Now that the Cardinals have clinched their spot in the NL Wild Card game next Wednesday we have some time to kick around whether or not there's an advantage to facing the Dodgers or the Giants. Before I go any further let's acknowledge something: both SF and LA are 100+ win teams and whichever team faces the Cardinals will be favored. Coming into play on September 29th the Giants have won 8 of their last 10 and the Dodgers have won 7 of their last 10 so it's not like either team is limping into the postseason.
Back to the question at hand...
Are either of these teams a better matchup for the Cardinals?
Before answering that, let's take a look how they stack up against each other:
Giants
- 2nd in runs scored in the NL
- 1st in fWAR
- 1st in wRC+
- 1st in OPS
- 3rd in pitching fWAR
- 2nd in ERA
- 2nd in FIP
- 3rd in xFIP
- 8th in defensive runs saved
Dodgers
- 1st in runs scored in the NL
- 2nd in fWAR
- 2nd in wRC+
- 5th in OPS
- 1st in pitching fWAR
- 1st in ERA
- 1st in FIP
- 2nd in xFIP
- 7th in defensive runs saved
Short breakdown: they're both well-balanced teams with the Dodgers holding a slight edge in pitching and the Giants holding a slight edge on offense.
Now, in August and September combined some of the rankings look a little different. The Giants are 2nd in OPS in the NL and the Dodgers are 9th these past couple of months. Do you know who is 1st in the NL in OPS during that time?
The Cardinals. They're also 1st in the NL in fWAR and wRC+ over the last two months too.
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The Giants are 1st in pitching fWAR and the Dodgers are 3rd over August and September. The Cardinals are 2nd. They're all in the top 3 in the NL in FIP as well.
Over the course of 6 months the Dodgers and Giants have been significantly better than the Cardinals but over the last two months they're all pretty much equal both offensively and defensively. I know that's skewed by the Cardinals' 17-game winning streak and that the smaller the sample size the less you can rely on what the numbers tell you but still ... how a team (or player) is going in the moment is all that really matters in a single elimination game.
The Dodgers have more star power, which is definitely a concern of mine, but more importantly they have 3 of the top 10 starting pitchers in baseball in ERA (Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, Julio Urias). Since they've both had excellent bullpens this year (1st and 3rd in bullpen fWAR, respectively) and their offensive production has been similar I'm going to base my opinion almost entirely on starting pitching.
Who would you rather face in the Wild Card game, Max Scherzer or Kevin Gausman? Gausman is no slouch but this is really the first time in his career he's pitched at this high of a level while Schzerzer has been The Dude for a long, long time both in the regular season and the playoffs. We should also consider how each guy is pitching right now as we near the playoffs...
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Scherzer is 7-0 with a 1.43 ERA since joining the Dodgers. Yikes.
Gausman is 5-3 with a 4.73 ERA since the All-Star break (2-1, 4.64 ERA in September).
Pretty easy choice there, right?
So the Cards would be better off facing the Giants then? Sure, if we're just talking about one game but as I mentioned at the top...you have to get through both of these teams to reach the NLCS. So, would you rather have the better matchup in the Wild Card game or the better matchup in the NLDS (acknowledging that there is no NLDS without winning the WC game)?
The Giants and Dodgers are the two best teams in baseball this season and any path to a playoff run goes through both LA and SF. If I have to pick one, though, I'd rather take my chances in a 1-game setting against Scherzer rather than have to face him (possibly twice) as well as Buehler and Urias in a 5-game series but there is no easy choice here. From where I sit the Dodgers with Scherzer are a tough matchup in the WC game than the Giants with Gausman but the Dodgers are even more daunting in a 5-game series.
The Cardinal will be underdogs against either team..but they've been underdogs for months now and they seem to be doing okay these days.
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