The Truth About Playoff Truths

The A's/Tigers will be dangerous in the playoffs because of their three top starters.

No, the Tigers can't win. They have no relief pitching. 

The A's have stumbled into the post-season. They're done.

The Angels are well rested. I don't see anyone beating them.

The Orioles are going to struggle because they live by the long ball. You need to manufacture runs to win against the best teams.

Washington and Anaheim are on fire going into the playoffs. I wouldn't want to play them.

The Dodgers are the favorite because they have the best pitcher, period. Great pitching beats great hitting in the post-season.

Look out for St. Louis. They've had to fight nearly to the end. They will be battle tested going into the playoffs. The same for Kansas City, Pittsburgh and San Fransisco.

No one wants to play the Giants. They have a lot of veterans with playoff experience.

You will hear these aphorisms -- and more -- as the playoffs wind into view next week. They're all commonly understood and accepted. And all but one of them sink in a sea of facts.

In one sense, the idea that any team in the tournament can win the World Series is, by definition, true. Seven game series among roughly equally-matched teams in unusual circumstances (sellout crowds, national TV audiences, extreme micro-managing, increasingly cold weather) are essentially lotteries. A good bounce here and missed call there can alter any series.

At the same time, every team is a long shot in the sense that they must win three series (and in some cases, a single elimination game) to emerge as champions. No team is so dominant that the odds favor them over everyone else. (Indeed, there has never been such a team, at least not in the playoff era.)

Beyond that, the calculations that you hear from the "analysts" are so much hoo-hah. Behold:

There is not a scintilla of evidence; not a jot; not an atom, a particle or a speck, suggesting that teams particularly imbalanced towards the top of their starting rotations perform better in the post-season than those with broader but shallower rotations. Possessing one great starter, or three, without quality behind them has not in the history of baseball delivered superior results versus those with five good but not lights-out starters, all else being equal.

Relievers actually do matter a little, says the research, but the closer and set-up man are a vastly over-rated element in the equation. Good pitching is important in every inning, and because managers manage for an edge on nearly every pitch, the bullpen takes on added importance generally. In any case, this actually does bode poorly for the Tigers.

In the great history of baseball, teams have won with small ball and large ball and welterweight ball and every combination and permutation allowed by the laws of mathematics. Winning with three-run homers has not proven to be any less dependable, nor any more, than winning with station-to-station offense.

In the 125 years our pastime has been played, the recent records of the teams entering the playoffs has not correlated in any way, shape, form or function with their performance in the playoffs. Not an iota, a smidgen or a crumb, as recent Series participants can attest. Teams' overall records do correlate, suggesting that 100-win teams are superior to 85-win teams, even "hot" ones.

An Oakland-San Francisco rematch is as plausible as a Nationals-Angels pairing, not withstanding that the former have a 50% chance of being eliminated in the play-in before the tournament begins in earnest.

Furthermore, rosters thick with wily veterans make no nevermind, according the the research. Doe-eyed youngsters perform with equal manliness to grizzled old-timers, talent being equal. Don't expect Mike Trout to stumble quivering with nerves or Raul Ibanez to suddenly bat, well, I'd say .250 is out of his range at this point.

There actually is one old wives tale that does carry some weight. Teams that have to play hard to the end actually do enjoy a small advantage over the early clinchers. Evidently, being in playoff mode for the incoming week or two keeps everyone sharp. Or anyway, that's the ex post facto explanation. Based on that, smart managers around the Beltway and SoCal should be exhorting their charges to earn the best record, or home field, or some other illusory advantage, because just battling for it confers an advantage of its own.

Keep all this in mind as the sports soothsayers justify their "predictions" with nonsense that was, once-upon-a-time, beyond disproof. But disproof has drunk its Gatorade, stolen signs and turned it on since the All-Star break. And it tells us what we should have always known: you can't predict who will win. That's why it's fun.

They Thought It Was the Demented Award

News Item: Milwaukee Brewers nominate Ryan Braun for Roberto Clemente Citizenship Award.

Possible explanations:

1. The Brewers are a collection of axe murderers and baby rapists. Lyin' Ryan's the best they can do.
2. Psych!
3. Clemente used to hammer the Braves when they played in Wisconsin and this is payback.
4. Whoops, they mean Eva Braun.
5. Management in Milwaukee has a deep, abiding sense of irony.
6. They noted that "contributions to the game" had to be "positive" and applied it to urine samples.
7. They are mentally retarded.

When Cheering Seems Disrespectful

Watching video of Giancarlo Stanton getting carried into an ambulance on a stretcher after suffering a fastball to the face got me thinking. Not about Milwaukee hurler Mike Fiers, who clearly wasn't trying to hurt anyone, but about the tradition of applauding when an injured player is removed from the field.

It makes sense that we cheer a player of either team who gets up and walks off after sustaining an injury. We're relieved that he will recover.



But Stanton did not get up. He did not walk off the field. He was bleeding and immobilized on the stretcher and the nature of his injuries were not at all clear. After all, a hardball crashed into his face at 88 mph -- where, exactly, no one in the ballpark could be sure.

As paramedics wheeled Stanton off the field with what appeared to be devastating injuries, the crowd began to clap. And it felt wrong.

It felt disrespectful, just the opposite of its intent.

Suppose the trauma had caused a clot in Stanton's brain and killed him. Brewer fans would have looked pretty insensitive.

So why do we do it? Are we gratified that the player has been removed, so the game -- and our entertainment -- can continue? 

Is it simply a tradition that we uphold without examination?

I don't like either of those answers. I'd like  to suggest that we distinguish between performers who have sustained superficial injuries and will be fine, from those whose careers, at the very least, are in jeopardy. Let's cheer respectfully for the first group and hold our breath respectfully for the second.

Whatta ya say, baseball fans?

Let's Hear It for the Sister Kisser

It's difficult to talk NL pitching without meandering back to the subject of Clayton Kershaw, the most fearsome pitcher since Pedro Martinez. His 18-3, 1.67 performance this year is cartoonish, as is his 7.78 K/BB ratio, his .82 WHIP and his 7.4 wins against replacement despite missing the first month of the season because of injury and the last month of the season because of time travel restrictions. (That last item should be solved soon, notwithstanding Armageddon.)

Sporting his patented* knee-buckling hook, a paralyzing slider and a fastball with bite, Kershaw is 95-49, 2.48 for his career, producing more value in seven campaigns (about 40 wins) than Catfish Hunter in 15 Hall of Fame seasons. Kershaw will almost certainly win his third Cy Young in four years, a second-place finish in 2012 marring the record.

*It may not actually be patented. I'm not his lawyer. Patent may be pending.

But enough about the likely league MVP. Let's turn our gaze to the largely-forgotten sister-kisser who should finish second. 

At home in Great American Smallpark, Johnny Cueto's 18-8, 2.15 this season is noteworthy. In a hefty 222 innings he's shouldered four complete games and fanned four times as many as he's walked. His six-and-a-half wins against replacement would make Cy Young proud, had the stars not aligned to create Kershaw.
It's not like Cueto is a flash-in-the-pan. He's averaged 4.5 wins against replacement over those four years -- about the same as Max Scherzer -- despite missing most of 2012. He throws strikes, clamps down the running game, keeps the ball in the park and goes deep into games. And he's just 28.

Cueto and Adam Wainwright (18-9, 2.54) have been lost in Kershaw's shadow in 2014 but they deserve some recognition. They're both dominant hurlers in the full bloom of their talent whose careers, unfortunately for them, have coincided with the dominant mound force of their generation.

Try To Remember: No Games In November

In 1965, Sandy Koufax declined to pitch the Opening game of the World Series because it was a Jewish high holiday. That was October 6th.

Next year, the World Series will still be a month away on October 6th.

This is a travesty. And it's killing baseball.

Baseball teams slog through a season of 162 games contested in the hopeful days of spring and the dog days of summer. The best clubs tame the tiger through the heat to compete for the championship as the leaves begin to turn. 

And then, with all the chips on the table, the game changes dramatically. Night games amid frost and flurries in Cleveland and Boston and Chicago* and Denver leave fans shivering in parkas and ski hats. 

*Hypothetically

It ceases to be about the best teams, but about the best foul weather teams. Who's got the hot hands when their hands are cold.

It's football weather, is what it is. Which might explain why America slumbers through the World Series. They're heavy into the pigskin season and by November that's what it feels like. For many Americans, baseball season ends when the kids return to school.

Ski areas know that business booms, not when it snows on the mountain, but when it snows in people's backyards.

For baseball, that formula is death.

Winning!

In the Yankees' game one tilt with the Orioles today, five Baltimore pitchers held the Bronx Bombers to a run in 11 innings. The O's won in dramatic fashion with a walkoff two run double in the bottom of the 11th.

Here's how the pitching line looked:
Kevin Gausman pitched seven shuout innings. He got no decision.
Andrew Miller fanned the three batters he faced in the eighth. He got no decision.
Darren O'Day whiffed two while blanking the Yankees in the ninth. He got no decision.
Zach Britton shut out New York in the tenth. He got no decision.
Brad Brach allowed the go-ahead run in the eleventh. He earned the victory.

Fun with pitching wins!

A Verdict That's Just Pistorious

There are 52 million people in South Africa and 51,999,999 know that Olympian Oscar Pistorious murdered his girlfriend. The only person who doesn't know is the judge in the case.

In case you forgot, Pistorious is the double-amputee known as "Blade Runner" whose inspirational story and good looks had the world's heart aflutter in the 2012 Olympics when he competed in the 400-meter track event. Then he went home and shot his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp to death on Valentine's Day through the door of his bathroom.

The judge ruled yesterday that prosecutors had not proved intentional murder. She was unconvinced by some of the testimony suggesting Pistorious was a hothead, a gun fanatic and a serial domestic abuser. Unfortunately for her honor, the facts are persistent without those testimonies and they are these: he shot and killed her, by his own admission, with bullets designed to explode upon impact. An expert testified that the four shots, one of which missed, shattered her skull and blew up inside her body.

Pistorious claims that he thought he heard an intruder run into the bathroom. He grabbed his gun and began firing.

This is eminently plausible if you are willing to suspend disbelief that he would rise out of bed and fail to check to see if his beloved was asleep next to him.

It is eminently plausible if you are willing to suspend disbelief that he thought an intruder would run into the bathroom, and then after doing so, continue to pose a threat to the couple's security.

It is eminently plausible if you are willing to suspend disbelief that the next logical action was to fire a pistol indiscriminately rather than call police.

It is eminently plausible if you are willing to suspend disbelief that Pistorious would fire what would almost certainly be fatal shots without ever making sure that his girlfriend was safe.

And after all that, you must further ignore or disbelieve all the evidence presented by ear-witnesses about shouting before the shots were fired.

In other words, his alibi is preposterous. It's ridiculous. It is Pistorious.

This is the dumbest judicial decision I can think of since Dred Scott in 1857. Oscar Pistorious is so guilty that even the best lawyers couldn't help him concoct a marginally credible pretext for the killing. And the jurist, who rules without the aid of a jury in South Africa, is so thick she fell for it.

The judge has yet to rule on a lesser charge of manslaughter; indeed, she all but announced a conviction on that count. That certainly ameliorates the injustice and recoups a shred of her tattered credibility. But it doesn't change the facts. And they all say Oscar Pistorious is a cold-blooded murderer.

The Question Not Being Asked In the Ray Rice Case

The critical question in the fiasco surrounding Baltimore Ravens' running back Ray Rice is not one of the 46 you've been hearing and reading.

The critical question is: If you were shocked by the video of Rice delivering a knockout punch to his fiancee in the elevator, what the hell is wrong with you?

After all, we already knew that Rice had knocked his fiancee unconscious. That had been established prior to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's laughably tone-deaf two-game suspension.

So what did you think happened in that elevator? That Rice kissed his wife too exuberantly? 

What's shocking is not that Rice's vicious punch was unusual but that it was so utterly mundane. That is what domestic abuse looks like. Did people really not know that?

In fact, Rice's abuse was relatively benign in the world of domestic abuse. After all, it consisted of a single blow, not a sustained attack.

Moreover, the release of video that vividly portrays Rice's violence primarily diminished the reputation of others, not of the football player himself. We knew what we had there -- or should have -- even without visual evidence.

The reactionary responses of Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens have swathed them both in ignominy. What is eminently clear is that the league and the team are not concerned about the rampant domestic violence perpetrated by their employees but are hypocritically reacting (or pre-acting) to the ignorant public outrage they correctly expected the video would incite. (Ignorant not because outrage is unwarranted but because it was warranted absent the video.)

Remember, this is video that the league and the team either did or should have had possession of and could have obtained with little effort. Which means they either ignored it when it was known only to a handful of people or willfully avoided its acquisition knowing full well how poorly it would reflect on the game.

These are the same Ravens who welcomed back their star with open arms during the exhibition season. This is the same commissioner who imposed the same sanction on a violent criminal that he imposes on gentlemen who smoke a joint during their off-hours -- but only if it's their first offense.

And this is the same public, at least in Baltimore, that gave Rice a standing ovation when he returned to the field. A standing ovation. Nothing has changed since, except that those fans can no longer rationalize to themselves that it was just a family squabble.

To add stupid to liar, Goodell violated his own newly established penalty matrix for domestic violence, established just a week prior. Goodell had prescribed a six-game suspension for ordinary domestic violence not involving a child or a pregnant woman. This is the definition of ordinary abuse, yet Goodell suspended Rice indefinitely, with the strong suggestion that the punishment will last all year.

This is one of those cases where everyone even tangentially involved has rolled in the mud. Rice is a thug, Goodell a liar and a hypocrite, the Ravens the same, the fans boorish and self-centered, Ravens' coach John Harbaugh a mendacious, self-indulgent creep, and so on. I'm pretty sure Geraldo Rivera looks bad in all of this, though who would notice.

There's another domestic violence case on Goodell's docket, because NFL players can't go two weeks without beating the women in their thrall. There's no video on this one, at least as far as we know, so let's see how the league handles it. Nothing Goodell does will mollify anyone paying attention. He's already made such a hash of his own system that there is no longer any possibility of fairness or consistency.

They're Not Races; They're Roller Coasters

For all those who have written off the .500 teams or declared victory for the division leaders, along comes the NL Central to remind us all that baseball just doesn't work that way.

On August 19, the Milwaukee Brewers led the division by two games with a 71-55 ledger, the best in the senior circuit. At 68-57, the Cardinals stood two-and-a-half games back, with Pittsburgh another four-and-a-half behind, having completed a seven-game losing skid.

Two weeks later, the top of the division has flipped, with St. Louis enjoying leads of three and five on their rivals and the Brewers clinging to a Wild Card berth. Pundits are writing off the chase, in part because Milwaukee always felt like a pretender and in part because the Cards have been here before and before and before.

A quick look at the etiology of the Central race demonstrates vividly how unsettled things really are. Consider:

The Cards are setting the pace on the strength of a five-game victory streak. But that followed losses in six of eight, which succeeded seven wins in eight games, which came on the heels of a 10-game stretch of seven defeats.

The Brewers have lost hold of the division by falling eight straight times, but they secured their grip with seven wins in 10 games, following three defeats in four tries.

And Pittsburgh, now with their MVP back, has dropped four in a row, three to the hated Redbirds. Prior to that, seven of eight up, seven straight down, five of seven up.

Which is to say, St. Louis is fully capable of entering a six-of-eight slide while Milwaukee and Pittsburgh run out strings of seven wins in eight games. Then, voila, the Brewers lead the Central by two and the Pirates slip into second. It's not the way to bet, but it's happened before. Ask fans in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas and Anaheim, to consider just the last four or five years.

It's the beauty and the curse of baseball: your team can struggle or flourish for 140 games. But if they revive or falter at the end, the first six months turn out to be just preliminaries.

So hang on to your hat.