ALDS roster predictions
When predicting the Guardians ALDS roster against the Tigers, one of the main questions will be how many pitchers they will choose to carry. I think my personal choice would be 12, but I expect them to carry 13. Here are the pitchers that I think will be on the ALDS roster.
These would be my preferred starters, and I think this is likely the direction the Guardians will go in as well. I do not think Ben Lively should pitch in the playoffs, as a starter or in the bullpen, though there is a chance the Guardians could disagree with me on that one. I also believe this will be the pecking order. Boyd starting Game 2 makes a lot of sense with the Tigers’ struggles against LHP this season(88 WRC+ against LHP vs 97 WRC+ against RHP).
This is truly an insane amount of talent for one bullpen. The only real weak spot is Pedro Avila and I think they would only go to him in an emergency situation. Apart from that you have 8 to 9 absolute studs ready to come in relief of Bibee/Boyd/Cobb, and unless one of them is absolutely shoving, there is no reason why any of the starters should go for more than 5 innings. Bibee/Boyd for 4-5 innings and then Walters/Herrin/Smith/Gaddis/Clase is an absolute nightmare for any lineup to deal with. The Guardians may even decide to do a full on bullpen game for Game 3 if they don’t feel confident that Cobb is ready to go after all the injury issues he’s had this season. You could also add Gavin Williams to this list of relievers as well if that is the role they decide for him.
Having the flexibility with these three lefties is also huge, especially for this specific opponent. I mentioned above that on the season, the Tigers have an 88 WRC+ against LHP and a 97 WRC+ against RHP, well that gap widens even more if you look at the splits since August, which is when the Tigers really started to get hot. Since August 1st, the Tigers have a WRC+ of 105 against RHP, good for 10th in the MLB, but against LHP? Just an 82 WRC+, which ranks 23rd in the MLB in that time span. Their two best hitters in Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter are both much, much better against RHP. This is a big reason why I think it is crucial to have both Cantillo AND Sabrowski on the roster over guys like Lively and Sandlin, whom I have no trust in pitching effectively at this point in the season.
