The four teams that advanced to the League Championship Series are probably the top two teams in the AL, and two of the top three playoff teams in the NL. We can debate the Dodgers; relative standing in the NL as a whole, complicated by the fact that their playoff lineup is nothing like anything they used during the season, but I don’t think anyone would argue that they’re a better team than the Brewers at the moment.
They all won their Division Series in a similar fashion: run prevention. No winning team allowed more than five runs in any DS game, or more than 13 runs in the series. On the whole, the teams advancing allowed 41 runs in 15 games, 2.7 per contest. Only the Dodgers were particularly impressive at the plate, although the Rays and Red Sox each had their moments. It was pitching and defense-I got five years older just typing that-that made the difference for the winning teams. They kept their opponents in the park, allowing just eight home runs in the 15 games. They didn’t walk people, just 41, or 2.7 per game, and they had nearly a 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
On offense, they played big ball. In fact, the Division Series round validated the idea that you win post-season games not by scratching out a single run using small-ball tactics, but by using short-sequence offenses-power-to score, and by putting up crooked numbers. The team hitting more home runs in a game went 12-1 in the Division Series. In all seven NLDS games, and nine of 15 overall, the winning team scored more runs in a single inning than the loser did all game long.
Prevent home runs, hit them yourselves. That may not be a sauce, but it’s a pretty good dry rub.
By the way, when did the Division Series start to suck? For all the excitement we had in the early days of its existence, the round has started to leave baseball fans with way too much time on their hands in the second week of October. We had three over the minimum 12 games this season, which is a marathon compared to the 13-just one over the minimum!-we saw last year. There hasn’t been a Game Five in the Division Series since 2005, and there haven’t been two in one year since 2003.
This is probably just random chance. There’s no structural reason for the Division Series to end up 3-0 or 3-1 so often, and it’s not as if the team with the inferior regular-season performance is the team on the wrong side of that mark very much. However, given that MLB has invested a lot in the postseason, chipping away at the value of pennant races to build up October, year after year of a first round that doesn’t deliver on its promise-how many “There’s Only One October” ads have you seen? 200? 300?-calls into question the value of that decision. We know that September is not what it used to be because of the small-division/wild-card combination. If October is going to disappoint, and let’s take a moment to remember that we haven’t had a Game Six in the World Series since 2003, then that tradeoff doesn’t work at all.
Some notes on the Game Fours:
Rays/White Sox
Hey, the White Sox hit two home runs and scored… two runs. For the series, they scored six of their 13 runs on homers, a near-perfect match for their in-season mark. In the four games, they had 22 singles, four doubles, and 10 walks. That’s not enough, not nearly enough. They got two good starts, and they needed more. The very simple formula that helped them win the Central broke down for a week.
The reaction to a team that relies on home runs the way that the Sox do is to say that they need to play more small ball, show the ability to manufacture runs, add speed, all the usual clichés. The Sox don’t necessarily need that. They do, however, need to diversify, and by that, I mean find any other offensive skill. Hit some singles, doubles, triples, draw some walks, steal some bases. The Sox are one-dimensional, and not in the good way that gets criticized by people who don’t understand that teams can score a lot of runs without channeling the 1909 Detroit Tigers, like, say, the early Billy Beane A’s. These White Sox don’t pair home runs with walks. They don’t pair them with anything, and they haven’t for some time. They have to diversify.
Knowing how baseball works, though, I’ll make this prediction: The White Sox will score fewer runs next season, have a lower EqA, use more small-ball tactics, and be praised for having a better offense.
The Rays just played better baseball. They didn’t do any one thing particularly well-although their bullpen was just a little ridiculous: 11
Red Sox/Angels
An e-mail sent in the eighth inning last night:
Subj: Vlad
Scioscia not learning. I’m calling him getting thrown out as the tying run.
If J.D. Drew is two steps further in or takes a little better line to the ball or gets off a slightly stronger throw, that would have been prescient. Vladimir Guerrero was safe without a tag, and the Angels tied the game. They would lose in the ninth.
The play, though, encapsulated the series for me. When he first got the job in Anaheim, Mike Scioscia seemed unconcerned with experience in assigning roles, but now seems to have lost some of that edge. In the situation referenced above-down two in the eighth inning of an elimination game, tying run on second-you have to have the fastest person possible on second base. Scioscia, for the second time in the series, didn’t pinch-run for Guerrero, who at this point is a below-average baserunner. It didn’t bite him the way it did in Game One, but it was nonetheless a mistake.
Whether Scioscia is making these errors out of loyalty or out of an inability to evaluate his talent doesn’t matter. What matters is that he has to figure out whether he’s going to manage the players he has or the players he wishes he had, because “Angels baseball” didn’t work with the 2008 Angels roster. It was perhaps the slowest team he’d had since 2001. It was probably the worst defensive team of his time in Anaheim. The naked aggression that has been the organization’s signature hurt them in this series, on the bases and at the plate. You’re welcome to point to 100 wins, but the facts are that the Angels had excellent pitching and weak competition, and only one of those applied in the Division Series. Putting the ball in play as an offensive strategy doesn’t work very well when you’re facing the best defensive team in the AL, and wasting the baserunners you do get is devastating when you just have no path to getting very many.
I think Scioscia is a terrific manager, but he has a real test in front of him because the 2009 Angels aren’t going to be any different. They could be a little faster, depending on who plays left field, but they’re going to be a year older everywhere else. There are no young position players with speed on the horizon. The approach on which he’s built all of his success is going to be ill-suited to his personnel next year. How he makes this adjustment is going to be one of the more interesting stories of the 2009 season.
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The squeeze didn\'t fail because the Red Sox predicted it. The squeeze failed because Aybar missed his bunt.
And yes, I point this out because it\'s happened to me a number of times.
We\'ll probably change this behaviour sometime soon. We\'re still considering our options.
Thanks for commenting!
I guess this is baseball\'s version of the tuck rule.
There was nothing unambiguous about it. The ball is clearly in Varitek\'s control until he hits the ground. No amount of ESPN story-creation can change that.
Or that it was one of the worst decisions in LDS history.
What I thought about was the increasingly-frequent call at second base where the pivot man catches a throw and drops the ball as he\'s trying to make the throw to first base. The first play is over. The out is in the books.
I thought it was the right call, with enough gray area that had it been called the other way, I could probably have defended it.
As appalling as the inability to get the extra base or clutch hit was (and Boston pitching does deserve a lot of credit for that), the defensive lapses were inexcusable.
Howie Kendrick overall had a terrible series and was the biggest reason, offensively and defensively they lost the series. Joe focuses a lot on Sciosc for some reason, but the greater fault is Angel players didn\'t execute.
the only thing that\'s consoling is that compared to past years, the Halos at least won a game and were competitive each night.
And if Aybar is not the right man to hit a grounder to the right side, or hit a sac fly, get someone in there who is.
I didn\'t see the problem with the suicide squeeze. It\'s consistent with everything the Angels have done this decade, it\'s appropriate to the situation and the hitter, and better suicide than safety squeeze, always.
I didn\'t address because I didn\'t think it was noteworthy, I guess. The execution failed, but it was the appropriate play. Aybar really made a poor effort, however.
Now, everyone turn on ESPN. Thanks.
The problem was outside of the big bats, everyone\'s OBP sucked. Ramirez showed some signs of maybe having a more patient approach toward the end of the year. They have to hope that sticks and that it wasn\'t a blip. And they probably need to find someone to play one of the middle infield spots and/or a CF that can get on base at a good clip. Maybe that guy is Chris Getz. Maybe it\'s a free agent. Maybe it\'s Nick Swisher in center again and he\'ll bounce back (I mean, he almost has to be better with the bat, right?). I really don\'t know.
Howie is better than this - we all know that. He just choked. And I hope he stays healthy and proves what he can do next time post season comes around.
Now, if we could convince MLB to go back to best-of-nine for the World Series with minimal rest....
Also, I\'d be in favor of the LDS going to a 7 game series only if they had less days off. It really shouldn\'t take 10 days to play a 7 game series or 8 days to play a 5 game series which would have been the case of the Angels won last night.
No one wants to shorten the regular season. No one wants to play doubleheaders.
Compressing the postseason schedule would work for me, and I imagine for many others. The problem, and we almost saw this a few times earlier this decade, is that two days of rain in one place just completely screws it all up. That was the nominal reason for the scheduling changes (TV was also a factor), and it\'s kind of a good one.
I don\'t think the difference between best-of-five and best-of-seven is worth going to the mat over. It\'s all short-series baseball.
As for Varitek tag, he made the tag, the runner is out, then V-tek fell down and the ball popped loose. Once the tag is made and ball control is confirmed (as it was by the ump) the play is over.
(Note that Scioscia could have pinch hit for Aybar. That he didn\'t do so suggested that the suicide squeeze was indeed coming.)
One other point about Aybar, or anyone, possibly swinging away: you can\'t really hit a sac fly to left in Fenway.
Let me throw this out there, passed on from a caller to 1380 AM in St. Louis: are we all focused on the wrong bunt? Was the mistake not the squeeze, but the sacrifice that preceded it. No one out, runner on second, high-contact, opposite-field hitter at the plate. Why are you sacrificing with Kendrick when just letting him swing has a very high-percentage chance of producing contact that will advance the runner, with some chance of a hit?
I want to credit Jason, I think, in St. Louis for this. Forget the squeeze--the sacrifice was a huge error in the course of that inning.
Opinions about the advisibility of a suicide squeeze depend on the odds that it will work. From the previous comments, I saw no reference to data-derived odds of past success. Do they exist, someplace?
Letting Aybar hit (as well as the next hitter) gives 2 chances at plating Willits, including at LEAST 1 chance where virtually almost any type of out, even on the infield, scores that run. There\'s also the slim chance of scoring on a possible passed ball/wild pitch?
I was truly stunned to see the Angels attempt it.
I think that\'s because everyone saw the squeeze coming already so Willits deception was wholly irrelevant.