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2018 Red Sox vs. Yankees ALDS Gameday Thread
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Post by Guidas on Oct 11, 2018 11:46:15 GMT -5
No baseball until Saturday is brutal. We in NC are awaiting the rain and winds from Michael. I am awaiting my carpal tunnel surgery on Friday...just want to get it behind me and feel good again - my third book is not happening until this gets fixed. Question - we only have basic cable - I don't want to go to the bar to watch each game (I will be as big as a house).... Anyone here use Sling or another App on Roku to get the TBS App and just pay for one month? Things used to be so easy when the games were on the major networks (yes, I am ageing myself!) From what I can tell, you can't just pay for TBS and you'd have to get a trial or pay for a month of one of the major streaming services that include TBS, including Sling, DirecTV Now, Hulu Live, Youtube TV or Playstation Vue. It seems like most of them offer a free week trial, so you could try different ones to get through the ALCS. I believe the WS is on Fox, so you'll be good for that. The TBS app seems to require you to login to your cable account unless I'm missing something. Even just one month of one of these would be less than going out to a bar once I think if you did have to pay. www.groundedreason.com/watch-tbs-without-cable/I believe if you have the MLB gameday app you can watch all the games, as well.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 11, 2018 11:52:19 GMT -5
From what I can tell, you can't just pay for TBS and you'd have to get a trial or pay for a month of one of the major streaming services that include TBS, including Sling, DirecTV Now, Hulu Live, Youtube TV or Playstation Vue. It seems like most of them offer a free week trial, so you could try different ones to get through the ALCS. I believe the WS is on Fox, so you'll be good for that. The TBS app seems to require you to login to your cable account unless I'm missing something. Even just one month of one of these would be less than going out to a bar once I think if you did have to pay. www.groundedreason.com/watch-tbs-without-cable/I believe if you have the MLB gameday app you can watch all the games, as well. You might need mlb.tv for that, not sure.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Oct 11, 2018 12:00:04 GMT -5
The playoffs are blacked out on mlb.com for the playoffs - just set the radio broadcast of choice.
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Post by Guidas on Oct 11, 2018 12:05:18 GMT -5
I believe if you have the MLB gameday app you can watch all the games, as well. You might need mlb.tv for that, not sure. Watched two of the games on the MLB app and iPad. I pay the annual fee so I can watch Sox whereverI am (except in Orioles territory because Peter Angelos). Not sure if they do monthly.
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Post by voiceofreason on Oct 11, 2018 12:30:10 GMT -5
I know it's an old game but for me, this gif encapsulate our season vs the MFY. What a badass moment that was! Just for the lulz.. Keep underrating us national media, you're doing a great job! Priceless. This is awesome!!
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Post by orion09 on Oct 11, 2018 12:31:33 GMT -5
Joe West was HP umpire in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. Without his crew getting together and overturning not one, but two calls (Mark Bellhorn’s home run and A-Rod’s slap), 2004 never happens. Overturning two calls - before replay - in Yankee Stadium took guts and integrity. Sign me up as a Joe West fan.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 11, 2018 12:40:31 GMT -5
Yeah, the problem with Joe West is the way he escalates confrontation, not the actual accuracy of his calls.
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radiohix
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Post by radiohix on Oct 11, 2018 12:45:24 GMT -5
Forgot the 2004 calls, you guys are right. I stand corrected.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 11, 2018 12:49:44 GMT -5
I only liked Joe West in 2004. Never before or after.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 11, 2018 12:58:18 GMT -5
How colossally incompetent are the Globe baseball writers other than Speier? Both Peter Abraham and Chris Gasper have stories in today's paper heaping the proper praise on Cora. Both talk about swapping in Holt and Devers in game 3 and then going back to Kinsler and Nunez in game 4, and how well those moves worked out.
Now, this was good managing, but all Cora was doing at 2B and 3B in this series was standard platooning. Tanaka has a big reverse split, so both Holt and Devers stayed on the bench in game 2. Nunez also loves Fenway. Severino has a bigger-than-average split and Yankee stadium has the short porch, so Holt and Devers in game 3 was obvious, and Sabathia has a big split, so going back to your RHB was obvious. The only really interesting thing about these moves was that some of them (game 3 at least) defied the past-history data. Does either one mention that? No.
The first thing that Cora did that was anything but obvious was start his backup catcher in game 3.
CV was 2 for 8 with a BB and 3 SO against Severino, and Leon was 2 for 16 with a 3B and 4 SO against him, but if you've written the article correctly, you've already explained that these numbers have no predictive value if taken at face value and limited predictive value even if looked at closely (speaking from experience here as the guy who advised Tito on matchups in 2005 through mid-late 2007). Gee, if there were only a way to drive that point home to a skeptical readership. If only, say, Rafael Devers' first career hit off of Severino in 13 AB (he was 0 for 12, BB, 5 SO) had been the hardest ball he had hit in his MLB career. And if only that were the leadoff hit in an inning, and he'd scored, and we had gone on to win 16-1. The point you have to make is that after correctly going with the platoon switching, you've done the opposite at catcher. You've removed a lefty bat and inserted a righty bat, and Severino eats mediocre righty hitters alive. It's true that Eovaldi has much better numbers with CV behind the plate than Leon, but it's dubious that that's meaningful, too, since Eovaldi started and ended the season with his innate brilliance and had what seems to be a dead=arm period in between. CV goes 2 for 2 off of Severino, the first a cheap infield hit but the second a perfectly placed rope on a hit-and-run at the start of the decisive 7-run 4th.
The thing that Cora did that was a shock beyond belief was stick with CV in game 4. Leon had a .300 / .417 / .600 line against Sabathia (3 for 10, HR, 2 BB, 2 SO) while CV was 1 for 7 with a SO. Leon had caught all but one of Porcello's starts this year (Swihart had the other) and even though Porcello has almost identical career numbers with both guys and CV has caught 23 starts, Porcello is on record as saying Leon is the best he's ever thrown to. It's unclear that there's any analytics behind this choice (gee, maybe ask Cora that?). It could be that CV is significantly better than Leon against pitchers that are Sabathia's type (that's the way I did it, and Vince Gennaro of SABR independently invented the same methodology and won the best research award at a conference with his presentation), and it could be that swing path analysis says so (they laid off the guy or guys who did that when they laid me off at the end of '08, and Zack Scott was pissed). But it seems likelier to me that Cora simply liked the way CV was swinging the bat -- something he my have seen in BP before game 3. CV is ultra streaky and when his mechanics are right, he's actually a good hitter. Gee, if only Vazquez had done something worth mentioning in game 4, like hit a HR off of an ace reliever that proved to be the game-winning margin? But neither of these stories mention the catchers at all. Both heap praise on Cora, talk about 2B and 3B, and then end the Cora-was-great talk there.
(And while you're on that topic, why not ask Cora about not pinch-hitting for CV with Holt in the 8th? Was that a mistake, or was there a cool reason that just didn't work out? Oh, and while we're at it, why not ask Holt what's up with all the home run hitting?)
That last point is my biggest curiosity. I can see Cora saying Leon hasn't had a hit in 2 months (or so it seems) and he probably views him as an automatic out the way we do right now, so the 3-10 past history is meaningless if Leon is hopeless at the plate. The platoon stuff - yeah. Understandable. But the not pinch-hitting Holt for Vazquez against Betances, I totally don't get and don't understand why it wasn't asked. Ultimately it didn't matter, but.... Say you PH for Vazquez with Holt, what are the Yankees' options? Stay with their RH to face a hot LH batter who has been mashing the ball or switch to Chapman who is capable of walking just about anybody with a patient hitter like Holt at the plate? Not a great choice for NY. And then you go defense with Leon who is the best defensive catcher the Sox have. I just think a run or two there finishes off the ballgame and sends the Yankees fans to the exits. As it turned out Vazquez played excellent defense in the 9th and because the Sox didn't put the game away we had to sweat things out but it did make the game more exciting, especially those last two plays, the near grand slam and the unlikely awesome fielding plays from Nunez and Pearce at the end. Of course I can say that in retrospect. Was Chapman warming? We have no idea. Apparently TBS's producer thinks that no one cares about when relievers start warming, because they never, ever show that.
But it's possible that Cora thought he'd rather see Betances face Vazquez and (after the Mookie IBB) Benintendi than Chapman face Holt and Benintendi. That's actually defensible. And, fuck all, if we'd known Chapman was ready at that point we would have figured that out right then and there. Are these producers even baseball fans?
Meanwhile, Fox Sports puts the score box in the lower right, where it's obscured by the fast-forward bar of any DVR, which makes it impossible to skip forward or back to a given point in the game. In fact, with any other broadcast it's possible to watch a game from earlier in the day that you missed in very little time by fast-forwarding at various speeds, skipping over routine plays, slowing down when men get on base, and so on. I'll be watching the NLCS games in their entirety, but I missed most of the NLDS for that reason.
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Post by 07redsox on Oct 11, 2018 13:01:29 GMT -5
The playoffs are blacked out on mlb.com for the playoffs - just set the radio broadcast of choice. You do indeed get blacked out for the playoffs if you use mlb.com/mlb.tv. However, just like you have to pay the $100+ for the regular season, I believe they have introduced an option to pay for viewing of the playoffs as well.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 11, 2018 13:06:25 GMT -5
The playoffs are blacked out on mlb.com for the playoffs - just set the radio broadcast of choice. Next year, I'll hook you up with a free mlb.tv subscription if T-Mobile does it again like the last 2 or 3 years. My gf and I both have phones on T-Mobile and don't need multiple subs.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 11, 2018 14:23:08 GMT -5
As a baseball historian of some sorts, I do find there to be some interesting ties/parallels between the 1978 playoff game (or regular season game 163 to be precise) and the 4-3 victory on Tuesday that knocked out the Yankees.
First tie is that Bucky Dent was the star of the show in 78 and he threw out the ball Tuesday night. Glad you could make it Bucky.
In 1978 the Red Sox were frantically trying to come back. After blowing their 2-0 seventh inning lead, the Yankees quickly scored 5 runs and the Sox trailed by 3 as did the 2018 Yankees.
The 78 Sox got two runs off Yankee flamethrower Goose Gossage while the 18 Yankees got their two runs off Red Sox flamethrower Craig Kimbrel. The only difference is that the 78 Sox did it in the 8th against Gossage while the Yanks did it in the 9th - of course that's a sign of the times. As it was Gossage came into the game into the 7th while Kimbrel is purely a modern 1 inning closer.
The 1978 Red Sox season ended when the veteran Carl Yastrzemski hit a weak popup to 3b with the tying run on 3b and the winning run on 1b. Gossage that day did not have great control and usually had no idea where his fastball was headed
Likewise with Kimbrel who had even less control.
Meanwhile instead of the oldest player (Yaz in 78) the Yankees had their youngest up - a budding superstar (I think he's younger than Andujar?) and instead of hitting a weak popup to 3b he hit a weak grounder to 3b.
Of course this grounder was more of an adventure than the 78 pop-up.
But in the end, just as the 1978 Fenway crowd was left stunned, saddened, and silenced, so was the 2018 Yankee Stadium crowd - after a minute of replay, of course, as it is 2018!
And what else, the batter who didn't come through for NY was named Torres, not that different a name from the pitcher who ultimately didn't come through for the Red Sox in 1978 (Torrez, who actually did pitch well that game).
Another interesting detail. Everybody remembers light hitting powerless Bucky F. Dent's cheap pop fly HR to LF that would have only been a HR at Fenway, the homer that turned the game but the HR that provided the margin of victory for the Red Sox was the Yankee Stadium cheapie that goes out nowhere else but Yankee Stadium hit by light hitting powerless Christian F (New middle initial to Yankee fans?) Vazquez. Meanwhile Gary Sanchez's shot to the warning track out/sac fly at Yankee Stadium would have been a GW wall ball or HR at Fenway Park!
That shot Sanchez hit was a scare but just the second out, not that unlike Jim Rice's shot to RF in 1978 that was the second out. Gossage flung his arms up like he had messed up when the ball came off of Rice's bat. So as the 78 Sox had a tease and then disappointment so did the 2018 Yankees, both on their second outs.
And just to tip their cap to further history, disgraced from the Red Sox victory was Yankee manager Aaron Boone who will be remembered for his HR to beat the 2003 Red Sox and will now also be remembered for being wickedly outmanaged and outmaneuvered by Alex Cora.
I love when history comes full circle!
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 11, 2018 14:37:14 GMT -5
And just to tip their cap to further history, disgraced from the Red Sox victory was Yankee manager Aaron Boone who will be remembered for his HR to beat the 2003 Red Sox and will now also be remembered for being wickedly outmanaged and outmaneuvered by Alex Cora. I love when history comes full circle! And the other thing about coming full circle is that Boone has gotten roasted for being slow on pitching changes, same as Grady Little in the same game he hit the walk off HR. Ya know, if Grady Little brought in Williamson or Timlin for Pedro to start the 8th or if he brought in Embree to face Matsui and one of them gave up the lead instead of Pedro, Little would have been criticized just as much for taking Pedro out IMO. History is unkind to Grady Little.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 11, 2018 14:59:30 GMT -5
The playoffs are blacked out on mlb.com for the playoffs - just set the radio broadcast of choice. You do indeed get blacked out for the playoffs if you use mlb.com/mlb.tv. However, just like you have to pay the $100+ for the regular season, I believe they have introduced an option to pay for viewing of the playoffs as well. I don't know about 'option' but I believe the deal is now $120 for all regular season and post season subject to blackout rules. For me, no blackouts so I don't know how they do it there. Prior to last year, regular season and post season were separate. The only thing that seems different now is that I have to hover over the game at MLB.com to see the gameday/TV icons but it appears they will change that part for the LCS.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 11, 2018 15:19:38 GMT -5
Vague question here but something I've been thinking about...
With all the match-up type saberstuff available, why do we assume that MLB doesn't do ump match-ups to favor the more profitable fan base ? Hernandez with CC for example. Isn't that a bit like assuming all politicians are model human beings ?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 11, 2018 16:30:46 GMT -5
And just to tip their cap to further history, disgraced from the Red Sox victory was Yankee manager Aaron Boone who will be remembered for his HR to beat the 2003 Red Sox and will now also be remembered for being wickedly outmanaged and outmaneuvered by Alex Cora. I love when history comes full circle! And the other thing about coming full circle is that Boone has gotten roasted for being slow on pitching changes, same as Grady Little in the same game he hit the walk off HR. Ya know, if Grady Little brought in Williamson or Timlin for Pedro to start the 8th or if he brought in Embree to face Matsui and one of them gave up the lead instead of Pedro, Little would have been criticized just as much for taking Pedro out IMO. History is unkind to Grady Little. A detail from '03 that I don't think appeared anywhere until Pedro's autobiography and which he repeated on TV: Grady asked Pedro if he could get one more hitter. He wanted Pedro to face Nick Johnson, whom Embree had "never gotten out." Actually:
7/26/03: Line drive out to RF. (These are all from my scorecards! B-ref has it as a FB. Unfortunately, it looks like I hadn't yet started noting the hardness of a LD out by the size of the letter "L.") 8/30/03: "Fly ball 1B to LF-CF" (Except this one. ... I now remember going to a family function and missing the Yankees series.)
9/7/03: Roped a line single to RF. (Base hit hardness was always scored by the straightness of a line.)
ALCS 1: Line drive out to CF. ALCS 3: Hard line single to CF. ALCS 5: Routine fly to LF. Manny had to take a step or two back. ALCS 6: GDP, SS unassisted.
However, Johnson was 7 for 21, 2B, BB, 7 SO off of Pedro. And Pedro was obviously completely gassed (I know I once broke down his whole previous inning, maybe here. I bet I'll do t again!). The only reason he got out of the previous inning was that he owned Soriano. Having Pedro come out to get Johnson was defensible from a pure matchup perspective, but by no means obvious.
What Pedro omits when he tells the story (and takes all of the blame, bless his heart) is of course that the analytics department had told Grady that Pedro had to be out of the game at that point. Timlin was on an incredible roll and had gotten Johnson the two times he had faced him on routine grounders.
We can only speculate how Timlin would have fared in the 8th ... no wait, actually Timlin faced the precise same hitters in the 9th, under much higher leverage. He got Johnson to hit the same P6 as Pedro did. He fanned Jeter swinging. Walker made a great pick on a hard grounder by Bernie to get the last out. But if that ball goes through in the 8th, you have Embree, who was also on a tremendous roll, to face Matsui.
No one would have blamed Grady for taking Pedro out, no matter what the bullpen did. (Just like no one blamed Wakefield for the HR. Sox fans are smarter than that.) The manager's job it not to guess that his spectacularly great bullpen is about to pumpkinize.
In the 8th Pedro had gotten the first out easily, then given up a hard line drive out to CF to Posada, the second HR of the game to Giambi (who until the two homers had been 7 for 43, 2B, HR, 4 BB, 19 SO), an infield single to Enrique Wilson, and a first pitch line single to right to Karim Garcia. The homer and the two singles happened in the span of 4 pitches. But Soriano was 4 for 37, 2 2B, 0 BB, 17 SO including his last PA in game 3 and all three times this game. That Pedro could get Soriano once more seemed likely. b He was obviously finito at that point.
Letting him get Johnson was weird but OK. Not sticking with the plan and letting him face Jeter was inexcusable. Leaving him in after Jeter doubled was criminal. Everyone in the park knew that leaving him in after Grady came out to get him after Bernie singled was insane. Letting him in after Matsui doubled ... OK, you run out of adjectives at that point.
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Post by sarasoxer on Oct 11, 2018 16:37:41 GMT -5
Vague question here but something I've been thinking about... With all the match-up type saberstuff available, why do we assume that MLB doesn't do ump match-ups to favor the more profitkprofitkableneable fan base ? Hernandez with CC for example. Isn't that a bit like assuming all politicians are model human beings ? Maybe I'm naive...but conspiracy theories, so in vogue across the board, don't carry much water for me. I'd like to believe that somewhere honesty and integrity are paramount for their own sake...the situation proffered being a prime case. Otherwise, it's a world I want no part of.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Oct 11, 2018 16:50:46 GMT -5
i bought mlb.tv this year. I was blacked out for the Yankee series, but I am in NY market. I don't know if the same with Astros.
I got by with a little help from a friend this last go around.
I really think the best route is to try a free subscription to one to the services that has TBS as part of their menu. You should be able to watch online.
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Post by tizzle on Oct 11, 2018 17:11:55 GMT -5
And the other thing about coming full circle is that Boone has gotten roasted for being slow on pitching changes, same as Grady Little in the same game he hit the walk off HR. Ya know, if Grady Little brought in Williamson or Timlin for Pedro to start the 8th or if he brought in Embree to face Matsui and one of them gave up the lead instead of Pedro, Little would have been criticized just as much for taking Pedro out IMO. History is unkind to Grady Little. A detail from '03 that I don't think appeared anywhere until Pedro's autobiography and which he repeated on TV: Grady asked Pedro if he could get one more hitter. He wanted Pedro to face Nick Johnson, whom Embree had "never gotten out." Actually:
7/26/03: Line drive out to RF. (These are all from my scorecards! B-ref has it as a FB. Unfortunately, it looks like I hadn't yet started noting the hardness of a LD out by the size of the letter "L.") 8/30/03: "Fly ball 1B to LF-CF" (Except this one. ... I now remember going to a family function and missing the Yankees series.)
9/7/03: Roped a line single to RF. (Base hit hardness was always scored by the straightness of a line.)
ALCS 1: Line drive out to CF. ALCS 3: Hard line single to CF. ALCS 5: Routine fly to LF. Manny had to take a step or two back. ALCS 6: GDP, SS unassisted.
However, Johnson was 7 for 21, 2B, BB, 7 SO off of Pedro. And Pedro was obviously completely gassed (I know I once broke down his whole previous inning, maybe here. I bet I'll do t again!). The only reason he got out of the previous inning was that he owned Soriano. Having Pedro come out to get Johnson was defensible from a pure matchup perspective, but by no means obvious.
What Pedro omits when he tells the story (and takes all of the blame, bless his heart) is of course that the analytics department had told Grady that Pedro had to be out of the game at that point. Timlin was on an incredible roll and had gotten Johnson the two times he had faced him on routine grounders.
We can only speculate how Timlin would have fared in the 8th ... no wait, actually Timlin faced the precise same hitters in the 9th, under much higher leverage. He got Johnson to hit the same P6 as Pedro did. He fanned Jeter swinging. Walker made a great pick on a hard grounder by Bernie to get the last out. But if that ball goes through in the 8th, you have Embree, who was also on a tremendous roll, to face Matsui.
No one would have blamed Grady for taking Pedro out, no matter what the bullpen did. (Just like no one blamed Wakefield for the HR. Sox fans are smarter than that.) The manager's job it not to guess that his spectacularly great bullpen is about to pumpkinize.
In the 8th Pedro had gotten the first out easily, then given up a hard line drive out to CF to Posada, the second HR of the game to Giambi (who until the two homers had been 7 for 43, 2B, HR, 4 BB, 19 SO), an infield single to Enrique Wilson, and a first pitch line single to right to Karim Garcia. The homer and the two singles happened in the span of 4 pitches. But Soriano was 4 for 37, 2 2B, 0 BB, 17 SO including his last PA in game 3 and all three times this game. That Pedro could get Soriano once more seemed likely. b He was obviously finito at that point.
Letting him get Johnson was weird but OK. Not sticking with the plan and letting him face Jeter was inexcusable. Leaving him in after Jeter doubled was criminal. Everyone in the park knew that leaving him in after Grady came out to get him after Bernie singled was insane. Letting him in after Matsui doubled ... OK, you run out of adjectives at that point.
I'm really not a fan of the whole "if the other move hadn't worked out, he would have been blamed anyway". He got blamed because he made was clearly, and obviously to anyone who knew baseball, the WRONG move. If he had made the right move and it didn't work out, then I would hope that people who actually follow the sport would defend him for that. Maybe more importantly, the people he worked for would have had his back. Let's not spend our time defending bad decisions because it's possible the right decision might not have gone perfectly. That's the nature of baseball anyway. I also worry that that line of thinking gets in managers' heads. I don't know that it's why Grady made the wrong moves, but his one constant defense of his decision was to say that Pedro was his best Pitcher, as if that fact shielded him from criticism. Was the mindset of "which move will I not get blamed for if it goes wrong?" the impetus for what he did? I don't know, but his own words hint at it. Likewise, last year's run ended against Houston in a game where a clearly exhausted Chris Sale, who had been accepting congratulations and high-fiving his teammates after the 7th inning, went back out for the 8th, predictably got into trouble and then turning the game over to Craig Kimbrel, who failed in an attempt at a save of more than an inning, as he usually does. Meanwhile, Addison Reed, who had been acquired specifically for the 8th inning, remained in the pen. Again, I can't know for sure, but it sure felt like a series of moves that was based more around "what will I get blamed less for if it fails?" (i.e. "We lost with our two best Pitchers") rather than just making the sensible decision.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 11, 2018 22:48:51 GMT -5
A low-key weirdness about The Narrative this postseason is how the 108-win Red Sox have somehow been framed as the underdogs.
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Post by patford on Oct 11, 2018 22:53:07 GMT -5
A low-key weirdness about The Narrative this postseason is how the 108-win Red Sox have somehow been framed as the underdogs. Yankee strike zone.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 11, 2018 22:59:33 GMT -5
A low-key weirdness about The Narrative this postseason is how the 108-win Red Sox have somehow been framed as the underdogs. I can understand the underdogs in the case of the Astros because we have the best record team vs the best pythag team. I said it before (prior to the Yankees), I believe the Sox will win but if they don't, they didn't deserve to be there (the World Series) anyways. That's why I wanted the opponents to be the Yankees/'stros and not the A's/Indians.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 12, 2018 1:38:42 GMT -5
My ex-wife / best friend Anita is a baseball fan by proxy only. She's very much into player personal stories and the psychological aspects of the game, and I stumbled on what I think is a cool insight when I was trying to explain why Cora is such a great manager.
The modern manager's job is to integrate a huge body of analytics with their own judgement and instincts about which analytics are relevant and which might even be irrelevant, and about which factors might be overlooked by analytics -- especially those of player psychology, but also "hot" / "cold" judgments that have evaded or that contradict the numbers.
The challenge here is that the instincts and judgement are about players that he has a personal relationship with. Those personal relationships almost always affect the judgments.
In the worst case, you get a manager literally believing that his #2 starter is worthless crap for no other reason that the guy smokes pot and has hung an unflattering but perfect nickname on him.
There's obviously many cases of mild, unconscious bias. You like a guy personally, you admire their work ethic, and you stick with him an extra inning on the mound, or two extra weeks of a slump or with an injury, before it seems to you that he's still the best choice. This is not consciously wanting the guy to like you back and therefore treating him better than he deserves; this is misjudging how good the player is at the present moment because of a personal connection.
Sometimes, too, you find yourself in a situation where treating a player in a way that would be best for the team would have negative psychological consequences for the player and hence for the clubhouse, because the player is not on board with the analysis. Terry Francona in early 2008 (IIRC) was armed with amazing data that showed how much better Mike Lowell would be if he sat out most or all of the first games in every new ballpark (when there was no travel day); the result would be as many HR and RBI despite the many more missed games, but a much higher BA (and OBP and SA, but the idea was to couch it in terms Lowell could relate to). Lowell's response was to change his walk-up music to "Iron Man."
So there's actually an entire second aspect to that modern manager's job, over and above integrating analytics with judgment but without bias. And that's convincing every player on the team that you're doing just that. Getting them all on the same page so that egos disappear and everyone believes that every decision about who plays when is the best possible decision for the goal of winning the WS.
Alex Cora in his first year as manager is probably in the 90th percentile of the first half of the first aspect of the manager's job: integrating the analytics with his own judgment and instincts. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a better job with the rest of it - doing so without bias, and convincing the whole team of that -- than Cora has done with the 2018 Red Sox.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 12, 2018 2:10:07 GMT -5
A low-key weirdness about The Narrative this postseason is how the 108-win Red Sox have somehow been framed as the underdogs. It's because karma doesn't play in the post-season. Clutch regular-season teams have no tendency to be clutch in the post-season.
OTOH, the Sox in the DS:
.237 / .326 / .355 (86 PA) bases empty .241 / .267 / .379 (30 PA) runner on 1B .400 / .478 / .629 (46 PA) RISP
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