Michael Brantley returned to the Indians lineup on Saturday, but does he really matter? Brantely is a very good player, but he played in just 100 games the last two seasons. The Indians are 55-45 in those games, a .550 winning percentage. They are 140-82 without him, a .631 winning percentage. If a organization plays that well without a star in the lineup, the organization must be pretty deep.
That seems to be the story of the year. The Dodgers suffered numerous injuries and still won 103 games. The Nationals lost very good players for months and still ran away with the NL East. The Cubs swap in and out players at will. Houston suffered some major injuries to stars and still managed 100 wins. Even the Red Sox lost David Price for most of the season, lost David Ortiz‘s bat to retirement, and still won the division.
I think that’s what separates the wild card teams from the division winners. The Yankees healthy appear to be as good as any team in the playoffs. When they suffered injuries to their centerfielders and first basemen (and possibly Judge during his slump), they did not have the depth to play well.
Maybe that won’t matter much in the post-season. The deep teams, however, are able to match their rosters to their opponents. The Yankees won’t change much series to series, but the Dodgers, Indians, Astros, and Nationals can look for weaknesses in opponents and try to exploit those with the right personnel.
I also wonder if the depth of teams indicate it’s time for an expansion.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2ygtGm8
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