Playoff Prospectus: AL... (10/13)
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October 13, 2012 Playoff ProspectusALCS Preview: Tigers and YankeesAfter all that funny business, the American League ultimately settled into a scenario quite easily predicted all along: the Tigers against the Yankees in the ALCS. Not that there aren’t still surprises, even with the A’s and Orioles eliminated. The Tigers, for instance, aren’t the 1,000-run Tigers, but a club built on starting pitching good enough to win even when the offense is scoring only three runs per game. And the Yankees are, by choice, fielding an A-Rod-less team in the most crucial moments. There will be plenty of narratives in this series: The inevitability of Justin Verlander; the Triple Crown winner trying to punctuate the end of his season; the Yankees’ first postseason without Mariano Rivera; slumping veteran stars on the Yankees; the many overachieving adjectives about Derek Jeter; and, as always, Alex Rodriguez. They’re fine narratives, even if they’re not the ones we underdog-lovers were rooting for. Lineups (AVG/OBP/SLG/TAv) Tigers Yankees Detroit’s offense was mostly tamed by Oakland’s pitching staff, which struck out 39 Tigers, walked seven, and allowed two home runs in 44 innings. The lineup’s perfectly balanced lefty-righty march had sliiiightly more success against Oakland’s bullpen, but this is a collection that thins out quickly after the fourth hitter. Detroit needs to get an outlandish contribution from their two big bats, a model that worked well during the season before Cabrera and Fielder hit just .220/.273/.341 against Oakland. Typically, we talk about Yankee Stadium as a haven for left-handed power, but Cabrera’s opposite-field punch might play just as well there, where he has hit seven home runs (and slugged .872) in 56 career plate appearances. Four of those home runs have gone the other way. Late-blooming Andy Dirks has emerged as the announcer’s favorite underdog in this lineup, but he’s not all fluff: his .302 TAv would be the second-best in the Yankees’ lineup, and he has played himself into an everyday role thanks to a minimal platoon split. You’ll hear good things about late-blooming Quintin Berry, too, but the June surprise hit .220/.284/.305 in his last 200 plate appearances of the regular season. Austin Jackson helped the Tigers post the AL’s second-best OBP out of the leadoff spot, though he, like the big-boned benefactors batting behind him, posted a sub-.300 figure in the ALDS. The Yankees’ offense is so good that Joe Girardi can even consider benching Alex Rodriguez; is there another team in baseball that could boast this luxury, 2-for-16 with nine strikeouts or not? Martin is the only member of the lineup with a line below the league average, and even he was above that standard in the second half. Neither Ichiro nor Jeter is still a jackrabbit at the top of the lineup, but Jeter’s OBP this season nearly matches Jackson’s if you include their ALDS performances. Teixeira’s balky calf was strong enough to steal a base against Matt Wieters in Game Five. When a right-hander starts, the Yankees can put Eric Chavez (.908 OPS against them) and Raul Ibanez (.812) in the lineup for a seven-lefty lineup. Pair that with the Yankees’ ballpark and you can understand how the team slugged .461 against righties this year, which, for comparison’s sake, is about what Nelson Cruz and Adrian Gonzalez slugged this year. The Tigers will throw four right-handed starters, and only one lefty-specialist reliever. Prepare for ironic “Too many homers!” tweets.
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Sorry, but these are not fine narratives. There isn't ANYTHING good for the game about having all the underdogs eliminated in the 1st round, while the 3 most recent champions and/or the 88-win teams who don't even belong in playoffs in the first place get to advance.
Don't even talk about TV ratings, because fans don't care about that in the first place--nor should they. Could someone list one legitimate reason I would possibly be interested in the remainder of these playoffs? The two teams that have won the most World Series have a chance to win another? Wheeeee! The 7th-best team in the AL is still alive to win a ring? Wow!
Give me a freaking break. Selig has his wet dream: Mediocrity is rewarded and, meanwhile, the playoffs get worse and worse and worse each year with the teams no neutral observer should be rooting for winning virtually every series.
This sport has such a tremendous regular season in spite of all Selig's efforts to water it down, but it also has just an abysmal postseason. Nearly every October is the same thing: My viewership is only sporadic at best after the first round because all the rooting interests are already out of it.
This year is somehow worse than any other because it had so much promise when the playoffs started, but all those great Cinderella storylines immediately went by the boards and we're left with the same old same old. I, for one, am absolutely sick and tired of the homogeneity and this format that engenders it. I'll still be reading BP every day, but I'm out of watching MLB until 2013...I've had it.
For the record, I hope San Francisco wins because they're the least bad of the remaining options.
The underdogs only lost in the AL, and all 4 series went a spectacular 5 games. If you didn't enjoy watching them, you're rooting for the wrong sport. The Tigers haven't won it all in nearly 30 years and the Giants only have one Flag in longer than that. There is a lot to be excited about going forward
Cincinnati and Washington also were underdogs in any type of realistic context. The series were "good" from a competitive standpoint, but when the "have" won each of them that neuters any excitement.
I can't possibly be interested in an 88-win Detroit team breaking its World Series drought when they're an underachieving mediocre team from the year's worst division and several far more accomplished Tiger teams never even got that chance or did but couldn't get it done. This stumbling bunch certainly doesn't deserve my support.
The Reds were a slight betting favorite, on the order of 54% or so.
That's essentially even, which makes my other cited points much more pertinent to determining who the underdog is. Recently off 10 consecutive losing seasons and with a 22-year drought v. the champions from 2 years ago? That's a lot more relevant than 4%.
Underdog ... you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Underdog, Cinderella...whatever you want to call it, it's the same thing.
In what "realistic context" were they the underdogs? It certainly wasn't in terms of inherent talent or massive payroll and revenue advantages on the part of the Cards and Giants.
Practical market size, payroll, recent success, undesirably to the networks...all things that made the Nationals and Reds decided underdogs in any type of comparison with St Louis and San Francisco.
I don't see how anyone could even contest this with a straight face. The networks and the league don't want them to win. They don't have any kind of recent success to build on. One of them is among the very worst franchises in sports, not just MLB.
If anyone could honestly sit here and try to say the Washington Nationals (nee Montreal Expos) are not the very definition of an underdog--especially when compared to an 11-time world championship organization--then you are simply living in a dream world.
I love the unfounded conspiracy theories that MLB "wants" SF and St Louis to win. YOu can't reason with something so brilliant.
By and large, MLB wants what the networks want. Anyone in denial of that isn't facing up to reality. The very idea that MLB (or any other league) doesn't want the biggest markets and most glamorous franchises to advance is ludicrous.
I don't think it's entirely fair to say that all the underdogs were eliminated, at least by one measure. If you look at the seeding of each of the four division series', the only higher-seeded team to advance was the Yankees.
However, in spirit, I must agree that given that 3 of the 4 teams to advance are the winners of the previous 3 World Series', it seems like an awful shame to have the great stories all leave early. (Note: I am an A's fan, and after they were eliminated I desperately hoped for a Nationals/Orioles World Series. *sigh*)
Yeah, seeding is a total red herring when talking about who was an underdog, I think we're both talking about the real world. Oakland, Baltimore, and Washington are all glaringly obvious financial and competitive underdogs. Cincinnati certainly was as well in any type of comparison with San Francisco.
No way the Reds were "glaringly obvious" competitive underdogs vis a vis the Giants in terms of finances. SF is anything but a big market. The Giants have built the best ballpark in baseball and constructed outstanding teams year after year which is why they draw. Cinci's broadcasting deals enabled them to sign Votto to a megadeal, something that blows away any contract on the Giants' end. The Giants were so cheap they couldnt/wouldnt sign Carlos Beltran for 2/25 million, a relative bargain price, because they had already re-upped the likes of Lopez and Affeldt.
Cincinnati is one of the very smallest markets in the game. San Francisco is the #1 team in a huge market. The fact that SF hasn't offered a Votto-type deal may be because they had to finance the stadium privately (something Cincy didn't) or simple fiscal prudence. The private-financing issue aside, the Giants certainly have more financial means than a tiny city like Cincinnati.
There's also the inescapable fact that the Giants have been a fairly consistent contender for the vast majority of the last 15 years or so, with several division titles, 2 pennants and 1 World Series victory--which was just 2 years ago. Meanwhile, the Reds were bad for most of that time.
That's still a sure underdog, even if Oakland, Baltimore, and Washington were more obviously so.
The thing is -- for you, regular season records don't matter. Teams are "overdogs" or "underdogs" based on historical performance. Why bother having seeds then?
One regular-season record doesn't matter. Are you seriously going to argue that if KC puts together a 98-64 season out of nowhere in 2013, but face NYY in the first round that KC is NOT an underdog?
Seeds are a formality, an ephemeral designation that bears no relationship to reality.
SF is not in a huge market, and it shares it's market with another successful team. Stop crying.
The Bay Area isn't a huge market? Oakland, one of the very poorest and least-supported clubs is another "successful team"? OK, whatever.
I somewhat agree on the format issue -- the wildcard play-in and the travel schedules for the ALDS have made an already watered-down playoff system (compared to what it was before the advent of the wildcard) even worse, and even more trivializing to the longest regular season in sports -- which really seems wrong in every way other than financial.
I do think, though, that teams like the Reds and Nationals weren't exactly underdogs, at least not seen in the perspective of the regular season. And the Os were certainly an underdog that was given life by this format. So I think that the format issue, while watering down the significance of the regular season (why bother winning more than in the mid-80s if you're in a weaker division and you believe you can turn it on in the playoffs and win anyway), also does give rise to more spots for underdogs. The Cardinals are hard to see as an underdog given how well they have performed in the post-season in the last ten years in particular, but certainly this year they weren't a favorite or an overdog to win -- they just weren't a new face.
Cincinnati is an underdog when it's just 3 years removed from 10 straight losing seasons, plays in one of the smallest markets and consequently is rooted against by the networks, and has a World Series drought 11 times longer than the team it faced.
Washington is about the biggest underdog there is when the franchise had just one playoff appearance in 43 previous seasons, was threatened with a bogus extinction notice, had to move after operating as wards of the state, overcame a 5-time defending division champion, and faced off against an 11-time World Champion. There could basically never be a circumstance under which the Cardinals are an underdog.
It should also be noted that Baltimore did not need the new format to qualify as you implied; they would've done so even under last year's arrangement.
You're basically conflating "new" or "not recently won" with "underdog". Not the same thing. Teams with better records have bested other teams over the season, and are not underdogs. They may be new (relatively in some cases and absolutely in others), but they are not underdogs if they are the top seed in their league.
You obviously have some very narrow and specific rooting parameters.
Be realistic. There isn't any universe in which Washington ceases being an underdog to 11-time World Champion St Louis based on one regular season.
And, yes, "not recently won" is a highly-relevant criterion for determining an underdog in any type of real-world scenario. Oakland, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Washington all were underdogs--some for that reason, but others for that and financial reasons. That much shouldn't even be in dispute.