The New York Yankees are back in the World Series for the first time in 15 years, seeking their record 28th title; tickets for the World Series games in Los Angeles on the resale market are now above US$1,300; and despite a solid offensive year in which they finished fourth in the majors in OBP, the Milwaukee Brewers have swapped out their hitting coaches by promoting their Triple-A guys to the bigs.

Evan Phillips Bounces Back

Game Six of the NLDS was not the lower-scoring affair many expected; in fact, it was not even close, with a whopping 15 runs posted in LA’s 10-5 win as the Dodgers advanced to the World Series for an NL-record 25th time.

Pitching has not been driving L.A. forward in these playoffs (4.36 team ERA), but the bullpen has been solid (3.16 ERA). And although the Dodgers had several relievers posting saves through the season, Evan Phillips acted as the team’s primary closer until the end of August. After a particularly tough outing in mid-September (in which it was really his defense that let him down), he was replaced by Michael Kopech.

In the playoffs, the Dodgers have turned to Blake Treinen to close, shifting Phillips into a setup role. And to his credit, Phillips has been absolutely lights out, pitching 6 2/3 shutout IP over five games, giving up three hits and three walks against six strikeouts. Oh, and he’s recorded three holds and two wins… and is clearly having the time of his life (see video below).

We first pimped Phillips towards the end of 2022 and it was a good call as he remained superb down the stretch while regressing only slightly last year (2.05 ERA).

This season, he bagged more wins, but wasn’t quite as sharp as his ERA rose significantly. Phillips doesn’t rack up a ton of Ks, so where he’s provided most of his Fantasy value the last couple of years is in saves, posting 42 combined.

Generally, his success comes from showing hitters different looks with his fastball, but ultimately he’s yet another success story in an organization generally filled with them. Phillips was an inconsistent reliever for Tampa Bay before the Dodgers plucked him off the waiver wire in mid-August 2021, and he’s been absolutely money for them since.

Gleyber Torres Getting Redemption

While this will be the Yankees’ 41st appearance in the World Series, they are underdogs (+104 to win World Series at FanDuel).

While we all know the Yankee studs, one player that may be an X-factor in this series is second baseman Gleyber Torres. He’s certainly dealt with his share of scorn from the Yankee faithful in recent years, but he’s proving himself a very useful part of their lineup now.

Torres recorded multi-hit performances in three of the last four games of the ALCS and is batting nearly .300 with a .400 OBP through nine playoff games, while averaging a run per contest.

You may recall that Torres looked like a star in the making in 2019, flirting with 40 homers, 100 runs and a .280 BA, but he really hasn’t come close to duplicating that effort. In the last three years, his WAR has dipped from 4.1 to 2.9 to just 1.8 this year.

In fairness, Torres came into the postseason on a nice run, having finished the regular season strong with 20 runs and an OPS of 859 over the final month, so his nice playoff run isn’t coming totally out of the blue.

To judge him by that 2019 season is probably unfair at this point, as it’s the clear outlier. Torres is not a near-40 homer dude, but he has proved that he does have power and is capable of consistently hitting 15-to-25 bombs, which is not too shabby.

What we found most interesting was that he held down the leadoff spot for a very large chunk of the season and continues to do so in the playoffs, and really, he did get the job done in this regard, posting a .350 OBP when batting first.

Torres is likely to slide on your draft boards next year, but he’s proving he can still be a solid Fantasy asset. He remains a mid-range starting option for dynasty purposes.

Remembering Mike James

Mike James is another middle reliever lost to time. Originally a 43rd round pick (yes, the MLB draft used to be that long) by the Dodgers in 1987 out of an Alabama community college, he was already 27 by the time he reached the majors in 1995.

Two years earlier, he was traded across town from the Dodgers to the (then) California Angels, for whom he spent the majority of his career (four out of seven years), enjoying his finest campaign in 1996. That season, James posted five wins and a stellar 2.67 ERA over 69 games and 81 innings, although he only managed 65 Ks and was rather wild (10 HBP and five wild pitches).

Things went downhill, and after an injury limited what was looking like a solid season in 1998, he missed all of 1999 and was released. The Cardinals took a shot, and James rewarded them with a fine 2000 season (3.16 ERA) before regressing the following year.

In his final season in 2002, he pitched for the Rockies with predictable Coors-induced results (5.56 ERA).

All told, James went 16-14 with a decent ERA, fine hit rates and not awful home run rates against. His bottom line results were significantly better than his performance, however (his FIP was nearly 4.50) and his command was too shoddy for him to stick.

But before we throw dirt on his career, it’s worth noting that James’ middle name is Elmo. That has to count for something, right?

RotoRob Tune of the Day

It was a quote by English poet William Blake that inspired the book by Aldous Huxley that led to the name of L.A. rock band The Doors. Here’s “I Can’t See Your Face in my Mind,” another track from their second album, Strange Days.

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