Crazy Predictions Recap
Posted: October 22nd, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 45 Comments »
No, I have not forgotten how a few of you gave me a hard time for saying that the Tampa Bay Rays would contend this year. I have not talked about it too much because, frankly, I’m wrong so often that it seems foolish to brag when I’m right. This seems to me a bit like celebrating a sack when your team is down four touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Still, hey, the Rays are playing in the World Series today. And while I didn’t see THAT coming, I will say that I was definitely on one of the first “Tampa is going to surprise everybody” boats. So, why not: Here’s a little sack dance.
Before the season began, you might recall, I wrote three crazy predictions. In one of them, I predicted that the Rays would contend. The inspiration struck me over a tuna melt in Surprise, Arizona, when I was looking over projected 25-man rosters. First, I was looking over the Toronto Blue Jays and I was struck by how much I did not like the way that team was put together — I mean, Frank Thomas, David Eckstein, Lyle Overbay, Shannon Stewart (later they got Brad Wilkerson, ugh). To be fair, the Jays did end up winning 86 games, thanks to a league-leading 3.49 ERA. But man, I just do not get what they’re trying to do up there.
Then I was struck by how many of the Rays young players I really, really liked (Crawford, Upton, Longoria, Kazmir, Shields, Price, etc.). I wrote then: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this team. Four loves. I told various baseball people that I saw the Rays being a factor this year, and every single one of them thought I had lost my mind. The closest thing to agreement came from a couple who said that the Rays might possibly, with a few breaks, get close to .500.
I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but I think to show you how far we’ve come it might be fun to post one comment I got off that crazy predictions post. It’s pretty representative:
This Jays bashing is silly. Two words why the Jays will compete for a playoff spot in September and the Rays will just flat out suck. Pitching. Defense. … The Rays are a really flawed team. Garza and Longoria aren’t going to really improve that, especially subtracting out Young (and Dukes who’ll probably be the best hitter the Rays system produces if he gets his head straight, big if).
To see the Rays as better than the Jays is to be blinded by high ceiling prospect type gibberish. The team still has no bullpen. The team still has no good defense.
The Jays offense is less than inspiring, but with that pen and a staff that’ll just get better this year (Purcey will probably end up on the Jays by July and be a lights out power lefthander).
The Jays are easily the 4th or 5th best team in the AL. The Rays? The 4th or 5th worst.
So, anyway … the Rays got here faster than I expected. But it’s pretty easy to see how it happened. The Rays have all this young talent, they throw a pretty good starting pitcher at you every night, they have a dome that really fits the team, they got hot in late April, and it got in their heads that, hey, they’re pretty good. In my life, I have predicted that Roy Williams would stay at Kansas, that Denny Bautista would become a dominant pitcher in the big leagues and that Kansas City would fall in love with shortstop Jay Bell. I have predicted that Joe Blanton would suck for the Phillies (he has not been all that great — but he has definitely not sucked), that cameras in phones would never take off and that reality television was just a passing thing. I have been wrong many, many more times than I have been right.
But I was right about those Rays, dammit.
And no, I have not forgotten that my other two crazy predictions. They didn’t turn out as well.
Crazy Prediction 1. Emil Brown, given the at-bats, will post more or less the same numbers as Jose Guillen.
This one looked promising for a long time … and I should claim half victory because my main point in even bringing this up was that Guillen would stink, and he pretty much stunk. But let the record show, that this prediction was off.
Guillen: .264/.300/.438, 20 homers, 97 RBIs, 66 runs, 42 doubles, 1 triple, 2 stolen bases, 91 OPS+.
Brown: .244/.297/.398, 13 homers, 59 RBIs, 48 runs, 14 doubles, 2 triples, 4 stolen bases, 85 OPS+.
Brown didn’t get many late-season at-bats but I know what defeat tastes like. Guillen, I think, wins by TKO in the 11th round. I still say it’s closer than it should have been since one made 12 million bucks last year, the other was non-tendered.
Crazy Prediction 2. Johan Santana will win the National League Cy Young and throw the Mets’ first no-hitter this year.
Santana will not win the Cy Young award, I don’t think. But you certainly could make a strong argument for him. He went 16-7 with a 2.53 ERA — his ERA led the National League. He led the league in innings pitched and games started. He was second in strikeouts, second in ERA+ and sixth in WHIP. Five of his seven losses were quality starts, and he had NINE quality start no-decisions. I’m not saying he should have won all of those … but according to brilliant reader Dan, pitchers win about two-thirds of their quality starts. So that should be, what, nine more victories and three or four fewer losses — Santana easily could have gone 23-4, or 22-3 or something like that.*
*Brilliant reader LMajersik fixes my math by pointing out that if I’m going to play the quality start game, I need to include ALL his quality starts. LMaj is absolutely right. Santana had 28 quality starts this year. So, assuming the pitchers win 2/3 of their quality starts, that should be 19 victories (18.76 victories to be precise). Santana won two games that were not quality starts — we’re not taking those victories away. So that’s 21 victories using the quality start method. It should be added, though, that Santana had quite a few super-quality starts that he did not win .. so, actually, though my math was wrong, I still think he should have gone 22-3 or or 23-4.
Point is: It ended up being a pretty spectacular year, especially when you note that the last two months of the season, with the Mets desperately trying (and failing) to get that playoff spot, Santana went 8-0 with a 1.79 ERA.
But I’m not kidding anyone: The prediction is pretty specific … I wrote he would win the Cy Young. And I think that Tim Lincecum will probably win the Cy Young award, and I would not argue with that. I would argue ferociously, though, if Brandon Webb wins the award — I’ve got to believe that my fellow writers and voters will not choose Webb just because of his 22 wins. I’ve got to believe that. I’ve got to. Anyway, I don’t think Santana will win it.
And Santana did not throw a no-hitter … I’ve got a long post in waiting about the amazing Mets history of never having thrown a no-hitter. It truly is incredible. Santana did throw a three-hitter the last game of the season, but he gave up one of those hits in the first inning, so there wasn’t much drama.
Loading ...
“The Jays are easily the 4th or 5th best team in the AL. The Rays? The 4th or 5th worst.”
If only he’d said “AL East” instead of “AL,” we would be hailing him as a genius right now.
Santana really is incredible to watch on a daily basis. As a Twins fan, I saw how he always gets hot in the second half. When he wasn’t named an All-Star, I wrote an angry e-mail to a friends who is a fan of a National League team how stupid everyone was going to feel when, for the second time in his career, Johan was going to win the Cy Young without being an All-Star. He thought I was nuts. He won’t be the Cy young, so I guess I am nuts, but I’m pleased to see that you can still count on some things in life.
I don’t know, Joe…in OPS+ terms, 86 is “more or less the same” as 91. And Brown was definitely not “given the at-bats,” coming up to the plate 200 fewer times than Gullen was. So the differences in doubles and homers are mostly attributable to that; and also to the fact that Oakland is an extreme pitcher’s park and KC favors hitters. I think you can call that one a wash, or even a win.
Hey Joe,
You are very funny…Webb won’t win the Cy Young…HA!
You go to the meetings, right? Do you ever ask for the microphone from Ringolsby and say “Hey guys, I think we should use criteria other than RBI’s for the MVP award, and something other than wins for the Cy Young”?
I know, I know…Heyman would start calling you a VORPie and maybe make you cry, and Conlon and Plashke would wake up from their stupor and start throwing things. But you’re the only guy in this organization who seems to actually understand this, and until they get their collective heads out of their a__es and vote in Law and Neyer, you’re the chosen one we’re counting on to make these dinosaurs see reason. Don’t let us down, Joe!
I’d call the Brown/Guillen prediction a wash, probably. You weren’t exactly right, but you weren’t too far off the mark – while Guillen was better, he wasn’t THAT much better, and they both sucked. Hell, if you factor in Guillen’s contract, I’d rather have Brown.
And Santana did not throw a no-hitter … I’ve got a long post in waiting about the amazing Mets history of never having thrown a no-hitter. It truly is incredible. Santana did throw a three-hitter the last game of the season, but he gave up one of those hits in the first inning, so there wasn’t much drama.
No, there was PLENTY of drama that day. It was the best pitched game I had ever seen. It was ASTOUNDING. And I realize I’m not a barometer, but everyone walked out saying that in some variation. The gentlemen who sat behind us all season on Saturday, who have been there since 1962, also said it was one of the greatest performances they had ever seen at Shea.
I’ll never forget Johan walking off the field that day.
And for a lot of people, Saturday, and not Sunday, was their last game at Shea. So there were layers and layers of drama. But most of it had nothing to do with ‘will he throw a no-no’ or not.
Guillen is admittedly a jackass, but I fail to see how 97 RBIs counts as stinking. If it does, I’d like to see the Royals get a couple of other stinky players, and then maybe we’d be competitive.
So Santana was 16-7 with 5 quality start losses and 9 QS no decisions. He’s supposed to win 2/3 of QS, so he should conservatively be 23-4. But wait, that leaves him with 2 QS losses and 3 QS no decisions, so he should be 25-3. But wait…
I love you Joe, but you have to add in the quality starts Santana won to play that game. He got wins in 14 QS. (14+5+9)*2/3 is about 18 wins according to Dan.
These things are so much easier in retrospect, but I can’t understand who anyone thought the Rays were going to suck. I predicted them to finish 3rd in the AL East (and maybe they would have if Chin Ming Wang had been healthy). But I can’t see how any so-called expert looked at that team and said, “Ugh.”
That said, I was WAY OFF about the White Sox. I thought they’d finish second to last in that division. Whoops.
John, the Jays were actually the 4th best team in baseball when you look at things like Run Differential and Strength of Schedule… so not really all that far off the mark.
For 12 million dollars, Guillen STINKS!! I would rather have Emil and his salary.
My favorite result of the Rays success is the number of analysts being asked who “the next Rays are.” The whole point about the Rays is that this is an historic turnaround. There will be no Rays next year. It’s not like every year some team goes from 100 losses to 100 wins. It’s kind of rare.
Now some really bad teams will probably improve next year, but in the spirit of Joe’s column I am going to make my first crazy prediction for the 2009 baseball season:
No team with a winning percentage below .430 in 2008 will win more than 95 games in 2009.
(After I typed this, it occurred to me that the Padres could keep Peavy, the 19th arm surgery for Mark Prior might do the trick and Brian Giles may play like its 2001, but what’s a prediction if you’re not willing to take a chance!)
I don’t think Santana’s winning the Cy Young should count as a “crazy prediction.” I have not gone back to look at Vegas’ odds, but I would think that if Santana was not the favorite, he could not have been far behind.
The no hitter was a bit bolder, but I still don’t think it counts as “crazy.” Would anyone be surprised if Santana had thrown a no hitter?
Josh in DC:
Not to be sarcastic, but I would like you to explain to me how adding Wang’s arm to the Yankees would cause the Red Sox to pass the Rays in the standings?
With 97 RBI, Guillen drove in about 22% of the 438 runners on base when he came to bat. By comparison, David DeJesus drove in only 73 runs, but only had 284 runners on base to drive in, which is almost 26%. So the Royals do have players like Guillen, several in fact, only better!
Guillen also used up 467 (!) outs while doing that, which means players coming up after him had far fewer opportunities to drive in runs than if a better hitter took Guillen’s place.
If you stick in any average MLB hitter, or even most below-average hitters in place of Guillen in that lineup, with the identical opportunities, they would all have well over 100 RBI. If you stuck Emil Brown in instead of Guillen, he would’ve had about 93 RBI. Would he have not sucked because of that?
If you’re lucky enough to have the bases loaded every single time you come up, and go 50/500 for a .100 BA, you’ll still have around 100 RBI… and you’ll still suck
This is why raw RBI numbers can be misleading. And also shows how someone can suck, even with 97 RBI.
Brent, I admit what I wrote about the Red Sox being better than the Rays if Wang is healthy makes no sense. Here’s what I was going for: I assumed the Yankees would have Wang and would win a lot more games. Maybe some of those would have been against the Rays.
I didn’t look at head-to-head before writing it, so I’m just talking out of my butt here.
Also, the Yankees turned out to be flawed enough that Wang wouldn’t have lifted them into the playoffs.
Also, I think I deserve a lot of credit for not making a crude joke using Wang’s name, like saying Tampa would have had trouble beating Wang.
Wang’s replacement in the rotation, for the most part, was Sidney Ponson, with a sprinkling of Dan Giese at first and Carl Pavano later in that rotation slot. Without Wang, the Yankees went 9-8 for the rest of the year when that rotation slot came up. Many of those losses would have been losses no matter who pitched, because the Yanks were shut out in three of them, and scored two or three runs in another four of them.
That’s seven of eight losses that Wang would have been hard pressed to do much about. Say he would have one the remaining loss, and one or two or the low-scoring games, and you still only get the Yankees two or three more wins than their actual total. We could get fancy and start talking about the trickle down affect of the bullpen having to absorb more innings because Wang’s replacements didn’t general go as deep as he did (Lord, it’s dfficult to avoid an obvious joke here), but that really wouldn’t change much. The Yankees weren’t passing the Rays or Red Sox this year whether Wang was healthy or not.
And yes, I did just spell out “one” instead of “won”. Public schools suck.
In fairness to the Jays commenter, he was half right. They are in the top four in the AL, which happens also to be the top four of the AL East. In third order wins (which probably underestimates the gap between the AL and NL) they’re fourth in baseball.
Some of those RBIs are because Guillen doesn’t walk, an average guy would forgo some of those opportunities by letting the fellow behind him hit with ANOTHER guy on base.
This “what if” stuff about Wang, or anyone else injured, implies that everything else stays the same, when that’s never really true. What if Manny didn’t make a trade demand and they kept him – and he stopped caring AGAIN in August and September?
Not to be an Angels apologist, but they went 24-13 against those four teams.
Because I’ve only recently worked up the courage to comment here, I wasn’t one of those that gave you “a hard time” about the Rays being a contender this year a few months ago, but I will freely admit that I was highly doubtful that they would make the playoffs. Looking at their roster now, filled with both talented hitters (Longoria, Upton) and pitchers (Garza, Kazmir, Shields, Sonnanstine, Price… the list goes on), it’s hard to imagine that they were ever that dismal a team. The AL East should be equally interesting next year (although I’m personally rooting for the Red Sox).
C’mon Steve. If you read this blog, you’ve got to do better than that! RBIs? Really? Are you a Quantum Leap person from 1959?
The amount of Mets fans posting on ESPN articles about what a “disappointment” Johan Santana has been is absolutely staggering. I suppose you can’t really blame them, since they are apparently not all that intelligent, and just have to parrot what ESPN is telling them.
And all season long, ESPN has been WHINING “What is wrong with Johan Santana?”
All because he “only” won 16 games.
Btw, there has never been a greater justice than Mike Mussina winning his 20th game on the last game of the season. Now the BBWAA idiots will have no choice but to put him in the Hall, right?
Ugh. Next person to tell me how important Wins are gets a shoe up their (bleep)
“Not to be an Angels apologist, but they went 24-13 against those four teams.”
Yeah, that’s a fair point and I’m not sure how to account for it. That includes a particularly impressive 8-1 regular season showing against the Red Sox.
Certainly that +68 run differential screams a flukey/lucky manner of getting to 100 wins. I guess we can ponder ways in which a team can be “100 win good” and only outscore opponents by 68 runs, there are plenty of teams that have won far more games than their run differential would suggest, though I can’t think of any team that did so for such a stretch of time to suggest that the construction of the team itself tended to do so, they tend to be in single season samples.
I think though, that the records versus certain divisions just aren’t that informative. If you look at a single division, you’ll often times find a team at the bottom of that division did far better than a team at the top of it against a certain other division. Vs. division (or versus a certain set of teams) the records tend to be really flukey. The only general trends I can identify is that good teams tend to be at least pretty good against everyone, and AL teams tend to be very good against the NL (AL went 149-103 in 2008, .581w%), but given the scheduling of interleague there’s probably too much noise even in there to conclude much.
Joe:
You’ are being far too nice in your concession regarding your Jose Guillen/Emil Brown prediction by using traditional numbers. I think you know this, but I’m going to pretend you aren’t. Leave the contracts aside. Straight up: Emil Brown was better than Jose Guillen this year. More accurately: Jose Guillen was even more pathetic than Emil Brown this year. And this has nothing to do with their respective personalities. Let me demonstrate.
Jose Guillen’s 2008 VORP was 6.2. Now, VORP’s a great stat, but it’s flawed because, as Tom Tango and others have noted, it doesn’t value walks properly (ironic, given BP’s reputation). However, since it favors Jose Guillen, I’ll use it for now, to show I’m not making this stuff up. So, Jose GUIllen: 6.2
Emil Brown: -5.2. Wow, that’s more than a game’s difference! Emil sucks! JoGui is a bargain at $12 million for 6.2 runs above Shane Costa. That’s 11.4 runs! But that’s not all… Emil doesn’t have as many at-bats as Fiery Team Leader Jose Guillen. I suppose we could say that given more ABs (Jose Guillen plays every day! Whether he can run or not!) that Emil would bring up his average or something, but whatever. Let’s prorate Emil’s season to about a -7.8 (slightly unfair to Emil). So now, JoGui’s ahead by an even 14 runs.
That’s it, right? Well, I guess we can look at defense, even though “everyone knows” how bad Emil Brown is on D, and I’m sure that Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman will tell you that, just like outstanding GMDM acquisitions Tony Pena, Jr. and Ross Gload, his arm saves a run a game or something. I’m no “baseball man,” but humor me for a moment.
Actually, from 2003-2007, Ultimate Zone Rating has Emil Brown at +13 runs on one corner, and +17 on the other. Jose Guillen was about -20 in 2004, +6 in 2006, and about -20/150 games in 2006 and 2007. But surely this changed?
Last I heard, Emil declined to about +2 this year… But let’s just call it even since everyone in KC hated Emil’s defense (even thought it turned out to be pretty dang good)…
Well, Jose Guillen was again about about -20 this year. And that’s while DHing 47 games. Which we won’t penalize him for (although it helped him). And we won’t count the -20 as runs, since I’ve only heard the figures from Dewan’s, which is plays. the accepted ratio of plays/runs is .9. So JoGui is a -16 runs defender. Emil Brown is 0.
Do i need to spell i out? Picking stats that favor Guillen (some of which are flawed or prorate, but all such flaws and adjustments favor JoGui), on offense, Jose Guillen was 14 runs better. Emil is 16 runs better on defense.
That’s right, overall, Emil Brown was 2 runs better than Jose Guillen this year.
This shouldn’t be taken as a celebration of Emil Brown, although his 2005 and 2006 seasons are sorely unappreciated in KC. Both players were, all things considered, sub-replacement scrubs this year. And that’s where their respective contracts come in. Yeah, Billy Beane took a bit of a bath on Emil, but $1.45 million is nothing in basebal, and he’s done with it now. Brilliant Baseball Man Dayton Moore gave Jose Guillen 3/36. This has gone on too long. I won’t explain (because it reeks of hindsight) that even if Jose Guillen could repeat his 2007 performance (and he shouldn’t have been expected to) that this deal was ridiculous. I will say, without showing my work this time, that I’ve calculated objectively that in just one year, Jose Guillen’s performance wiped out the surplus value of two excellent years of Gil Meche. Let’s not even get into the Gload extension (even stupider, but less devatstating).
So, congratulations on not being a vindictive jerk, Joe. You’re a better man than me. I know you probably don’t want to poke DMGM in the eye. It might be nice to point out though (even if you can’t without possibly losing your media pass), that the “young guys” in the lineup whom DMGM is running out of patience with (note that DDJ, Aviles, Gordon, and Butler were all in the org prior to DMGM getting here) pretty much all (except maybe Butler) outperformed GMDM’s brilliant acquisitions.
I’m not calling for Moore to be fired or anything. It would be nice if he got questioned a bit more in the KC media, although I know you can’t do it alone. He’s been great rebuilding the pitching, and the minors have improved a lot. He needs to be more imaginative though — the Royals aren’t going to be able to win overspending on sluggers like they’re the Yankees (especially when the sluggers they get can’t actually hit or play defense) and doing other “normal” things like leaving Soria in the rotation and waiting until Tony Pena, Jr. is the worst player in the majors for two months before replacing him with an “extra body,” as Trey Hillman referred to Mike Aviles.
I realize that DMGM is still too stuck in traditionalist ways to get beyond platitudes like “Power on the corner, defense up the middle.” It might be nice if he at least showed some aptitude for getting defense up the middle. I mean, 3/36 for a platoon guy in right field is just dandy and all, but it would be nice if he could get to a bloop “single” now and then.
That, and outhit Mark Grudzelaniak.
I meant ” It might be nice if he at least showed some aptitude for getting some defense on the corners.” We’ll see if Alberto Callaspo can hack it defensively at second. It’s worth a try.
Mussina will get in due his 300 career wins, not the fact that he, like his long lost cousin Don Sutton, won 20 games once in his career.
Oops, I mentioned wins. I am keeping an eye out for your shoe.
Although, I think that career wins are an indication of something (a long career and obviously good pitching or you wouldn’t have got the chance to win so many games.) And durability.
But 162 game seasons are less flukey than 5 game series, even allowing for strength of schedule. Each year a team is slightly different, so there’s little continuity for a pattern. Run differential isn’t that informative either, it’s just an indicator. If you play lower scoring games the differential will seem smaller, so a pitching and defense-type team will fare worse in those comparisons. Other times there were records in one-run games. The Diamondbacks had that close games won/blowouts lost thing going. There’s still a fair amount of deviation in results as you indicate.
Joe, I love you. Actually, I love your writing, but I’m lumping you in there too, because I’m a man with a lot of love to give. But for the love of Sarah Palin, stop calling yourself a maverick on the Rays pick. A lot of people were calling the Rays last offseason–granted, maybe not to the PLAYOFFS (*insert Jim Mora voice* “playoffs?!?”):
http://mets4life.blogspot.com/2008/02/tampa-bay-sun-rays-off-season-report.html
Friday, February 1, 2008:
“This should be the first year the Sun Rays officially become a ‘trendy pick’ to reach the playoffs.
This isn’t the year the Rays win the East. But next year could be. And in general the future is very bright. Tampa Bay has the best farm system in baseball.â€
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/13296-2008-mlb-preview-tampa-bay-rays
“What could be 2008’s most interesting rotation isn’t located in Boston…It’s in Tampa Bay. Now, before you stop reading this article because you think I’m an idiot, hear me out…
“Wherever Crawford hits in the Rays lineup, he’s going to turn in another excellent season.â€
“Over a full season, Upton could easily put up .300/30/100 stats with 30 steals, too. He’s not even 24 yet and has a whole lot of room to grow.â€
If given a full season, don’t be surprised if Longoria contends for and wins the AL Rookie of the Year. He’s an exceptional talent who will have a lot of success with this organization sooner rather than later.â€
I wouldn’t be all that shocked if this franchise finally reaches the playoffs sometime before [the new stadium] opens.
Seriously. Don’t write this organization off because of the horrendous first decade of its existence. It’s moving in the right direction and should ultimately challenge the Yankees and Red Sox in the East.â€.
FoxSports:
http://www.bcsfootball.org/mlb/story/8189760/Examples-abound-in-this-remarkable-season?print=true
“…just a few short months ago, the Rays were the trendy pick for a playoff spot.â€
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2008-03-19-fantasy-trends_N.htm
“The Tampa Bay Rays’ James Shields, a trendy pick to have a breakout year for the Raysâ€
97 RBI’s for an entire season isn’t all that impressive when you get 96 of’em in one week in June. But man, what a week.
Quoting myself:
“ell, I guess we can look at defense, even though “everyone knows†how bad Emil Brown is on D, and I’m sure that Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman will tell you that, just like outstanding GMDM acquisitions Tony Pena, Jr. and Ross Gload, his arm saves a run a game or something. I’m no “baseball man,†but humor me for a moment.”
That should be that Trey and Dayton would tell you that _Guillen’s_ arm saves a run a game or something… D’oh.
bellylard, all true, I don’t dispute that five game series are more flukey than 162 game seasons (I think there’s something to be said for games in which both teams are doing everything they can to win every game, which isn’t how you manage in the regular season, but I don’t really know what that is); nor do I dispute that differentials are dependent on the run scoring environment. But we’re not talking about different eras, the Angels scored fewer runs than TB, Boston, or NY, and allowed more runs than TB, Bos, and Tor, against relatively weaker competition. That’s certainly why third order wins doesn’t like them. If they had allowed far fewer runs than most teams and also scored relatively less, then I think the low scoring games might have some merit. I see last year they outperformed their exWL too, though not nearly to the same degree, they actually had a bigger differential last year (against what was a stronger AL-W), so who knows, maybe there’s something there.
Yeah – but did you predict that Varitek’s ALCS batting average would be lower than Joba’s blood alcohol content?
I was the Jays fan who wrote the above comment so I’ll come out and “man up” and say I was wrong about the Rays in February. However, after watching them in a few games early this year I realized that the defense had improved and the pitching was going to benefit from that considerably. I was unaware of Longoria’s defensive reputation and surprised by the improvement Iwamura and Upton showed. Once I saw them, I liked what I saw (this was an on going theme on Jays commentator Mike Wilner’s blog).
That said, as has been pointed out, I did get the Jay prediction right if one considered things like third order wins. Small comfort to be perhaps the forth best team in the league, and the division.
Hey Rays fans!
Scratching your head at the complexity of this so-called “base ball”?
Want to know the difference between a “double play” and a “seventh-inning stretch”?
Have no fear! The Tampa Tribune is here to help!
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/oct/22/s6-baseball-primer/sports/
I just had a crazy thought, but no one to tell. Ken Rosenthal always looks SO short compared to every player he interviews. So I googled, “how tall is Ken Rosenthal” — with quotes, mind you. Try it. You’d be surprised how many results you come up with!
I wonder what is more unlikely — that the Mets have gone 47 seasons without throwing a no-hitter, or the Tampa Bay Bucs going almost 32 seasons without a kickoff return for a TD?
Thanks to Paul White for a thoughtful post.
You know, I just ripped someone at Nate Silver’s 538.com for saying something just as stupid as what I’ve written in this thread.
Anyway, I’m still a little surprised the Yankees didn’t do better this year … Then again, 89 wins in the AL East is still pretty darn good. That many wins won the AL Central and the NL West. The Brewers won 88 and took the NL Wild Card.
Josh in DC: “Also, I think I deserve a lot of credit for not making a crude joke using Wang’s name, like saying Tampa would have had trouble beating Wang.”
They would have, too, if he hadn’t been pulled, citing stiffness problems.
“But it’s pretty easy to see how it happened. The Rays have all this young talent, they throw a pretty good starting pitcher at you every night, they have a dome that really fits the team, they got hot in late April, and it got in their heads that, hey, they’re pretty good.”
With all due respect, I think you’re overlooking a crucial aspect of their success that not enough people talk about and that’s their bullpen.
The Rays already had two very good starters. Their team OPS and runs scored weren’t much different this season than they were in 2007 (they both declined slightly.) The addition of Garza and the emergence of Sonnanstine were both huge, as that shored up the rest of the rotation, but the bullpen going from the worst ‘pen in baseball to one of the best was equally as huge. If they had the ‘07 Rays bullpen on this team, a lot of those quality starts would have been wasted.
Balfour, Wheeler, Howell, and Bradford combined for 233 IP of 1.05 WHIP relief for the Rays, with a good number of those IP coming in high leverage situations. Wheeler and Balfour have turned back into pumpkins during the playoffs, but Tampa might not have even made the post-season without their regular season contributions.
Having four relief aces that came out of nowhere is one of the least talked about stories with the Rays, but it’s one of the biggest reasons they’re still playing baseball.
The Rays were a nice cute little story when the season started. A plucky little band of upstarts who never tasted over .500 baseball before, and we all marvelled how they stood up to the Big Bad Evil Empire Yankees in the Spring, and how they fought like (cheap shot taking) brothers against the BIG Bad Evil Red Sox. Well kids, it’s the end of the season, and they have played out their goodwill already with me. I have HD TV and watch all the games the Rays played at the end of the season, and I have never seen a bench that dropped more F-Bombs after every run scored, play that went their way, play that didn’t go their way, strike three for their pitcher, etc etc etc. Give me the team that doesn’t disrespect the game by not running out DPs and screaming epithets upon every emotional turn of the game (that being the Phillies). The only guy worth respecting on that team is Carlos Pena, because even though he really HASN’T been there before, he acts at least like he has. Here’s to the shiny new fans and their cowbells going back into mothballs with a 10-20 start next season, I have had enough of you!
Sorry I didn’t know RBIs had suddenly become meaningless. I should have known there were other, better ways to measure the Royals outstanding offensive production in 2008.
Wow young players swear a lot in the dugout? How totally unexpected! Who cares really? Seems like a rather silly reason to hate a team to me.
I can’t decide part of me wants the Rays to win because I think they’re the better and more exciting team and totally despise Brett Myers and I really find Bossman Upton a totally electrifying player to watch..
But part of me wants the Phillies to win because I actually know a couple of long suffering Phils fans and there’s no question the Philly fanbase deserves it more.
And part of me just feels like pouting because the Red Sox aren’t in it.
I would not be bothered if Brandon Webb, Tim Lincecum, or Johan Santana won the NL Cy Young award. Lincecum probably had the best pure year, but did it without pressure or expectations. Both Webb and Santana were performing in tight pennant races. I’d vote for Webb because without him the Dbacks wouldn’t even have been sniffing first place. But it’s like the AL Cy Young last year; many good candidates, no great one.
As for the Angels outperforming their run differentials, it’s called managing, people. The Angels had great pitching, but nowhere near the best pitching in the league (or in baseball). They were already heavily using their best relievers; notice K-Rod setting the saves record? Well, at the back end of that bullpen were some pitchers clearly not as good as the others. With zero reason to further stress out the good arms because the Angels ran away with the division, Scioscia immediately went to the bad arms when the game looked lost, and in many cases blew up the loss margin.
Picking an arbitrary number of five (okay, it’s not all that arbitrary; five is more runs than can be scored on one swing of the bat; if there is a five run differential, the game cannot be considered close except in maybe Colorado or Wrigley with the wind blowing out) the Angels were 19-17 in games decided by five or more runs. In those 36 blowouts, which the Angels won more than they lost, they were outscored by four runs. So the big losses were by bigger margins than the big wins. This is fairly typical of teams with better pitching than hitting.
Picking another arbitrary number of 6 for a bad ERA, the Angels gave 10 starts to Dustin Moseley, ERA of 6.79. Chris Bootcheck had sixteen innings with an ERA over 10. Jason Bulger had 16 IP with an ERA of 7.31, and Nick Adenhart started three games with an ERA of 9. Now maybe Moseley’s innings couldn’t have been avoided with Lackey’s early season injury and Escobar being out for the year, but they gave 44 innings there to three pitchers with an ERA+ below 62. A team in a tight pennant race wouldn’t have given those guys that many innings. The Dodgers, for example, in many respects a similar team (the strength of the team was the pitching staff, and with Manny serving the Vladdy role, a playoff team) only had one pitcher with an ERA above 7, and he only threw six innings. The Phillies, another playoff team (and one generally built around offense, not pitching) only gave 4 2/3 innings to a pitcher with an ERA over 7 because they too were in a tight pennant race. Teams who need to win every game have to let the margin of defeat get a little bit bigger before throwing in the towel, because you never know when a big inning is going to get you back in the game.
Pythagoras was a genius. But sticking a genius’s name onto a calculation used to analyze a sport invented more than a millenium after his death doesn’t make it fit all circumstances. The Angels had a team ERA of 4.00, and the luxury to give 44 innings (call it five games) to pitchers who would never have been used, or at least not used that much, in a tight pennant race. Their core bullpen was five guys who threw between 61 and 72 innings each, because Scioscia could afford not to overwork them. The Phillies used Durban 87 2/3 innings, and Madson 82 2/3, because they had no choice. The Dodgers used Chan Ho Park for 95 1/3 innings, and Hong Chi kuo for 80 innings, again because they had no choice (admittedly, each had a few starts). Teams who run away with their divisions tend to fail the Pythagorean test because they can afford to think strategically, let a youngster get a feel for playing in the majors, let an injured player try and work the kinks out to possibly be a valuable piece in the playoffs, that kind of thing. The Angels had the best record in baseball and came up short. It happens a lot. If they were in a race, they’d have won more games, had better run differentials, and maybe not been as healthy when the playoffs began. That’s baseball.