First, a few words about the columns and color-coding, since there have been some subtle changes since the time I posted an excerpt from one of my patented Baseball Databases. The "Pos 1" (or Primary Position) column is shaded green for rookies, as it has been in the past, but now players making their major league debuts have their positions in italics. For the Dodgers, this includes Rookie of the Year frontrunner (and #12 overall prospect heading into 2017) Cody Bellinger and technically-a-catcher Kyle Farmer, although he's been limited to five pinch-hit appearances so far in the playoffs. For player names, a Yellow highlight denotes a player acquired during the preceding offseason -- just second platoon baseman Logan Forsythe (via a trade with Tampa Bay) and setup man extraordinaire Brandon Morrow (on a minor league deal). Players with Blue (technically Cyan) highlights were acquired during the season... which was actually the subject of my most recent post on this blog. Neither outfielder Curtis Granderson nor situational lefty Tony Cingrani show up in that post, because the former was acquired after the non-waiver trade deadline, and the latter hadn't racked up enough points to merit inclusion.
Speaking of points, I use fantasy points to measure player value because it's a nice, easy, one-number system that everyone can understand (the more the better). If you're thinking that the same can be used to describe WAR, you're right... but EVERYONE talks about WAR and I've always had that urge to stand out from the crowd and be unique, you know? Speaking of standing out from the crowd and being unique, the next column after PPG (Points Per Game) shows what Astrological sign each player belongs to, with the bold-italic cells representing players on their sign's active Fantasy-Astrology roster. The concept behind Dev (Developed) Team is not quite as unique, but it's definitely more grounded in reality, as it tracks which organizations shepherded each player through their minor league development phases. But more on that later, when we look at the Astros.
Speaking of the Astros, the only member of their roster to make their debut in 2017 is technically-an-outfielder Derek Fisher, who clocked in at #83 on MLB.com's preseason prospect list, but has only appeared as a pinch hitter/runner so far in the playoffs. He joins Yuli(eski) Gurriel as the only rookies on the team, although the 33-year-old infielder is a rookie in name only, as he has 15 years of experience in his native Cuban Serie Nacional. Veterans of foreign leagues like Gurriel (and Kenta Maeda on the opposing side) present a problem for not only the rookie eligibility system, but also for the developed player system, since they weren't technically "developed" by any team, but rather "imported," so to speak. But since it wouldn't be right to exclude them from the developed teams project, they get awarded to their first major league organizations.
As far as acquired players, Houston had more than twice as much offseason turnover as Los Angeles. They traded for catcher Brian McCann from the Yankees, then signed right fielder Josh Reddick, DH Carlos Beltran, and starting pitcher Charlie Morton to free agent deals, plus added backup catcher Juan Centeno (who has one playoff appearance so far) on a minor league pact. As far as their midseason acquisitions, two out of three of them were brought on board after July 31st: outfielder Cameron Maybin was claimed off waivers from the division rival Angels, and longtime Tigers ace Justin Verlander was acquired with mere seconds left before Trade Deadline 2.0, as it were, and might go down in history as one of the most monumental August acquisitions of all time.
Now for the Developed Teams column. You may notice that some players have more than one team in this column. These players spent time with multiple organizations before making their major league debuts, with the team in CAPS representing their true developed team (i.e. the one they spent the most time with), regardless of the team with which they saw their first major league action (the team listed without an asterisk). In previous versions of this database, I listed each player's developed teams chronologically, with a forward slash (/) between any multiple teams. This time, I put each player's true developed team in front, just to make the database easier to sort, and differentiated the timeline with a backward slash (\). So for example, utility man Marwin Gonzalez was originally signed by the Cubs, where he spent his entire minor league career, before being acquired by the Astros as part of some Rule 5 Draft maneuvering and sent straight to the majors (CHC*/hou). Conversely, relief ace Chris Devenski was drafted by the White Sox, but was traded to the Astros early enough in his career that he spent the majority of his development in Houston's system (HOU\chw*).
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So there you have both World Series contending rosters. Now, how do they compare side by side? When you add up the aggregate fantasy points of each 25-Man Roster (including players who spent time with multiple teams in 2017), the Astros have a rather slim 789 point advantage over the Dodgers (31,947 to 31,158). Houston also has the top scoring player (AL MVP candidate Jose Altuve), but the Dodgers follow with numbers two and three (All-World ace Clayton Kershaw and All-World closer Kenley Jansen). As far as homegrown players (developed players still with their original organizations) the Astros have the edge 11 to 9, although only Houston has players who were acquired before they completed their development (swingman Joe Musgrove joins Devenski in that category). Looking to the stars, the best-represented Astrological sign combined among both teams is Pisces with 7 players, followed by Virgo and Leo each with 6. No individual team has more than 4 players of any given sign on the roster -- LAD has 4 each of Leo and Sagittarius, while HOU has 4 of Pisces, Virgo, and Scorpio. For what it's worth, Aries defeated Libra in this year's Fantasy Astrology championship match, making it just the second time in six years that the "Scales" have failed to walk away with the crown -- and each team has two "Rams": Kenta Maeda and Andre Ethier for the Dodgers, Alex Bregman and Cameron Maybin for the Astros.
Who knows if any of these trivialities have any bearings on who has a better chance of taking the series, but if you do manage to find any correlations, remember that you heard it here first!
The World Series will be broadcast on your local Fox station, starting tonight at 8:00pm ET from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
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UPDATE: I've just learned that the Dodgers have made two changes to their World Series roster from the NLCS, which are outlined below:
First the technicalities: infielder Charlie Culberson was actually already on the NLCS roster, taking the spot of the injured Corey Seager, so technically the NEW additions are Seager and Brandon McCarthy. But since the 2016 Rookie of the Year shortstop was already slated to return, I went ahead and made that assumption. In adding McCarthy, who pitched mainly as a starter in 2017, to the bullpen, Los Angeles is taking a page out of Houston's book, as the Astros have four pitchers who made at least 10 starts who have been used mostly in relief during the playoffs (the lone exception being Brad Peacock's Game 3 start in the ALDS, where he actually pitched fewer innings than long reliever Lance McCullers Jr.).
Now for who's out: Kyle Farmer was an obvious choice, as Culberson could fill the role of right handed pinch hitter while also providing some depth around the infield. Curtis Granderson, on the other hand, is a curious choice, since he's LA's third highest-scoring outfielder, and thus seemingly in line for a starting spot. However, the decision makes more sense when you look at his postseason performance so far (1-for-15 with 8 K's in 6 games), combined with the presence of two other lefty hitting outfielders on the roster: Joc Pederson and Andre Ethier, who haven't hit much better (a combined 3-for-13, but with 2 extra base hits), but who come with the morale bonus of both being homegrown players. Plus it's not as though Enrique "Kíke" Hernandez is going to ride the bench too much after slugging not one but three (3!) home runs in the NLCS-clenching Game 5 at Chicago...
