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MLB Playoffs - Division Series Thread
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Post by vermontsox1 on Oct 3, 2020 9:27:01 GMT -5
Division Series (10/5-10/10)AMERICAN LEAGUE No. 1 Rays vs. No. 5 Yankees (in San Diego) No. 2 A's vs. No. 6 Astros (in Los Angeles) NATIONAL LEAGUE No. 1 Dodgers vs. No. 4 Padres (in Arlington) No. 2 Braves vs. No. 6 Marlins (in Houston) Best-of-five seriesDivision Series ScheduleA note regarding moderating of the gameday threads in 2020: As the disclaimer has always said, in the past, we have been very liberal in moderating the Gameday threads. They're meant to be a lot less formal than other threads on the forum, so to moderate them the same way would be silly. However, we do ask posters to maintain a certain level of decorum in these threads, and we plan on moderating the Gameday threads a little more actively this season. In particular, we ask that posters refrain from being overly repetitive with their posts (if you've made your point, let it go), refrain from monopolizing the discussion (if you are making more than a couple posts in a row, you probably need to slow down a little bit), and of course, follow the Ground Rules ( link). The point is to make these threads worth participating in and fun for all posters, from our long-time fixtures to people just signing up today. -The Management
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Post by unitspin on Oct 3, 2020 12:07:44 GMT -5
Lets go rays and A's.
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Post by Coreno on Oct 3, 2020 13:06:18 GMT -5
Pretty crazy that out of all the possibilities, the LDS round is just: ALE v ALE, ALW v ALW, NLE v NLE, NLW v NLW, and nary a central team in sight.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Oct 3, 2020 15:47:25 GMT -5
Even though the Astros are naughty, I can’t root for the A’s against them. That team has such a dismal lineup. Unwatchable. It is hard to see how they won the West. They scored exactly league average runs... which is stunning.
Basically, for one of the few times ever, I’m rooting for any NL team to win the series. My four least favorite AL teams.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Oct 3, 2020 16:50:09 GMT -5
Also: how can MLB not have any playoff games for a whole weekend? This is yet again a sign of how poorly they are run. The next game starts at 4:00 Eastern... so before people get home; then a game that starts at 8:00, so ends after many go to bed. But no, you know, easily watched weekend game?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 3, 2020 17:35:33 GMT -5
Even though the Astros are naughty, I can’t root for the A’s against them. That team has such a dismal lineup. Unwatchable. It is hard to see how they won the West. They scored exactly league average runs... which is stunning. Basically, for one of the few times ever, I’m rooting for any NL team to win the series. My four least favorite AL teams. In fact, the scored 4.57 R/G and the Western League scored 4.74.
It is hard to see how they won the West.
So hard. It is possible (crazy guess) that there is another part of baseball that is equally as important as hitting?
They had a 3.87 ERA, which is 3.80 if adjusted for league, and that's the third best mark in MLB (Dodgers and Rays are 1-2).
When you omit the Central League, the 7 best RA/G were:
LAD TBR OAK SDP NYY HOU ATL
The Dodgers, Braves, Padres, and Yankees are four best hitting teams excluding the Central, but the White Sox are likely next. The Astros, Rays, and A's all made the DS while scoring fewer runs than us
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The great thing about the playoffs is that you can root based on two or three criteria. You can root for a team whose front office you admire for their smarts and character, even if their ballpark and fans are a trainwreck. Or you can root for a city / ballpark / fans combo that you admire, even if you hate the front office.
LAD vs SDP -- I can't root for a team where the fans leave to beat the traffic with the score tied. I can't root for Mookie when he chose to leave us. OTOH, I can't root for a team whose GM once screwed us on a trade by not sharing the correct medicals. But I can root for a team in one of the nicest cities I've ever been to (the first thing I did when I came home was look up how far away they were from a fault line --they're right on top of one, so no winter home there for me!), that has a great park, and above all, has a history of great, great, passionate fans (story available upon request). And I can root for a team that has Mitch Moreland on it. Tatis? Love him, bit he's used up negating Machado.
ATL vs MIA. I always like to root for the underdog, and the Marlins ownership treated us fabulously when SABR was in Miami. However, that plus is adjusted slightly downward for them selling the team to Derek Jeter. And the Braves have a much better shot at knocking off the Dodgers.
OAK vs HOU. I've always rooted for the A's any year we're not in it. It doesn't hurt that the Astros are easy to hate (and the Osuna thing bothers me much more than the cheating).
TBR vs NYY. Seriously? And I give the Tampa fans a pass for not coming out to that ballpark.
The third criterion? I've been known to root for whichever team's manager is being smarter, and change mid-game. It just hurts me to root for stupidity!
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Oct 3, 2020 18:03:13 GMT -5
Even though the Astros are naughty, I can’t root for the A’s against them. That team has such a dismal lineup. Unwatchable. It is hard to see how they won the West. They scored exactly league average runs... which is stunning. Basically, for one of the few times ever, I’m rooting for any NL team to win the series. My four least favorite AL teams. In fact, the scored 4.57 R/G and the Western League scored 4.74.
It is hard to see how they won the West.
So hard. It is possible (crazy guess) that there is another part of baseball that is equally as important as hitting?
They had a 3.87 ERA, which is 3.80 if adjusted for league, and that's the third best mark in MLB (Dodgers and Rays are 1-2).
When you omit the Central League, the 7 best RA/G were:
LAD TBR OAK SDP NYY HOU ATL
The Dodgers, Braves, Padres, and Yankees are four best hitting teams excluding the Central, but the White Sox are likely next. The Astros, Rays, and A's all made the DS while scoring fewer runs than us
-----
The great thing about the playoffs is that you can root based on two or three criteria. You can root for a team whose front office you admire for their smarts and character, even if their ballpark and fans are a trainwreck. Or you can root for a city / ballpark / fans combo that you admire, even if you hate the front office.
LAD vs SDP -- I can't root for a team where the fans leave to beat the traffic with the score tied. I can't root for Mookie when he chose to leave us. OTOH, I can't root for a team whose GM once screwed us on a trade by not sharing the correct medicals. But I can root for a team in one of the nicest cities I've ever been to (the first thing I did when I came home was look up how far away they were from a fault line --they're right on top of one, so no winter home there for me!), that has a great park, and above all, has a history of great, great, passionate fans (story available upon request). And I can root for a team that has Mitch Moreland on it. Tatis? Love him, bit he's used up negating Machado.
ATL vs MIA. I always like to root for the underdog, and the Marlins ownership treated us fabulously when SABR was in Miami. However, that plus is adjusted slightly downward for them selling the team to Derek Jeter. And the Braves have a much better shot at knocking off the Dodgers.
OAK vs HOU. I've always rooted for the A's any year we're not in it. It doesn't hurt that the Astros are easy to hate (and the Osuna thing bothers me much more than the cheating).
TBR vs NYY. Seriously? And I give the Tampa fans a pass for not coming out to that ballpark.
The third criterion? I've been known to root for whichever team's manager is being smarter, and change mid-game. It just hurts me to root for stupidity!
Let me put it differently: they have a weak lineup and mediocre pitching that appears to have had a surprising 60-game stretch. They had 5 guys start 9 or more times. The second lowest ERA was 4.50 — only one guy with an ERA+ better than 101. Or, put yet another way: Martin Perez would be their clear #2 starter. So their pitching strength was clearly in the bullpen.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 3, 2020 20:11:48 GMT -5
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 3, 2020 21:34:52 GMT -5
This is nothing new. The first time they made the playoffs, in 1984, they lost to the favored Cubs 13-0 and 4-2 at Wrigley. They came home needing to sweep, dejected, and they were greeted at the airport like they'd already won the series. Everyone on that team credits the fans who came out that night with the victory ... and there's much more coolness to this story (that I learned at the SABR conference last year) that I've forgotten. Their odds of winning the series were never above 50% until the 7th inning of Game 5 when the tied the game on a Ron Cey throwing error, and Tony Gwynn doubled in two off of Rick Sutcliffe.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 3, 2020 22:22:03 GMT -5
In fact, the scored 4.57 R/G and the Western League scored 4.74.
It is hard to see how they won the West.
So hard. It is possible (crazy guess) that there is another part of baseball that is equally as important as hitting?
They had a 3.87 ERA, which is 3.80 if adjusted for league, and that's the third best mark in MLB (Dodgers and Rays are 1-2).
When you omit the Central League, the 7 best RA/G were:
LAD TBR OAK SDP NYY HOU ATL
The Dodgers, Braves, Padres, and Yankees are four best hitting teams excluding the Central, but the White Sox are likely next. The Astros, Rays, and A's all made the DS while scoring fewer runs than us
-----
The great thing about the playoffs is that you can root based on two or three criteria. You can root for a team whose front office you admire for their smarts and character, even if their ballpark and fans are a trainwreck. Or you can root for a city / ballpark / fans combo that you admire, even if you hate the front office.
LAD vs SDP -- I can't root for a team where the fans leave to beat the traffic with the score tied. I can't root for Mookie when he chose to leave us. OTOH, I can't root for a team whose GM once screwed us on a trade by not sharing the correct medicals. But I can root for a team in one of the nicest cities I've ever been to (the first thing I did when I came home was look up how far away they were from a fault line --they're right on top of one, so no winter home there for me!), that has a great park, and above all, has a history of great, great, passionate fans (story available upon request). And I can root for a team that has Mitch Moreland on it. Tatis? Love him, bit he's used up negating Machado.
ATL vs MIA. I always like to root for the underdog, and the Marlins ownership treated us fabulously when SABR was in Miami. However, that plus is adjusted slightly downward for them selling the team to Derek Jeter. And the Braves have a much better shot at knocking off the Dodgers.
OAK vs HOU. I've always rooted for the A's any year we're not in it. It doesn't hurt that the Astros are easy to hate (and the Osuna thing bothers me much more than the cheating).
TBR vs NYY. Seriously? And I give the Tampa fans a pass for not coming out to that ballpark.
The third criterion? I've been known to root for whichever team's manager is being smarter, and change mid-game. It just hurts me to root for stupidity!
Let me put it differently: they have a weak lineup and mediocre pitching that appears to have had a surprising 60-game stretch. They had 5 guys start 9 or more times. The second lowest ERA was 4.50 — only one guy with an ERA+ better than 101. Or, put yet another way: Martin Perez would be their clear #2 starter. So their pitching strength was clearly in the bullpen. Perez has a lower Win Probability Added as a starter than Luzardo and Fiers .. aha, Luzardo had a 3.83 ERA as starter and a 5.58 in 3 relief appearances. Fiers had a 6.86 ERA in his first 4 starts, with no game score higher than 42, and a 3.43 the rest of the way, with no score under 42. Being inconsistent artificially inflates your ERA relative to your value. So Perez would be their 4th starter.
(BTW, ERA+ for this year is all off. Ours and the A's, for instance, are relative to the AL, but both of us never played 10 of the 15 AL clubs, and played a third of our schedule against the NL. Add 2 to the A's and 6 to ours and you're in the ballpark.)
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 3, 2020 22:40:27 GMT -5
Pretty crazy that out of all the possibilities, the LDS round is just: ALE v ALE, ALW v ALW, NLE v NLE, NLW v NLW, and nary a central team in sight. Of all the chaos we've had this season, it produces the first true "divisional" round in MLB playoff history.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 3, 2020 22:57:51 GMT -5
Pretty crazy that out of all the possibilities, the LDS round is just: ALE v ALE, ALW v ALW, NLE v NLE, NLW v NLW, and nary a central team in sight. Of all the chaos we've had this season, it produces the first true "divisional" round in MLB playoff history. Isn't this the first time in history that was possible ?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 1:33:03 GMT -5
Rooting for the A's, Rays, Padres, Braves, not necessarily in that order. I'm unlikely to watch any of it though, the off-season is more interesting to me.
Clevinger "might" be available against the Dodgers.
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Post by unitspin on Oct 4, 2020 10:30:52 GMT -5
Rooting for the A's, Rays, Padres, Braves, not necessarily in that order. I'm unlikely to watch any of it though, the off-season is more interesting to me. Clevinger "might" be available against the Dodgers. Literally, the same teams I'm going for. Love mookie but that Sd team is fun to watch and two bags deserves another ring. Just stinks that clown machado is on SD otherwise they might be my second team.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 10:33:20 GMT -5
Rooting for the A's, Rays, Padres, Braves, not necessarily in that order. I'm unlikely to watch any of it though, the off-season is more interesting to me. Clevinger "might" be available against the Dodgers. Literally, the same teams I'm going for. Love mookie but that Sd team is fun to watch and two bags deserves another ring. Just stinks that clown machado is on SD otherwise they might be my second team. Tatis Jr. has become my favorite MLB player to root for.
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 4, 2020 18:50:28 GMT -5
Of all the chaos we've had this season, it produces the first true "divisional" round in MLB playoff history. Isn't this the first time in history that was possible ? That's definitely true, it's been 25 years of having a divisional round that never had the chance of being one. And somehow this year, with the odds of narrowing down to a true "divisional" round from the round of 16 being very low, we finally have one.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2020 19:58:48 GMT -5
Literally, the same teams I'm going for. Love mookie but that Sd team is fun to watch and two bags deserves another ring. Just stinks that clown machado is on SD otherwise they might be my second team. Tatis Jr. has become my favorite MLB player to root for. Well, if I had to pick the guy who hits the 3-run walkoff bomb off Kenley Jansen, it's going to be Mitch.
However, is there anyone I'd rather watch?
Seriously, this guy led all MI in (Range) Runs Saved according to Statcast, and was 6th overall (JBJ was first), and he was 6th in the Western League in wRC+.
And he's 21. We were legitimately blown away by Xander, who had a very similar career path ... a later callup at age 20, versus COVID, gives him 644 career PA at that age versus Tatis's 629.
In this comp, Xander has an 84 OPS+ and was an average defender at best, while Tatis has 150+ and deserves a GG.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 20:02:47 GMT -5
Tatis Jr. has become my favorite MLB player to root for. Well, if I had to pick the guy who hits the 3-run walkoff bomb off Kenley Jansen, it's going to be Mitch. However, is there anyone I'd rather watch?
Seriously, this guy led all MI in (Range) Runs Saved according to Statcast, and was 6th overall (JBJ was first), and he was 6th in the Western League in wRC+.
And he's 21. We were legitimately blown away by Xander, who had a very similar career path ... a later callup at age 20, versus COVID, gives him 644 career PA at that age versus Tatis's 629.
In this comp, Xander has an 84 OPS+ and was an average defender at best, while Tatis has 150+ and deserves a GG.
Look at his stats from last year, he was your basic human dynamo then as well until he hurt his back and cancelled the rest of his season. That pretty much sent San Diego down the tubes. They are already calling him the Face of Baseball.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 4, 2020 20:31:04 GMT -5
Very easy rooting interests in this round:
Rays over Yankees: Obvi.
A's over Astros: Not as much based in 'Stros hatred as you might think. I just want the A's to win it all one of these damn years, and also their stadium is so bad it's good - it would be funny to have a champion that plays their home games in a parking garage.
Padres over Dodgers: Don't want the Dodgers to win it all, because this silly playoff format needs to be revealed for the farce that it is. Also I'm not convinced "San Diego" is a real place, and it would be fun for a team from a mythical land to advance.
Marlins over Braves: Hate the Braves. Hate em hate em hate em. Ever since I was a kid and they were on TV all the time despite being boring and having boring announcers and being in the boring NL - the 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife of baseball organizations. And then don't even get me started on the tomahawk chop and their white flighting to the suburbs and the general wretchedness of the metropolitan Atlanta region.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 20:37:34 GMT -5
Very easy rooting interests in this round: Rays over Yankees: Obvi. A's over Astros: Not as much based in 'Stros hatred as you might think. I just want the A's to win it all one of these damn years, and also their stadium is so bad it's good - it would be funny to have a champion that plays their home games in a parking garage. Padres over Dodgers: Don't want the Dodgers to win it all, because this silly playoff format needs to be revealed for the farce that it is. Also I'm not convinced "San Diego" is a real place, and it would be fun for a team from a mythical land to advance. Marlins over Braves: Hate the Braves. Hate em hate em hate em. Ever since I was a kid and they were on TV all the time despite being boring and having boring announcers and being in the boring NL - the 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife of baseball organizations. And then don't even get me started on the tomahawk chop and their white flighting to the suburbs and the general wretchedness of the metropolitan Atlanta region. I grew up first a Boston Braves fan. Hanoi Hannah dating Ted Turner ended any fandom abruptly for me.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Oct 5, 2020 19:36:40 GMT -5
On the one hand, former farm-hand Jordan Weems pitched in the Division Series, which is great.... on the other hand....
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Post by kevfc89 on Oct 5, 2020 20:31:15 GMT -5
Gerrit Cole needs to just tip his cap and call Ji-Man Choi his daddy
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Post by kevfc89 on Oct 5, 2020 22:20:10 GMT -5
I'm already feeling that the only team left that can stop the Yankees is the Dodgers.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 5, 2020 22:52:13 GMT -5
Yankees/Astros. How revolting.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 6, 2020 9:56:02 GMT -5
On the one hand, former farm-hand Jordan Weems pitched in the Division Series, which is great.... on the other hand.... He actually wasn't on their Wild Card round roster, but was added for the longer series. Old friend JB Wendelken also was charged with the unearned runs in the 6th. I wonder if the A's paid him well as a MLFA. He was a guy you would have liked to have seen stick around.
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