Dodgers: Swapping Caleb Ferguson with Scott Alexander was Smart

Winning baseball games is not always about who has the better lineup or who can hit the most home runs. Sometimes, the most powerful moves are the smallest and the game changers could come from a ground ball or a perfectly timed strikeout. When the Dodgers made the decision to swap Caleb Ferguson for Scott Alexander on the World Series roster, eyebrows were raised. But, that decision could very well prove to be the small difference maker the Dodgers are looking for.

The move was questionable and with good reason. Caleb Ferguson, a 22-year old southpaw who came up to the big leagues and quickly proved himself as a valuable member of the bullpen was removed from the most crucial series in baseball.

Ferguson owned batters out of the pen. In 38.1 innings, the young lefty struck out 47 and allowed just 10 earned runs, good for a 2.35 ERA. Ferguson’s knack for strikeouts cemented him in a late-inning role that, for a while, made him look irreplaceable.

Scott Alexander did not have quite the same story. Alexander pitched 66.1 innings for the Dodgers this season and that does not include the innings he pitched in Triple-A where he was sent to refind his form. But, towards the end of the season, Alexander became one of the Dodgers most consistent, and effective, pitchers on the roster.

But replacing Ferguson with Alexander seemed like a strange move. They replaced one really good pitcher with another and left someone like Julio Urias, who is debatably replaceable, on the roster. Why does the move to replace a hard-throwing, successful, pitcher make sense? The answer lies in the smaller numbers.

The Red Sox are a great team. They lead the major leagues in most batting statistics and the names in their lineup echo the sentiment. But, with the amount of runner the Sox put on base comes a flaw: the ground into a ton of double plays.

The Red Sox finished the season third worst in the major leagues in wGDP. wGDP measures how often a team grounds into a double play when there are runners in the position to be doubled up. With zero being average, the Red Sox finished the regular season with a team average of -5.1, more than double what Fangraphs deems as “awful”.

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And that right there is what the Dodgers are hoping to cater to. Scott Alexander is a master of keeping the ball on the ground. He was the second best pitcher in the major leagues with a minimum of 50 innings pitched in ground ball percentage at 70.9. Alexander can put the ball down on the infield almost any time he wants and that will be invaluable against a team rooted in their ability to make contact.

Alexander also is a master of keeping the ball in the lower half of the zone and according to Sportsnet LA statistician, Rick Krajewski, “hard and soft contact are not always the best indicators of how effective a player is. But, when a guy can produce low hard contact percentages and keep the ball in the lower half of the zone, that is what makes him so effective. Scott Alexander does both those things.”

Not only does Alexander attack the Red Sox biggest weakness but Caleb Ferguson is the exact player that would get hit hard in this series. Ferguson posted the highest hard contact percentage for a reliever (minimum 30 innings) on the Dodgers in 2018 at 34.4. Ferguson also had the second highest HR/FB% on the Dodgers at 21.1%. That’s 2.1% higher than the home runs per fly ball percentage of Scott Alexander.

And, going back to pitch location, Alexander’s ability to keep the ball down in the zone has resulted in a 26.2% soft contact percentage, second best on the team to Kenley Jansen and 10 percent better than Ferguson.

When you look at the names, the move made little sense at all. Ferguson has been the better pitcher of the course of almost the entire season and replacing him was questionable. But, dig just a little deeper than the surface and Scott Alexander makes perfect sense to be on this roster with the ability to get the Dodgers out of trouble with a double play on the line. Scott Alexander could very well be the most powerful move in the smallest form.