Series Preview #36: Diamondbacks @ Guardians

Did Napoleon have a tiebreaker for Waterloo?

Just right now I notice that the Cleveland Guardians were once called the Cleveland Napoleons. I think I have a new personal most hated team. On the other hand, you can’t blame today’s team for the errors of the past. The reasoning of changing the team’s name from imperialism to native-american is maybe beyond my grisp of understanding and perhaps too American for me. But let’s not discuss that.

For every series there is good news and there is bad news. Shall we take a look?

The good news is that we won our previous series, against the Pirates. The bad news about that is that we now have a possible tiebreaker equation that not even Einstein is able to resolve. The good news about that is that on the AZSnakePit we have our contributor samath, who knows everything about tiebreakers. This is what he wrote before the final game of our series in Pittsburgh:

Thus far, the Pirates have gone 18-14 against their own division while the Diamondbacks have gone 21-11, each with 20 games left to play. Here’s the full breakdown of games left:

Pirates: 7 vs. MIL, 3 vs. CHC, 6 vs. STL, 4 vs. CIN (6 home, 14 away)

Dbacks: 3 vs. LAD, 7 vs. SDP, 4 vs. SFG, 6 vs. COL (10 home, 10 away)

So in that subset, with a clearly harder schedule, the Pirates would have to make up 3 games on the Diamondbacks. And for the tiebreaker to matter, the Diamondbacks would have to also make up at least 1 game in the 33 extradivision games each have left, where the Diamondbacks have a clearly harder schedule (I’ve sorted by current record and crossed out the common opponents for clarity):

Pirates: 3 vs. LAD, 3 vs. CWS, 3 vs. BOS, 3 vs. SDP, 3 vs. MIA, 6 vs. DET, 3 vs. NYM, 3 vs. SFG, 3 vs. KCR, 3 vs. LAA (18 home, 15 away)

Dbacks: 3 vs. ATL, 3 vs. NYY, 3 vs. CHC, 3 vs. PHI, 3 vs. BOS, 3 vs. TEX, 3 vs. CLE, 3 vs. MIA, 3 vs. HOU, 3 vs. CIN, 3 vs. KCR (18 home, 15 away)

These sort of surprising combinations of results can happen, of course — the Pirates bookended their first half by losing a series to the Mets and sweeping the Brewers, for instance — but they aren’t likely, which is why I have the Diamondbacks clearly favored in that tiebreaker.

Of course, all of this is entirely irrelevant if the Pirates win the head-to-head tiebreaker. And the Pirates are the main wildcard competitor for that third spot right now. Fangraphs puts the Diamondbacks’ current playoff odds at 38%, the seventh-highest in the NL, immediately behind the Pirates at 40%. Those numbers have each jumped by about 5% with each game this series, which is a lot for games in July.

All this to say, the next game is very, very important.

Here’s the real list:

Head-to-head

Intradivision record

Intraleague record

Post-ASG intraleague

Post-ASG + 1 game intraleague

Post-ASG + 2 games intraleague

etc.

This will always eventually resolve, because different teams play different number of interleague games at different times.

How to determine playoff tiebreakers

The good news (for thinking through this, not for the Diamondbacks) is that in the four years of this system so far, no ties have ever made it past head-to-head!

As a follow-up, I also asked ChatGPT to analyze all 11 ties in the divisional era (1969 onwards) that went to game 163’s before the modern tiebreaker rules were in effect. Out of all 11, 10 would have been resolved by head-to-head, while only the 1980 NL West tie between the Dodgers and Astros would have gone to the intradivisional record.

So yeah, this tiebreaker I analyzed extensively would only have mattered once in the last 50+ years…

Was there a tiebreaker for Napoleon in Waterloo? Of course there was not. Napoleon learned what we know in “soccer” since our early days as a European kid, like Gary Lineker once said: “…in the end the Germans always win”. We have Max Kepler on our team, so, in that regard, we had some extra good news.

The bad news: Pfaadt and Rodriguez pitched in Pittsburgh and Cleveland is fighting for the division or to get a Wild Card. We can prepare ourselves for a tough series in Ohio.

Odds are, we win this series.

Sticking to baseball matters and modern day, Cleveland had a quiet off-season. Their biggest move was probably the 7-year extension they handed out to their star third baseman Jose Ramirez. Veteran catcher Austin Hedges and reliever Kolby Allard were resigned. Only veteran reliever Jakob Junis was lost in free agency, to Texas, and to fill that gap Cleveland signed reliever Shawn Armstrong from that same team. With former Diamondback Steven Vogt at the helm for the third consecutive season, the Guardians were surely banking on another AL Central division win, with probably only the Detroit Tigers as a possible competitor. As things turned out, the Chicago White Sox put themselves in the conversation in what has been a really weird American League this year, and starting this series, the Guardians see themselves 1.5 games back in the AL Central with a 56-54 record, occupying the final spot in the Wild Card standings, 1 game ahead of the Houston Astros.

The Cleveland offence is ranked in the lower half of the MLB, fWAR wise. OPS+ puts them ahead of only the Mets, Phillies and Blue Jays in the MLB (themselves also somewhat surprisingly the weakest offences in the league). Biggest problem for Cleveland is getting runners on base, with their .230 batting average the second lowest in the MLB. Their base-on-ball numbers are pretty good, but with such a low batting average and their slugging the worst in the entire league, it is not a surprise that their RBI numbers are also the second lowest in the league. When one of your best batters is called “Austin Hedges”, 113 OPS+, you know you have a problem. Not even Jose Ramirez can escape from mediocrity this season (105 OPS+). No wonder that Cleveland is one of the teams that steals most bases: if you can hardly count on your buddies to move you over, you have got to do something to get closer to home base.

While Ingrid Bergman would always have “Paris”, according to Humphrey Bogart, so will Cleveland always have pitching. ERA, xERA, FIP, xFIP and fWAR all put Cleveland’s starting and relief pitching in the top 10 of the MLB, pretty solid.

However, that solid pitching hasn’t been able to push the needle to more wins. Cleveland has been able to shut their opponent out just 3 times this season. Compare that to Arizona’s 5 and you’ll understand how weird that is for such a solid pitching team. They are 18-17 in one-run games, while Arizona is 20-16.

Cleveland is 5-8 since the All Star break, snapping a 5-game losing streak with a series win against the Reds right before starting this series. They were shut down 3 times in those 13 games and in 3 more games they were held to just 1 run.

What I am trying to say is, we should certainly be able to win at least one in Cleveland and the odds are pretty good that we can leave with another series win in what will be the final encounters of our longest road trip.

Matchups.

Game #1 Fri 07/31 4:10 PM MST, Mitch Bratt (ARI) vs Tanner Bibee (CLE).

• Mitch Bratt. 4 GS, 15.2 IP, 0 W-1 L, 6.32 ERA, 7.45 FIP, 1.98 WHIP, 10/11 K/BB. $325,338.

• Tanner Bibee. 22 GS, 125.0 IP, 4 W-10 L, 3.89 ERA, 4.57 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 97/37 K/BB. $4,400,000.

As expected, Bratt struggled against the powerful offence of the Nationals in his last outing, giving up 5 runs in 5.0 innings, but he did go 5 innings.

That same Washington offence put 7 runs on the board against Tanner Bibee 2 months ago, so I would say that the Diamondbacks have a chance in this first match of the series, if Bratt can go 5 innings against Cleveland and keep the score to, say 3-4 runs. As you can see, Bibee hasn’t gotten much run support during his games and at home he has allowed 14 homeruns of his season total of 20.

Last season Bibee, this year’s Opening Day starter for Cleveland, got a no-decision against the Diamondbacks, where Arizona got 7 hits and 4 runs off him on August 19, a game the Diamondbacks would go on to win 6-5.

Good chance that this first game will end up to be the tiebreaker in this series.

Game #2 Sat 08/01 4:15 AM MST, Kohl Drake (ARI) vs Parker Messick (CLE).

• Kohl Drake. 2 GS, 9.0 IP, 0 W-0 L, 5.00 ERA, 6.33 FIP, 1.44 WHIP, 6/4 K/BB. $337,851.

• Parker Messick. 21 GS, 125.1 IP, 8 W-6 L, 2.59 ERA, 3.19 FIP, 1.04 WHIP, 122/36 K/BB. $788,400.

The Washington offence proved to be too much for Kohl Drake as well, in what was his second major league career start. He will have a chance to bounce back against a weaker MLB offence and the Diamondbacks will surely need it, because Parker Messick will be a tougher cookie to bite on than Bibee.

Last year Messick fired 6.2 innings against the Diamondbacks on August 20, keeping the Snakes limited to just 1 run despite 7 hits (Arizona woulld eventually win 3-2). What was even more impressive: it was Messick’s major league debut.

Messick pitched to a 153 ERA+ in what was left of the season and continued to solidify himself in Cleveland’s 2026 starting rotation and is de facto Cleveland’s ace right now, also earning his first All Star selection in 2026, pitching a scoreless second inning in Philadelphia.

Messick has a four-seamer, sinker and cutter, he deploys 61% of the time, reducing the importance of the relatively low velocity of his fastball. That allows him to mask his weaker curve, slider and change-up, he can then use to mix up the pitches and get batters off-balance. It works, with the chase and K-percentages all on the good side of the stats, but, most importantly, he is able to limit the hard hits.

If you think we don’t stand a chance here, well, at least take the moment to watch this young and talented pitcher.

Game #3 Sun 08/02 10:40 AM MST, Merrill Kelly (ARI) vs Gavin Williams (CLE).

• Merrill Kelly. 19 GS, 109.1 IP, 8 W-8 L, 4.86 ERA, 5.66 FIP, 1.45 WHIP, 71/42 K/BB. $18,000,000.

• Gavin Williams. 22 GS, 133.1 IP, 10 W-6 L, 3.71 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 1.07 WHIP, 168/38 K/BB. $$822,200.

Save the best for last, was what Vanessa Williams sang, and that sure seems to apply to this final matchup. Most likely this one will seal the fate of the series, my guess is that Merrill will tilt the balance towards the Diamondbacks, because he should be able to keep this weaker offence from scoring and go 6 innings, similar to what he did last year on August 24, when Kelly went 7 innings and kept Cleveland scoreless.

However, it isn’t a done deal considering the Diamondbacks will be facing Gavin Williams and his 97 mph fastball velo average. However, what makes batters tumble more is his sweeper, which currently has a .226 xwOBA and a 44.4% Whiff. Yikes. In his last 4 outings, Williams had 45 Ks in 27.0 innings, though Pittsburgh also scored 5 runs. His 11.34 K/9 is third in the entire league (behind Misiorowski and Dylan Cease, but ahead of Paul Skenes). However, like the game against Pittsburgh showed, Williams does have his games where he allows quite some runs: in 10 of his starts he gave up 3 or more runs, 5 of them with 5 or more runs. I will bank on that.