This article is a part of Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom empties out his notebook over email and covers MLB’s hottest topics, provides in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, looks forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more.

Welcome back, analog baseball!

This postseason is unraveling some of the tenets that analytic baseball overemphasized. It is bringing back analog baseball, more reminiscent of the 1980s, the most stylized version of the game ever played.

Building on the run of the contact-heavy Blue Jays last year, and a bit of the Diamondbacks’ run in 2023, this World Series proves the old way is the new way. Speed. Athleticism. Moving runners. Here are some truths about this World Series and postseason:

1. The home run is no longer the only coin of the realm.

The past six World Series champions ranked in the top four in homers. That run is over. The Brewers and Guardians/Rays are bottom-nine teams in home runs.

And it’s not just this year. After zero of the 12 pennant winners from 2017–22 hit fewer than 200 home runs, four of eight have done so in the last four seasons.

2. Baserunning matters.

Remember when analytics didn’t like the idea of risking outs on the bases?

This will be the first World Series in 50 years in which both teams stole at least 146 bases, dating to the 1976 matchup between the Reds and Yankees. (Yes, the new rules have encouraged more chances.)

If the Rays are in, it will be only the second World Series since 1918 in which both teams had at least 162 steals, joining ’76. 

The Brewers are the first World Series team in 12 years (2014 Royals) to have more stolen bases than home runs, a common occurrence in the 1980s:

3. Ground balls are not all evil.

Analytics loves pull-side balls in the air. The top seven teams at that approach are home. The Brewers are last in pull air percentage. They won a pennant with a boatload of grounders, especially to the opposite field.

2026 MLB Ranks, LCS Teams

When I asked Dodgers manager Dave Roberts why his team struggled so much during the postseason with runners in scoring position (.116 batting average) and the Brewers have not (.284), Roberts said, “The angle of their bats.”

When you try for pull-side slug, you are vulnerable to any pitch that moves away or is off-speed. When you hit fastballs middle-opposite as a default approach, you can cover everything.

This next stat is amazing. It defines how Milwaukee, by hitting fastballs deep, creates bat angles more suited to covering a variety of pitches. Against fastballs, the Brewers hit the fewest pull-side home runs. But they hit more home runs than the Dodgers on fastballs not pulled.

Home Runs off Fastballs by Direction, 2026

4. Fastballs are back!

This is the first postseason in eight years in which fastballs (including cutters) account for more than half the pitches, which was standard procedure until analytics and spin-tracking took over in 2015.

2026 Postseason Fastball Usage (Data since 2008)

Last postseason the splitter was the breakout pitch. Now what drives pitching is throwing three fastballs (four-seam, sinker, cutter) that move in three directions at unprecedented velocities. No wonder the postseason batting average is .213.

Much of the return to the fastball is because four-seam pitchers are adding the two-seamer. Postseason sinker use has hit an 11-year high: