Team OPS – Postseason History

The Cardinals did not hit much in getting swept by the Dodgers.  They only hit 1 HR and scored 6 runs over three games.  This list puts their hitting into context with other playoff teams from the past.

 

Team OPS

2002 Anaheim Angels LDS: 1.030 (Yankees) Won 3-1

2007 Red Sox WS .936 (Rockies) Won 4-0

1960 Yankees WS: .911 (Pirates) Lost 4-3

2008 Phillies WS: .853 (Rays): Won 4-1

2009 Dodgers LDS .806 (Cardinals) Won 3-0

2007: Yankees LDS .704 (Indians) Lost 3-1

1988 Dodgers WS: .699 (Oakland) Won 4-1

2009 Cardinals LDS: .696 (Dodgers) Lost 3-0

2006 Cardinals WS: .675 (Tigers) Won 4-1

1969 Mets WS: .673 (Orioles) Won 4-1

2004 Cardinals WS: .562 (Red Sox) Lost 4-0

1950 Phillies WS: .516 (Yankees) Lost 4-0

1963 Yankees WS: .448 (Dodgers) Lost 4-0

1996 Dodgers LDS: .425 (Braves) Lost 3-0

Lee outduels Ubaldo again, Phillies advance

I another game that came down to the wire, the Philadelphia Phillies have beaten the Colorado Rockies and advanced into the NLCS to defend their crown against the Dodgers.

This was another great matchup between Cliff Lee and Ubaldo Jimenez, and their lines are below.

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
C Lee	7.1	5	3	1	3	5	0	117-72	1.10

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	PC-ST	ERA
U Jimenez	7.0	6	2	2	2	7	2	126-75	5.25

• Ubaldo has all the makings of a potential Cy Young candidate next year. That’s right, I’m calling a top 5 Cy Young finish for 2010 right now! Oh yeah, I went there.
• Looks like Brad Lidge will continue to be the guy in the ninth inning, but we’ll see if that stays the same when he blows one against the Dodgers.
• Haven’t decided who I will pick to get out of the NLCS. More like, haven’t decided to put the death curse on.
• Congrats to the Phillies, and who knows if we’ll even here from Jonathan today after all the partying he must have been doing last night.

WPA graph from FanGraphs.

Cracking the Playoffs, Part I

It seems that in baseball moreso than other sports, statheads have found a home.  This is due in part to the fact that everything that happens is easily quantifiable these days, and in other part because with 162 games per season, players tend to play according to their true talent level.  It’s hard to fool nature for 600 ABs, basically.  Now, of course there’ll be shocking breakout years (ahem) and disappointing turns from stars.  The sport isn’t entirely predictable, after all. 

But when playoff time rolls around, all bets are off.  With 19 games at maximum available for a team, there’s a much greater chance for random events to happen (see the ’06 Cardinals winning the World Series after an 83-79 season, and Jeff Suppan doing a Sandy Koufax turn to earn a huge deal from the Brewers).  So, of course, I decided to play statistician and try to see if I could figure out any rhyme or reason to how the playoffs unfold. 

To do this, I made a big, colorful spreadsheet where I noted how every team this decade had performed in UZR/150, wOBA, and QuikERA, so as to see which teams had been the best in each.  I marked playoff teams and World Series winners from each year, and compiled team averages throughout the decade.  Then I compared how this year’s playoff teams fared against the decade-long league average, the playoff team average, and the World Series team average.  Unfortunately, UZR/150 is only available from 2002 onward, so I had to neglect 2000 and ’01 in my calculations.  The first, rudimentary results are after the jump; the full spreadsheet is posted at Google Docs for your perusal. 

UPDATE: I just realized the Google Docs link wasn’t working since no one could view it without being…me.  Just fixed that; anyone can read it now.

Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez heating up in his first postseason

Coming into the Colorado-Philadelphia NLDS, the Phillies seemingly had the pitching staff to neutralize Colorado’s left-handed hitter heavy lineup. For the most part, Colorado’s lefties are either being kept from the lineup – see Brad Hawpe and Ian Stewart – or are hitting poorly, as is the case with Todd Helton and his .167 batting average in the series. The Phillies are taming Colorado’s lefties or making Jim Tracy keep them out of the lineup completely.

Carlos Gonzalez, however, is bucking that trend. He is the one left-handed hitter in the Rockies lineup who is hitting Philadelphia’s lefties. Gonzalez is 8-for-13 (.615)/.643/1.000 with a solo home run, two doubles, 1 RBI, 5 runs scored, and 2 stolen bases. He’s hitting better than all of Colorado’s remaining left-handed hitters combined. In Game 3, Gonzalez went 3-for-4 with a solo home run, a double, and three runs scored. “Obviously, I’ve been hitting the ball hard everywhere,” Gonzalez said. “There is such intensity. . . . I just feel very focused at the plate.” Gonzalez is clearly focused and is a big reason this is the only Division Series not to end in a sweep.

Zach’s AL Awards Ballot

Time to get out the ballot and give out my awards for the American League. These votes are for the awards handed out by the BBA, which MLB Notebook supports and is involved with.

AL Manager of the Year

1. Ron Gardenhire

2. Ron Washington

3. Don Wakamatsu

What does it tell you that only one of my MOY’s even made the playoffs? The way Gardy led the Twins back into the postseason was tremendous, and he deserves to be recognized for it. Washington and Wak both got more out of their team’s then was expected, so that pushes them into my top three.

Rookie of the Year

1. Elvis Andrus

2. Rick Porcello

3. Matt Wieters

I hate these ROY awards, because I can never remember who qualifies as a rookie. But, all three of these guys performed well this year. Andrus gets the nod due to his speed and defense. Porcello showed good confidence in his sinker this year, and seems well on his way to being a solid compliment to Justin Verlander. Wieters may not have lived up to the hype, but he was still good this year.

Roundtable: TBS and the postseason

How do you feel about TBS’s postseason coverage?

Paddy says…I think that TBS has done a bad enough job that MLB should find a new network to broadcast their postseason games next season. This is, of course, impossible due to broadcast contracts, but the fact of the matter is that TBS has become as much of a story as the baseball itself because of their poor presentation. Between the coverage errors, poor announcing, and ceaseless George Lopez advertising, TBS has come under so much (not undeserved) fire that the great baseball that they’ve been showing has been overshadowed – and, particularly in the playoffs, that’s just unacceptable.

Charlie says…TBS has done a nice job with its Division Series coverage.  From an audio/video perspective, the picture is clear and the crowd noise/field of play sounds are good.  As far as the announcers go, just about anyone not named Tim McCarver, Joe Morgan or Steve Phillips is about all I can ask for.  I will say one thing though: I hate the instant “Pitchtrax” in the lower right corner of the screen during at bats.  At fist I thought it was an interesting concept, to show pitch location in relation to the strike-zone instantly, but it takes away the age old banter, “THAT WAS A STRIKE!! WHAT’S THAT UMP LOOKING AT!!”  Pitchtrax shows you instantly ball or strike instantly, which ends the argument and takes away some of the fun of watching a ballgame on T.V.

Robert says…Baseball is a difficult sport to televise so I’m inclined to give the networks the benefit of the doubt in most cases. I don’t think TBS is doing a terrible job but they’re not setting a new bar in broadcasting excellence either. I’m just glad we don’t have to listen to Tim McCarver for another week or so.

Jonathan says…I’m lukewarm to TBS’ playoff coverage. I like PitchTrax and seeing the Division Series in one place. But their scheduling hasn’t been kind to Philadelphia, which makes it tough for me to watch. The broadcast teams are poor at best and feel hastily thrown together. Maybe TBS can use local broadcast teams next season.

I haven’t watched much of the in-studio coverage, but Ernie Johnson is great. Baseball is not his specialty, but he does a phenomenal job covering it.  TBS’ advertising is horrible and overplayed. At least we avoid Joe Buck and Tim McCarver for the time being.

Zach says...Not real happy with it. Chip Caray is aweful, and doesn’t seem like he knows any other words than “fisted”. I think that MLB needs to find some way out of the contract they have with them, or at least force them to stop showing George Lopez every commercial break. It’s never good when people want more of Buck/McCarver.

Daniel says…I’ve only unmuted the coverage for a little while so I don’t know if I’m qualified to speak on TBS’s coverage. For the time that I did listen to the announcing it wasn’t very good, and I’m not a big fan of the pitch location box they keep in the corner throughout at bats. Watching the reactions to the announcing on Twitter was quite amusing though, as #fisted became a popular phrase and various other poor calls turned into memes. So I assume that some other people didn’t think highly of the coverage either.

Yankees pull out the brooms against the Twins

The New York Yankees completed their sweep against the Minnesota Twins last night, winning the game 4-1. 

• This win confirms what we’ve known all along: the Twins don’t have a chance. 
• A-Rod came up big again, hitting a home run and ending the series with a .455 average.
• Andy Pettitte struck out seven in 6.1 innings, walking only 1.
• Joba came up big striking out a batter to end the inning wiith a runner on second.
• Only fitting that Mo Rivera came in during the eighth inning for a four-out save in the postseason.
• The Yankees and Angels won’t start their series until Friday, so all the pitchers will have plenty of time off.

Angels Sweep Red Sox as Papelbon fails in 9th

Both of my World Series picks are now done for the year, as the Los Angeles Angels completed their sweep of the Red Sox. The WPA graph from FanGraphs will astound you:

That’s just ugly. Papelbon was never the same this year, as he walked more batters than in the past, and hitters began keying in on his fastball. 

Will be interesting to see what happens to the Red Sox this offseason, as they have to worry about Jason Bay and Rocco Baldelli, and lots of contract options.

Zach’s Q&A with the New York Daily News

Recently, I had a chance to do a little interview/Q&A/whatever you want to call it, with Jesse Spector of the New York Daily News. He is running a series entitled “Blogger Nine Innings” where he asks bloggers nine questions, and I jumped at the chance to participate.

Make sure to head over there and read through the whole thing, but here is a sample for you to enjoy:

5. Who’s the most overrated player in baseball? The most underrated?

As far as underrated goes, I think Chase Utley still gets looked over far too often. This is a second baseman who hits 30+ jacks a year, and plays good defense to go along with it. Problem is, he is overshadowed by Ryan Howard on the Phillies, and sometimes even Rollins, Ibanez and Werth. He may be recognized as an All-Star, but his true value demands that he be placed in the top tier of the league next to Pujols, Mauer, Hanley Ramirez and others.

Thanks to Jesse for giving me the opportunity to do this. I really enjoyed it.

Yeah Padilla!

I didn’t know Vicente Padilla threw that hard until about a week ago in the final game of the season. Well the Dodgers late season acquisition has pitched well for them in the playoffs so far.

LA Dodgers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Padilla (W, 1-0)	7.0	4	0	0	1	4	0	0.00

Check out the velocity separation of his pitches in his start against the Cardinals:
He has a lot of tail on his fastball as it comes up in the mid-90s, topping at 97 mph, and can be thrown with the same velocity as a sinker. Along with a slider, Padilla plops in a slow curve almost an eephus type pitch that clocks in barely above 70 mph. That would be his fast curve as has been known to throw several true eephuses around 60 mph (plural form of eephus?).

Image from Brooks Baseball