Dave Roberts pulled the right strings using Kenley Jansen in 7th, Clayton Kershaw in 9th - MLB

This postseason, perhaps more than ever, is shining a light on the importance of optimal bullpen management. Orioles manager Buck Showalter refused to use closer Zach Britton in the American League Wild Card game against the Blue Jays and it cost his team as Edwin Encarnacion blasted a walk-off three-run home run off of Ubaldo Jimenez. Giants manager Bruce Bochy had no confidence in his bullpen, shuffling through basically everyone in the bullpen… except Santiago Casilla.

For years, those of a Sabermetric bent have been illustrating how anachronistic the save statistic is and how outmoded current bullpen strategy is. Still, in 2016, managers adhere to rigidly-defined roles for their relievers, rarely ever venturing to use their closers outside of a situation or a tie game at home. Indians manager Terry Francona broke that mold in the ALDS against the Red Sox, using Andrew Miller — one of the three best relievers in baseball — in the fifth inning of Game 1 and in the sixth inning of Game 3.

That leads us to Game 5 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Nationals on Thursday night. Lefty reliever Grant Dayton started the seventh inning but struggled, walking Danny Espinosa before serving up a two-run homer to pinch-hitter Chris Heisey to pull the game to 4-3. Dayton gave up a single to Clint Robinson before manager Dave Roberts decided to bring in his closer, Kenley Jansen. Jansen is, somehow, an underappreciated reliever still despite posting a 1.83 ERA with a 104/11 K/BB ratio over 68 2/3 innings during the regular season.

Leverage index is a statistic used to note how important a particular situation is. According to FanGraphs, a “high” leverage situation is anything with a Leverage Index above 2.00. The six at-bats Jansen had against the Nationals had LI’s of 3.14, 2.59, 4.14, 3.97, 4.52, and 6.24. In the eighth, they would be 2.46, 3.98, 3.33, and 2.40. His final three batters in the ninth had LI’s of 3.40, 2.55, and 4.61. If you’re going to use your best relief arm, those were the spots to do it.

Also worth noting: yes, Jansen pitched into his third inning of work. He threw 51 pitches in total, by far surpassing his previous single-game high of 42, set back on April 2, 2011.

If you thought Roberts’ bullpen management couldn’t get more unorthodox, ace Clayton Kershaw walked out to the bullpen after the end of the eighth inning and began warming up. Jansen got into some trouble in the ninth inning, issuing back-to-back walks to Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth. So Roberts brought in Kershaw on two days’ rest. I need not recall Kershaw’s stats to explain why this was the right move. Kershaw got Daniel Murphy to pop up (7.13 LI) before striking out Wilmer Difo (6.56 LI) to send the Dodgers to the NLCS to face the Cubs.

The storyline in 2014 and ’15 with the Royals was that a lights-out bullpen was crucial to postseason success. This postseason is going a step further. A team needs not only a great bullpen, but the ability to strategize optimally to get the most out of the roster. That’s part of the reason why the Indians and Dodgers have advanced to the League Championship Series.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The first thing that Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman thinks about when he wakes up each morning is how the club, stuck in what seems like an interminable rebuild, will play on that particular day.

Not where they will play four or five years down the road.

Yet given the modest expectations for a team that lost nearly 100 games a year ago, it makes sense many Royals fans are just as interested – quite possibly more so – in the plans for a downtown ballpark than whether infielder Bobby Witt Jr. can double down on his brilliant rookie season or pitcher Brady Singer can truly become a staff ace.

That’s why Sherman’s second thought probably moves to the downtown ballpark, too.

“This is a huge decision, and I look at it as maybe the most important decision we’ll make as long as we have the privilege of stewarding this team,” Sherman said before the Royals held a final workout Wednesday ahead of opening day. “I’m probably as anxious as you to get moving on that, but it’s a complicated process.”

The Royals have called Kauffman Stadium home since the sister to Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, opened 50 years ago next month.

And while most stadiums are replaced because they have become outdated, the unique, space-aged look of Kauffman Stadium – built during an era in which teams trended toward impersonal, multisport concrete donuts for their homes – remains beloved by Royals fans and visitors alike.

The problem is that despite numerous renovations over the years, the very concrete holding the ballpark together has begun to crumble in places. The cost simply to repair and maintain the ballpark has become prohibitive.

So with the decision essentially made for them to build an entirely new stadium, the Royals revealed plans to build an entire development in the same mold of The Battery Atlanta, where the Braves built Truist Park, and the Ballpark Village in St. Louis, where the new Busch Stadium is merely the centerpiece of a whole entertainment district.

No site has been secured, but several of the most promising are in downtown Kansas City, where the Power & Light District along with T-Mobile Center have spearheaded a successful era of urban renewal.

Sherman has said that private funds would cover the majority of the stadium cost and the entire village, each carrying a price tag of about $1 billion.

But if any public funding will be used, as it was to build and maintain Kauffman Stadium, then it would need to be voted upon, and the earliest that it could show up on a ballot would be August.

“You look at Atlanta, they took some raw ground – they started with 85 acres – and that has been a complete home run,” said Sherman, who purchased the Royals in August 2019, shortly before the pandemic wreaked havoc on team finances.

“This is one of the reasons we want to do this: That’s helped the Braves become more competitive,” Sherman said of the vast potential for increased revenue for one of the smallest-market teams in baseball. “They have locked up and extended the core of their future, and the Braves are in a great position from a baseball standpoint.”

So perhaps the first two thoughts Sherman has each day – about performance and the future – are one and the same.

When it comes to the team itself, the Royals were largely quiet throughout the winter, though that was by design.

Rather than spending heavily on free agents that might help them win a few more games, they decided to stay the course with a promising young roster in the hopes that the development of those players would yield better results.

In fact, Sherman said, the club has been discussing extensions for some of the Royals’ foundational pieces – presumably Witt, who was fourth in voting for AL rookie of the year, and Singer, who was 10-5 with a 3.23 ERA last season.

“We’re having conversations about that as we speak,” Sherman said. “We have a number of young players that we’re trying to evaluate and we’re talking to their representatives about what might work.”

Just because the Royals’ roster largely looks the same, that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. The Royals fired longtime general manager Dayton Moore in September and moved J.J. Picollo to the role, then fired manager Mike Matheny in October and replaced him with longtime Indians and Rays coach Matt Quatraro.

Sherman said the new voices created a palpable energy in spring training that he hopes carries into the regular season.

“When we acquired the team, we had three primary objectives,” Sherman said. “One was to win more games; we’re working on that. The second was to secure the future; that’s what (the stadium) is. And the third was to do good in the community.

“But the first priority,” he said, “is really the on-field product. That’s what really lifts everything else up.”