World Series

I meant to post my predictions before the series started, but have been busy and lazy.

I'm picking the underdog Rockies to win the Series. Last night's results are disappointing to that end, but at least I don't look like someone hopping on the bandwagon after a win (not that I think any regular reader would question my integrity).

I'm also predicting that Beckett gives up three or more runs in his start in Colorado, and that Manny Ramirez's defense will cost at least one run in the three games there (though not necessarily with a play in which he gets credited with an error).

Final season recap still on the way, probably after I finished moving, unless I get bored packing tonight or tomorrow.

The Second Annual Playoff Repick Because All My First Round Picks Lost

Wow, that was even worse than last year.

I'll go with Rockies over Indians in the World Series.

The Rockies are a better team than the Diamondbacks, who, frankly, are not very good. Their luck has to run out at some point. The Rockies' lineup is so much better that I'll skip the analysis and leave it at bald assertion. As to pitching, the Diamondbacks have the best starter in Brandon Webb, though he doesn't guarantee them a victory the way some "analysts" would have you believe. One moronic "insight" I saw gave the Diamondbacks the edge in game one because Jeff Francis is "capable of making mistakes" -- a poor insight not only in that everyone, obviously, is capable of making mistakes, but also in that Webb has repeatedly made them against Colorado this season: in six starts, the final one was the only one in which he did not give up at least four earned runs, and the 7IP 8H 2R 2ER 2BB 2K performance he turned in for that game was hardly dominate. Francis is a capable pitcher, and two of his three starts against the Diamondbacks this season went well. Sure, small sample sizes and all, but this game is not the gimme for the Diamondbacks that some make it out to be. As for the rest of the pitching staffs, I'd give the Rockies a slight edge which evaporates if they pitch Jorge Julio. Both teams have great defense, too. The biggest differences are lineups and number one starter, and between he much larger lineup advantage, and the fact that the number one starter currently looks to play in only two games (but even considering the possibility of three), the edge has to go to the Rockies.

As to picking the Indians, I'm aware that it's more of a contrarian view. Mostly, I think Sabathia and Beckett are roughly equal, and Carmona has the edge over whoever the Red Sox throw out as their number two (looks like it will be Schilling). Daisuke Matsuzaka has suffered a performance drop-off, and I don't really see him as being better than whoever the Indians throw out. I'd say the Red Sox have the better lineup, but not by a wide margin. The Red Sox do have a large edge on hype, though.

I'd say the Rockies-Diamondbacks is more likely to go 5-6 games, while Indians-Red Sox is more of a 6-7 game series. There are my thoughts, we'll see what happens.

Division Series Notes

So far, I'm 0 for 8. That's pretty bad.

A couple of squeakers yesterday, good games. Thus far, we've had blowouts, squeakers, A-Rod 0-fers, fans affecting plays, and swarms of bugs descending onto the playing field -- everything the playoffs are all about. Well, the last one doesn't have to be bugs, of course -- it could be a tarp machine attacking a player or any number of other things, just something unusual affecting a game or series.

It's pretty amazing that all four series are 2-0 right now. I'm not sure if that's happened before (but might look it up), but I do know that there have never been more than two sweeps in a season, that happening in seven of the thirteen previous seasons with division series (1995-1998, 2000, 2005-2006). Two seasons (1996 and 1997) featured two sweeps in one league (National League both times).

I've found five teams that have come back from an 0-2 deficit to win the division series:
1981 NLDS: Dodgers beat Astros
1995 ALDS: Mariners beat Yankees
1999 ALDS: Red Sox beat Indians
2001 ALDS: Yankees beat Athletics
2003 ALDS: Red Sox beat Athletics

Prior to 1998, the division series featured two games at the lower-seeded city followed by three games (if necessary) at the higher-seeded city. So the first two of those involved the winning team still winning three home games, which is no longer applicable to the situation. The 2001 Yankees are the only team to win the division series after losing the first two games at home.

The League Championship Series was a five game series from 1969 through 1984. Still working on info there.

UPDATED: Turns out the only NLCS one was the one I already knew about: 1984, when the Padres came back to beat the Cubs. Even more painfully for Cubs fans, the Cubs had a lead in each of the final three games. Luckily, I'm too young to have been scarred by it. In the ALCS, the only one is the Brewers coming back to beat the Angels in 1982. So that's seven, total, comebacks from 0-2 deficits, though four of those came under the old format.

I also note that, currently, the Rockies are the only National League team to have never played in a League Championship Series (the Brewers are the only National League team to play in an American League Championship Series, and they have yet to appear in the NL version). The Expos/Nationals are the only other NL team to have never played in a World Series. Over in the American League, the Devil Rays have never made the playoffs, the Rangers have never played in the ALCS, and the Mariners have never played in the World Series.

Thoughts on the Wild Card

It's the thirteenth year of the wild card, and, despite it's wild success, people are still complaining. Nuts to them.

Jerry Crasnick has a column for ESPN on "fixing" the wild card. He starts with a quote from G.W. Bush on being the lone vote among ownership against the wild card, and how history will prove him right; it's a great set-up for a joke, but he blows it. He offered five options (including keeping the current format) to a front office person from each of the 30 teams, and tallies the results.

Before commenting on each of the options, I must say that I don't see the logic behind the supposed need to punish the wild card team and the inherent superiority of being a division winner. Let's face it, some of these divisions have been ... not so good over the last dozen years. The two central and two western divisions have taken their turns as the worst division in baseball, and I can recall fretting that three of those divisions (AL West, NL West, NL Central, in chronological order) would be won by a team without a winning record (so far, at least, that has not occurred). Is a division winner with an 82-80 record -- which, moreover, only has a winning record because the unbalanced schedule allows it to play extra games against its weaker division rivals -- really inherently better than a 90-win wild card? Thinking people everywhere respond with a resounding no. The people who think that's the case must be the same ones who think wins (or, for that matter, saves) are the best measure of the quality of a pitcher, irrespective of ERA or quality of the team they play for, let alone any of the more advanced metrics. One option I've heard proposed that was not in the column (due at least in part to it not being an option that could be implemented at any time in the near future) is to expand by another two teams and have each league move to four, four-team divisions and eliminate the wild card. This boneheaded plan practically guarantees that there will eventually be a playoff team with a losing record. As much as I love the Cubs, I have to admit that they were greatly helped by playing in a division where Milwaukee was the only other decent team, and the Rockies, who played in the much tougher West, are a more deserving playoff team. Actually, I've looked at it more tonight, and the Rockies are a much better team than I'd given them credit for. Right now, I'd say they're the favorites to represent the National League in the World Series. Of course, I'm still pulling for a Cubs comeback.

Back on topic, one option offered was to have the wild card team play four of the five opening series games on the road. This is the sort of dumb idea that people who believe in the inherent superiority of division winners would embrace, and my reasoning for why they're mistaken stands as my reasoning for why this is a bad idea. It received three votes.

Another idea is to follow old Japan League rules and let a team that won a division by five or more games win a "best of five" series with only two wins, while its opponent needed three (essentially making it a best of four series, with a tie going to the higher-seeded team). Same basic logic applies here, plus it's too gimmicky. Fans are already easily confused by tiebreakers and that would be too much for them. It received no votes.

A third option was adding a second wild card, and having the two play either a one-game play-in, or a best-of-three series. This scenario contains a bit of the previously mentioned biases, but they're less pronounced. If you want to talk fairness, would it be fair to make a team with the second-best record in the league defend its playoff spot against a team with the fifth-best record, when under the current system it might have won that spot by ten games? Yes, it's a scenario that won't nearly happen every year, but it will happen. I despise the one game play-in (except in the case of tiebreakers). Major League Baseball is a place where any team can beat any other team on any day of the week to a degree not found in the other major sports. A one-game play-in will, on average, give the better team only about a 55% chance of making the playoffs. It comes down more to who has the single best pitcher. As someone who dislikes the fact that two top starting pitchers is basically all you need to win the World Series (see the 2001 Diamondbacks), this is even more distasteful. A three-game playoff, while less of a crapshoot than a one-game one, is still more of one than a five-game series, and you already have people like Billy Beane complaining about that. Plus, you've got to figure that this scenario has the division winners resting for at least four days, and probably at least five. It's logistically problematic. This received seven votes (no word on any vote breakdown between one game and a three game series).

A reasonable and popular idea was expanding the opening series from five to seven games. Little surprise, Billy Beane supported this one. I think this is a decent idea, probably the best of the five options. A longer series tends to benefit the better team. Selig, an apparent opponent of the idea, whines that the calendar is a problem for this option. With the newly expanded calendar, this is laughable. You now have a travel day built in between games four and five of the division series (some people have complained about this; I'm more ambivalent), so that takes care of the extra travel day that would be "needed" for a seven game series compared to previous postseason schedules. This leaves you needing to find two more days. First, and most obviously, they decided to add a non-travel off day between games four and five of the league championship series this year, due to thinking that you can provide your own negative adjective for. For the benefit of anyone from MLB that might read this, I'll put the following statement in bold: Non-travel offdays in the middle of a series are bad. I hate them opening week, I hate them in the one division series that does it each year, and now I hate them in the LCS. The final extra day needed can be obtained by eliminating an off day between the LCS and World Series. Currently, one league is guaranteed at least two off days, and the other, three (this year, the American League, and National League, respectively, though it's scheduled to alternate years).Between this lag and the previously mentioned non-travel offday, a pair of sweeps in the LCS would mean a week without any baseball. Not good. So there are the extra days needed without lengthening the playoffs by another day. This option received thirteen votes.

The other option, as mentioned, was maintaining the current format. I'll admit that the added unpredictability of a five game series does tend to add a bit more excitement (compared to the seven game series, that is), which is the only thing keeping me from fully endorsing the previous option. This option received seven votes.

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I attended Game 2 of the Cubs-Diamondbacks series. The seats weren't great (my fault for waiting to order them, I guess), the game was so-so. Obviously, there's some bias in that I would have preferred a Cubs victory. The early innings were rather slow (the first 5 1/2 innings took nearly three hours), which led to a total game time that was not justified but offensive output, extra innings, or even a suspenseful regulation game. The Diamondbacks took a four run lead in the bottom of the fourth, and the Cubs never got closer than that. Four runs is small enough that you can hope and root for them to make it up (or hope and root against it, if you're the opposing team), but large enough that a tie or lead change is not likely. Suspense takes a bit hit between three and four runs. The game was lasting long enough that there was a large exodus after the fifth inning, when the Diamondbacks took an 8-2 lead. While six runs is a large lead, it's hardly the blowout that justifies leaving that early, especially in the playoffs. I'm left believing that a sizable percentage of those who left would have stayed longer if not for the time issue (and that previous half-inning was especially time consuming). It was probably a combination of the score and time for several fans, and I imagine that there was somebody who left who would not have if they'd known the Cubs would score a pair in the next inning. Of course, many more left after the sixth, anyways, but I still believe that at least one person out of all of those who left after the fifth would have stayed if he'd known the game would get closer.

The big three hitters for the Cubs have been a big disappointment so far this series, with Soriano 2-10, Lee 2-8 with a walk, and Ramirez 0-9, with each of them having four strikeouts, and all four hits being singles. That's a .148 average, .148 slugging, and .179 on-base percentage.

Not sure how much of it will make the highlights for those who didn't see the game, but defense was big for the Diamondbacks. Quick outfielders were able to catch a couple of balls that seemed destined for extra-base hits. There was the error on what probably would have been a double play, but that proved inconsequential, with neither runner advancing to score. I'm not saying the Cubs defense was bad, but there weren't any moments I can recall thinking what a good defensive move they made. There were only three hit balls from the Diamondbacks that landed in play for extra bases, so it's not like they had as much opportunity to steal those extra-base hits. I did not think they played Byrnes's triple well, they were too slow to field the ball on Davis's suicide squeeze play and should have tried for the out at first instead, and there was a double play they should have executed. That may sound like a lot of problems, but none of those were quite as bad as I may have made them sound, and none resulted in extra runs (unless Soriano had been able to catch Byrnes's triple, but I was faulting them more for the way it was played than the lack of a catch -- though I might change that if I see a replay of it).

All in all, the first professional playoff game for any of the major sports that I've attended is something I'll remember, but not much to reminisce about.

Oh, and my division series predictions are thus far doing every bit as good as last year's, with the teams I'd picked starting 0-6. It's hardly over, especially in the American League, but this start does not bode well. For those of you into betting, I'd say the odds are now about even of another 0 for 4. It did make me feel better to read that Keith Law was only 2 for 7 (I think it was) last year, and he's a reasonably informed professional. Oh, and one final note on my picks: I pick teams more like you'd pick an NCAA bracket for March Madness, or at least a small flavoring of that; I fully admit, for instance, and would have even before the series started, that the Red Sox are more likely than the Angels to win their series. It's good to pick an underdog or two along the way.

Quick Picks

No time for my regular season recap at the moment, just a quick mention of my picks for the first round of the playoffs. Hopefully, I do better than last year, when I picked every division series wrong (I did manage to pick the Cardinals in both the NLCS and World Series, though).

Cubs over Diamondbacks
Phillies over Rockies
Yankees over Indians
Angels over Red Sox

It was pretty impressive to see Rob Neyer refer to the Cubs as the National League favorites in his chat yesterday. I don't think they've been called that in awhile. Notably, though, they were by no means the overwhelming favorites. Still, I'm taken with the idea of the Cubs winning the World Series on the 100th anniversary of their first World Series win. Why not, I'll go with Cubs over Yankees as my World Series pick. And if Alex Rodriguez tries to relive the Babe Ruth called-shot at Wrigley, he will meet with embarrassing results.

Great play-in game for the Padres and Rockies, I wish I could have watched it on television. I was pulling for the blown save by Hoffman, but I wanted the game to continue a few more innings rather than end there. I had no strong feelings one way or the other as far as who won, I was just rooting for a memorable game. Did anyone else notice that the winning pitcher's ERA was over 7.50? Is that some kind of record for a playoff-berth-clinching game? This was definitely the most dramatic one game playoff in my lifetime, surpassing Cubs-Giants in 1998 (though I was more interested in that game).

Update: Just saw the ESPN picks, and seven of the twenty writers picked the Cubs to win the National League (including my two favorite writers, Neyer and Jason Stark), though only Stark picked them to win the World Series (over the Red Sox). Eight picked the Phillies, and five picked the Rockies (yes, none picked the Diamondbacks). There were two picks of a Rockies World Series title, five for the Yankees, six for the Red Sox, and three each for the Angels and Indians.

If the Cubs, Phillies, Rockies, or Indians win the World Series, that will make eight different champions in the last eight years. How's that for "competitive balance"?