Postseason Prediction

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Which team do you think is most likely to win the 2014 World Series, regardless of personal rooting interests?

[Guest d'Kong76]

Took the Dodgers.

[TransMonk]

Dodgers over Tigers.

[Frayed Knot]

I think the Nats are the clear best team.
Of course the race doesn't always go to the swiftest or the battle to the strongest ... but that's usually a good way to bet.
Best starters, good pen, no real superstar on offense but a lineup that goes 8 deep and an improved bench.
And, although momentum probably fails as often as it succeeds, they're also peaking at the right time (17-5 to end the season).

Just check out their last trip through the rotation for their probable playoff starters
Gio Gonzalez - 7 innings, 0 Runs, 1 hit (vs Mets)
Doug Fister - 9 innings, 0 Runs, 3 hits
Strasburg - 5 innings, 0 Run, 2 hits
Zimmermann - 9 innings, 0 Runs, 0 Hits




Who comes out of the AL? ... I have no freakin' idea. Seems like everyone has several holes in various places.
Maybe a better shot on this end of one of the WC teams sneaking through.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I took the A's. Because they've got pitching and because they're a wild card.

[ashie62]

The Kershaws to win it all.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Car-Flag Series: Angels over Doyers.

[Zvon]

Anyone watching the Royals game? Good game here.

[Zvon]

Wow. This is a great game. Royals just tied it in their last at bat. And I didn't like that bunt considering the guy on first is supposed to be an ACE base stealer. But it worked. He stole third and tags to tie. For a second I thought the fly he tagged on was outta there. That would have been crazyGonutz.

[Gwreck]

Allowing the teams to make roster adjustments between the Wild Card Game and the Division Series seems...strange. Not sure they should be allowed to leave out those other three starting pitchers for the extra relievers/pinch runners.

[Gwreck]

Wow. If if Ned Yost managed the Mets I just don't know what would happen after all these bunts. I'm sure it would be some sort of head explosion/nervous breakdown, but couldn't totally rule out homicidal rampage either.

[Zvon]

Gwreck wrote: Allowing the teams to make roster adjustments between the Wild Card Game and the Division Series seems...strange. Not sure they should be allowed to leave out those other three starting pitchers for the extra relievers/pinch runners.

What is MLB's reasoning behind allowing it?

[Zvon]

Gwreck wrote: Wow. If if Ned Yost managed the Mets I just don't know what would happen after all these bunts. I'm sure it would be some sort of head explosion/nervous breakdown, but couldn't totally rule out homicidal rampage either.

I know what you mean. Earlier that guy was a BIG base stealer and they bunted on the 2nd or 3rd pitch. I'd have him stealing that base on either of those. Even in general, with this game being so tight, it's kind of a relief not to really care who wins.

[Zvon]

Damn. A's take a one run lead in the 12th. Can the 'lil guys get a run right back?

[Zvon]

Wow. A one out triple by some Royal guy.

[Zvon]

Royals tie it in another last at bat!

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

A real nailbiter.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Yowser! Exciting finish.

[Zvon]

Wow. Royals walkoff. That guy looked like shit at the plate and then he pulls one down the line. On a pitch he had no right pulling.

Great game.

[Gwreck]

Good for them.

Not that Oakland is unlikable, but good for Kansas City.

[Zvon]

I might have to learn these guys names.

[Zvon]

[Frayed Knot]

Well the results are in and there's no debating the conclusion.
Seven stolen bases + four Sac Bunts + one Sac Fly by the least HR-hitting team in the league beats the team clinging to its two multi-RBI HR strategy, proving once and for all that Billy Beane is a fraud and that decision-making by computer printout (that's how they do it, right?) does nothing more than put you on a fast road to failure. It's just simply not the way you win in the post-season.
As a result, all copies of 'Moneyball' have been pulled from shelves (time and locations of book burnings have yet to be announced) and we can expect both a public apology and then a public suicide from Bill James before the week is out.

[Frayed Knot]

Gwreck wrote: Allowing the teams to make roster adjustments between the Wild Card Game and the Division Series seems...strange. Not sure they should be allowed to leave out those other three starting pitchers for the extra relievers/pinch runners.

Yeah, it seems like MLB went from one extreme, where no changes were permitted once rosters were set*, to the other, where this one play-in game is treated as if its own separate round and now changes can be made within a series itself. Supposedly in-series swaps can only be made for legit injuries (and on a pitcher-for-pitcher/hitter-for-hitter basis) but that leaves the door open to all kinds of chicanery.




* the technicality that cost us the ability to replace El Duque and quite possibly the series even though it was an injury which occurred before the series ever started

[Centerfield]

Wow. El Duque was on the Mets. I forgot that ever happened.

[Gwreck]

Frayed Knot wrote: *the technicality that cost us the ability to replace El Duque and quite possibly the series even though it was an injury which occurred before the series ever started

Duque was hurt before the Division Series, which they swept.
He was unavailable for the LCS due to the injury.
My recollection is that he was expected to be healthy for the World Series, if they had made it.

[Ceetar]

Gwreck wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: *the technicality that cost us the ability to replace El Duque and quite possibly the series even though it was an injury which occurred before the series ever started Duque was hurt before the Division Series, which they swept. He was unavailable for the LCS due to the injury. My recollection is that he was expected to be healthy for the World Series, if they had made it.

It was Floyd who was on the roster though injured, but that's the opposite and they may have kept him on anyway. Or maybe they would've kept him, tested him in a game earlier, and if he broke replace him with someone that actually gets a walk-off hit in that spot.

[HahnSolo]

The larger roster problem I had in 2006 is that they did not allow roster adjustments after the game 1 rainout, despite eliminating the travel day between games 2 and 3, meaning there'd be games in five consecutive days. I don't remember the specific pitcher who may have been let off that I would have liked added (maybe it was El Duque) but it did bother me at the time. Then Cliff re-aggravated his ankle early in game one and we didn't see him again till the ninth inning of game 7, so we played basically the whole series a player short.

[Frayed Knot]

The larger roster problem I had in 2006 is that they did not allow roster adjustments after the game 1 rainout, despite eliminating the travel day between games 2 and 3, meaning there'd be games in five consecutive days. I don't remember the specific pitcher who may have been let off that I would have liked added (maybe it was El Duque) but it did bother me at the time. Then Cliff re-aggravated his ankle early in game one and we didn't see him again till the ninth inning of game 7, so we played basically the whole series a player short.

Yes, that was the El Duque injury I was speaking of a few posts ago. He injured himself jogging after Game 1 was called off and would have been replaced if allowed. But because the roster cut-off time had passed in advance of the scheduled Game 1 time, they weren't allowed to replace him even though it was 24 hours or so before the series got going.

The Cliff thing is a bit different as the series (the next series) had already started and that was the way things always were: substitutions between series only, not during them. But now they've thrown even that out the window and allow replacements with only limited restrictions. And now with the play-in game, they're treating that game as if its own separate round so, as GWreck points out, teams can "deactivate" all their spare starters in favor of all sorts of role players and the whole thing becomes a different game.

Like I said, one extreme to the other.

[Gwreck]

Frayed Knot wrote: Yes, that was the El Duque injury I was speaking of a few posts ago. He injured himself jogging after Game 1 was called off and would have been replaced if allowed. But because the roster cut-off time had passed in advance of the scheduled Game 1 time, they weren't allowed to replace him even though it was 24 hours or so before the series got going.

Not that it changes the general point, but the rainout was game 1 of the LCS. Duque got injured before game 1 of the Division series.