Verducci's View: Final World Series Thoughts

Cleaning out Fall Classic notes before the offseason begins in earnest.

TOM VERDUCCI Tom Verducci delivers a mix of expert commentary, inside angles and thoughtful perspectives on baseball’s biggest storylines every week. Want to ask Tom a question? Visit the Verducci’s View section of SI Forums.  The Brewers’ World Series commemorative issue is now available for purchase. ⚾ The Leadoff Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated The Bottom Line of the World Series You can dissect the World Series every which way, but nothing stands out more than this truth: the Brewers’ staff had much better pure stuff than the Rays’ staff. Milwaukee threw the ball harder and spun the ball more and faster—and it wasn’t close. The Brewers pushed postseason velocity to a place we’ve never seen. First, the fastball comparison, which shows a 3.1 mph difference between the two pennant winners: 2026 World Series Fastballs by Pitching Staff Team Pct. Velocity BA SLG Brewers 58% 97.6 .198 .247 Rays 50% 94.5 .306 .435 Highest Fastball Velocity, World Series 2008-26 Team Velocity 1. 2026 Brewers 97.6 2. 2025 Dodgers 96.8 3. 2020 Rays 95.7 3. 2024 Dodgers 95.7 5. 2022 Phillies 95.6 Now, the breaking pitch comparison: 2026 Breaking Pitches by Pitching Staff Team Pct. RPM BA SLG Brewers 22.1% 2,603 .186 .256 RAYS 13.1% 2,488 .300 .550 A high-velocity, high-spin team, the Brewers were the best team in the regular season at depressing slug. With a shortened staff and days off, they were even tougher to slug against in the postseason (.243, the lowest in the pitch tracking era with more than two games). In 12 postseason games the Brewers allowed just four home runs, none in the three games at Tropicana Field. The key to Milwaukee depressing slug is their heavy load of power sinkers. They allowed no home runs on 569 sinkers that averaged almost 97 mph. Sinker Use, 2026 Pct. Velocity BA SLG MLB Average 16.6% 94.1 .282 .414 Brewers in Playoffs 31.2% 96.9 .208 .248 Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated How Tropicana Field Helped the Brewers Win the Title Did the Rays’ own ballpark contribute to the end of their season? It’s a fair question after Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski suddenly found his “A” fastball in the World Series Game 5 clincher with the help of Tropicana Field. The Milwaukee pitching coaches, Chris Hook and Jim Henderson, had been concerned for weeks. Misiorowski was tiring. His fastball was losing its late life. The velocity and spin were fine. The problem was its “rise”—the way its spin fights gravity to keep the baseball from sinking less than the hitter expects. When Misiorowski is right, his fastball defies the drop of a theoretical pitch with no spin by 15.3 inches. The MLB average for such a measurement, called Induced Vertical Break, is 15.6 inches. Entering September, Misiorowski had only two games all year with an IVB as low as 14.6, including one game at Coors Field, a notorious IVB killer. But in his next eight starts, through World Series Game 1 as he worked 50 innings past his previous year’s workload, it happened six times. Hook and Henderson worked with Misiorowski before the World Series on not sinking into his legs so much and moving faster through his delivery. But Game 1 was not much better. Misiorowski remained at a 14.6 IVB with the lowest release point of his year. Why is IVB a big deal? A high-IVB fastball fights gravity to ride above a hitter’s swing path. Less IVB means it sinks into the plane of the barrel. For instance, MLB hitters this year batted .270 against four-seamers with less than 16 IVB. But against fastballs that reached 16 IVB or better, they hit .224. Entering World Series Game 5, Hook was no longer worried. Misiorowski was carrying himself with confidence and ease Hook had not seen for weeks. Mostly, though, Hook was sure the life would be back on Miz’s heater for one obvious reason: the game was being played at Tropicana Field, the secret sauce to IVB. “I’ve been coming here for eight years,” Hook told me before the game, “and I’ve never known anyone who didn’t have better vert pitching here.” I asked Milwaukee hitting coach Dan Vogelbach about this phenomenon. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Everybody knows it. That’s why for years the Rays have had over-the-top power pitchers with a big breaking ball. The mound is a little higher here.” MLB regularly measures mounds to assure they conform to rules. But whatever is causing it, Tropicana Field makes four-seamers play up like nowhere else. To Tampa Bay’s season-ending regret, it happened again in Game 5. Suddenly, Misiorowski had the greatest carry on his fastball in almost four months—a 16.3 IVB, his fourth highest of the year. It was a stunning turnaround. He wasn’t throwing any harder, and the ball wasn’t spinning any faster. But as far as its carry, it was the best fastball he had since July 2. Misiorowski threw 57 fastballs in Game 5. The Rays barreled up none of them. He was brilliant before having to leave two outs into the sixth inning with a leg cramp. He became only the fourth starting pitcher to win a World Series clincher by allowing no runs and as few as four baserunners, joining Ralph Terry (1962), Tom Glavine (1995) and Derek Lowe (2004). At 24, Misiorowski is the youngest to throw such a shutdown clincher. “The fastball was good enough,” Hook said. “They couldn't square it up, so that was really, really special. “He’s had an A game most of the year. This past four weeks probably is, I would say, B minus game. Tonight was probably in that A range again.” The effect of Tropicana Field on IVB is measurable. First, let’s look at the carry on Miz’s fastball in the regular season, his first three postseason starts (all at Milwaukee) and World Series Game 5 (at Tropicana Field): Misiorowski Fastball, 2026 Time Period MPH RPM IVB BA Barrel/ PA% Regular Season 100.6 2,635 15.3 .174 2.4% First 3 Playoff Starts 101.1 2,567 14.2 .412 10.0% World Series Game 5 101.1 2,579 16.3 1.82 0% I’ve highlighted the most obvious differences: his fastball got more than two inches more rise in St. Petersburg than it had in Milwaukee and hitters could not barrel it up after feasting on it in Milwaukee. But let’s broaden the lens to see if this phenomenon applies to the other Milwaukee starters in the World Series: Induced Vertical Break, 2026 Regular and Postseason Pitcher At Tropicana Field At Others Difference Robert Gasser 15.8 14.4 +1.4 Dustin May 18.2 15.2 +3.0 Jacob Misiorowski 16.3 15.2 +1.1 Each one got a boost. Let’s go to an even bigger sample—a 6,851-pitch sample. The Rays play half their games at the Trop. Do their four-seam fastballs play up at home? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Rays Four-seam Fastballs, 2026 Regular and Postseason Venue MPH IVB BA SLG Home 94.7 17.5 .201 .369 Away 94.4 16.4 .245 .443 Whoa. Now that’s a big difference. How much of an outlier is the Trop when it comes to late life on fastballs? Here you go: Highest Average IVB by Ballpark, 2026 Ballpark IVB 1. Tropicana Field, Tampa Bay 17.2 2. loanDepot Park, Miami 17.1 3. Rogers Centre, Toronto 16.5 3. Petco Park, San Diego 16.5 Indoor baseball is clearly good for extra ride on four-seamers. (The Rays’ 17.5 home IVB this year is half an inch more than last year while playing outdoors in Tampa, 17.0.) The average MLB IVB is 15.6. Every major league ballpark is within one inch of the average except three outliers: the Trop (+1.6), loanDepot Park in Miami (+1.5) and Coors Field in Colorado (-3.5). What Coors Field is for hitters, Tropicana Field is for four-seam pitchers. Misiorowski found his fastball in the clincher with the help of the Rays’ home park. Hook saw it coming. Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated The Death of the Launch Angle Revolution From 2015, the start of the Launch Angle Revolution, to 2026, average four-seam velocity increased from 94.3 mph to 96.3 mph. Four-seam usage increased from 30.1% to 32.9%. Batting average on the pitch plummeted from .234 to .209 and slug dropped from .428 to .341. And the average release height on the pitch dropped from 6.1 feet to 5.73 feet. In short, pitching changed a lot. As fastballs kept getting faster and from lower release points, which increased the vertical attack angle, swinging up at the baseball grew more problematic. The high launch, pull-side air swing that analytics loves doesn’t work as well in today’s game. The Brewers proved what does work in today’s game: flatter swings, deeper contact points and bat angles that can shoot fastballs the other way—yes, even on the ground. Launch angle is now old school. The Brewers are new school. 2026 Brewers’ Offensive Profile Statistic Value MLB Rank Attack Angle 2° Opp. Only team with opposite-field approach angle Launch Angle 9.2° Lowest, by 2.5° Groundball % 48.1% Highest Since 2024 Opposite Field % 27.0% Highest Pull Airball % 12.4% Lowest since tracking began in 2017 Let’s compare teams still playing the Launch Angle game to the New School teams. Take the five teams who hit the ball in air to the pull side the most (Cubs, Twins, Astros, D-Backs and Rockies) and compare them to the five who go pull-side air the least (Brewers, A’s, Phillies, Rays, Cardinals): Results by Pull-Side Air %, 2026 Results by Pull-Side Air%, 2026 W-L (Pct.) Postseason Five Highest Teams 391–420 (.482) 0–4 Five Lowest Teams 430–380 (.531) 20–7 One of my favorite lessons from the way Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy sees baseball is the value of the backside ground ball, anathema to the analytics revolution. “Like golf, you need different clubs in your bag,” he says. The average hitter bats more than 200 points higher on grounders to the opposite field rather than the pull side. Milwaukee hit an absurd .452 when they hit grounders the other way. Why wouldn’t that be part of your game? BA on Ground Balls by Direction, 2026 Hits BA HR MLB Regular Season .205 .415 +.210 MLB Postseason .201 .436 +.235 Brewers Regular Season .214 .452 +.238 Brewers Postseason .254 .455 +.201 The Brewers had 119 ground ball hits to the opposite field in the regular season. The Rays had the most (126). Both teams had more than twice as many such hits as the Yankees (58). Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated Batman & Robin One of the coolest on-field celebrations was watching DH Christian Yelich hug Hall of Famer Robin Yount. When Murphy told Yelich he was naming him captain on the final weekend of the regular season, Yelich at first had tears in his eyes and called it “my greatest night in baseball.” Then he said he would have to make sure it was okay with Yount before he accepted the honor. Yount, Yelich, Paul Molitor and Ryan Braun are the only Brewers with 150 homers and 150 steals. Said Yelich of his embrace with Yount, “Awesome. I talked to him before the series and we had a conversation. I was like, ‘We're getting this done, man. We're going to do it. And you're going to be there with us.’ “And I want him coming in the locker room to pop champagne bottles with us. He deserves to be there. He's unbelievable, and I'm just so happy for him. I know how much he was rooting for us, and how much this means to him and everybody else. And I'm just really happy we could get it for him.” Defeating Diaz Before the series began, the Brewers identified Yandy Diaz, not Junior Caminero, as the most important hitter in the Tampa Bay lineup to contain. They successfully removed him from the chess board by getting him to chase. Diaz went 3-for-20 with one RBI. The game’s best hitter against breaking pitches was 0-for-6 against spin.  Most tellingly, Diaz, formerly known for his plate discipline, was 0-for-9 chasing pitches with a 29% chase rate, this after his first season in MLB with a worse than average chase rate. The Secret Code Henderson, the Brewers pitching coordinator, turned 44 years old two days before World Series Game 1. That means he was born the day after the Brewers played their last World Series game, in 1982. “I’m constantly reminded of it,” Henderson says. “Almost all of the code numbers in our systems here use a ‘1982’.” Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated The Rise of Bobby Diesel Brewers pitcher Robert Gasser, 27, became the first rookie to start three road wins for his team in one postseason—and he did it in three of the six toughest venues for visitors, Petco Park in San Diego, Dodger Stadium and the Trop. He’s come a long way since Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, Calif., where his coach warned him he was too unserious about baseball, three different colleges, a trade and Tommy John surgery. Once famously hard on himself, Gasser said of staying cool under high pressure, “Really, just try to keep it as simple and not place a high importance on it. I know it's hard to say that, and it's weird to think like that, but I've been trying to just like stay as loose and relaxed as possible and not like, put the headphones in and get in this little world. Hanging out, watching people playing NHL [video game], go outside and just try not worry about what could happen or anything. Like controlling the controllables, really. “It's like, ‘How can I prepare myself to go pitch?’ rather than ‘What are all the possible outcomes here?’” In college at Houston, Gasser worked with mental skills coach Brian Cain. That’s when he adopted techniques to get through stressful situations. “He would always talk about your stoplights,” Gasser said. “Like green light, obviously, you're going well. You are just rolling. And yellow light and red light. The red light is like, go pick a spot in the stadium, like the foul pole. That's always going to be there. You can look at it, refocus, recenter. “And then the yellow light, it's like 2–0, I'll step off, grab some rosin and get back in the mindset. So, other than that, though, nothing. I'm not crazy breathing.  “Honestly, watching [Shane] Drohan was the craziest. Like, really? He, from day one, I don't think he's ever opened his mouth when he's pitching. He is as cool as it can be. And honestly watching him, I try to learn off that.” Noteworthy Two lingering lessons about the Brewers from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose team was swept by them while attempting no stolen bases and hitting one home run. Asked why the Brewers were knocking in runners with hits and the Dodgers weren’t, Roberts said, “Their bat angle.” And when looking for a formula to beat Milwaukee, Roberts said, “We have to keep [Aaron] Ashby out of the game.” ... World Series MVP William Contreras is one year away from free agency, which in Milwaukee typically means the player is at risk of being traded. But according to one team source, the Brewers’ postseason run makes it more likely the team will try to sign Contreras to an extension. Milwaukee closed out the year with 66 consecutive starts by pitchers in their 20s. It went 47–19 (.712) with its young guns ... Harvey Kuenn was 51 when he managed Milwaukee in the 1982 World Series. Murphy is 67. Both have career managerial winning percentages of .576 ... The final tally for most 100 mph pitches by one team in one year: 1) 2026 Brewers, 1,414. 2) 2026 Padres, 800. 3) 2018 Cardinals, 623. Milwaukee threw 77% more 100-mph pitches than any team in recorded history ... Blame the Brewers: postseason slugging this year (.336) was the lowest since pitch tracking began in 2008.   Recommended by  📺 Breakdown of the Week Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt was one of the breakout stars of the postseason. Brought up to the majors in June with a reputation as a glove-first shortstop, Pratt proved to be a dynamic offensive player thanks to adjustments in his rookie season. From his first two months in the big leagues to the World Series, Pratt gradually: Moved closer to the plate. Increased his bat speed. Let the ball travel deeper. Flattened his bat path. In his load, lowered his hands and moved his lead elbow and arm closer to his body. Raised his OPS 168 points. It’s a great example of how player development continues in the big leagues. You can see a video breakdown of the changes above. And you can see the changes in metrics here: Pratt Swing Metrics Off Plate Bat Speed InterceptY Attack Angle Whiff% OPS First Half 23.0” 70.2 mph 28.3” 7° 23.8% .684 Playoffs 21.7” 71.1 mph 30.2” 3° 17.4% .852 By loading in a more connected position with his hands and arms, flattening his stroke and moving his contact point deeper, Pratt, at 22, became a tougher out amid the higher stakes and better pitching of the postseason. The most obvious change is in his path to the baseball. Pratt became a tougher out by reducing his attack angle from 7° to 3°, one of the flattest in the postseason. Flattest Attack Angle, Postseason (Min. 50 pitches) Time Player Attack Angle 1. Ben Williamson, Rays -1° 2. Steven Kwan, Guardians 0° 3. Yandy Diaz, Rays 2° 3. Chandler Simpson Rays 2° 5. Cooper Pratt, Brewers 3° 5. Joey Ortiz, Brewers 3°   Recommended by  Best of SI Baseball Tom Verducci: The Last Baseball of the 2026 World Series Told the Story of the Brewers Ryan Phillips: Brewers’ Precious Few Stars Delivered When It Mattered Most Will Laws: SI’s MLB All-Postseason Team Reflects Brewers' Dominance Karl Rasmussen: Ranking the Top 10 Trade Candidates of the Offseason Nick Selbe: The 12 Most Memorable Moments of the Playoffs Get the print edition of Sports Illustrated delivered to your door. Click to subscribe!   Recommended by  We may receive compensation for some links to products and services included in this email. Sports Publishing Solutions Inc. 625 Broadway, 10th floor New York, NY. 10012 You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Verducci’s View newsletter. You can unsubscribe here . Privacy Policy – Terms & Conditions © 2026 Sports Publishing Solutions Inc. All rights reserved. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. 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