21 replies to this topic

[fromthemitten]

Now that the LDS matchups have been set here's my predictions

ALDS

Detroit vs Oakland - Oakland. Detroit's defense is deplorable and Scherzer's health is a concern. If Verlander could pitch every game I could see Detroit winning it.
New York vs. Baltimore - Baltimore. Riding the hot hand, everybody's favorite overachievers win in a very close series. The Yankees just don't have the pitching for a deep playoff run and their lineup is starting to show their age.

NCDS

Washington vs. St Louis - Washington. If the Cardinals wind up winning the World Series, I would invite you to TP Bud Selig's house with me for creating that second wild card spot.

San Francisco vs. Cincinnati - Cincinnati. Cincinnati does everything so incredibly well. Their offense is balanced they have decent to exceptional defenders at every position and their hitting will overcome San Fran's exceptional pitching. That being said I think this will be the closest matchup in the divisional matchups.

ALCS
Oakland vs. Baltimore - Baltimore. Oakland's improbable season ends while Baltimore goes to the World Series for the first time since Cal Ripken Jr. was a first-time all star.

Cincinnati vs. Washington - Cincinnati. Both of these teams are solid, but Washington is sorely going to miss Strausberg this series.

World Series
Cincinnati vs. Baltimore - Cincinnati. Two franchises that had a rough early part of the decade meet up in a matchup that nobody saw coming at the beginning of the season. The 'nati is just too stacked. Dusty Baker wins his first World Series championship and possibly rides off into the sunset.

[DocPeterWimsey]

Cinci has been playing bad baseball for a month whereas SF has been playing good ball: basically, it's a 0.580 team playing a 0.480 team. And as we remember from 2008, that's bad for the 0.480 team!

The Cards were playing well in Sept., but the Nats were playing better, so bet on the Nats.

The Yankees are the cream of the crop in the AL: they've been on fire. It's too bad that the O's are playing them first, as they were much better than the A's or Tigers.

A's and Tigers is the toughest: those two were basically identical after Labor Day.

The Yanks should be favored over whoever wins the 1972 rematch. The Nats and Giants would be too close to call.


I'm curious: why do you think that Cinci is stacked? I consider them to be by far the weakest of the post-season teams, including the two that were just eliminated!

[Rated Rookie]

I had the Braves and Rangers for the World Series, so I guess it's back to the drawing board.

ALDS

Tigers vs. A's-The A's have argueably been the biggest story of the season, even more so than the O's and Nats. Not sure how the Tigers offense will fare in the Colliseum, but any time you have Justin Verlander on the mount for 2 games in a best out of 5 series, the odds be with you.

Prediction: Tigers in 4

Orioles vs. Yankees: The O's have been left for dead by opening day doe to the fact that they're in a division with 4 perenial .500 teams, inclusing the 2 biggest pay roll teams in baseball. How big of a story would it be if the Orioles were to knock the Yankees out of the playoff? Big. Still, I don't see it happening.That bullpen's full of unknowns having great seasons, but I don't trust the starting pitching, and that team as a whole is such a rag-tag bunch. The Yankees are simply the better team.

Prediction: Yankees in 3

NLDS: Cardinals vs. Nats: Even without Strasberg, the Nats have a very tight rotation, and are strong all along. Rather depressing considering the sewage that they've risen from in comparison with where the Cubs have bee during that time. A lot depends on Wainwright and Carpenter, but I think that the Nats will prevail. Or maybe I just hope that they do.

Prediction: Nats in 5

Giants vs. Reds: I think that a lot of this will come down to park factors. How will Giants pitching fare in GBP? How will the Reds hitters do at AT&T? Will Lincecum step up? Two very strong overall teams, but I think that it ultimately comes down to HFA.

Reds in 5

ALCS: Yankees vs. Tigers. Depending on how little rest Leyland is wiling to pitch Verlander on, there's a good good chance that the Tigers will have to go with pitchers not named Verlander, most of whom are not as trust worthy. Yanks will take them out again.

Prediction: Yankees in 6

NLCS: Reds vs. Nationals: The NLs two top teams facing off against one another, as well it should be. Enough with the 80 some teams back dooring their way into the World Series.This one goes the distance. Who wins? Tough call. The Nats?

Not so bold prediction: Nats in 7

World Series: Yankess vs. Nationals. Really? The fucking Expos are going to join the Rays and Rockies in beating us to a World Series? FML. Another tough one to call, but I have a feeling that the Nationals will regret going into this without activiating Strasburg. While the Nats top 3 SP look beter than the Yanks on paper, Petitte will emoty everything left in his tank, and the Yankees will win it all.Attaboy Ichiro!

Prediction: Yankees in 5

[fromthemitten]

Have you seen them play this year? Cincinnati went something like 7-4 down the stretch with their manager in the hospital. They won 97 games despite Votto being injured for nearly 1/3rd of the season, much of that being due to being the only team that has 7 players who hit at least 14 home runs. They have a closer with a WHIP of .81 and can throw 100+mph and the rest of the bullpen is best we've seen in years (http://sportsillustr...lpen/index.html). They have a the 2nd best ERA in the majors made more impressive by the fact that they play in a bandbox. Their lineup is great, and the two holes in their lineup (Cozart and Stubbs) play defense well enough to make up for it.

The main reason I think they'll win is pitching and defense.

[DocPeterWimsey]

The main reason I think they'll win is pitching and defense.

Run prevention is only half of the game. Whether teams have high September run differentials from one or the other (really, you need both), or low September run differential from one or the other does not matter too much: those teams lose.

Again, the Reds had a negative run differential in September. Those teams almost always are eliminated in the first round. Of the three such teams that managed to win the LDS despite bad Septembers, two of them got to play the Twins: so whatever thin association there is between bad Septembers and surviving the first round doesn't apply here! Quite frankly, I think that it has to do with the fact that baseball is probabilistic, and thus the lesser team will win 3 out of 5 some times.

As for everything that happened between April and August, ignore it: LDS performance is essentially random with respect to that.

[fromthemitten]

"Run prevention is only half of the game"

Did you read the part where they have seven hitters in the lineup who hit at least 14 home runs?

"Again, the Reds had a negative run differential in September..."
Cool story bro. Again they won 97 games without their best player in Votto for nearly 1/3rd of the season. They had a playoff spot locked up fairly early in September which allowed them to give their starters regular rest so they had lineups that looked like this: http://www.bleachern...tember-20-2012/

I don't really understand the point that you're trying to make in the rest of the post. The Reds are a balanced team throughout their lineup, rotation, and bullpen (which doesn't feature any regular with an ERA over 3.50). My only concern is the bullpen being overtaxed due to Cueto going down and Latos having to come in. I'm guessing Arroyo and Bailey get the next two starts, so we'll see. If they have a lead going into the 6th I wouldn't bet against them.

[Rated Rookie]

I'd be lying if I said that I've followed the Reds much at all. I spent the last few months of the season sporadically watching Cubs games and rooting for the downfall of the White Sox and the Brewers hot streak to fall flat.

Reds do have a strong lineup and rotation, though Cueto will hurt if he's out for the playoffs, and the back of their pen has been incredibly dominant.

This being said, as we learned in 2008, whatever happens between April-September becomes irrelevant in October. Another case in point: 2006&2011 Cardinals.

[Tommy]

Round 1 goes to fromthemitten

[fromthemitten]

lol can you tell I was captain of my college debate team

though I'm looking pretty wrong on picking the A's over the Tigers holy bullpen implosions Batman!

also this:

[DocPeterWimsey]

Cool story bro. Again they won 97 games without their best player in Votto for nearly 1/3rd of the season. They had a playoff spot locked up fairly early in September which allowed them to give their starters regular rest so they had lineups that looked like this: http://www.bleachern...tember-20-2012/

That was the excuse of the 2011 Yankees and 2011 Phillies. And the 2010 Reds. And the 2009 Cards. And the 2008 Cubs. Remember, playoff performance is essentially random with respect to overall season record, and completely random with respect to the pre-September record. Again, look at the graph: really, the only teams that make post-season despite awful Septembers are the ones who coast into post-season, and yet almost none of them recover.

It does not matter why a team plays poorly in September: the ones that do usually lose. In the last 11 years, no team has played as badly as the Reds and made the WS.

If they do beat the Giants, then it will be the biggest upset since the 'Mets beat the 'Dodgers in '06.

[fromthemitten]

have you even been watching these games? They're up 9-0 in the 8th inning which means they'll have a 2-0 lead and going back home to Cinci

and this is after beating them solidly despite their starting pitcher only throwing nine pitches

[DocPeterWimsey]

have you even been watching these games? They're up 9-0 in the 8th inning which means they'll have a 2-0 lead and going back home to Cinci

and this is after beating them solidly despite their starting pitcher only throwing nine pitches

Again, you keep writing as if anything prior to 1 September is relevant in post-season.

Now,it does look like the Reds are going to win. But just like the Mets over the Dodgers or the Cards over the Padres in '06, this represents the minority of times where the inferior team wins. Remember, we do expect the inferior team to win a quarter of the series. However, three quarters of series are won by the team that played better the last 4 weeks of the season, so your best bet for any individual series is to go with the team that played best in September. On average, that will get you 3 of 4. (Your type of approach nets on average 2 of 4.)

Again, here another version of the breakdown, showing the number of years in which X teams in the Reds position (worse September run differential) lose and the expected number if teams in the Reds shoes win 25% of the time in parentheses:

0: 1 (0.0)
1: 0 (0.5)
2: 1 (2.3)
3: 6 (4.6)
4: 3 (3.5)

As you can see, most years, only one team in the Red's position wins, even though many if not most of them have all of the same reasons for falling off as the Reds had. The 2nd most common outcome is that none of the teams in their position win. (We probably will have 2 of 4 this year, but that is not because we are "owed" one at this point; it's just random within a probabilistic model.)

If you go by regular season performance (again, as run-differential), then you get an outcome indistinguishable fair-coin flip model.

0: 0 (0.7)
1: 2 (2.8)
2: 4 (4.1)
3: 5 (2.8)
4: 0 (0.7)


That "blip" on 3 of 4 reflects the fact that regular season performance is not completely independent of September: bad Septembers pull down overall numbers and good September's raise overall numbers; base this purely on April-August and that goes away. That pretty much falsifies any correlation between April-August performance and post-season performance.

[fromthemitten]

I forgot the most important factor: Dusty Baker is the manager and played a washed-up Rolen over rookie of the year contender Todd Fraizer. Fuckin Dusty, man.

[DocPeterWimsey]

I forgot the most important factor: Dusty Baker is the manager and played a washed-up Rolen over rookie of the year contender Todd Fraizer. Fuckin Dusty, man.

Eh, all of the teams in the Reds shoes had excuses for losing in October, just like they had for being bad in September. However, it comes down to this: if you don't play well in September for whatever reasons, then you aren't going to win in October.

[Tommy]

And the match goes to Doc (as SF pulls off the upset).