1. An Open Letter to Gutsy:
Gutsy,
You have often admitted on this blog that you are not as much of a baseball fan; indeed, this morning, you commented that you "don't really know baseball that well". As a diehard fan of the sport, and the National League Fellow of the Buck O'Neil Institute for Baseball Excellence, I humbly encourage you to tune in to this year's playoffs. The baseball postseason is arguably the most compelling of any of the major sports - as its series-based formats enables rivalries to develop quickly, and as there are so few teams in the playoffs that the competition level is extremely high in every round. If tonight's incredible Twins-Tigers game is any indication, we're about to have an incredible month of baseball. I hope that you'll join me in supporting our National Pastime and fighting the terrorists, and that you'll enjoy it even half as much as I will.
All the best,
Hitman
2. Playoff Scheduling:
The Twins' reward for winning tonight is an overnight trip to the Bronx for a date with the Yankees...tomorrow night. Just over 24 hours will separate the first pitch times for tonight's game and Game 1 of the ALDS.
I understand that the rules say that the Yankees, as the best team in the AL, got to choose which of the two ALDS schedules to play. They opted for a 5-game series over 8 days, rather than 7 days - and while the 7-day schedule begins Thursday, the 8-day begins Wednesday. But while I get the rule and its motivation, I find it inexcusable to force the Twins into this schedule. True, they're the last team in and shouldn't get deference just because of their need for a 163rd game. But playoff baseball is often so competitive and close, that it's unfair to give a team such an obvious advantage - no matter how small it may be. There ought to be some kind of exception to the schedule-selection rule for situations like this one.
Showing posts with label MLB Playoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLB Playoffs. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
2007 World Series Preview
Since Colonel Sanders has already given us most of the pertinent stats, my World Series preview will instead highlight some quirky facts about the 103rd edition of the Fall Classic.
Interesting fact #1: As we all know by now, the Rockies are a perfect 7-0 in the playoffs. They’ve won 10 games in a row (including the regular season), and are on a 21-1 streak since their last loss on September 15th. But did you know that, since the beginning of this 21-1 run, the Rockies have only trailed in 15 of 191 total innings (8%). They’ve only trailed in two innings out of 65 in the playoffs (3%).
Interesting fact #2: Again, we all know that the Rockies have had the longest wait in history – nine days – between clinching the pennant and playing in the World Series. Since the start of divisional play in 1995, only three other teams have had to wait as long as seven days to start the World Series: the 1995 Braves (seven; won), the 1996 Yankees (seven, won), and the 2006 Tigers (seven, lost).
If you shorten the wait to five and six days, you get the following list:
Five days: 1999 Yankees (won), 2000 Mets (lost), 2001 Yankees (lost), 2002 Giants (lost)
Six days: 2001 Diamondbacks (won), 2002 Angels (won), 2005 White Sox (won)
What that tells me is that a five, six, or seven day layoff doesn’t seem to play much of a factor in how a team will fare in the World Series. Teams with exactly five days between the LCS and the World Series are a combined 11-12, teams with exactly six days rest are a combined 12-6, and teams with exactly seven days rest are a combined 9-8. In short, these results yield an inconclusive answer to the question of whether there is such a thing as too long a layoff between the LCS and the World Series.
Perhaps the more appropriate question to ask is what this rest does to teams in Game 1 of their series.
Five days: 2-2
Six days: 2-1
Seven days: 2-1
Again, the long layoff seems to have very little in the way of impact. It seems counterintuitive, given how baseball players are conditioned to play in 162 games in 183 days over a six-month period. And yet, somehow, it hasn’t seemed to have made much of an impact one way or another.
Will the Rockies suffer because they’ve had to wait the longest between post-season games? We’ll find out this week. But, win or lose, I don’t think it’ll be correlated to the fact that they’ve been off for nine days.
You’d think that with those two facts above – that the Rockies have only trailed 8% of the innings played over the past 22 games, and that there’s no reason to believe that an extended layoff should affect the Rockies based on comparable results over the past 12 seasons – that I’d be picking the Rockies...but I’m not.
I think the Red Sox have clear advantages in both starting and relief pitching and I consider the potency of their lineup, as well as their playoff experience, as positive factors in their favor. Colorado has, potentially, a deeper lineup although perhaps not as potent. They certainly play better defense than the Red Sox do. But, as I wrote in my comment to Colonel Sanders’s post:
“[b]y all objective measures, Boston was the best team in baseball from Game 1 to Game 162. Other teams rose up and faded away (the Yanks, who were baseball’s second best team in 2007; the Indians, who were baseball’s third best team) but Boston’s still standing. It’s a testament to their pitching and their potent and concentrated lineup. This Boston team isn’t as good as the 2003 and 2004 editions but I think it is good enough to win the World Series.”
I’m sticking to that. I’m taking the Red Sox in 6.
Interesting fact #1: As we all know by now, the Rockies are a perfect 7-0 in the playoffs. They’ve won 10 games in a row (including the regular season), and are on a 21-1 streak since their last loss on September 15th. But did you know that, since the beginning of this 21-1 run, the Rockies have only trailed in 15 of 191 total innings (8%). They’ve only trailed in two innings out of 65 in the playoffs (3%).
Interesting fact #2: Again, we all know that the Rockies have had the longest wait in history – nine days – between clinching the pennant and playing in the World Series. Since the start of divisional play in 1995, only three other teams have had to wait as long as seven days to start the World Series: the 1995 Braves (seven; won), the 1996 Yankees (seven, won), and the 2006 Tigers (seven, lost).
If you shorten the wait to five and six days, you get the following list:
Five days: 1999 Yankees (won), 2000 Mets (lost), 2001 Yankees (lost), 2002 Giants (lost)
Six days: 2001 Diamondbacks (won), 2002 Angels (won), 2005 White Sox (won)
What that tells me is that a five, six, or seven day layoff doesn’t seem to play much of a factor in how a team will fare in the World Series. Teams with exactly five days between the LCS and the World Series are a combined 11-12, teams with exactly six days rest are a combined 12-6, and teams with exactly seven days rest are a combined 9-8. In short, these results yield an inconclusive answer to the question of whether there is such a thing as too long a layoff between the LCS and the World Series.
Perhaps the more appropriate question to ask is what this rest does to teams in Game 1 of their series.
Five days: 2-2
Six days: 2-1
Seven days: 2-1
Again, the long layoff seems to have very little in the way of impact. It seems counterintuitive, given how baseball players are conditioned to play in 162 games in 183 days over a six-month period. And yet, somehow, it hasn’t seemed to have made much of an impact one way or another.
Will the Rockies suffer because they’ve had to wait the longest between post-season games? We’ll find out this week. But, win or lose, I don’t think it’ll be correlated to the fact that they’ve been off for nine days.
You’d think that with those two facts above – that the Rockies have only trailed 8% of the innings played over the past 22 games, and that there’s no reason to believe that an extended layoff should affect the Rockies based on comparable results over the past 12 seasons – that I’d be picking the Rockies...but I’m not.
I think the Red Sox have clear advantages in both starting and relief pitching and I consider the potency of their lineup, as well as their playoff experience, as positive factors in their favor. Colorado has, potentially, a deeper lineup although perhaps not as potent. They certainly play better defense than the Red Sox do. But, as I wrote in my comment to Colonel Sanders’s post:
“[b]y all objective measures, Boston was the best team in baseball from Game 1 to Game 162. Other teams rose up and faded away (the Yanks, who were baseball’s second best team in 2007; the Indians, who were baseball’s third best team) but Boston’s still standing. It’s a testament to their pitching and their potent and concentrated lineup. This Boston team isn’t as good as the 2003 and 2004 editions but I think it is good enough to win the World Series.”
I’m sticking to that. I’m taking the Red Sox in 6.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Even Road Warrior Animal Is a Rockies Fan
Congrats to the Rockies for their sweep and getting into the record book to tie the best streak in Major League Baseball of 7 consecutive wins. Hopefully this juggarnaut will not stop until they break the record against Sabathia or Beckett. This little kid will eat Chief Wahoo and Bill Simmon's baby for breakfast.
So congrats to the potential MVP, the amazing defensive skills of the entire team including the potential Rookie of the Year and the sight of baseball giving crappy teams hope. Bring on the Tribe or Simmon's Butt Buddies.Friday, October 12, 2007
What I Like About Baseball (How Much Bill Simmons Can Suck It)
Ok I am in Mighty/MJ Rage-A-Holic Mode so I figured I would rant about something. Right now I feel like Rambo after Russians/VC/NWA/NVA/Burmese Pythons killed his Asian girlfriend before she gave the fancy necklace.
What is making me angry is a quote that Simmons wrote in his mailbag yesterday and a common perception in Bristol CT and throughout the left and right coast.
"No matter how much you love baseball, it's nearly impossible to care about the Colorado-Arizona series. You might watch it, you might enjoy it, you might even gamble on it ... but unless you're an absolute baseball nut or a Rockies/D-backs fan, how could you honestly care who wins when neither franchise is older than Jamie-Lynn Spears? It's like going to a wedding in which you don't know anything about the bride or the groom. "
Ok, so the fact that a team has come from being a sub .500 team for almost all of its franchise history. And is now on an unbelievable streak of winning 18 of its last 19 games and is streaking more than Mighty after three bottles of Manischewitz during his brother's Bar Mitzvah. Does that not in the least make you feel good and feel like in baseball anything can happen. What surprises me about this is that people haven't jumped onto this story. It is the quintessental David vs. Goliath story. If it was the Pirates who had shitty teams for the past few years and then made a World Series run, would we jump on their bandwagon since they have been around since the age of Grover Cleveland? That is just a stupid argument.
Who could not love the story in Colorado? You have a team that exemplifies the way that baseball should be played. You have a team that has 6 of its starting lineups and its closer that were drafted by the Rockies and came up in the Rockies organization. They weren't overpaid for in order to win a World Series, they earned it coming up through the organization. What is not to like about the story. How many of the Red Sox actually came from their organization? Two. Oh and someone that they spent about the entire team budget of the Rockies just to talk to in Dice-K. That worked out fabulously. When I think of the greats of the game, I think of players that came up with a certain organization and continued through that organization until they retire. That is how baseball should be.
I really hope (sorry Clevelanders) that Boston and Colorado make it to the World Series and Colorado sweeps the Red Sox. In this fantasy, Josh Beckett gets an infection of his soul patch, Curt Schilling has to be quiet for 5 minutes, Dice-K has to feed sushi through a straw, that David Ortiz gets caught in an avalanche and has to actually move his fat ass to get himself out of it, that Varitek has to endure being on Simmons podcast and that Manny has get sent down to the SuperMax facility Florence and be in the same room with the Blind Shiek, Ted Kazcinski and Simmons to listen to his whiney voice talk about some obscure ritual that he does with his friends who we don't care about in Vegas.
Oh and another thing that he mention was worrying about Ortiz in the thin air. We don't have thin air out here. Mt. Everest is in thin air, Denver has the same amount of oxygen as a retiree conference of ex-Marlboro employees. I smoked Pall Mall non-filters for ten years during the war...I run around 3 miles a day now, it doesn't affect me. I think that a professional athlete who gets paid millions of dollars to be in shape can deal with the air even if you are a fat slob like David Ortiz.
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