Dodgers Expert Feels Tyler Anderson Might Not Be a Lock for a Postseason Starting Role
Tyler Anderson has been clutch for the Dodgers all season. He currently has a 15-4 record with a 2.52 ERA. Certainly, those numbers were quite unexpected for the team that signed him to a one-year, $8 million deal entering spring training.
He's been a fantastic surprise for the best team in baseball. And, honestly, he's been one of the most important parts of the pitching staff all season long.
However, reports say that the Dodgers still might not be overly certain about his success translating to the postseason.
In a recent mailbag column, Fabian Ardaya, Dodgers beat writer for The Athletic, was asked about Anderson's status as a starter not feeling like a lock. Ardaya shared a few reasons as to why the All-Star pitcher may not be the one that starts with the ball in his hands when it comes to crunch time.
To put it simply, he doesn’t miss enough bats, which means his actual results aren’t as strongly supported by his underlying metrics. His whiff rate entering Thursday is in the 35th percentile. His strikeout rate is in the 24th percentile.
And although he’s been as good as anyone in limiting hard contact this year, balls in play allow for less predictable outcomes in October than strikeouts do. That’s why there’s some hesitancy from the Dodgers in starting him in a postseason series, along with the fact that he’s as capable as any of their starters in taking on a multi-inning relief role and thriving in it.
Across 167 innings pitched, the 32-year-old southpaw has collected 125 strikeouts, the 69th best in the league. Before Tuesday night's game where he struck out 6 across his 6 inning start, he had only collected 12 strikeouts across four games. Within those four games, he gave up 7 runs on 24 hits. So, I guess I see where Ardaya is coming from.
For what it's worth, today Dave Roberts set the record straight on Tyler's status in October. And it certainly makes even more sense with the recent loss of Dustin May for the rest of the regular season.
Anderson has one career postseason start under his belt. That was back in 2018 when he was with the Rockies. He went 6 innings, allowing 4 hits while recording 5 strikeouts in a losing effort
As it stands, Anderson will join Julio Urias and Clayton Kershaw as the locks to start in the postseason for now.
