Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 10/9/19

FanGraphs | Rian Watt: The Rays forced a Game Five in the ALDS, with the turning point being Jose Altuve being thrown out at the plate, but the big story being Justin Verlander failing to be as effective on short rest. The Rays patched-together bullpen performance was spotless, and now Gerrit Cole will face Tyler Glasnow tomorrow night in what should be an epic affair.

Baseball Prospectus | Rob Mains ($): If we used Gini coefficient to determine team spread, how equal and unequal was this year? The NL was slightly below average, but the AL took the cake, ranking 13th highest since 1901. Just four years, the league had the very lowest since 1901. Here’s to hoping the pendulum swings back just a little.

The Ringer | Zach Kram: In 2017, Aaron Judge had one of the nastiest postseason slumps of all time, striking out 16 times in that year’s ALDS. Now he is a career .983 OPS hitter in the postseason, and that’s part of his whole approach change: working on hitting power pitchers instead of just feasting on finesse pitchers, not to mention the glove work that has proved invaluably to three straight Yankees playoff runs.