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World Series Gameday Thread
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 1, 2017 13:02:51 GMT -5
Thanks guys. I appreciate the compliment.
It's kind of funny. When I was younger I was a stats type of guy. I made sure I had all of Bill James baseball abstracts from 1982 thru his last one in 88. Now I have trouble keeping up with the new types of stats, probably because a lot of them - like WAR are so damn hard to calculate. I prefer to have the ability to calculate a stat myself then necessarily have to rely on somebody else to do it - so perhaps that's why that doesn't quite resonate the way it used to.
As I get older the history and personalities of the game (the human side) kind of things mean more to me.
With World Series games, Super Bowls, NCAA basketball championship games, etc, I always feel like I'm watching something that's very special and unique, history unfolding in a way - the kind of history that's easier to deal with, win or lose, than the sadness we are surrounded by in the "real" world.
And in a strange way, it's something that also feels uniquely American to me, something that bonds me to my country as other countries aren't necessarily blessed to have those special events to look forward to, although soccer is huge in a way in other places than I can't really comprehend.
And what's cool about the World Series is that it really brings out my love for the game of baseball. I have no personal stake in either the Dodgers or Astros winning other than an appreciation for their history. The people of Houston have had a very hard time recently and it would be uplifting for them to enjoy a championship the way the people of Boston did when the Sox won in 2013 and like the Sox, the Astros have waited a long time to win - as a matter of fact they've never won. The whole state of Texas never had an MLB World Series champion as the Rangers got to within 1 strike away during two different innings of Game 6, 2011 before blowing it.
And likewise it would be great if Vin Scully and Tommy Lasorda and Sandy Koufax were able to enjoy a Dodgers World Championship. They've been great Dodger legends for many years and they're very up there in age, and it's also extremely easy to root for Dave Roberts.
And what's cool about a series like this is being invested in it without the worry about whether the Sox can win or lose (86 crushed me, but 04, 07, and 13 are so beyond special to me) or deal with Yankee dread/hate/begrudging respect. I can be just a baseball fan, which is a treat to be.
Here's hoping for a special game tonight we can all take pleasure in remembering and enjoying!
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 1, 2017 14:05:05 GMT -5
Who pitches in relief for the Astros tonight?
What I did was calculate the EqA allowed (estimated from OBP and SA allowed) for 2017 regular and post-season. McCullers' line is overall. Keuchel and Morton's lines are the first time around the order (for both regular and post), Peacock and Musgrove are just their work as a reliever.
Pitcher Reg Post McCullers .255 .203 Keuchel .197 .272 Morton .205 .268 Peacock .191 .309 Musgrove .207 .284 Devenski .213 .321 Harris .220 .315 Giles .212 .370 Gregerson .276 .176 Liriano .290 .319 The post-season decline of their relief quartet of Giles, Devenski, Harris, and Musgrove has beggared belief. At least Musgrove has been merely bad. It makes you wonder whether their staff has too many guys who feast on mediocre and bad hitters.
Meanwhile, neither Keuchel nor Morton has been good the first time around the order, but they best all 4 relievers both regular and post. They have to be the bullpen, on 2 and 3 days rest respectively. Who do you go to first? If they need a 4th guy, it could be Peacock or Musgrove.
Here are the Dodgers. Darvish is his overall numbers, full season, while Cingrani and Watson regular season lines are with Dodgers only (since they were both dramatically better and are situational guys). Kershaw's line is 1st time around the order. The regular season numbers for Maeda and Wood are first time around the order overall, including both starts and relief appearances (4 and 2 respectively). The post lines are first time around the order for Wood, relief for Maeda.
Pitcher Reg Post Darvish .247 .282 Kershaw .217 .107 Wood .218 .243 Janssen .177 .181 Morrow .178 .245 Maeda .238 .150 Watson .226 .184 Cingrani .213 .252 Fields .225 .630 Stripling .255 .293
McCullers and Darvish are close enough that there's no SP edge. If I were the Dodgers, my plan would be to get 4 IP from Maeda, Morrow, and Janssen, plus Watson getting one out against a LHB. Have an early hook with Darvish if he struggles or looks bad and use Wood (on 3 days rest) and/or Kershaw (on 2) to get through 5 if you have to. Given Kershaw's hirory of struggling when he's overworked, I don't think it's obvious that he's a better choice for this role than Wood. Darvish is 15 OPS points higher teh 3rd time around the order than teh 2nd -- there's no need to pull him after 18 hitters if he's good.
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Post by jimed14 on Nov 1, 2017 16:09:28 GMT -5
Who pitches in relief for the Astros tonight? What I did was calculate the EqA allowed (estimated from OBP and SA allowed) for 2017 regular and post-season. McCullers' line is overall. Keuchel and Morton's lines are the first time around the order (for both regular and post), Peacock and Musgrove are just their work as a reliever. Pitcher Reg Post McCullers .255 .203 Keuchel .197 .272 Morton .205 .268 Peacock .191 .309 Musgrove .207 .284 Devenski .213 .321 Harris .220 .315 Giles .212 .370 Gregerson .276 .176 Liriano .290 .319 The post-season decline of their relief quartet of Giles, Devenski, Harris, and Musgrove has beggared belief. At least Musgrove has been merely bad. It makes you wonder whether their staff has too many guys who feast on mediocre and bad hitters.It makes me wonder what the hell MLB was thinking when they changed the baseball for the playoffs, making sliders and cutters almost useless.
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Post by tonyc on Nov 1, 2017 18:15:18 GMT -5
Great post Sox champs, which I relate to in a number of ways. Growing up with Strato-matic I was much more into those stats than the modern ones and now just enjoy the hardcore work of Eric and the rest without fully understanding. Without “fan” involvement in football, I can simply occasionally watch a Super Bowl game with total enjoyment because of the lack of attachment to outcome- this is exactly what some eastern spiritual philosophies suggest is a road to happiness of life in general. Yes, I agree these special games seem quite American. When I was living in NY with a woman, who was quite affected- as we all were- by 9/11, she loved the fact that I was simply watching baseball games- probably a parallel to those fans, and soldiers keeping tabs during WW2, as an important bridge to a very significant cultural fantasy without the dark gravitas of the rest of world events.
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Post by Don Caballero on Nov 1, 2017 20:12:56 GMT -5
This is definitely aided by hindsight, but I think the Dodgers should have started Alex Wood on this one. Darvish didn' have anything in the first game in a very epic way.
Now this game will either be the most colossal WTF game this series has seen yet or it will be a snoozefest.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 1, 2017 20:33:43 GMT -5
It's too bad for LA that Dave Roberts wasn't as fast with the hook with Darvish as he has been with Rich Hill.
When it was 3-0 with a runner on 3b and 2 outs, Morrow should have been brought in then. Don't let it get to 4-0.
Now it's 5-0 but McCullers has been shaky and extremely lucky to keep the Dodgers off the board.
Kershaw looked good and will buy the Dodgers some time to get at McCullers and the relief crew behind McCullers is anything but a lock.
I don't think this game is over.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 1, 2017 21:56:02 GMT -5
Well, Kershaw was a good story in this game, but Darvish was a even bigger negative story in this game. The best manager in baseball (imo) didn't have a quick enough hook tonight.
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Post by bosox81 on Nov 1, 2017 23:02:05 GMT -5
I'm happy for Verlander. Finally goes to a competent organization and gets it done.
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Post by Don Caballero on Nov 1, 2017 23:06:19 GMT -5
Awesome to see how happy Correa looks. It's a damn good team, heck of a city and heck of an organization. Baseball is a beautiful beast.
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 1, 2017 23:18:49 GMT -5
I will forever think of the "technology and stuff" guy from the 2014 World Series during the MVP presentation.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 1, 2017 23:40:43 GMT -5
Awesome to see how happy Correa looks. It's a damn good team, heck of a city and heck of an organization. Baseball is a beautiful beast. Well now we know why. Not only did he win a World Series, but he proposed to his girlfriend and is now engaged, so in a matter of minutes he became a World Champion and got engaged! I'd say that was a pretty damn good night!
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 1, 2017 23:45:29 GMT -5
Congratulations to the Houston Astros and the deserving city of Houston.
Not only did Correa have the night of his life, but Springer was amazing. The Astros must love New Britain, CT. That's where Springer is from, and that's where they pilfered Jeff Bagwell from. That city has been good to them!
I was very happy for Carlos Beltran, who finally was on the winning side of a World Series. Good for him! I remember when he was cranking homers at a record setting pace during the 2004 playoffs for Houston.
Altuve is a fun player to watch. I can definitely appreciate short players, especially ones who are great defensively, fast as hell, win batting championships and pack surprising power.
And Verlander must feel like he made the right decision!
They beat the three highest payrolls, three franchises in the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers that are hardly lightweights.
They totally deserved the Championship and I'm happy for them and the people of Houston. Houston strong tonight.
What a fantastic World Series. Time for their bench coach to become our manager. I guess the press conference will be on Monday, after the Astros have their victory parade.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 1, 2017 23:52:23 GMT -5
As for the game, AJ Hinch did a fantastic job of managing. Dave Roberts made some mistakes, I feel.
When it was 3-0 with a runner on 3b with 2 outs, there's no way in hell Roberts should have allowed Darvish to stay. At 3-0 with McCullers struggling, they needed to stop Houston right there. They should have went to Morrow right there.
The rest of the issue was the brutal game by Clay Bellinger and the failure of the Dodgers to hit with runners in scoring position.
Kershaw was great and it was obvious Houston wasn't going to score again, although Roberts was crazy to issue two intentional walks to load the bases, but he got away with it.
So the question I had was who was going to shut LA down? The bullpen relief was brutal and Hinch knew it. He stayed away from Giles and judiciously used Devenski and Liriano.
He used his starters he had out of the pen brilliantly and even smartly kept Morton to pitch the 9th when I would have been tempted to PH and go with Keuchel or possibly Verlander.
When the Sox played Houston, the Astros were very vulnerable because Giles was already struggling, and Peacock and Morton weren't overly impressive, but in the ALCS and World Series, McCullers, Peacock and Morton, the bottom half of the rotation, did a fantastic job and "saved" the bullpen.
I would have never guessed that Charlie Morton would not only earn the victory against the Yankees in Game 7 but would also get the win in the 7th game of the World Series and actually finish up.
I thought the Dodgers were about to break thru against Morton in the 6th when they finally got a run in and had the top of the order up with 1 out, but from there on Morton was awesome.
What a fantastic series that was. Straight out of Hollywood, except for the Dodgers.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 2, 2017 7:18:09 GMT -5
I'm happy for Verlander. Finally goes to a competent organization and gets it done. I am too, but I was thinking about this, and it must be weird. In his career, he's made 396 appearances for the Tigers and 11 for the Astros (6 in the postseason compared to 5 regular season!). How is it even possible to feel any affinity for that organization in that short of a time? I could even see it at the trade deadline, but getting traded on August 31? I'm sure he's thrilled, but for me, I'd definitely feel a bit bittersweet about the whole thing.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Nov 2, 2017 9:06:24 GMT -5
I'm happy for Verlander. Finally goes to a competent organization and gets it done. I am too, but I was thinking about this, and it must be weird. In his career, he's made 396 appearances for the Tigers and 11 for the Astros (6 in the postseason compared to 5 regular season!). How is it even possible to feel any affinity for that organization in that short of a time? I could even see it at the trade deadline, but getting traded on August 31? I'm sure he's thrilled, but for me, I'd definitely feel a bit bittersweet about the whole thing. A successful World Series run probably goes a long way towards that.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Nov 2, 2017 9:46:17 GMT -5
I'm happy for Verlander. Finally goes to a competent organization and gets it done. I am too, but I was thinking about this, and it must be weird. In his career, he's made 396 appearances for the Tigers and 11 for the Astros (6 in the postseason compared to 5 regular season!). How is it even possible to feel any affinity for that organization in that short of a time? I could even see it at the trade deadline, but getting traded on August 31? I'm sure he's thrilled, but for me, I'd definitely feel a bit bittersweet about the whole thing. I can understand that. But sometimes players feel very differently. And it becomes about getting that ring, the bond you feel when you celebrate the ultimate victory in a memory you have the rest of your life. One of my memories from the 2007 World Series celebration was Royce Clayton and his "Woo-woo!" chants. Josh Beckett and others did a toast to Clayton (along with a lot of "Woo-woos!"), who wound up retiring, and had nothing but 6 plate appearances with the Red Sox after a long journeyman career. There was some sort of affinity there. And recently I remember Jonny Gomes giving speeches at the Parade when KC won it and he was just a bit player on that team. I think that when you go through something epic with others and are totally emotionally invested in it, there's a bonding for life kind of thing that goes on, which leads to affinity even though you were barely a part of it. Dave Roberts is a shining example of that and so is Orlando Cabrera. They are Red Sox for life and they were only here for about 5 minutes. Roberts can't go anywhere without some Red Sox fan saying thank you and Cabrera played all over but he never got the standing ovations elsewhere that he did when he played against the Red Sox. It definitely can happen. It's kind of a neat thing.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 2, 2017 10:44:20 GMT -5
Correa proposed to his girlfriend after the victory. Probably the coolest part about the whole ceremony. Cute girlfriend too. I wish I was a baseball player. Lol.
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Post by Coreno on Nov 2, 2017 11:34:01 GMT -5
I am too, but I was thinking about this, and it must be weird. In his career, he's made 396 appearances for the Tigers and 11 for the Astros (6 in the postseason compared to 5 regular season!). How is it even possible to feel any affinity for that organization in that short of a time? I could even see it at the trade deadline, but getting traded on August 31? I'm sure he's thrilled, but for me, I'd definitely feel a bit bittersweet about the whole thing. A successful World Series run probably goes a long way towards that. Yeah, it probably helps that they likely don't get those 11 wins without his 6 postseason appearances.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Nov 2, 2017 13:43:50 GMT -5
Congratulations to Astros...better we lost to eventual champion.....not really, but it sounds good.
Was a close series. I think the Astros got a bit lucky in game 7. Dodgers squandered good chances. Springer had a great run. Baseball is so amazing. things can change.so quickly, you just never know..
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Nov 4, 2017 10:57:39 GMT -5
Congratulations to Astros...better we lost to eventual champion.....not really, but it sounds good. Was a close series. I think the Astros got a bit lucky in game 7. Dodgers squandered good chances. Springer had a great run. Baseball is so amazing. things can change.so quickly, you just never know.. It should have been a much more exciting game the way the McCullers was pitching.
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