Pretty sure no one picked St.Louis to be in the Series. Did anyone pick them to beat St. Louis?

Texas pitchers posted a 3.19 ERA this season outside their home park, and I think their starters are the true strength of the time. Their working environment does much to disguise that. Arlington has always been a great place to hit, but this season it actually turned into Coors Field. I've been harping on this, I know - but what went on in Arlington was an offensive park factor on a truly historic scale. There were 896 runs scored in Rangers' home games and just 636 runs in their road games. Which makes it reasonable, to my mind, to regard 2011 at the Ballpark in Arlington as the second greatest hitting environment in American League history. The only season that tops it was 1955 at Fenway Park (865 runs in home games, just 542 in Boston's road games.)

There are about 20 seasons where an NL park appears to have had an even greater impact, and almost half of them were played at altitude, at either Coors or Mile High. Almost all the rest were either 19th century seasons or at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia during the 1920s and 30s. The one exception is Wrigley Field in 1970.

Apparently it was a hot summer by Texas standards, something for which I barely have a frame of reference. (Palm Springs in the summer, maybe? I've been there...) Anyway, hot and dry is hitter's weather, and Arlington was apparently even hotter and drier than usual.

Did anyone pick them to beat St. Louis?

That should read "beat Philadelphia," of course. Not me, I had Texas over the Phillies in the WS. I'll stick with Texas.

I see things the same way.  With Pujols, Berkman and Holliday all healthy, the Cardinals do have a fearsome heart of the order.  The Rangers' starters vs. those three veteran sluggers is a nice story.  They say that good pitching will control good hitting, but we know now that actually batters account for about 2/3 of the outcomes.  I still think that the Rangers will win, with the key to the series being the ability of Furcal and Jay to reach base against the fine starting pitching of the Rangers.

Interesting that two teams with such mediocre starting pitching are going to the WS. So much for the "starting pitching trumps all in the postseason" theory. If anything, this year shows just how critical having a good bullpen (and a few hot hitters) is. Or that pretty much anything can happen in a short series.

I had Texas in the WS, but my other picks (Philly over Brewers, Texas over NY, and, finally, Philly over Texas) are a good reminder of why betting on sports is a bad idea - at least for me.

The Marcum trade is looking pretty good at the moment. I am, however, glad that some ex-Jays are doing well in the playoffs. This should keep the trade lines open between AA and other GMs. The Cardinals in particular have to be happy with the addition of Jackson, Rzep and Dotel.

Interesting that two teams with such mediocre starting pitching are going to the WS.

You need to have another look at what Texas starters did this year. I would have agreed before the season, they looked absolutely mediocre. As it played out they were very healthy and performed well above my expectations, across the board.

I'll say Texas in 5.

Regarding DH/1B: In St. Louis, Texas will almost surely just play Michael Young at first, and bench Moreland. So when you go back to Texas, they get to add Moreland, and St. Louis gets to add Allen Craig (likely through DHing Holliday). Big advantage for St. Louis.

Here are the Texas starting pitching stats in the playoffs so far:

CJ Wilson (ALDS - 1 start): 10.80 ERA
CJ Wilson (ALCS - 2 starts): 6.75 ERA
Colby Lewis (ALDS - 1 start): 1.50 ERA
Colby Lewis (ALCS - 1 start): 6.35 ERA
Derek Holland (ALDS - 1 start): 1.42 ERA
Derek Holland (ALCS - 2 starts): 8.59 ERA
Matt Harrison (ALCS - 1 start): 3.60 ERA

Looks like the definition of mediocre to me.

Um. Sample sizes. Context. 

Wilson threw 223 innings with an ERA+ of 152 this year, after pitching almost as well last year.  His record is better than Ricky Romero's.  Harrison only has one very good season under his belt, but he is 25.  Same with Holland, except that he is 24.  Colby Lewis has an ERA+ of 111 over the last 2 years (400 innings).  Ogando isn't chopped liver either...

C'mon.

I'm well aware that those pitchers have had a good 2011, and that the Rangers' pitching has actually been quite decent this year. Heck, I picked them to advance to the WS!

My point was that both the Rangers and Cardinal have made it to the WS despite mediocre starting pitching *in the playoffs* - which seems to run contrary to the conventional wisdom that you need dominant starting pitching to win in the postseason.

Similarly, the Brewers lost the NLCS because they had mediocre starting pitching. Just because their starters had the names "Marcum," "Grienke" and "Gallardo" on their jerseys doesn't mean they didn't pitch poorly (and were therefore mediocre) in the last round.

C'mon, indeed.

I curious whether the sudden awfulness of virtually every starter in the championship series will continue, or revert. I'm not sure why anyone was shocked by the terrible starts in the NL, those were the two highest scoring teams in the league this year. Offense vs. offense, with offense winning, wasn't surprising to me. And the Brewers defense stunk all year, that's part of why they were fun to root for, which sounds strange...

It's possible that the young Rangers staff is simply pitched out at this point, losing that vital 1-2% of movement/velocity that separates the good from the bad in MLB. Past experience has shown Fox radar guns during the playoffs are not to be trusted (Detroit's trip to the WS had everyone hitting 97mph+ it seemed), so it is hard to tell by watching. The Cardinals are a better offense than Detroit, so hopefully the ptiching regains a bit of stuff and the WS features a few well pitched games, to go with the slugfests. On the plus side for the Rangers, Pujols has been bad (for him, .915 OPS) in Coors, so maybe hitting paradises mess him up a bit. Weirdly, Berkman has also been below his career averages in Texas and Colorado (again, still good).

I picked Texas in the "prediction party" thread, so I'll stick with them. I don't see any way to make a particularly convincing argument for either team at this point. Two solid teams, I'm just hoping for early start times (so I will be disappointed, but Atlantic time zone start times are brutal), and lots of close games.

One note on the Texas home/away splits - Oakland, Seattle, and LAA are all pitchers parks, where Texas plays a lot of road games (28-29 a year). That tends to juice the spread a bit there, not that it isn't a hitting paradise that was even better than historical levels this year. If Houston gets stuck in that division (which seems to be the rumour right now), that spread may come back to earth a bit. Although Houston's field has been pretty average lately as well, so it may make it even larger, I suppose.

There is a big difference between the Rangers and the Cardinals.  The Rangers received excellent starting pitching this year, and have had mediocre starting pitching so far in the playoffs (with C.J. Wilson in particular being hit hard).  The Cardinals received mediocre starting pitching this year and leaned very heavily on the bullpen in the NLCS as a matter of strategy.

I expect that LaRussa will ride a rested Carpenter heavily in the World Series (because he misses bats still), use Garcia and Jackson for a little longer in the WS than in the NLCS, and have Lohse out at the first sign of trouble and maybe before that. 

It is true that conventional wisdom does overstate the importance of pitching in the playoffs.  If you pick a dominant pitcher (like Koufax) and look at how great RH batters fare against him, you will see that they do generally well.  The best right-handed hitters in the NL of his era were Aaron, Mays and Frank Robinson and each did very well against him.  Koufax was, of course, deadly in the World Series, because he was mostly not facing the likes of Aaron, Mays and Robinson (Frank went 1-3 with 2 walks in the 1966 game; the best RH hitter Koufax faced in 1965 in 3 games was Killebrew who went 4-9 with 2 walks).

So, how can C.J. Wilson be expected to fare against Pujols, Berkman and Holliday?  Not very well.  How can Carpenter be expected to fare against the Rangers?  Well, they do lean right, so maybe a little better.  For fun, I checked on the Rzepczynski vs. Hamilton matchup.  Josh is 0-3 with 2 strikeouts, although his platoon differential is not particularly large for a LHH.  My guess is that if it is a close game, Carpenter will stay on until he faces Hamilton in a high-leverage situation.

Speaking of rotations : check out the amount of SPs each team used during the season. The Rangers got 157 starts from Wilson, Lewis, Holland, Harrison, and Ogando, with the final 5 coming from Dave Bush and Scott Feldman in an attempt to keep Ogando healthy. The Cardinals got 158 starts from their 5 - Carpenter, Westbrook, Garcia, Lohse, and McClellan/Jackson, with Edwin coming over in the trade deadline deal and only 4 starts going to Miguel Batista, Lance Lynn, and Brandon Dickson in emergency starts. I remember when Ozzie's Sox won the World Series that they too relied on very few SP to get them through the season. I don't know how this correlates with success in the modern game, but I imagine not playing musical chairs in your rotation helps bring a measure of stability to the team and truly has the team believing that every night they have a shot to win the game (as opposed to the wonderful feelings with JoJo Reyes or Brad Mills out there). Sure, you may hope to see McGuire, Molina, and/or Hutchison with the big club in 2012, but wouldn't it be nice to see some combination of 5-6 SP take the ball every day for an entire season?

What 92-93 said...

I was just looking at this! I was planning to write up something on how each team's plans for its rotations worked out this year. I did the same thing back in 2007, and that year everyone (except the two Chicago teams) needed a lot of help from their 6th, 7th, and 8th starters. The extra starters weren't nearly as big a factor this year. Every team in the majors got at least 100 starts from their original five (Colorado was the lowest, with 102). And while a majority of teams did receive at least 35 starts from guys who weren't in their original rotations, almost all of the playoff teams got a lot of work out of their original five.

Arizona (114) - Kennedy 33, Hudson 33, Saunders 33, Enright 7, Galarraga 8. Enright made the team out of the spring but pitched very badly. Galarraga was a little better, but they farmed him out as well. Collmenter stepped into one spot, and they cycled through a few different guys when they needed a fifth starter.

Philadelphia (126) - Halladay 32, Lee 32, Oswalt 23, Hamels 31, Blanton (8). Blanton went down early and Worley came up; Oswalt went down in mid-season and Kendrick filled in as required. Both replacements were excellent.

Milwaukee (155) - Gallardo 33, Marcum 33, Wolf 33, Nrveson 28, Greinke 28. With Greinke on the DL to open the season, Estrada filled in. Once Zack was back, this could not have gone Closer to the Plan.

St.Louis (146) - Carpenter 34, Westbrook 33, Garcia 32, Lohse 30, McClellan 17. Jackson moved McClellan to the pen. Like Milwaukee, all worked out exactly as penned.

New York (131) - Sabathia 33, Burnett 32, Hughes 14, Nova 27, Garcia 25. Colon opened the season in the pen, and was ready to step in when Hughes went down in mid-April. The fat guy did fine, so when Hughes was ready to come back in July, the Yankees shipped Nova (8-4, 4.12) to the minors. He came back a few weeks later, and Girardi spent the last two months trying to figure out what he had...

Tampa Bay (148) - Price 34, Shields 33, Davis 29, Niemann 23, Hellickson 29. Pretty much as planned. Alex Cobb did a fine job filling in for Niemann in May-June.

Detroit (143) - Verlander 34, Penny 31, Scherzer 33, Porcello 31, Coke 14. Adding Doug Fister at the deadline turned out to be a pretty big deal.

Texas (157) - Wilson 34, Lewis 32, Harrison 30, Holland 32, Ogando 29. Yes, that went very well indeed.

Magpie, I hope you do the study on SP rotations. I looked at SF and their rotation was very good, but their hitting was very weak. I suppose all factors matter. But in what priority if any?

Verlander was a super stud this year but I do not think he was any better than King Felix last year.

Can someone get a link to Magpie's 2007 rotation study. I would love to read it as well as all the comments. I don't know how to do that. Thanks.

Keeping 5 pitchers healthy enough to pitch effectively for 180-220 innings each will give any team a leg up on success.  Most teams find though that they are forced to use 7-8 starting pitchers significantly during a year whether they like it or not. 

The Sixth Man & The Original 5 and the Replacements

7 or 8 starting pitchers? C'mon, the Jays used 12 starting pitchers and it didn't hurt...oh yeah.

2 with 30+ starts (Romero & Morrow)
4 with 20+ starts (Cecil & Reyes 20 each)
7 with 10+ starts (Drabek, Villanueva, Alvarez)
8 with 5+ starts (Litsch)
4 with under 3 or 4 starts (Perez, McGowan, Mills & Stewart)

Starters with 100+ ERA+: Romero, Alvarez, Villanueva
Starters with 90's ERA+: Morrow, Cecil, Litsch
Starters with 80's ERA+: Perez, Stewart
The 'please, not again' crew: Reyes, Drabek, McGowan, Mills (42 starts between them).

I can see Reyes and maybe Mills as being in "The 'please, not again' crew" ... but Drabek and McGowan are more part of a crew called something like, "C'mon, yer better than THAT, ain'tcha?"

:-)

Enough of this real baseball stuff.  Let's get to the off-season already!

MatO, on behalf of my entire region .... North Texas respectfully disagrees!

Aside: OpenStreetMap is currently running the "Big baseball project 2011" to map as many community and other baseball diamonds as possible by the end of the World Series.

92-93, Thanks to the link to magpie's 2007 Rotations of Every team in the Majors.

Great job Magpie!!

The comments made a lot of sense I guess, yes they did make sense. But in hindsight nothing IMO would have worked, and to me that seems clear NOW.

I laughed & cried. I was also able to see the results of 2008. After a hard fought battle Matt Clemente picked the Red Sox over our Jays. But we got the best 2 FAs available in V Zambrano & John Thompson, because replacing them was not complicated.
We did not want to put a lot of faith in Marcum, Litsch, McGowan & Janssen. Janssen was lost for the whole year, McGowan struggled/injured and lasted only 19 starts with mediocre results. But Marcum & Litsch 25 & 28 starts were very good. At seasons end that was an overall good rotation. That was also the year that J Gibbons got replaced after a poor start.

I suppose it happens to everyone, but we were forced to rebuild the rotation after losing 4 kids & AJ.

Litsch & Marcum did not struggle in their year 2, unlike Morrow & Cecil.

Maybe 2012 will somehow work out.

So next Season, we will have Ricky Romero (33+ starts), New Acquisition (32+), Morrow (30+), Henderson Alvarez (26+) and winner of 5th Starter competition.   That's good enough.

St.Louis (146) - Carpenter 34, Westbrook 33, Garcia 32, Lohse 30, McClellan 17. Jackson moved McClellan to the pen. Like Milwaukee, all worked out exactly as penned.

I thought St Louis planned for a different guy at the top of their rotation... I'm thinking the 'narrative' we'll get for this series is managers, despite/because of the potential for large numbers of dingers. Bullpen usage should be fascinatign.

I thought St Louis planned for a different guy at the top of their rotation...

Wainwright had his surgery in February. He was never part of this year's plan.

MatO, on behalf of my entire region .... North Texas respectfully disagrees! There's actually time left in the day to comtemplate things other than the Cowboys?

For scary with rotations check the Rays...
2011: 4 with 29+ starts, 1 with 23, then 9/4/1
2010: 5 with 29+ starts, 2 with 4 each
2009: 3 with 30+ starts, 2 in 20's, plus an 18 and a 6
2008: 4 with 30+, 1 with 27, 5/2/1/1

That covers their 'non-last place' years. All 4 years saw 3 or more with 29+ starts.

For their top 5 starters percent of games started...
2011: 91%
2010: 95%
2009: 85%
2008: 94%

For the Jays in the same years it was (2011 down) 72%, 79.8%, 78%, 86% (86 wins that year).

This shows how vital it is to pick the right 5 to start, then to keep them healthy. A loss of 0.6% = 1 game started by your 6th or lower starter, so this year the spread was 19 points = 32 starts where the Jays needed a 6th or worse vs the Rays (116 top 5 vs 148) or a full season for one starter.

Excellent study & points John N.
Your points are valid for teams that want to win from opening day until they SEEM to be out of contention. In this regard TB, Boston & NYY would qualify.
The Jays under Richardi would also qualify IMO. That is not a shot at anyone, just my opinion.

Richard SS, I agree with Romero & Morrow as 2 of your 5 starters. Most likely Alvarez also makes it, because he had a good trial run & has a high ceiling. If the hitters adjust to him and he struggles then there are other options both veteran and raw.

You put the New Guy right after Romero, which I believe is correct because I think AA mentioned that if he was to add a SP his aim is someone that good.

For #5, I will go out on a limb and say THERE IS NO COMPETITION. So pick your guy. McGowan brings out of options to the table for example.

But IMO the 2012 opening day 5 SPs could actually all be worthy. In 2011 Zep was more worthy than Reyes but Reyes had no options left & Drabek's high ceiling gave him the job over Zep in a development year.

But if the pen is desperate for a good LHP then Zep is the best choice.

Y'know, given how AA has been talking about trades I wonder if we will see a major shakeup in the rotation. Romero is a lock and I'd put Alvarez in the lock position right now (very young, under team control for 6 more years). Morrow has been frustrating (ERA+ in the 90's despite FIP suggesting it should be at Romero level) while Cecil & Litsch both are dancing on the edge. Drabek a major disappointment. A series of kids charging up the ladder in the minors who could be ready as early as July (or even April if they impress and others get hurt) makes things more variable.

I could easily see AA trading Morrow and a couple others to get a premium young starter. People have talked about Felix Hernandez being available and with Seattle sucking wind they might do a Hernandez for series of prospects (not Morrow obviously). Of course, Dustin Ackley would look nice in Jays blue but I figure the Mariners wouldn't be dumb enough to give him up (controllable for 6 more years, just 23 with a 117 OPS+ at 2B).

Maybe we can give up Drabek, Gose, and D'Arnaud for Hernandez. Worked for the Phillies.

The Seattle Mariners are owned by Nintendo - its Chairman is Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Many have assumed that the Jays (or more likely to me - the Yanks) were going to get Darvish. What do you think the chances are that the Mariners get Yu Darvish? What better way to cement their investment in the Mariners back into Japan. One Iranian/Japanese bird - a score on two continents.

Why does this matter? Mostly because King Felix will surely not be available if the Mariners are going to get Yu - they'll want to win now - to get their "posting fee" back as soon as possible. AA will have to look elsewhere for pitching.

Personally - I'm not too worried with Romero, Alvarez, McGowan and Morrow as my top four while I wait for a few of McGuire, Jenkins, Hutchison, Molina (not to mention) Nicolino and Syndergaard to force their way on to the team. That front four should give us a much better starting pitching rotation than we began 2011 with.

John N, I too have been wondering about trades.

But first, thank you for the link to the 2004 2 lists of our top prospects.

I noticed as most Bauxites already know that there is a failure rate for prospects. I do not know the rate or if it is significant.

So there is a danger in giving up established players for prospects. The reverse can also be true. If I could think of them I would give examples.

My problem is that it hurts me & I fret when we give up prospects. But realizing that I am getting reasonably known value for forecast/unknown value somehow reduces the pain.


For example I consider JPA, Lind, Janssen & D Fister as Major League players. They are established as such and so have more known value in talent & $ cost. So any team acquiring them would have an idea of what kind of Major League talent they are acquiring. Going the other way would be Major League players or prospects, as decided by the Jays or Tigers.

Since this is the off season, AA can hunt around for known elite talent if available, and probably at a high but unknown cost, until the prospects show their value. Also non elite but useful & somewhat known talent like the 4 above players can also be acquired but without including our best prospects whose eventual value is unknown.

I guess R Davis would be a non elite, useful example.

Yeah, right now is the time for teams to have 'sober 2nd thoughts' about trades. No panic but still some urgency to ensure your team is set for 2012 and beyond. AA seems to like guys with 3+ years of team control and ideally 25 or younger. Makes sense as most studies (and my own checking) have shown the age players peak is between 25 and 29 generally with a wider window of 23-32 being strong value periods. Post 32 rarely is as valuable as pre, while pre 23 is rare for anyone to be in the majors, let alone peaking.

For those wondering about early peaks, Ken Griffey Jr's OPS+ from high to low by age - 23-24-27-21-26-28-22 (all 149+ over 100+ games).

Rangers in 6. Cardinals have the arms to shut down Brewers-type offense, where their two best hitters can be handled by Dotel and Rzepczynski. Hamilton and Rzepczynski will be best of friends by the time this series is over, but the Rangers have too much behind him in Young, Beltre, Cruz and Napoli. If the Cardinals starters don't go deep, the Cards are going to have to rely on Dotel, Lynn, Salas and Motte getting thru the heart of the order (3-7) at least twice a game.

If the Cards are going to pull this one out, it will be on the strength of 2 deep starts to save the bullpen (preferably in either game 1 (Carpenter) or 2 (Garcia, I think), and then in game 4 (Jackson)), and an incredible offensive series from Pujols, Holliday, Berkman and Freese.

La Russa wins the World Series, because he's that much better.