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Red Sox vs. Dodgers 2018 World Series Gameday Thread
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Post by maxwellsdemon on Oct 30, 2018 13:04:22 GMT -5
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Post by rjp313jr on Oct 30, 2018 13:18:51 GMT -5
Hope you guys are right but the Mitchell report mention regardless of how bogus the report is will hurt him to some degree, plus the DH thing. I’ll be happy if he makes it but pissed Manny isn’t with him. Arguably the best right handed hitter of his generation plus big time in the playoffs. Guy should be a shoe in. I'm okay with Manny not getting in. I tend to give guys a pass for doing steroids in the '90s or early '00s when it was the wild west, but Manny got busted for the second time in 2011. At that point, you're straight up cheating and IMO can't really complain about HOF voters keeping you out. As long as you aren’t arguing his performance on the field should keep him out I can agree to disagree with you. I couldn’t careless about steroids but it’s not an argument I’m going to get into.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Oct 30, 2018 13:26:37 GMT -5
Steroids matter. I’m a big cycling fan, and doping is a catastrophe. It isn’t just about the stars. It’s the downward pressure. Ask guys in the back of the pelaton: some guy you burned yesterday blazes by you today, and your career is in danger because you follow the rules.
I don’t care about grey areas in rules. No one doesn’t know when they are cheating. And this is even worse than, say, scuffing, because again, that downward pressure coerces marginal guys to damage their health.
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Post by jchang on Oct 30, 2018 13:27:58 GMT -5
I don’t fully agree with this. Yeah, I think the weakness of the bullpen was somewhat overstated, but at the same time, the performance that they ultimately delivered was above and beyond any reasonable expectation. Like no one before hand was saying “the Red Sox bullpen is fine because Joe Kelly is about to go on the run of his life”, and he was hardly the only example there. What we saw from the bullpen was not something you could ever anticipate nor is it something you can replicate. And it’s pure hindsight to look at it now and believe it could have happened no other way. It's absolutely true that the bullpen was way better than anyone expected, but that's part of the reason why we went 11-3 against the toughest trio of playoff opponents any team has ever beaten, instead of, say, 11-5. You're not just moving the goalposts here, you're moving them to Saskatchewan. You'd have an argument here if Joe Kelly has saved an elimination game, or pitched out of an inherited runner situation in the 8th inning of a 1-run elimination game, or so on. But Kelly was actually the least valuable player on the entire team in the ALCS, by Win Probability Added. And how'd we do? In general, if you argue that "X may be so bad that it will cost us," and X turns out to be significantly better than average, then you begin to have a hard time showing you were correct. The better the actual results turn out to be, the harder it becomes to justify the concern as having been warranted. When the result is terrific, you need a heck of a lot of data points saying that things broke hugely better than they expected.
Joe Kelly in the regular season averaged .015 WPA per appearance. In the postseason, he averaged .024. What folks don't realize is that one reliever being 60% better than expected doesn't have a huge impact over 9 outings. He was worth less than a tenth of a win more than expected; if you round up, he allowed 1 fewer run. That he avoided giving us a heart attack by not pitching himself into and out of trouble does not actually affect the end results.
Our bullpen was weak in depth of regular season RPs, with only Kelly, Kimbrel and Barnes having more than 2IP in the WS, but that was OK because SP Eovaldi, Erod and other starters filled in the rest. Of the 11 roster spots occupied by pitchers, Pom did not appear, and 2 contributed 2.2 IP combined In ALCS, Brasier also contributed 4.2, with 3+ IP from 8 of the 11 pitchers in DS, 10 of the pitchers put in 2+ IP Assuming we have 5 good regular season SP, we might like to have 5 RP who we can use in the playoffs + 1 for lost cause inning eater (this was Pomeranz, but we didn't give him the opportunity) If we had Wright, then we would have had enough For 2019, assuming we can resign Kelly, probably lose Kimbrel we can hope that two (or three) of the inactive pitchers become good enough for playoff and WS situations
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Post by sox fan in nc on Oct 30, 2018 13:40:40 GMT -5
There were 2 swings of the bat that could have altered this postseason. Both involved Kimbrel. Both would have tied up their respective series. Sanchez coming a millimeter off his barrel to fly out 400 feet to LF and Beni making that Fred Lynn catch. It was still a dominating post, but, it came 2 plays to make it a 50/50 crapshoot in two series.
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Post by p23w on Oct 30, 2018 15:29:11 GMT -5
That was a 176 game Rorschach test for the media and fans. Hopes and fears got projected onto this team the entire season and it didn't seem to matter how much they won. My take: there are a handful of analysts and good baseball writers who know enough about the game to give intelligent commentary. What I refer to as the 10% rule applies here. It's about 10% of that crowd that does the heavy lifting, using either analytics or just a good understanding of how a team works to give real value. Another 80% just throw stuff out there, sort of making it up as they go along, doing anything they can to gather eyeballs even if it means creating controversy where there is none. That last 10% have an axe to grind, they have an angle they're working - think Heyman here - or they're just very bad at what they do. The position by position comparisons largely neglected the fantastic job of roster construction Sox FO did. They had multiple options at all the supposedly weak positions: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and catcher. Cora kept everyone fresh, and he used that roster like only the best managers - including those in business management - do. He trusted his players giving them the chance to succeed. Bradley is the case study. He did not get it going till mid-season. That he did just that in the second half was for one reason only: Cora ran him out there game after game. That trust paid off. Kelly and Price, two of the most press-maligned players on the team were asked to carry the load in the WS of all venues, and they carried the day. Pierce was put in the 3-hole. How big a deal is that for a so-called journeyman? From his age-30 season on, he's been a player. It takes a while for some guys to get going but look at the result. He killed it on the big stage. It's easy to see why they play hard for Cora. I'll suggest to all of us on the board, that we use our best judgement, informed by an ever-increasing base of knowledge, to figure out when we're wading in BS. You may actually have a better feel for what's going down than the nominal experts. That's the truth. Critical thinking at all times. The perceived need for relief talent took neither the reality of post-season series - days off and it's all over when it's over so use what you have - into account. The names that were thrown out were no better, and in some cases worse, than what the team had on hand, a point Eric made over and over. They had everything they needed on hand already - some board members believed that and said it out loud.
The proof is in the results. They blew threw the competition like a windstorm. Just a great team effort.
I will be the first to admit that I underestimated the value of the roster additions at mid season, AND that i was frustrated by my perception if the lack of development by Devers, power from Benitendi, and consistency from Price and Vazquez. My biggest mistake, however, was to overlook Alex Coras' ability to mold the assembled talent into a juggernaut of a playoff team. For moi, great team effort was brought about by Alex Cora.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2018 15:50:14 GMT -5
There were 2 swings of the bat that could have altered this postseason. Both involved Kimbrel. Both would have tied up their respective series. Sanchez coming a millimeter off his barrel to fly out 400 feet to LF and Beni making that Fred Lynn catch. It was still a dominating post, but, it came 2 plays to make it a 50/50 crapshoot in two series. I agree. Another potentially big play happened in Game 4 against the Dodgers. The Red Sox led 9-6 in the bottom of the 9th inning with 1 out and a runner on first. Machado hit a hard grounder to Devers, who fielded it and threw to first for the out. I didn’t notice at the time, but it looked to me like Devers was quite fortunate to come up with that ball. In his effort to dive for the ball, Devers’s glove skipped off the dirt and he somehow managed to field the ball. It looked awkward on the instant replay. If that ball gets by him, it’s probably 1 out with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and who knows how that game plays out? Then again, if Kinsler fields the ball cleanly in Game 3 the Red Sox go up 3-0 and it’s probably a moot point.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2018 15:51:01 GMT -5
There were 2 swings of the bat that could have altered this postseason. Both involved Kimbrel. Both would have tied up their respective series. Sanchez coming a millimeter off his barrel to fly out 400 feet to LF and Beni making that Fred Lynn catch. It was still a dominating post, but, it came 2 plays to make it a 50/50 crapshoot in two series. Mookie was slightly off all post-season. How many balls did he put a good swing on and just miss and hit to the warning track?
Seven, actually. Six were on the road and could have easily been homers, by your Sanchez logic. And every one of these balls came closer to gong out than Sanchez's. (Mookie in fact had two balls in game 5 of the WS that came as close to the wall as Sanchez's that I'm not listing here.)
(Yes, these are from my scorecards.)
DS 2, 5th, 2 out, off Tanaka, rocket to deep center (Tanaka's last batter) DS 3, Severino's first pitch of game (also straightaway CF) CS 3, leading off the 3rd against Keuchel, fractionally better contact and it's Crawford boxes CS 4, 2 outs in the 6th off of James, ditto CS 5, 1 out in the 9th off of Osuna, ditto WS 3, 2 outs, man on 2nd, in the 3rd off of Buehler to straight CF
WS 4, 2 outs, man on 1st, 5th, off of Hll to straight CF Furthermore, Reddick's catch off of Mookie in the top of the inning was probably tougher than Benny's in the bottom, and would have blown the game wide open.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2018 15:56:25 GMT -5
There were 2 swings of the bat that could have altered this postseason. Both involved Kimbrel. Both would have tied up their respective series. Sanchez coming a millimeter off his barrel to fly out 400 feet to LF and Beni making that Fred Lynn catch. It was still a dominating post, but, it came 2 plays to make it a 50/50 crapshoot in two series. I agree. Another potentially big play happened in Game 4 against the Dodgers. The Red Sox led 9-6 in the bottom of the 9th inning with 1 out and a runner on first. Machado hit a hard grounder to Devers, who fielded it and threw to first for the out. I didn’t notice at the time, but it looked to me like Devers was quite fortunate to come up with that ball. In his effort to dive for the ball, Devers’s glove skipped off the dirt and he somehow managed to field the ball. It looked awkward on the instant replay. If that ball gets by him, it’s probably 1 out with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and who knows how that game plays out? Then again, if Kinsler fields the ball cleanly in Game 3 the Red Sox go up 3-0 and it’s probably a moot point. Actually, all he had to do was eat the ball after he slipped.
But you capture the essential principle. For every play that could have gone the other way and hurt the Sox chances, there's one that could have turned in our favor. And since we put more balls in play, there's probably an excess in our favor.
It's amazing that the people who were pessimists are now tying to retroactively justify their pessimism by playing the "what-if?" game on an 11-3 postseason.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2018 16:15:17 GMT -5
Verducci's the best. That's not just the best piece I've read on this team, it's one of the best baseball pieces I've ever read, Roger Angell territory.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 30, 2018 16:45:47 GMT -5
I agree. Another potentially big play happened in Game 4 against the Dodgers. The Red Sox led 9-6 in the bottom of the 9th inning with 1 out and a runner on first. Machado hit a hard grounder to Devers, who fielded it and threw to first for the out. I didn’t notice at the time, but it looked to me like Devers was quite fortunate to come up with that ball. In his effort to dive for the ball, Devers’s glove skipped off the dirt and he somehow managed to field the ball. It looked awkward on the instant replay. If that ball gets by him, it’s probably 1 out with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and who knows how that game plays out? Then again, if Kinsler fields the ball cleanly in Game 3 the Red Sox go up 3-0 and it’s probably a moot point. Actually, all he had to do was eat the ball after he slipped.
But you capture the essential principle. For every play that could have gone the other way and hurt the Sox chances, there's one that could have turned in our favor. And since we put more balls in play, there's probably an excess in our favor.
It's amazing that the people who were pessimists are now tying to retroactively justify their pessimism by playing the "what-if?" game on an 11-3 postseason.
It's way easier to play the "what if" game by talking about all the amazing things the Red Sox did accomplish. What if Moreland didn't hit the 3 run pinch hit HR when they were down 4-0? What if Benintendi missed his catch and it bounced to the wall? What if the entire team didn't hit like Ted Williams with 2 outs? What if the sequencing of JBJ's 3 hits against Houston were slightly different and he ended up with 3 RBIs instead of 9? What if they didn't cut Hanley and didn't trade for Pearce? I could probably come up with about 100 more. But that still may have only changed it so they played 18 games instead of 14. There's no reason to believe this team couldn't have come back from 1 or 2 games down.
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 17:52:21 GMT -5
There were 2 swings of the bat that could have altered this postseason. Both involved Kimbrel. Both would have tied up their respective series. Sanchez coming a millimeter off his barrel to fly out 400 feet to LF and Beni making that Fred Lynn catch. It was still a dominating post, but, it came 2 plays to make it a 50/50 crapshoot in two series. True, but that can be said about most baseball. It’s a game of, as you say, not inches but millimeters, and milliseconds. For example, look at the strike zone in WS g1. The Sox had, if I recall correctly, something like 12 borderline pitches called balls. The Dodgers had 8 or 9, and Kershaw got a gift strike something like 8 inches above the zone. There’s a butterfly effect there that can’t be quantified. Sale gets half of those borderline calls (i think he had 7 or 8 of 8 called balls), and suddenly he’s gone 6 3 1 1 10. Yes, there’s luck involved all over, but to a certain extent, the opportunity for good luck outcomes is predicated on players’ talent. Benintendi made that catch because he’s a very good fielder, positioned properly with (I’m sure) a Little instinct and a lot of pregame analysis and in-game situational management.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 30, 2018 18:07:30 GMT -5
Verducci's the best. That's not just the best piece I've read on this team, it's one of the best baseball pieces I've ever read, Roger Angell territory. And I think that we were validated with this quote:
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Post by iakovos11 on Oct 30, 2018 18:19:50 GMT -5
Verducci's the best. That's not just the best piece I've read on this team, it's one of the best baseball pieces I've ever read, Roger Angell territory. That was outstanding
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 18:28:44 GMT -5
Call me crazy, but it's a lot less awesome if you assume that the outcome was never in doubt because the Red Sox are obviously so much better than every other team. Also y'all thought this team was doomed 36 hours ago so please miss me with the "OMG HOW COULD ANYONE RANK THE DODGERS AHEAD OF THE RED SOX" stuff. I do not care, nor do I have thoughts or opinions about, 2019 team rankings. But I do think it's genuinely interesting that this team seemed to consistently out-perform expectations, both of conventional wisdom and of fancy statistics, straight through both the regular season and the playoffs. They out-performed what everyone expected pre-season. They out-performed their pythagorean for the season. They won 108 games yet were somehow treated as underdogs against both the Yankees and Astros. They were favored in only 5 of 14 post-season games per fangraphs and went 11-3. Maybe it's just luck; most champions get there with some luck. That is definitely possible. But there seemed to be something uncanny in their performance that allowed them to always come up big when they had to, and never miss an opportunity to strike - not just in the playoffs but throughout much of the year. I'm not trying to invoke any magic pixie team chemistry dust to explain it; but I think there may well be some causal factors involved in this team's success that haven't been fully sussed out yet. (One very speculative theory: it's interesting that they differed from so many teams in having more of a get-on-base/keep-the-pressure-on offensive approach, rather than the three-true-outcomes approach that's become so dominant. I wonder if the stats are missing something, and by extension teams that chase the stats are missing something, about the cumulative effect of a Red Sox-style attack - a psychological or physical toll that it has on opposing pitchers, maybe. This could also explain why the CW consistently underrated them, since they didn't have, e.g., the Yankeean sort of power numbers that commentators tend to go gaga for. Just a thought...) I’m a firm believer in what you’re describing here. I’ll relate a brief story: running HS cross country, I was a sprinter, so I wasn’t very good. Even as a jr, I was finishing in the bottom quarter of 50-runner meets. One day, I had a typical race, but our top runners struggled on a hilly course and we lost a rare meet. Sitting in the bus after the meet, our top runner was in the seat in front of me, and my dream-girl crush, the Sr captain of the girls’ team, was consoling him. And I sat there, wishing it were me she was consoling and wondering why I didn’t matter. And I realized, told myself “it’s cuz you’re a bum, you don’t try, and so you don’t matter.” And this light switches on. I had a genuine epiphany, probably the most profound of my life. Less than a week later—absolutely NO time for any amount of physical conditioning sufficient for what happened—I ran the race of my life to that point, shaving off nearly a minute per mile, and finished 13th overall. It was all psychological. Willingness to embrace the challenge, endure pain, relish driving myself beyond the limits I’d set. By winter, I’d shaved *10 seconds* off my quarter mile times, and went from JV scrub to integral piece on our state champion mile relay team. Success bred a positive attitude that led to more focused training, better eating/sleeping habits, improved classroom performance, better friendships, and willingness to embrace challenge...driven not by fear of failure but desire for success. Watching the team this year, and how the players and staff interact, versus prior years...it’s night and day to me, because I’ve lived it. JDM was a 5-win player, but the team won 15 more games. There’s something incredibly difficult to quantify, but very real, going on. I know there’s a lot of reasearch decrying “clutch” performance, but those are over huge data sets. I fully believe that on a more granular level, situational performance is more strongly tied to psychological state than might otherwise be apparent. Anyone who’s been on a cohesive, “winning” team...be it athletic, or professional, whatever...can see that individual and by extension, group performance, often experiences synergy. It’s remarkably hard to quantify because of the myriad variables involved, but that doesn’t make it “magical pixie dust.” It’s the confluence of talent meeting luck...and I believe good luck is, at least in part, the result of talent and opportunity combining with positive mindset to create that luck. Similar to the data on 1-run games: they’re about 70% crapshoot, 30% closer. Small, incremental decisions cascade quickly...but damned if anyone can convince me that fearlessness, or belief in oneself, doesn’t have a significant role in successful execution.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Oct 30, 2018 18:30:49 GMT -5
As long as that doesn't mean we'd have to wait 86 after that, then I'm good with plan. All they have to do is not sell Mookie Betts to the Yankees. Our LHH converted pitcher sold to the Yankees will be... Trey Ball!
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 18:33:22 GMT -5
Also re: the bullpen: Yeah, they did a bit better than anyone could have reasonably expected. But not that much better. Joe Kelly, yeah, he was incredibly good. But Kimbrel was a garbage fire, so that, at best, cancels out. What really made the difference were the appearances by Porcello, Eovaldi, Price, Rodriguez, and Sale in relief. Those of us who were arguing that the bullpen was not a huge concern back during the debates of high summer made, as I remember it, 3 main arguments: 1) The bullpen wasn't as bad as people were making it out to be. 2) There weren't superior options available on the trade market. 3) It would matter less in the playoffs, when the bullpen would be shortened and starters would be able to move to the pen. Yeah, the bullpen did better than could be expected, but it did so precisely in a way that vindicated these three arguments: (1) there was simply enough talent there that a couple of over-performances (Brasier and Kelly) could compensate for a severe under-performance (Kimbrel), which is in line with the first two arguments above; (2) weak links like Workman and Hembree were nowhere to be seen, but the starters doing relief duty were a huge factor. Probably none of us expected Cora to lean on them as much as he did - but I bet Cora did, and that surely factored into the team's lack of trade deadline moves. (Cora himself alluded to this in post-game comments.) Yes. I’d hoped they might get Familia or Britton, but like a fair number of others, I also argued it as luxury, not need. And your three points are spot on.
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 18:36:34 GMT -5
I just hope that a general reduced interest doesn’t suddenly turn him into a relative bargain for them.
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dd
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Post by dd on Oct 30, 2018 18:39:02 GMT -5
I do not care, nor do I have thoughts or opinions about, 2019 team rankings. But I do think it's genuinely interesting that this team seemed to consistently out-perform expectations, both of conventional wisdom and of fancy statistics, straight through both the regular season and the playoffs. They out-performed what everyone expected pre-season. They out-performed their pythagorean for the season. They won 108 games yet were somehow treated as underdogs against both the Yankees and Astros. They were favored in only 5 of 14 post-season games per fangraphs and went 11-3. Maybe it's just luck; most champions get there with some luck. That is definitely possible. But there seemed to be something uncanny in their performance that allowed them to always come up big when they had to, and never miss an opportunity to strike - not just in the playoffs but throughout much of the year. I'm not trying to invoke any magic pixie team chemistry dust to explain it; but I think there may well be some causal factors involved in this team's success that haven't been fully sussed out yet. (One very speculative theory: it's interesting that they differed from so many teams in having more of a get-on-base/keep-the-pressure-on offensive approach, rather than the three-true-outcomes approach that's become so dominant. I wonder if the stats are missing something, and by extension teams that chase the stats are missing something, about the cumulative effect of a Red Sox-style attack - a psychological or physical toll that it has on opposing pitchers, maybe. This could also explain why the CW consistently underrated them, since they didn't have, e.g., the Yankeean sort of power numbers that commentators tend to go gaga for. Just a thought...) I’m a firm believer in what you’re describing here. I’ll relate a brief story: running HS cross country, I was a sprinter, so I wasn’t very good. Even as a jr, I was finishing in the bottom quarter of 50-runner meets. One day, I had a typical race, but our top runners struggled on a hilly course and we lost a rare meet. Sitting in the bus after the meet, our top runner was in the seat in front of me, and my dream-girl crush, the Sr captain of the girls’ team, was consoling him. And I sat there, wishing it were me she was consoling and wondering why I didn’t matter. And I realized, told myself “it’s cuz you’re a bum, you don’t try, and so you don’t matter.” And this light switches on. I had a genuine epiphany, probably the most profound of my life. Less than a week later—absolutely NO time for any amount of physical conditioning sufficient for what happened—I ran the race of my life to that point, shaving off nearly a minute per mile, and finished 13th overall. It was all psychological. Willingness to embrace the challenge, endure pain, relish driving myself beyond the limits I’d set. By winter, I’d shaved *10 seconds* off my quarter mile times, and went from JV scrub to integral piece on our state champion mile relay team. Success bred a positive attitude that led to more focused training, better eating/sleeping habits, improved classroom performance, better friendships, and willingness to embrace challenge...driven not by fear of failure but desire for success. Watching the team this year, and how the players and staff interact, versus prior years...it’s night and day to me, because I’ve lived it. JDM was a 5-win player, but the team won 15 more games. There’s something incredibly difficult to quantify, but very real, going on. I know there’s a lot of reasearch decrying “clutch” performance, but those are over huge data sets. I fully believe that on a more granular level, situational performance is more strongly tied to psychological state than might otherwise be apparent. Anyone who’s been on a cohesive, “winning” team...be it athletic, or professional, whatever...can see that individual and by extension, group performance, often experiences synergy. It’s remarkably hard to quantify because of the myriad variables involved, but that doesn’t make it “magical pixie dust.” It’s the confluence of talent meeting luck...and I believe good luck is, at least in part, the result of talent and opportunity combining with positive mindset to create that luck. Similar to the data on 1-run games: they’re about 70% crapshoot, 30% closer. Small, incremental decisions cascade quickly...but damned if anyone can convince me that fearlessness, or belief in oneself, doesn’t have a significant role in successful execution. So what happened? Did you get the girl???
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 19:01:42 GMT -5
I’m a firm believer in what you’re describing here. I’ll relate a brief story: running HS cross country, I was a sprinter, so I wasn’t very good. Even as a jr, I was finishing in the bottom quarter of 50-runner meets. One day, I had a typical race, but our top runners struggled on a hilly course and we lost a rare meet. Sitting in the bus after the meet, our top runner was in the seat in front of me, and my dream-girl crush, the Sr captain of the girls’ team, was consoling him. And I sat there, wishing it were me she was consoling and wondering why I didn’t matter. And I realized, told myself “it’s cuz you’re a bum, you don’t try, and so you don’t matter.” And this light switches on. I had a genuine epiphany, probably the most profound of my life. Less than a week later—absolutely NO time for any amount of physical conditioning sufficient for what happened—I ran the race of my life to that point, shaving off nearly a minute per mile, and finished 13th overall. It was all psychological. Willingness to embrace the challenge, endure pain, relish driving myself beyond the limits I’d set. By winter, I’d shaved *10 seconds* off my quarter mile times, and went from JV scrub to integral piece on our state champion mile relay team. Success bred a positive attitude that led to more focused training, better eating/sleeping habits, improved classroom performance, better friendships, and willingness to embrace challenge...driven not by fear of failure but desire for success. Watching the team this year, and how the players and staff interact, versus prior years...it’s night and day to me, because I’ve lived it. JDM was a 5-win player, but the team won 15 more games. There’s something incredibly difficult to quantify, but very real, going on. I know there’s a lot of reasearch decrying “clutch” performance, but those are over huge data sets. I fully believe that on a more granular level, situational performance is more strongly tied to psychological state than might otherwise be apparent. Anyone who’s been on a cohesive, “winning” team...be it athletic, or professional, whatever...can see that individual and by extension, group performance, often experiences synergy. It’s remarkably hard to quantify because of the myriad variables involved, but that doesn’t make it “magical pixie dust.” It’s the confluence of talent meeting luck...and I believe good luck is, at least in part, the result of talent and opportunity combining with positive mindset to create that luck. Similar to the data on 1-run games: they’re about 70% crapshoot, 30% closer. Small, incremental decisions cascade quickly...but damned if anyone can convince me that fearlessness, or belief in oneself, doesn’t have a significant role in successful execution. So what happened? Did you get the girl??? Hahaha! Not by a long shot. But I did go from borderline juvenile delinquent to graduating at the top of my HS class and placing in All-states as a Sr. We even set a state class mile relay record that stands 25 years later. I’ve struggled to maintain that outlook, and i think those situations—great coaching, cohesive team chemistry, opportunities for greatness—are rare. But I also think they’re real. If they weren’t, those incredible moments where human beings transcend what we all presume to be our limits, be it the massive group effort of a moon landing, or the *absolutely LUDICROUS* free-solo climb of El Capitan by Alex Honnold...just wouldn’t happen. I think, in no small part (and this was Cora’s “magic”), opening up the mind to see beyond limits is what made this Sox team great. Maybe Eric will display some quantifiable measures of it (I’m very curious), but to show it doesn’t fully explain it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2018 19:31:50 GMT -5
So, I've just spent too much time looking at the '98 Yankees. They had a much less impressive post-season, actually falling behind the 89-win Indians two games to 1. The only impressive series was the WS sweep of the 98-win (but 93 Pyth-win) Padres.
The only argument for the Yankees is that they won 6 more regular-season games than we did.
I was curious ... how many rotation starts did they lose to injury?
Zero. None. Nada. Zilch, and bupkes. They had the newly signed El Duque join the rotation on June 3 and were able to bump Mendoza into a relief and 6th starter role.
We missed so many starts with injury it's unclear how to count them. Sale missed 6 rotation turns (5 starts; he was skipped once via an off-day) and E-Rod 8 or 10 (1 at the start, 7 with the ankle, his last 2).
Pomeranz missed 3 turns / 2 starts at the beginning, and his first 8 were so ineffective from the after-effects that he was yanked from the rotation (and the aforementioned injuries gave him 3 more opportunities to struggle). The number 6 starter, Wright, was our equivalent of El Duque in that we knew he'd be in the mix before the first half was out; he missed the first 9 rotation turns, was passed over for 3 starts as they tried to get Pomeranz going, made his first start on June 5 -- and then reinjured himself and missed 12 more turns. That combination led us to add Eovaldi, essentially as Pomeranz's replacement in the original plan, and he took the last 7 of Wright's missed ones (and Wright went to the pen over the last 5 turns and was brilliant, then got hurt yet again and missed the post-season).
It's 20 missed starts at a minimum. Johnson and Velazquez started 21 games between them and we went 14-7, but 14-5 before we clinched. They each had a 4.15 ERA as a starter -- better than Porcello and better than the AL average of 4.27. Wright, of course, was better than all three.
The Yankees did have 6 games started by pitchers beyond their top 6, three each in August and September to give guys extra rest. Jim Bruske allowed 1 ER in 5 IP on the last day of the season. Prior to that, their equivalent of Johnson and Velazquez made 5 starts with a 10.01 ERA. They did go 3-3 in these games. Even if you count Pomeranz's struggles as a given, their dramatically better SP health was responsible for at least 3 of the extra 6 wins.
I'm calling the 2018 Sox the greatest team ever. They had 15 pitchers worth 0.5 bWAR or more versus the 1998 Yanees' 10. I've looked at the position players and bench, too, and that comparison is contributing to that opinion (I may post the details later). The bottom line is that '98 Yankees had an exceptional set of regulars and needed very little in the way of contributions from others. They had 11 important position players, had Shane Spencer be ridiculous for 79 PA (including 6 in the post) and put up a 1.1 bWAR, and then turn permanently back into a pumpkin before the ALCS.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,946
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 30, 2018 19:41:10 GMT -5
So what happened? Did you get the girl??? Hahaha! Not by a long shot. But I did go from borderline juvenile delinquent to graduating at the top of my HS class and placing in All-states as a Sr. We even set a state class mile relay record that stands 25 years later. I’ve struggled to maintain that outlook, and i think those situations—great coaching, cohesive team chemistry, opportunities for greatness—are rare. But I also think they’re real. If they weren’t, those incredible moments where human beings transcend what we all presume to be our limits, be it the massive group effort of a moon landing, or the *absolutely LUDICROUS* free-solo climb of El Capitan by Alex Honnold...just wouldn’t happen. I think, in no small part (and this was Cora’s “magic”), opening up the mind to see beyond limits is what made this Sox team great. Maybe Eric will display some quantifiable measures of it (I’m very curious), but to show it doesn’t fully explain it. Funny you mention Free Solo, one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen in my life. I actually thought of it in conjunction with the Sox victory in general and Eovaldi in game 3 specifically. That climb happened because of intelligent planning. And then the psychology happens, built on that. Knowing that you can succeed and exactly how you can succeed puts the nervous system in a state where the necessary actions for success can be executed correctly.
You beat me by connecting it to First Man, though!
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 30, 2018 20:07:23 GMT -5
That 10% rule applies to organizational management as well. Ten percent of organizations - business organizations, non-profits, whatever - run as teams, they communicate, the value every person, and they extract enormous effort because everyone feels they have a stake. We were wondering what Cora brought to the Sox. Verducci's article lays it out very clearly.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 30, 2018 20:47:23 GMT -5
I just hope that a general reduced interest doesn’t suddenly turn him into a relative bargain for them. As much money as the Yankees have, they can't match the Phillies, also a big market team, for the combo of money and cap room. The Yankees need starting pitching more than they need position players.
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Post by telson13 on Oct 30, 2018 21:34:22 GMT -5
I just hope that a general reduced interest doesn’t suddenly turn him into a relative bargain for them. As much money as the Yankees have, they can't match the Phillies, also a big market team, for the combo of money and cap room. The Yankees need starting pitching more than they need position players. Oh, absolutely. And I think they go after Corbin, who already uses the pitch-backwards approach that they employ. Buts there’s always the alternative scenario where they sign Machado and trade Andújar along with pieces for a TOR pitcher. Tbh, Machado’s a great player but he sure seems like a negative influence. Couple that with the issues they have with Sanchez, and I’m not too sure them giving up cost-controlled youth for a giant contract who might worsen the clubhouse culture is all a bad thing. We’ll see...I just don’t want them getting any bargains.
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