SUPER-REGIONAL FF:  It’s the final super-regional, representing a strong group of 64 squads that began with five pennant-winners and saw two of those capture their regional to make an appearance here.  Not only that, but also included among the eight entrants are some teams that didn’t win a pennant but had the best record in MLB, such as two recent Dodgers teams.  In fact, the ELO rankings saw those two teams, LA from 2021 and 2022, as the best two squads in the group, with both having among the best season-ending ELO rating in baseball history and both expected to triumph over tough opposition to meet in the finals.  At that point the ratings are essentially a toss-up, with ‘21 fractionally better than ‘22 but with many of the same players on the two rosters.  Personally, I was hoping for pretty much anyone else to move on.

Round four action

For Friday Night Strat, we decided to give Tall Tactician the opportunity to reprise his management of his hometown team in the form of the pennant-winning 2009 Phillies, who would be operating at full strength after some minor injuries suffered in the regional had resolved.  Joe Blanton (12-8, 4.05) had led the Phils in innings pitched but was functioning as the #4 starter in this tournament.   His opponent would be the 91-loss 2023 Cardinals, helmed by StratFan Rick who had no particular attachment to the squad; the Cards would have Jack Flaherty (7-6, 4.43) on the mound.  It didn’t have the makings of a pitching duel, but one seemed to develop.  Neither team could do much of anything, but in the top of the 3rd it was Nolan Gorman finding his solid HR result for a two-run shot that put the underdog Cards ahead.   Tall Tactician moved to the Phils pen in the 6th, and Clay Condrey and Pedro Martinez hold the Card at bay waiting for the powerful Philly offense to heat up.  But that doesn’t seem to happen.  The Phils load the bases when Flaherty issues three walks in the 2nd, but Raul Mondesi hits into an inning-ending DP and that opportunity is lost.  Other similar opportunities arise, but Flaherty continues to work his way out of them, and the Phils can never push a runner across the plate; Flaherty ends up with a 5-hit shutout and the heavily favored Phillies head back to the storage drawers as the Cards move on with the 2-0 upset.

As one of the premier remaining matchups at the super-regional level, this game seemed to merit the Zoom treatment Friday Night Strat.  It was a round four game between the pennant-winning 1957 Yankees and the 106-win 2021 Dodgers, with EaglesFly taking the Yankees and StratFan Rick helming the Dodgers, with the winner likely to be the odds-on favorite to take this bracket and move on.  Befitting two good teams, the #4 starters were good enough to anchor most rotations, with Hall of Famer Whitey Ford (11-5, 2.57) going for the Yanks and pre-suspension Trevor Bauer (8-5, 2.59) on the hill for the Dodgers.  You might think that a pitching duel would be in order–but you couldn’t be more wrong.  The Yankees crush Bauer in the bottom of the 1st, with namesake Hank Bauer beginning the RBI train, followed by a 2-run double from Yogi Berra and then a 3-run homer from Jerry Lumpe that provides the finishing blow for Trevor B., after only a third of an inning pitched.  Clayton Kershaw then comes in after having been bypassed for the starting assignment, and he promptly yields a solo shot to Elston Howard on his first pitch.  After Gil McDougald finally provides the third out with what was his second out of the inning, the Yankees lead 7-0 and it’s looking like it’s over–but EaglesFly states that every time he jumps out to a big lead, he ends up losing.  That looked unlikely–but not for long, as in the top of the 2nd the Dodgers erupt for eight runs, chasing Ford after he allows six of them, and then Al Cicotte comes in and looks like he’s been paid to throw the game allowing two more without recording a single out.  Don Larsen finally manages to retire the side, but in the 3rd he’s tossing an imperfect game as he can record only one out before he allows six runs, with a bases loaded triple by Mookie Betts only a small taste of the Dodger barrage.  When the smoke clears, LA is leading 18-7 and the shell-shocked Yankees are demanding to check the dice for PEDs or corking.  The Yankees still have weapons, and Mickey Mantle proves his mettle with a grand slam in the 6th and a two-run homer in the 8th that “narrows” the lead to 21-15 going into the 9th, but the 5th Yankee pitcher, Johnny Kuck, proves no better than his predecessors when he allows a grand slam to Corey Seager, totalling 7 RBI in the game for the Dodger shortstop.  Victor Gonzalez comes in to mop up a perfect 9th and the game finally ends with the Dodgers pounding out a 25-15 win, setting the tournament record for runs scored by both the winning and the losing teams.  

The 91-win 2009 Cardinals won the NL Central, but they didn’t get as far in the post-season as the 92- win 2021 Red Sox who fell just short of a pennant in losing the ALCS.    The teams would be at the tail end of their rotation, with the Cards Kyle Lohse (6-10, 4.74) and Boston’s  Martin Perez (7-8, 4.74) nearly carbon copies of one another.  Predictably, neither would get very far in the game before getting roughed up; the Cards start with a 2-run double by Julio Lugo in the bottom of the 2nd, while solo shots from Kyle Schwarber and Ryan Ludwick tie it up immediately in the top of the 3rd.  Lugo and Mark DeRosa drive in two more in the bottom of the inning to restore the Cards lead, but a Rafael Devers grand slam in the top of the 5th sends Lohse to the showers.  He is quickly joined by Perez, who coughs up four runs of his own in the bottom of the inning and the Cards regain an 8-6 lead; Schwarber drives in another in the 6th for Boston and it’s a one run game until Skip Schumacher and Albert Pujols combine for three RBI in the 7th.  From there, the St. Louis bullpen gets into a string of trouble but manage to hold off a Boston rally to hang onto an 11-9 win that spells the end of the road for the Red Sox.

This round four game represented what should have been the 2022 NCLS matchup, because the 2022 Dodgers and the 2022 Braves had the two best records in the league but both lost in their divisional series.  Still, the quality of the two teams was evident in their #4 pitchers, with Tyler Anderson (15-5, 2.57) and Atlanta’s Charlie Morton (9-6, 4.34) boasting better cards than some of the #1 starters I’ve seen in this tournament.  The Dodgers, who won a remarkable 111 games, would have to play without injured star Freddie Freeman, although replacement Edwin Rios was a low AB powerblock although a dangerous 5 at 1B.  An RBI single by Trayce Thompson puts the Dodgers up by a run in the top of the 1st, but the Braves tie it in the bottom of the inning with a solo homer by Austin Riley, and they don’t stop there putting up single runs in the 2nd and 3rd to move out to a 3-1 lead.  However, a Gavin Lux triple cuts it to one in the 5th, and then a Thompson sac fly and a Rios solo shot puts the Dodgers ahead.  Typical of teams at this level of the tournament, the Braves fight back immediately as Riley hits his second bases-empty homer of the game to tie things up, and from there both teams call upon their bullpens, who keep the status quo through nine innings to send the game to extra frames.  The pens for both teams are deep and the scoreless innings mount, but finally in the top of the 14th Braves reliever Dylan Lee grooves one to weak hitting defensive replacement Hanser Alberto, who puts the ball into the seats for a 2-run homer; Daniel Hudson takes the mound in the bottom of the 14th and shuts down the Braves to close out the marathon 6-4 win and send a second Dodgers team to round five of this super-regional.

The survivors:  round five

After rolling the 2021 Dodgers to a tournament-record 25 runs in round four, we had to get StratFan Rick to reprise his dice magic for their round five matchup against the 2023 Cardinals, with the managing assignment picked up once again by Eaglesfly.  However, this time around it would be the top of the rotation for both teams, with Max Scherzer (15-4, 2.36) against Jordan Montgomery (6-9, 3.42) suggesting that the teams should score fewer than the 40(!) runs put up in the Dodgers’ last game.  Sure enough, the game is scoreless after four, but in the bottom of the 5th the StratFan skidders find their groove and it’s hit after hit for the Dodgers once again; Montgomery is yanked after allowing five runs, with a two-run Cory Seager triple being the finishing move, but JoJo Romero then embarks on a bizarre adventure with another run in the 6th and three in the 8th with Justin Taylor providing a two-run double as a key blow.  Meanwhile, the Cards can find nothing on Scherzer, who finishes up a 3-hit shutout, striking out 10 as the Dodgers march to another double-digit victory and move on to the super-regional final with the dominating 10-0 win.

After the previous round five game, this was a bit of deja vu with the 2022 Dodgers taking on the 2009 Cardinals for the chance to face the 2021 version of LA in the finals.  The Dodgers were hoping that ace Tony Gonsolin (16-1, 2.14) could go deep in the game after the 14 inning round four marathon that put a big dent in their strong bullpen.  He would face the Cards’ Adam Wainwright (19-8, 2.63), who had fallen a few outs short of a complete game in his first round appearance.  Things start out shaky for Wainwright as Trayce Thompson puts the Dodgers up in the top of the 1st with a two-run homer, but in the bottom of the inning it’s Albert Pujols with a two-run shot of his own to reset the game.  The Cards then move into the lead in the bottom of the 4th with an unexpected RBI triple from converted pitcher Rick Ankiel, but that celebration is short-lived as the Dodgers load up the bases on Wainwright in the 5th, and Thompson adds to his total with a grand-slam that sends Wainwright to the showers.  Andrew Miller is then greeted by a solo shot from Edwin Rios, in for the injured Freddie Freeman, and Thompson adds another RBI to his total in the 6th as the Dodgers cruise to an 8-3 win to set up a meeting in round six with their younger selves.

Super-regional finals

The last super-regional final of the tournament promised to be a very confusing one, mainly because the 2021 Dodgers and the 2022 Dodgers had a lot of the same players on their rosters.   However, it would not be the unusual circumstance of the same starter facing himself (which has happened previously in the tournament), as 2021 Walker Buehler (16-4, 2.47) was matched with 2022 Julio Urias (17-7, 2.16), who was the league ERA leader but who would be charged with keeping a 2021 offense in check that had scored 35 runs in their previous two games.   Sure enough, the ‘21s start off the top of the 1st with a 2-0 lead resulting from an AJ Pollack solo homer and a Chris Taylor RBI single, but ‘22 responds in the 2nd with a succession of singles, four of which score runs thanks to Justin Turner, the other Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger, and Gavin Lux.   In the 3rd, the ‘22s extends their lead to 5-2 as injury replacement Edwin Rios hits his third homer of the super-regional, but the ‘21 version of Justin Turner smacks a solo shot of his own to narrow the gap, and both starters don’t last past the 5th inning as both teams boast strong (and similar) bullpens.  Those pens do the trick, with no further scoring until Rios hits his 4th homer of the bracket to provide additional insurance, leaving injured Freddie Freeman with the distinct feeling he’d been Wally Pipped.  At any rate, it’s the 2022 version of the Dodgers who will move on with the 6-3 victory over their previous season counterparts, placing them in the final field of 32 with a fine shot at going all the way as an 111-win team.  

Interesting card of Regional FF:  With two recent Dodgers teams playing in the round six finals, I personally had seen enough of the Dodgers both in Strat and in real life.  However, the way the bracket played out provided an opportunity to explore one of the quirks of this project:  how injuries are handled.  The upshot is that the Basic Strat injury chart is used as printed, meaning that some guys have been injured for 15 games in a tournament that only has eleven rounds in it.  That multiplies the unpredictability of the single elimination format, but it also rewards teams with decent depth, and a number of teams have advanced quite far despite multiple injuries thanks to the strength of their bench.  In certain unusual situations, an injury can actually help a team, because project rules stipulate that direct injury replacements are not subject to usage restrictions, meaning that a low-AB wonder, if available for that position, can become a starter.  The super-regional winning 2022 Dodgers ended up demonstrating this aspect nicely when Freddie Freeman, the NL leader in hits, doubles, and OBP, and 4th place finisher in the MVP voting, was lost to injury for 8 games in round two of the tournament.   For most squads, losing your best hitter might be a death blow, but these Dodgers reached deep into the extra players for the rather obscure Edwin Rios, who responded to his opportunity with four home runs in the three games of the super-regional.  Rios was a highly regarded prospect in the Dodger organization, and his MLB debut in 2019 was stellar as he compiled an eye-opening 1.010 OPS in 47 at-bats.  However, he didn’t get much of a chance to show his stuff in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, although he did earn a Series ring, and in 2021 he performed dismally in limited use.   The 2022 season that is shown here turned out to be his highest number of appearances in his career; although nowhere near the juggernaut of his 2019 one, it was still sufficiently power-packed to dominate the super-regional and propel his Dodgers to the final field of 32.  Unfortunately for Rios, that was pretty much the end of the road; he hit under .120 in both 2023 and 2024 in limited stints with the Cubs and Reds, and I’m guessing that his MLB career is over, even though he’s still only 31 years old.  Nonetheless, he might be happy to know that his team wouldn’t be among the final 32 survivors (of the 2,056 that began the tournament) without his outstanding performance as an injury replacement.  The Dodgers just better hope the dice don’t notice that 3-7 result before Freddie heals up.