39 replies to this topic

[nmigliore]

I was considering writing up a brief thing about each series but I'm feeling too lazy. 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, 29 September 2011 - 02:26 PM.

[Onddeck]

Hereee we gooo.. Let's see how close we can get to matchin last nights games in excitement

[nmigliore]

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, 30 September 2011 - 09:36 AM.

[thefiestygoat]

Go Yankees! I always turn into a nervous wreck this time of year. Hopefully the Yankees can get hot and run with it.

[nmigliore]

Very impressive start by Moore. He just shut down one of the best lineups in baseball in the Texas Launching Pad. Doesn't take much to see this kid is going to be the goods.

Edited by nmigliore, 30 September 2011 - 06:54 PM.

[nmigliore]

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.

[devilsrule33]

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, 02 October 2011 - 09:28 AM.

[nmigliore]

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, 02 October 2011 - 08:23 AM.

[devilsrule33]

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.

[nmigliore]

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, 02 October 2011 - 10:27 AM.

[Devils Dose]

At least tonight's baseball game is interesting; leagues better than the football game.

[nmigliore]

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.

[devilsrule33]

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.

[nmigliore]

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, 05 October 2011 - 09:16 PM.

[Onddeck]

yea, what a great win from STL tonight. another great series finale coming up, a win in Philly against Doc is gonna be tough for them

[devilsrule33]

Very excited for tomorrow's game. Roy Halladay is a future HOF, but this is the first gigantic game of his career. Very interested to see how he handles it.

[thefiestygoat]

Two game 5's tomorrow should make for some great TV. I'm pulling for the Brewers over the Diamondbacks since I have a friend who is a die hard Brewer fan (and you can say I'm still bitter over 01) and the Cardinals over the Phillies since I can't stand Philadelphia in anything.

[nmigliore]

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, 06 October 2011 - 11:46 PM.

[devilsrule33]

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.

[Masked Fan]

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!!!