Yankees vs. Dodgers 2024 World Series Game 2 Pick: Los Angeles’ Lineup Is Too Stacked

Carlos Rodon’s Misleading Form

Carlos Rodon starts for the Yankees tonight.

If you look at his recent games, then you’ll get a positive impression of him. But this impression is deceptive because it relies on a false premise: that his performances against his recent opponents say anything about his outlook tonight.

Rodon’s last bunch of starts is meaningless because he has faced much easier lineups than the stacked one, laden with three MVPs, that he’ll encounter tonight.

Dissecting Rodon’s Last Starts

In the postseason, Rodon has faced Cleveland twice and Kansas City once. Both of those teams rank outside the top ten in runs per game.

Dating to the regular season — because Yankees backers will want to make a strong claim about the extent of Rodon’s supposedly good form — he has also faced the Pirates, Athletics, and Rangers. These three teams rank in the bottom half in runs per game.

He did fare well, according to surface-level stats, against a better Boston lineup. But his FIP (like ERA but factors out fielding) in that game was 4.85.

Rodon Against Top-Five Lineups

FIP is a valuable metric because it does a better job than ERA of capturing the individual quality of a pitcher’s performance. This metric shows that Rodon performs poorly against top-five lineups.

So far this year, he has faced Baltimore twice and Arizona once. These two teams rank top-five in runs per game. His FIP in his two games against Baltimore was 11.42 and 5.17, respectively. Against Arizona, it was 8.04.

The Outlook for Los Angeles’ Lineup

As a top-five lineup — Los Angeles averages 5.28 runs per game — the Dodgers’ lineup boasts a strong outlook tonight. It also matches up well against Rodon given the pitches that he throws.

Primarily, Rodon throws a four-seam fastball, slider, changeup, and curveball. He is a lefty. These four pitches make up over 96% of his arsenal.

The Dodgers rank number one with an insurmountable .481 slugging rate against these pitches from lefties.

Whereas it took them a lot of time to put up runs last night, expect them to find their offensive groove much more quickly tonight.

The Starter for Los Angeles

For the Dodgers, righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto starts tonight.

Yamamoto primarily throws a fastball, split-finger, and curveball.

While he throws a mix of other pitches, these three are the ones that he throws at least 7% of the time — he throws each of them with over 23% frequency.

Yamamoto’s Arsenal

Whereas, as heat maps show, Rodon often leaves his fastball in the more middle parts of the plate, Yamamoto does a great job of distributing his most frequent pitch along both sides of the plate.

His second and third-favorite pitches, the split-finger and curveball, respectively, tend to land in the lower parts of the plate.

He does not only place his pitches very well. He also throws hard. His fastball, for example, averages 95.5 mph. It is difficult for batters to hit his hard, well-placed pitches.

Yamamoto’s Matchup Edge

While the Yankees have a high slugging rate against his pitches from righties, the top teams all own high slugging rates against every pitch because they feast on inferior versions of those pitches. Yamamoto, though, throws superior versions of those pitches, which is why his FIP in the regular season was 2.61.

The key point is that the Yankees slug way less against Yamamoto’s pitches from righties than the Dodgers do against Rodon’s from lefties. In terms of starting pitching, Los Angeles clearly has the matchup edge.

Bullpen

Los Angeles won last night in thrilling fashion — with a grand slam in the bottom of the tenth — because New York’s bullpen has its limitations, and its manager makes costly decisions.

In the bottom of the tenth, the Yankees had to go with a guy who had been dealt away by the White Sox for pennies and with a rusty pitcher who hadn’t thrown a pitch in 37 days.

Los Angeles’ bullpen, on the contrary, must be expected to secure its team’s lead. The Dodgers clinched their series against the Mets by only using relievers, including guys like Ben Casparius who remain fresh.

They have the quality depth in their bullpen that the Yankees appear to lack late in games, as their last contest and their latest games against Cleveland have shown.

MLB Pick: Dodgers ML (-138) at BetOnline

Dodgers ML (-138)

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