Eight Lessons Learned From An All-time Great 2025 World Series

Fittingly, location were a batch of lessons from nan longest World Series Game 7 successful 101 years (11 afloat innings) and nan longest World Series successful 113 years (146 innings). Here is what we learned:

We cognize fastball usage has been declining moreover arsenic velocity has risen. Only a decade ago, fastballs were nan instauration of pitching. Technology (high velocity cameras, rotation tracking, etc.) has changed nan instauration of pitching to nan Three S’s: spin, shaping and sequencing. Regular play fastball usage (not including cutters) dropped from 56.8% successful 2015 to 47.4% successful 2025, nan lowest successful recorded history (and, logically, each time).

The World Series brought nan emergence of secondary pitches to caller heights. The desire to transportation distant from slug meant a dense dose of breaking pitches and splitters. The Dodgers and Blue Jays mixed to propulsion the lowest complaint of fastballs successful a World Series since specified transportation search began successful 2008 (and, astir likely, ever). And it wasn’t moreover close:

Lowest fastball usage successful nan World Series, 2008–25

In conscionable 12 years nan World Series fastball complaint dropped from 61.3% (Red Sox and Cardinals) to 41.9%.

The lowest fastball usage by immoderate squad successful a World Series belongs to nan 2025 Blue Jays. Second lowest? The 2025 Dodgers.

Lowest fastball usage by squad successful World Series, 2008–25

It’s difficult to reason pinch nan results. Batters slugged .451 against fastballs successful nan World Series and .331 against everything else.

2. Never propulsion a strike-to-strike slider connected 3-and-2

Righthander Jeff Hoffman was 2 outs distant from closing nan Blue Jays’ first World Series title successful 32 years. Bases empty, apical of nan ninth, up 4–3. The No. 9 hitter, Miguel Rojas, astatine bat pinch Shohei Ohtani connected deck.

The count went to 2-and-1. Hoffman threw a sinker away, which Rojas fouled, followed by a 96 mph four-seamer away, which Rojas besides fouled. Hoffman tried a slider. It was a lousy one, a non-competitive backup slider that created a afloat count.

Uh oh. Hoffman knew location was nary measurement he could locomotion Rojas, which would bring Ohtani and his 63 location runs to nan sheet arsenic nan go-ahead run. The lousy slider put him successful a position wherever he had to propulsion a strike.

What transportation should Hoffman propulsion successful a business wherever he had to propulsion a strike? Fastball? Good choice. Hoffman throws his four-seamer much than immoderate different pitch. Since Sept. 16, Hoffman had thrown 104 fastballs and fixed up 1 hit, a single. Hitters were 1-for-21 (.048) against his four-seamer complete nan past six weeks.

Hoffman throws 96 mph. Rojas had not deed a location tally disconnected a four-seamer thrown that difficult in six years (Sept. 3, 2019), hitting .207 against 555 specified heaters. He has nary powerfulness against velocity.

But remember, cipher likes their fastball these days. Hoffman and Alejandro Kirk decided connected a slider, which is Hoffman’s champion transportation successful position of tally value. Spin, spin, spin. That’s nan measurement nan crippled is played these days.

But this was not nan time, not erstwhile nan transportation had to beryllium successful nan zone. Spin is good astatine 3-and-2 erstwhile you tin judge nan consequence of a walk. The strike-to-ball slider whitethorn get you nan pursuit swing. If it doesn’t and it’s a business successful which a locomotion does not wounded you, that’s fine. Play on.

In this case, Hoffman could not spend a walk. He had to make judge he was successful nan onslaught area pinch his breaking pitch. A repetition of his erstwhile slider would beryllium an unforgivable mistake. And so, Hoffman guided his slider into nan zone.

Hoffman had opened nan seven-pitch series pinch a slider and obtained a swinging strike. But this slider, thrown excessively carefully, had 300 less RPMs, 3 inches little vertical driblet and 3 inches little horizontal break. In layman’s terms, it was a hanger. It was nan only transportation Rojas could person deed for a location run.

Middle-in. Home run. Tie game.

As overmuch arsenic teams emotion spin, a middle-velocity breaking shot is simply a worse transportation than an old-fashioned fastball when you must propulsion a strike:

Slugging vs. in-zone pitches, 2025

Hoffman had not allowed a location tally connected a 3-and-2 pitch over nan past 2 years. The past one? Game 2 of nan 2023 NLDS for Philadelphia successful Atlanta. Pitching nan bottommost of nan eighth pinch a 4–3 lead and a runner astatine second, Hoffman yielded a location tally to Austin Riley.

The pitch?

A 3-and-2 strike-to-strike slider.

The Blue Jays put nan tying tally connected 3rd guidelines pinch 1 retired successful nan bottommost of nan 11th, acknowledgment to a double by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a sacrifice bunt by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior visited pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto connected nan mound. He ordered Yamamoto to transportation astir Addison Barger to group up a double play. Unlike Toronto reliever Seranthony Dominguez, fixed nan aforesaid instructions by his pitching coach successful Game 3, only to propulsion a first-pitch cooky to Ohtani for a game-tying location run, Yamamoto has nan bid to execute. He threw 4 consecutive balls. Barger did not wound and walked.

Kirk was up next. A crushed shot and nan Blue Jays would suffer nan World Series. Kirk is among nan slowest runners successful baseball. The mean MLB hitter grounds into a double play erstwhile nan opportunity is coming 9.8% of nan time. Kirk is almost doubly arsenic apt to crushed into a double play: 17.8%.

Yamamoto throws crushed balls 53.7% of nan time, good supra nan MLB mean of 44.2%.

There was 1 judge measurement to debar nan double play: nonstop Barger, a positive runner, connected a bargain attempt.

Dodgers head Dave Roberts was successful a bind. The tying tally was connected 3rd base. If Barger ran and Roberts elected to propulsion through, nan Dodgers would beryllium vacating an infield position, astir apt 2nd base. That would unfastened a immense spread for Kirk, 1 of nan champion interaction hitters successful nan game.

Roberts’s privilege was to take sides nan imaginable tying tally connected 3rd base. It would beryllium difficult to swallow allowing nan tying tally to people by creating a spread successful nan infield. Moreover, immoderate mishandling of a propulsion to 2nd guidelines could nonstop Guerrero home. Most managers would not take sides nan stolen guidelines there.

There was 1 measurement to find out: Barger should make a mendacious break toward 2nd connected nan first transportation to spot if Mookie Betts aliases Rojas, nan mediate infielders, collapsed for nan bag.

Barger took a short lead disconnected first guidelines and stood upright, his assemblage connection giving each denotation he was staying put. And he was. No mendacious break. The Dodgers had thing to interest about.

Yamamoto did his accustomed master occupation of getting nan hitter disconnected equilibrium by changing speeds: 93-mph cutter (foul), 80-mph curveball (swinging strike) and 92-mph splitter (yes, a double play grounder). Barger ne'er changed his lead aliases stance, ne'er drafting a throw.

Kirk gave a halting plaything astatine nan past pitch, breaking his bat while pounding it into nan ground, 8 feet from nan sheet connected its first bounce. If he was fooled, it was easy to understand. Yamamoto almost ne'er throws his splitter distant to righthanded hitters. Here are each 360 splitters Yamamoto threw to righthanded hitters this year. The arrow points to nan 1 he threw to Kirk, 1 of only 4 each twelvemonth successful that middle-away container erstwhile you trim nan area into 9 adjacent boxes.

Yamamoto splitters vs. right-handed batters / Baseball Savant

The top fearfulness managers person successful sending nan runner successful this spot is nan statement thrust double play. Too risky, right?

Well, let’s specify risk. MLB hitters took 3,936 at-bats this twelvemonth pinch runners connected first and 3rd and 1 retired aliases less. How galore times did nan hitter statement into a double play? Thirty-three. That’s fearing thing that has less than a 1% chance of happening, arsenic opposed to nan 17.8% chance that Kirk will crushed into a double play.

Sending Barger was much astir being smart than being bold.

4. Inches matter

Kiner-Falefa is taking acold excessively overmuch power for not scoring what would person been nan winning tally successful nan ninth inning connected a crushed shot to 2nd by Daulton Varsho pinch nan bases loaded and 1 out. Rojas threw to catcher Will Smith for nan unit out—barely. Kiner-Falefa is not wholly blameless, but you must understand nan afloat context.

a. Yes, his superior lead was excessively short.

“They told america to enactment adjacent to nan base,” Kiner-Falefa told reporters, referring to nan dugout and 3rd guidelines coach Carlos Febles. “They don’t want america to get doubled disconnected successful that business pinch a difficult statement drive.”

He is 100% correct astir that approach. Contrary to nationalist opinion, you do not spell arsenic acold disconnected nan container arsenic nan 3rd baseman is playing, not pinch 1 retired erstwhile a statement thrust could extremity nan inning.

With a lefthanded batter successful nan box, 3rd baseman Max Muncy was playing 15.2 feet distant from nan bag, according to MLB’s subordinate search data.

Standard process successful this situation—one out, bases loaded, protecting against nan statement thrust double play—is to go disconnected nan bag equal to two-thirds nan distance that nan 3rd baseman is disconnected nan bag.

Kiner-Falefa should person been 11.4 feet disconnected nan base. He was 8.6 feet disconnected nan bag, according to MLB’s subordinate search data.

That was his fatal mistake. A short lead is due successful that situation, but his correction was that, under Febles’s instruction, he over-corrected. He had different 2 to 3 feet to return to beryllium safely disconnected nan guidelines without risking getting doubled up connected a statement drive.

Cell telephone video changeable from nan stands shows Febles talking to Kiner-Falefa astatine nan guidelines earlier Yamamoto is set. This is simply a surface changeable arsenic Yamamoto delivers nan first transportation of nan at-bat:

Tom Verducci / Sports Illustrated

Before nan adjacent pitch, Febles walks to nan baseline and appears to usage his ft to tie a statement successful nan ungraded for a reference point:

Tom Verducci / Sports Illustrated

On nan past transportation to Varsho, Kiner-Falefa is locked into that aforesaid short lead he had connected nan first pitch, correct to nan people Febles made. (Take statement successful nan screenshots of nan “leads” astatine first guidelines by Alejandro Kirk. No threat of him getting doubled up!)

Tom Verducci / Sports Illustrated

b. His secondary lead was fine.

Again, bases loaded and 1 out—not two—calls for due caution. You do not return an fierce secondary lead wherever you create difficult momentum carrying your assemblage weight guardant arsenic nan shot is hit. That’s erstwhile you spot nan slapstick stumbles and falls successful a panicked alteration of guidance upon seeing a statement thrust astatine an infielder. With little than 2 outs you must beryllium nether power capable to move quickly successful either direction. Blaming Kiner-Falefa for not charging down nan statement pinch a difficult secondary lead is unfair.

c. His descent was fine.

Is moving done nan guidelines faster than a slide? Sure. But I’ve sewage to spot a agelong item reel of runners opinionated up connected a unit play astatine location pinch little than 2 outs earlier I return this disapproval seriously. It’s conscionable not done. I don’t ever retrieve seeing it. Maybe it should be done, but it’s not communal practice, particularly erstwhile nan runner besides has nan work of breaking up a imaginable double play. Kiner-Falefa is utilizing years of shot small heart and study to slide.

Here’s nan bottommost line: 1 executive timed retired nan play from interaction disconnected nan bat to nan drawback by Smith. He clocked it astatine 3.5 seconds. For reference, a squad typically needs to get nan shot to 2nd guidelines connected a bargain effort wrong 3.3 seconds to drawback nan runner aft a normal lead of 11 feet aliases so. A stagger by Rojas upon mounting his feet delayed nan play a beat. At 3.5 seconds, Kiner-Falefa should person been safe.

Said 1 head watching astatine home, “All 30 teams will beryllium showing that play adjacent outpouring training to punctual players small things matter. He over-corrected. It’s nan quality betwixt nan Jays winning nan World Series aliases not.”

Notice successful nan surface shots supra that some coaches were successful nan confines of nan coaches’ box. It happened each nighttime successful Game 7, astatine slightest erstwhile I first noticed aft nan 3rd inning erstwhile unit main Mark Wegner walked from 2nd guidelines to nan Dodgers’ dugout to punctual Roberts that coaches must stay successful their respective boxes while nan shot is live. That is simply a awesome departure from protocol, successful which coaches routinely rotation acold retired of nan box.

MLB does person a rule, Rule 5.03, that requires coaches to stay successful nan container isolated from to awesome a subordinate to slide, beforehand aliases return to a base. It is almost ne'er enforced. Indeed, nan norm stipulates “the umpire shall, upon title by nan opposing manager, strictly enforce nan rule.” One head estimated erstwhile a squad picks up tells from nan force connected what transportation is being thrown—by nan setup of nan catcher aliases nan grip aliases quirk of nan pitcher—the guidelines coaches decipher and relay them “about 90 percent of nan time.”

The guidelines coaches successful Game 7 were successful uncommon pious form. When 1 foul statement thrust whistled past Dodgers first guidelines coach Chris Woodward, who usually would beryllium opinionated past first guidelines for self-preservation, nan coach turned to first guidelines umpire Adrian Johnson pinch a wry grin arsenic if to say, “See?”

According to sources acquainted pinch nan regular pre-series meetings this postseason betwixt MLB staff, umpires, managers and nine officials, MLB vice president of section operations Michael Hill told managers Rule 5.03 would beryllium much vigorously enforced this postseason. The acheronian creation of “stealing” pitches by peering into gloves aliases deciphering tells, particularly from foul territory, generated contention this twelvemonth that MLB wanted to debar successful nan postseason. The rule, however, was enforced sporadically, if astatine all—until Game 7 of nan World Series.

Before Game 7, Hill and nan umpires again warned some teams nan norm would beryllium vigorously enforced. The punishment for a usurpation is nan ejection of nan offending coach. Nobody wanted sign-stealing shenanigans aliases an ejection successful Game 7, truthful Hill and nan umpires were proactive astir avoiding immoderate mess. Wegner reinforced nan connection early successful nan game.

I ne'er understood why nan norm has not been enforced. Let nan players play and nan coaches coach. All shenanigans from extracurricular adjacent territory should beryllium curtailed, particularly erstwhile a norm already is successful place. Keep nan coaches successful nan container astatine each times, not conscionable Game 7.

6. Be ready

Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages was benched amid a 4-for-50 slump. He was watching nan crippled successful a hoodie connected nan steps astatine nan acold extremity of nan dugout when, successful nan bottommost of nan ninth pinch nan bases loaded, chair coach Danny Lehmann ran from nan location sheet broadside of nan dugout to show him to spell into nan crippled successful halfway field. The Dodgers wanted his amended limb to switch Tommy Edman successful a sacrifice alert situation.

Pages had been sitting for 3 and a half hours. He ripped disconnected his hoodie and went searching for his glove. He recovered it connected nan chair and jogged retired to center. Five pitches later—the adjacent transportation aft Rojas threw retired Kiner-Falefa—Pages made what is astir apt nan top drawback successful World Series history.

Yamamoto threw a first-pitch, nasty curveball that Ernie Clement someway deed disconnected his shoetops 366 feet—the second-longest shot deed disconnected Yamamoto’s curveball each year. It would person been a location tally astatine Fenway Park aliases Wrigley Field. It sailed straight complete nan caput of near fielder Kiké Hernández, who was playing shallow.

Hernández sprinted back. The formation of nan shot carried truthful straight complete his caput he arched his backmost and, rima agape, began to scope pinch his mitt moving look first toward nan wall. He was successful a astir difficult position for a catch.

Suddenly, superhero style, Pages arrived astatine nan scene. Pages whitethorn person nan amended limb complete Edman, but he is not arsenic fast. His mean sprint velocity (28.1 feet per second) is simply a tick down Edman’s (28.4). It is successful nan 69th percentile.

But connected this play, Pages, who besides was playing shallow, ran 29.2 feet per second—suddenly becoming faster than nan mean sprint velocity of anybody connected nan squad and successful nan 93rd percentile successful MLB. He covered 121 feet, an astonishing magnitude of area, while nan shot was successful nan aerial for six seconds.

If nan shot lands, nan Blue Jays triumph nan World Series and Clement is nan MVP.

Pages caught nan shot while leaping complete Hernández. In a balletic pas de deux, nan 2 outfielders were truthful intertwined that nan shot went into Pages’s unfastened mitt arsenic his correct manus was successful Hernández’s unfastened glove.

Willie Mays made nan astir celebrated drawback successful World Series history. In nan 1954 World Series he caught a 421-foot flyball from Vic Wertz pinch his backmost to nan infield successful a necktie crippled pinch a runner connected 2nd guidelines successful nan eighth inning. But that was Game 1—of a bid nan Giants won successful a sweep.

This was Game 7. The bid was complete if Pages did not drawback nan ball.

Toronto out-hit and outplayed Los Angeles but mislaid because of nan large fly.

Kiner-Falefa told maine during nan World Series nan Blue Jays’ extremity was to alteration baseball—to beryllium that playing old-school unselfish, put-the-ball-in play shot tin still triumph championships. Toronto played good capable to get wrong 2 outs of nan title and beryllium that it tin happen—it conscionable didn’t hap because of nan darn location tally ball.

Here are nan biggest hits of nan World Series, according to title Win Probability Added:

Five of nan 9 biggest hits were location runs by nan Dodgers successful nan seventh inning aliases later. Teams went 25–3 this postseason erstwhile they deed a 2nd location run and 22–44 erstwhile they didn’t.

The Dodgers deed .203, nan worst batting mean to triumph nan World Series successful nan DH era (since 1966). They struck retired a World Series-record 72 times.  And yet they won because of 5 swings of nan bat successful Games 3 and 7.

Starting from 2020, present are nan regular play location tally ranks by nan World Series winner: 1, 3, 4, 3, 3, 2.

8. Umpires are really good

Alan Porter, who whitethorn beryllium nan champion ball-strike umpire successful nan business, missed only 4 called pitches successful Game 5. Mark Wegner missed only 12 calls retired of 291 pitches successful nan 18-inning, 6.5-hour marathon successful Game 3. The unit instantly was connected nan dormant shot telephone connected nan lodged shot successful Game 6. Jordan Baker sewage nan telephone correct connected nan Kiner-Falefa descent astatine home. 

Umpires are not perfect, and you tin nitpick each you want astir a telephone present and there, but nan umpires sewage nan large calls correct truthful often that thankfully location was almost nary talk astir really severely we request ABS, nan situation strategy that is coming adjacent season. MLB’s soul information showed that this was the highest rated World Series unit ever assembled arsenic acold arsenic regular-season grades. It showed.

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