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2011 MLB Playoffs Thread!


nmigliore

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I was considering writing up a brief thing about each series but I'm feeling too lazy. :P I'll just throw out my predictions:

Divisional Series

Rangers over Rays, 3-2

Yankees over Tigers, 3-2

Phillies over Cardinals, 3-0

Brewers over Diamondbacks, 3-1

League Championship Series

Rangers over Yankees, 4-2

Phillies over Brewers, 4-1

World Series

Phillies over Rangers, 4-2

The one thing I will say is that I don't think people really realize how stacked the Phillies' rotation is. Halladay, Lee, and Hamels were among the game's top starters this year. Having Roy Oswalt, even though he's not the same pitcher he used to be, as your 4th starter is pretty wild too. While their lineup is more average, they could literally blow right by some teams with that kind of starting pitching, and I think that will happen.

Edited by nmigliore
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There's some terrific pitching matchups tonight. Verlander and Sabathia should be awesome. I was convinced Verlander should be the Cy Young winner weeks ago, but not I'm not nearly as certain; Sabathia outperforms him in WAR and FIP (and even xFIP, but I don't find that to be fair for measuring single season performance). I'm still inclined to lean Verlander because of his stronger actual results, but hey, if Verlander is 1 then Sabathia has to be 1A.

The Rays are starting Matt Moore, who is pretty much the top pitching prospect in baseball and has looked drool-worthy in his first few ML appearances. I'm so jealous of this team's farm; they are absolutely loaded. C.J. Wilson was nearly a 6 WAR pitcher this season (was 4.6 last season), so yeah, he's pretty damn good too.

Edited by nmigliore
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I never really noticed how dominant Fister has been with the Tigers until now. I liked the deal for them at the time, but check these numbers out with Detroit:

70.1 IP, 11.40 K/BB, 1.79 ERA, 2.49 FIP, 2.75 xFIP

Unbelievable. And he just owned Mark Teixeira on 3 pitches; a backdoor curve, another backdoor curve, and then a changeup away. Cliff Lee-like.

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If Ryan Howard keeps hitting bombs like he did tonight, maybe he'll be worth his contract...

If Philly's offense clicks like it does tonight, they are winning the damn thing. It's just damn right scary to think that Cliff Lee, the best post-season pitcher ever (until last year's world series), is their number two guy. Just nasty.

Now that guy Lee pitches behind. He did something yesterday that he didn't even do when he threw a no-hitter last playoff. Roy Halladay retired 22 straight batters in a row. Only done once before in the playoffs by Don Larson, who of course threw the only perfect game in playoff history.

Edited by devilsrule33
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There's pretty much no way Howard will ever be worth his contract. He has a combined 3 WAR over the last 2 seasons. That's... horrible. He'll hit his bombs -- he's a big man with big power, and that will never change -- but he doesn't stand out in any other facet of the game, whether it's getting on base, fielding, baserunning, etc. If you're a first baseman you pretty much need to be an elite level hitter and/or fantastic fielder to be considered a highly valuable player. He'll be a major detriment on their payroll in future years. I mean, he already is with how little value hes provided over the last couple seasons.

Edited by nmigliore
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There's pretty much no way Howard will ever be worth his contract. He has a combined 3 WAR over the last 2 seasons. That's... horrible. He'll hit his bombs -- he's a big man with big power, and that will never change -- but he doesn't stand out in any other facet of the game, whether it's getting on base, fielding, baserunning, etc. If you're a first baseman you pretty much need to be an elite level hitter and/or fantastic fielder to be considered a highly valuable player. He'll be a major detriment on their payroll in future years. I mean, he already is with how little value hes provided over the last couple seasons.

I'm not saying there will ever be any statistical measurement that will show Howard to be worth his contract, but if he is a giant part of a World Series, does it matter? Isn't the goal to just win the damn thing? That bomb yesterday evening completely changed this series around already.

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First and foremost: I just realized Howard's contract hasn't even kicked in yet, so it's pretty much irrelevant here anyway. He's still on the 3 year deal they gave him in 2009. What would have happened if they decided not to extend him (in other words, he'd be an impending free agent) and then signed the much-better Prince Fielder this offseason instead? Would they not be in a better position to win?

But in any case, assuming this year was part of that massive extension... yeah, flags fly forever, I get that. But that doesn't suddenly justify handing out $100M+ to the most overrated first baseman in baseball when he isn't nearly worth it. And it does matter for the future of the team; I'm sure they'll enjoy him eating up $20 to $25M annually through 2016 or 2017. Considering where he is now, it might be really ugly.

It just seems wrong to say "it doesn't really matter" how much a team severely overpaid a player because he helped them win a World Series. It seems like such a scapegoat to the fact it's a bad contract. I think it's also unfair to ignore the potentials if they decided to, say, go with a much cheaper first baseman who was nearly as valuable as Howard (not hard to do, actually) and spend that extra money on other areas to improve the team even more, or, as I mentioned above, signed the superior Prince Fielder instead this offseason. Maybe they would win 3 World Series instead of just 1. Not to mention, we're talking as if the Phillies have already won it. They may be the favorites, and I picked them, but they do have to play the games.

And while winning the World Series may be #1 under a team's goals, creating surplus value and setting your team up for the future should be right under it. They kind of lead into each other too; if you accomplish the latter, you should receive many chances at accomplishing the former. If the Phillies don't end up winning anything in the next few years and continue to dump prospects at will, they will have accomplished none of those.

Edited by nmigliore
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I admittedly haven't watched more than 10-15 pitches in this game (until now since the football game is pretty much over), but it looks like starting Carpenter on 3-day's rest didn't exactly work out too well. Crazy to think the Cards are only 3 outs away from pulling this one out. I'm sure they would've signed up for a split on the road vs Halladay/Lee 10 times out of 10.

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I admittedly haven't watched more than 10-15 pitches in this game (until now since the football game is pretty much over), but it looks like starting Carpenter on 3-day's rest didn't exactly work out too well. Crazy to think the Cards are only 3 outs away from pulling this one out. I'm sure they would've signed up for a split on the road vs Halladay/Lee 10 times out of 10.

Philly really couldn't afford to lose one of these two games. Maybe Charlie left Cliff in to long tonight? You spott Lee a 4 run lead and still win. Pretty good night for the Cards.

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Gotta give the Cards some credit. I expected them to get swept. They lost the 1st game in ugly fashion, fell behind in the 2nd game, but rallied back against one of the game's best pitchers in Cliff Lee. They lost Game 3 but bounced back again today, facing elimination, against Roy Oswalt, with a solid performance by Edwin Jackson. And so now they are tied 2-2 heading back to Philly with a puncher's chance of pulling off a major upset.

Edited by nmigliore
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Well, we all remember how the 1st "big" game of his career went. In fact, I believe it was mentioned during the Yanks/Tigers broadcast that it was exactly a year ago today in which he threw that no-hitter against the Reds. It's just amazing watching him pitch, which makes it incredibly painful that he's on the team I disdain the most (so yeah, I'll have to be rooting against him).

At least the Cardinals are putting their best foot forward with their best starter on normal rest. Anything can happen in 1 game.

Don't sleep on the Brewers/DBacks either. It looked like Milwaukee had that series locked up easily but the DBacks went off on Marcum and Wolf in Arizona. Game 5 should be fun. Kennedy and Gallardo are both very good starters.

Edited by nmigliore
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Well, we all remember how the 1st "big" game of his career went. In fact, I believe it was mentioned during the Yanks/Tigers broadcast that it was exactly a year ago today in which he threw that no-hitter against the Reds. It's just amazing watching him pitch, which makes it incredibly painful that he's on the team I disdain the most (so yeah, I'll have to be rooting against him).

At least the Cardinals are putting their best foot forward with their best starter on normal rest. Anything can happen in 1 game.

Don't sleep on the Brewers/DBacks either. It looked like Milwaukee had that series locked up easily but the DBacks went off on Marcum and Wolf in Arizona. Game 5 should be fun. Kennedy and Gallardo are both very good starters.

The thing with Halladay is...you ask so many players, managers, GMs, former players, experts etc...who would you want on the mound in a win or gome situation, and so many will say Halladay. Well here is his first shot, so it's pretty exciting to see what happens.

I'm not sleeping on Brewers/Diamondbacks, but won't be able to watch that one. No clue what to expect in that game either. Diamondbacks have 4 former Jays in their infield, so I'll be rooting for them.

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Awesome series and Game 5 by the Tigers!! Holy hell was I sweatin it to the very end. Very exciting stuff. Hopefully the Tigers will beat dowm the Rangers in a less stressful manor. Should be a good ALCS though.

GO TIGERS!!!

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Two great games of baseball.

In the Zona game, Chris Young with one of the greatest catches ever that will prob be forgotten. I thought Hill should have Bunted the runners over when they had 1st and 2nd with no out. He's a batter that strikes out and pops up a lot.

As for the Phillies, I think some serious changes need to be made because that offense is being paid to do so little. Ryan Howard...worst contract ever obviously! Rollins is probably gone. Not sure what Utley's status is, but not sure what you can expect from him moving forward.

Carpenter was dominant, just an incredible playoff performance. But too many pitchers have done that to the Phillies in the last few years. And Roy Halladay's first inning struggles bit him in the ass this time. Surprised he got out of it down 1-run all things considered.

The difference is this series might have been Cliff Lee's 2nd game start. He was supposed to be the piece that put them over the top (or the Pence pickup)and the offense spotted him 4-runs, and he blew it.

Not too excited with any of these match-ups moving forward. All my favourite guys are out.

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As for the Phillies, I think some serious changes need to be made because that offense is being paid to do so little. Ryan Howard...worst contract ever obviously!

Not nearly as bad as A-Rod being locked up for SIX more years at $30 million per and already declining at an alarming rate.

Funny how 95% of baseball coverage this year has been Yankees-Sox-Phillies and all of them died like dogs :clap: Maybe the Phillies can buy one more Cy Young winner, that might put them back over the top :P

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Not nearly as bad as A-Rod being locked up for SIX more years at $30 million per and already declining at an alarming rate.

Funny how 95% of baseball coverage this year has been Yankees-Sox-Phillies and all of them died like dogs :clap: Maybe the Phillies can buy one more Cy Young winner, that might put them back over the top :P

That was a joke because of my comments earlier. A-Rod definitely has the worst deal, followed by Werth.

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Yeah, that catch by Young was incredible. Tough loss for the DBacks; they really had Axford on the ropes after tying it. And oh what could have been had they not traded Haren... Still, their organization is headed in the right direction. Kennedy and Hudson are young, cheap rotation stalwarts and Upton is one of the best player's to build a franchise around. Their farm system is getting loaded on pitching too; Jarrod Parker, Trevor Bauer and Archie Bradley (both 2011 draftees), Tyler Skaggs, and even a couple of their other 2011 draft choices (Anthony Meo and Andrew Chafin) have good upside as starters.

Although I was happy to see the Cards knock out the Phils, it's still a big shocker to me. I agree that Lee's Game 2 start was the difference-maker; they looked to be on their way to 2-0 until Lee imploded. Their lineup is going to need some work. Victorino isn't going to duplicate this kind of season, Rollins is an impending free agent, and Utley, while still productive, will be another year older and has struggled to stay in the lineup for a full season over the last couple years. They're also set to lose Ryan Madson who is dominant relief ace. Fortunately for them, they still have the best rotation in baseball to lean on...

At this point, the Rangers are my World Series pick. Their lineup is loaded.

Edit: As far as awful contracts go, I can't see how Crawford's is any better than Werth's at this point. Crawford is owed $16M more over the same amount of years. Werth at least was somewhat useful this season. Crawford was horrible. And despite the tongue in cheek Howard contract comment, it still ranks up there as one of the worst right now.

Edited by nmigliore
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