Friday, October 5, 2012

MLB Playoff Round 1 Preview

The new Wild Card format actually did its job, more or less; it prevented a quality NL Central team from, and it made the AL West pennant race meaningful, with Oakland pulling out a spectacular division championship on the last day of the season.

NL Game To Go: Neither the Cardinals' Kyle Lohse nor the Braves' Kris Medlen are as good as their ERAs indicate, but Medlen is the superior pitcher by a substantial margin. However, St. Louis has the superior offense. Both teams feature outstanding closers. If Atlanta is favored, it's not by much. Still, I have to go with my hometown. Braves.

AL Game To Go: This is a no-brainer, as the Orioles are the one "mistake" team that doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs. By all rights, the Tampa Bay Rays ought to be in this game. Baltimore may be setting a record for the biggest difference between Pythagorean Win-Loss rate and actual win-loss rate. Despite their epic collapse, take the Rangers.

Elsewhere, I don't get the decision to fire Valentine after one year. Or rather, I don't get the decision to hire Valentine, who presided over some rather underperforming Mets teams a decade ago. The Sawx did underperform their run differential, but even Bobby Cox had seasons where that happens, so I'm not sure it's fair to blame him for the whole team's implosion.

4 comments:

low-tech cyclist said...

I'm a Nats fan, not an Orioles fan. But I think you're wrong about the O's.

It's true that they shouldn't have been in a position to contend to begin with: with two months to go in the season, they had a record of 55-51, while their Pythagorean was 46-60. But winning when they weren't playing very well kept the door open for what came next.

Because over the last two months, they scored 273 runs and gave up only 204. Sure, they still exceeded their Pythagorean (36-20) over this stretch, going 38-18. But they've earned their spot in the playoffs. They preserved the opportunity to make that run, then took full advantage of it.

And I'm sorry, but screw the Rays. With just 14 games to go, they were a piddling 78-70. If you screw around all season, it may be too late when you finally turn on the afterburners. They put themselves in a position where even that 12-2 run at the end wasn't nearly enough. Similarly for the Angels: they just woke up too late.

You snooze, you lose.

low-tech cyclist said...

The real problem for the O's tonight is that they really only have 3 good starters (Chen, Gonzalez, Tillman), and they pitched on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. If I were Buck Showalter, I'd pitch Chen on 3 days' rest, rather than put Saunders out there, which is what he's going to do. (I'd pull Chen after 5, though.) Then if they win, Gonzalez, Tillman, and Chen can pitch on normal rest in the first 3 games against the Yankees, and Saunders can pitch game 4 before Gonzalez comes back on normal rest in game 5.

You really don't want to f*** around with a one-game playoff - you want to send your best. There are enough off-days in the postseason to allow you to get your rotation back to where it ought to be.

Jonathan Bernstein said...

Coming in late, but...

Why do you think run differential is useful for evaluating managers? I certainly don't.

Jonathan Bernstein said...

Coming in late, but...

Why do you think run differential is useful for evaluating managers? I certainly don't.