Baseball's First Postseason Battle of Texas

The FanGraphs Newsletter, October 13, 2023 [READ IN BROWSER]( October 13, 2023 Houston and Texas having never faced off in the postseason is one of those little accidents of history. The Senators/Rangers took until 1996 to make the playoffs for the very first time, and the Astros only moved to the AL before the 2013 season. Despite playing in the same league, the two franchises haven’t really had their periods of success overlap; 2023 is just the second season in baseball history in which the Astros and Rangers won 90 games in the same season, the only other time being in 1999 (when both teams lost in their respective divisional series). Perhaps the biggest X-factor in the ALCS is which pitchers will actually be ready to pitch for the Rangers. I’ll highlight this with two sets of (very) preliminary projections for the series, one without [Max Scherzer]( and [Jon Gray]( and one with: Don’t pooh-pooh four percentage points; that’s actually a fairly large amount when talking about two teams roughly in the same tier in a seven-game series. Four points is nearly half the projected advantage that ZiPS sees the Astros having over the Rangers, after all. [READ MORE]( [The Postseason Pitching/Hitting Divide Might Be Widening]( Evolving tactics and workload constraints may be the culprits. | by Alex Eisert [After a Rough Season, José Abreu Came Up Huge in the Division Series]( The 36-year-old first baseman has rebounded lately after slipping below replacement level in his inaugural season in Houston. | by Jay Jaffe [Phil Maton Revisits Spin (and Comes to Terms With Cut)]( The Houston Astros reliever is a spin monster with a changed movement profile. | by David Laurila [ALDS Managerial Report Card: Brandon Hyde]( The Orioles came into the ALDS with some good ideas about how to combat Texas' offense. They left with no idea what hit them. | by Ben Clemens [If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again: Turner, Castellanos Mash Phillies Into NLCS]( This was always the plan. It just took a while to get there. | by Michael Baumann 🎧 [Effectively Wild Episode 2071: Hello Randomness, My Old Friend]( [DOWNLOAD THE FANGRAPHS APP]( [FanGraphs & Effectively Wild Merch Is Now Available at BreakingT!]( [ORDER HERE]( [Stop whining about MLB’s playoff system. Phillies, Astros show how to have October success]( by Jayson Stark, The Athletic ($) [Let’s predict the 4 possible World Series narratives]( by Will Leitch, MLB [Six trends that have rocked these MLB playoffs]( by David Schoenfield, ESPN [5 Early Standout MLB Prospects From The 2023 Arizona Fall League]( by via Baseball America ($) [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2023 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](