Recreating the 2018 World Series Through R

The 2018 World Series was a fascinating week full of drama, lead changes, and late heroics. In the end, the Dodgers lost, with their manager Dave Roberts facing heavy criticism for his selection of relief pitchers. Using the programming lanugage R, a deep dive into matchup data can say whether Roberts truly used the correct relievers, whether he picked poorly or whether the relievers were just off their games. There are many ways to determine such. Do these relievers have a certain kind of specialty pitch that the Red Sox just hit well? Did these pitchers have troublesome histories against these hitters? Were they at a disadvantage due to the handedness of the batters? R can run simulations that determine whether the results were just bad luck or a fundamentally poor way of managing the game.