Defensive Runs saved which leads the league. This year Dansby Swanson is negative five in DSR, the worst defensive year of his career.

The most interesting facet of this defensive debate is the outfield. The defensive advantage in the outfield will depend on where the games are being played.

In Minute Maid Park, the Astros combination of Tucker and Chas McCormick have 21 total runs saved between them (10 for McCormick, 11 for Tucker). Jake Meyers was not among the group of players in centerfield on Monday, while his status hasn’t been reported.

Once the series moves to Atlanta though, McCormick will most likely be on the bench with Tucker moving to center field, Brantley moving to right and Alvarez in left.

In that case, the Braves get a slight edge with Adam Duvall providing 19 defensive runs saved. And even though Eddie Rosario and Joc Pederson aren’t stud outfielders, neither is Alvarez in left or Brantley in right.

Still the Astros have the edge with Yuli Gurriel at first base over Freddie Freeman (five defensive runs saved to two), and even though Altuve has had some bad errors including two botched double plays in Games 1 and 3 of the ALCS, he’s also had some spectacular plays including the first out of Game 6 in the ALCS to prevent Luis Garcia opening the game in a ton of trouble with a diving play and long throw to get Kike Hernandez.

Tenured manager Dusty Baker has the edge over the Astros’ hitting coach’s father, Brian Snitker.

Brian Snitker has taken the Braves to the World Series and went through what many believed was the best team in baseball on the way there. He did it without Acuna and Mike Soroka. It’s an extremely impressive run.

He’s made some great calls none bigger than pinch-hitting Pederson in Game 3 of the NLDS for Ian Anderson in a no-score game. Anderson had thrown only 84 pitches and definitely had another inning in him.

There were runners on first and second with nobody out, and Snitker could have bunted moving the runners to second and third with one out but instead he went for the knockout punch and it felt like the Braves postseason changed right there.

He has his players believing in themselves as evidenced by their 4-2 series win over the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers. He’s navigated having so many new faces added to the clubhouse after the trade deadline, basically an entire new outfield in Rosario, Pederson and Duvall, and has them playing with a chemistry of a team that’s been together for years.

All that said, Baker is the superior manager in this series. Obviously he has the experience, which he’s discussed with the media.

The heartbreaks of his career are too many to list, but the main one is 2002 with the San Francisco Giants being up 5-0 in the seventh inning, nine outs away from a World Series championship only to see it slip away in the bottom of the seventh and the eighth. He’s been close so many times but has said it has prepared him for this moment.

While many didn’t care for Baker’s regular season decisions from bullpen management to resting players, he has been close to perfect in the postseason for the Astros.

Starting last year when he decided to leave Greinke in to finish off the Rays in a bases loaded situation in the sixth inning of Game 4 of the ALCS, a series changing at-bat if you ask me, he has done a lights-out job.

This all in a season where the Astros lost more than they gained from losing George Springer in free agency, to not having Valdez for two months, to not having Bregman for two months, to losing Greinke in the final month of the year, to losing McCullers for the ALCS and let’s not forget a second year without the last full season Cy Young award winner Justin Verlander.

The biggest off-season additions were re-signing Brantley and adding starter Odorizzi. Most pundits picked the Oakland A’s or Los Angeles Angels to take over the division title. And yet, here are the Astros.

Beyond the roster issues, he had to deal with managing players who were getting arguably the most verbal abuse any one team has ever endured in a regular season. Not to mention in the age of social media the players get no respite from the constant messages of hate. And yet here they are.

Managing is not just about when to pull your starter or when to pinch hit for someone. Fans forget these players are human beings and considering the physical toll of a full season plus the mental toll of the constant haranguing from fans and media personalities alike, he got them to this point.

It would be very easy to fold, to crumble underneath the intense scrutiny. The Astros played under a microscope this year, knowing if they didn’t perform it would be an indictment of their worth.

It’s a microscope Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger have not had to play under despite both having underperforming years. One bad game and it’s “see, they can’t hit without cheating.” That would have been the narrative if this team had failed.

Baker had them believing in each other and defended them every step of the way.  And now he’s combined his old-school personal touch such as going out to reassure Valdez it’s his game in Game 5 of the ALCS, to Game 6 when after giving up only one hit and throwing only 76 pitches, he knew the numbers said to pull Garcia for a third time through the order after giving up his first and only hit. The 2003 Baker may not have done that, but the 2021 Baker did.

Overall, this will be a tough series but both teams are deserving. That said my prediction is the Astros will win in six games.