The recent playoff performance put forth by Dirk Nowitzki has reignited this topic amongst sports enthusiasts everywhere and I have decided to put in my two cents.
The main problem with this question is that it is asked universally across sports and in some contexts it is a valid question while in others, it doesn’t hold water. In the NBA, this question has some merit and in the NFL, it has merit as long as we’re only talking about one position (more on both of those later). However, one place where this question doesn’t belong at all is baseball.
Quick! How many World Series titles did Babe Ruth win?
Barry Bonds?
Ty Cobb?
Willie Mays?
Hank Aaron?
There is little debate that four of those five players (with the obvious exception being Bonds) are among the best position players in the history of baseball. Anyone who doesn’t at least include them in the conversation is out of their minds and you should tell them so. My goal here is not to say who the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) is, I’m simply saying that if you were having that discussion, these names would be a part of it.
So, back to the question, how many World Series titles do each of those guys have? The easiest is Bonds since he has played recently and the answer for him is 0.
Willie Mays – 1 (1954)
Hank Aaron – 1 (1957)
Ty Cobb – 0
Babe Ruth – 7 (1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932)
Here’s the thing though; when you think of the G.O.A.T. in baseball, you don’t think of the number of World Series titles won or the number of World Series MVP’s they won, you think of numbers like 4,189 hits, 714 (or 755) home runs, 511 wins, 5,714 strikeouts, and so on and so forth. The regular season in baseball is such a huge sample size compared to the postseason that players are defined to a much greater extent by their regular season numbers than whether or not they performed well in the postseason.
Ty Cobb is one of the best hitters that has ever picked up a bat. His career .366 batting average is the best all time and his record of 4,189 hits stood for 62 years (from 1923 when he broke Cap Anson’s record to 1985 when Pete Rose broke his). However, for all those of you who say that championships are the measure of a player, it might interest you to know that the Georgia Peach became downright pedestrian in his three World Series appearances (all losses) with an OPS of .668 compared to the league average of .611 for those three years. While he was above average, when you compare that mark of .668 to his career OPS of .945, it looks significantly worse.
The biggest reason that this question doesn’t apply to baseball is just the nature of the sport. While a starting pitcher has the ball in his hands at the beginning of every play, on average, 15-20 outs are recorded without the pitcher being involved. As for a position player, they are cursed to somewhere between 8.6% and 14.3% of the total plate appearance for their team. In the field, they might be in on half of the defensive outs recorded but that still leaves 8-10 outs that the rest of the team must account for.
To use one of my favorite metrics, Wins Above Replacement (WAR), consider this; the best season (since 1900) by a position player is 14.7, by Babe Ruth in 1923. His line that year was nothing short of preposterous as he hit .393/.545/.764 with 41 home runs and 131 RBI (and 13 triples). Arguably more amazing is that his 1.309 OPS was only the third best of his career… but I divulge. That year he was worth (essentially) 15 more wins than a replacement player. If your team was made up of replacement players and one 1923 vintage Babe Ruth, you would still be a terrible team. If memory serves, most WAR calculations use a 40-win level when they talk about replacement players. If your entire team was made up of replacement players, your record would be 40-122 (NOTE: I can’t remember the exact numbers so please don’t hammer me on that one).
So even with the best season by a position player in the past 112 seasons, your team’s record would be 55-107. That is why baseball players are judged by individual statistics far more than team results.
But the next question that needs to be asked is whether or not it is fair for players in other sports to be judged by the performance of their teams? When it comes to football, the only position that gets this kind of pressure is the quarterback position and let’s consider this example.
Completions-Attempts-Yards-TD-INT
Players A/B/C
4491-8252-55664-313-312
Player D
4967-8358-61361-420-252
We’ll call Players A, B, and C Group A… they played 291 NFL games and had a completion percentage of 54.4% and a combined quarterback rating of 72.4. Group B (which is made up of only Player D) completed 59.4% of his passes over the course of his career and put forth a quarterback rating of 86.4. If you have any knowledge of the career record book for quarterbacks, you know the guy that I’m talking about in Group B but let’s play along.
When you look at these numbers, it is obvious that the three quarterbacks in Group A are nowhere near the caliber of Player D. So why am I making such a big deal about this? Because Trent Dilfer, Jim McMahon, and Doug Williams (Players A, B, and C) all have a Super Bowl ring and Dan Marino (Player D) does not. Of those three, only Dilfer managed to pass for as many as 20,000 yards (20,518) and he finished his career with more interceptions than touchdowns (113 TD vs. 129 INT). To say that a player is better than another because they have won a championship is ludicrous. Throughout professional sports, it is said that the playoffs are an entirely different animal than the regular season and given that, how can we judge players on their postseason performance without at least acknowledging that their regular season performance means something?
Here is another example from the NBA. I firmly believe that this question is more legitimate in the NBA than any other sport because I believe that a single player has the ability to affect more change in the NBA by themselves than in any other sport. A quarterback has the ball every play but does not play defense or special teams. A pitcher is involved in the beginning of every play but when the ball is put in play, there is roughly a 5% chance that the pitcher will be involved in the play (based on 2010 numbers across baseball). A single player in the NBA can touch the ball on every offensive possession and can guard the man with the ball on every single defensive possession. In that sense, they can affect a game more than any other single player in another sport.
I would consider these four guys some of the best power forwards in NBA history but the obvious question that I’m teeing up is which one is the best?
First of all, a look at the numbers:
FG% = Field Goal Percentage
3PT% = 3 Point Field Goal Percentage
FT% = Free Throw Percentage
PPG = Points Per Game
RPG = Rebounds Per Game
APG = Assists Per Game
BPG = Blocks Per Game
SPG = Steals Per Game
FG%/3PT%/FT%/PPG/RPG/APG/BPG/SPG
Player A – 50.8/18.2/68.8/20.6/11.4/3.1/2.3/0.7
Player B – 49.8/28.2/78.8/19.5/10.7/4.1/1.5/1.3
Player C – 54.1/26.6/73.5/22.1/11.7/3.9/0.8/1.5
Player D – 51.6/27.4/74.2/25.0/10.1/3.6/0.8/1.4
As you can see, their numbers are remarkably similar. Their shooting percentages are all high (disregarding the 3 point shooting since they are power forwards) with a little variance in the free throw shooting. Still, 68.8% free throw shooting from a 6-10 guy who gives you 20 and 11 every night is good.
Their scoring is similar with one exception and their rebounding and assist numbers are very comparable. It does look like the first two might be slightly more defensively inclined (at least when it comes to the counting stats) but it’s not by a lot when you factor in steals as well as blocks. So to separate these guys, let’s take a look at how they performed when the most was on the line; in the playoffs.
Player A – 50.2/16.7/67.8/22.7/12.4/3.4/2.6/0.7
Player B – 47.2/29.8/78.2/19.6/11.1/3.8/1.4/1.3
Player C – 51.3/25.5/71.7/23.0/12.9/3.9/0.9/1.6
Player D – 46.3/16.2/73.6/24.7/10.7/3.2/0.7/1.3
If you put all this together, it paints a picture of four players that have very similar numbers, both in the regular season and in the playoffs. Would it help the discussion at all if I told you that Player A has four championship rings, Player B has one, and neither Player C nor Player D have one?
For me, it wouldn’t really change the way I rank these four players.
Karl Malone (Player D)
Tim Duncan (Player A)
Kevin Garnett (Player B)
Charles Barkley (Player C)
Bill Wennington and Kurt Rambis combined to play 1,600 games in the NBA and scored 7,904 total points (4.9 points per game). Patrick Ewing scored 24,815 points in 1,183 games over his illustrious career. Which of those three was the best center? Ewing never won a championship while Wennington won two with the Bulls and Rambis won four with the Lakers.
I know that I am cherry-picking the most extreme examples but I’m trying to make a point. I want the people who write about and follow the NBA and the NFL to take a lesson from Major League Baseball; championships define teams, and they should not (completely) define players. Would Bill Russell have been a different player if he had won two rings instead of 11? Would Wilt Chamberlain be considered the best center ever if he had never won a championship?
All of this circles around to the comments that Scottie Pippen made about LeBron James having the potential to be considered the best player in NBA history… yes, even better than Michael Jordan. There has never been a better scorer than Jordan in the league’s history and despite the fact that it’s not the best measure of a scorer, all you have to look at is the fact that he is one of only two players to average better than 30 points per game for an entire career and he managed to stay ahead of Chamberlain (30.12-30.07). However, LeBron James does things that Jordan does not. He is much more of a pass first type of player than Jordan and this is a huge reason why the Miami Heat have done so well. He is perfectly happy being a facilitator and while some of Jordan’s most famous plays were assists in tough spots where he did not take the final shot, he is much better known for the shots he took and made than any passes he made. LeBron’s legacy might be closer to that of Magic Johnson, taking big shots when he had to but also making numerous highlight reel assists.
Will LeBron end up being better than Mike? I have no idea. Is it possible? Absolutely.
If you look at the counting stats and project LeBron having five productive seasons from this point on, that would put him at 28,161 points (against Jordan’s 32,292), 7,220 rebounds (6,672 for Jordan), and 7,078 assists (vs. 5,633 for Jordan). Again, Jordan was the better scorer but James does other things that Jordan doesn’t.
All in all, it is way too soon to even be having this discussion but it is one that we won’t be able to escape from until LeBron wins a title and then again until he starts approaching counting stats that nobody in the history of the league has gotten close to. After all, only three players in NBA history have accumulated 20,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists over their careers. Magic isn’t one of them and neither is Larry Bird or Michael Jordan. Those three are John Havilchek (26,395-8,007-6,114), Clyde Drexler (22,195-6,677-6,125), and the guy who doesn’t quite get enough credit for all the things he did, Oscar Robertson (26,710-7,804-9,887).
Depending on how long he plays and how healthy he stays, LeBron James has the chance to surpass them all…
Who knows, he might even win 7 rings…
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Unbreakable Records - Single Season Edition
The title of this one says it all. In honor of Andre Ethier hitting in 30 straight games, I wanted to look at the most unbreakable single season records and just how close anybody has gotten recently. As always, there are a few ground rules. First of all, I’m only going to be taking into account the bests of the Live Ball Era and my reasoning for that is quite simple. I have a very hard time comparing a league with 9 teams (where the best record was 52-14 and the worst 9-56) where the league wide ERA was 2.31 due to the fact that a whopping 60.4% of the runs scored that year were unearned…
Now that that rant is out of the way, I can get on to point number two. When I said that I wanted to see how close people had gotten to these records recently, I set that time frame as the past five full seasons (2006-2010). Again, the reasoning for this is simple. If I had expanded that time frame just a little to include the past ten seasons instead of five, it would have included the tail end of what some have dubbed the “Steroid Era”. Personally I hate the moniker but it’s there nonetheless so onward we plunge!
In a nutshell, what I’m going to do is introduce the (Live Ball) record and how close someone has come to that mark in the past five years. After that I’m going to include a random number between 0 and 100 that represents the percentage chance that I see this mark ever being bested.
BATTING
Hits
Record – 262 – Ichiro (2004)
Recent – 238 – Ichiro (2007)
Is this mark beatable? Yes, but it does require a very specific skill set. It should also be mentioned that Ichiro has the top three hits seasons in the last five years (coming in with 225 and 224 hits in two other seasons) so the best mark by someone not named Ichiro was Michael Young’s 217 hits in 2006.
So why do I think this mark is beatable? Mostly because of Ichiro. He is left-handed and fast, which is always a good start when it comes to racking up hits. Secondly, he doesn’t walk much. To put this in perspective, Ted Williams is widely considered one of the best hitters to have ever picked up a bat and in 9,791 career plate appearances, he walked an astonishing 2,021 times, or 20.6% of all of his trips to the batter’s box. This helped him to a career .482 on-base percentage, the best mark of all time. It also helped him “only” get to 2,654 career hits.
Closer to the other end of this spectrum is Pete Rose. He strolled to the batter’s box 15,861 times and walked 1,566 times (9.9%, less than half that of Williams). Because he was a relative free-swinger, he managed to knock out 4,256 hits, the most of any player ever.
All of that brings us back to Ichiro. In his ten (and a little bit) years in the US, he has come to the plate 7,504 times and has taken Ball 4 a grand total of 469 times, or just 6.3%. What he brings to any lineup he’s in is a relative impatience and free swinging attitude with the uncanny ability to hit the ball in such a way that with his speed, it’s nearly impossible to get him out.
Likelihood – 5/100. Just because it can happen doesn’t mean it will. George Sisler’s single season hits record stood for 84 years before Ichiro came along.
Runs
Record – 177 – Babe Ruth (1921)
Recent – 143 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)
Ruth was a transcendent talent way ahead of his time and he may not have even been the best hitter on his own team (the guy right behind him in the lineup was pretty good too). The odds of this ever happening again outside the Steroid Era are precisely nil. If it was going to happen, it would have ten years ago.
Likelihood – 0/100
Doubles
Record – 67 – Earl Webb (1931)
Recent – 56 – Brian Roberts (2009)
This is one I could actually see happening. There was some talk back in the 90’s of double man extraordinaire Edgar Martinez approaching this record. However, the closest he ever got was 52 in both 1995 and 1996.
I know that another 11 doubles is quite a lot when you’re already hitting over 50 but since the inglorious end of the Steroid Era, it is possible that we’ll see a new breed of hitter, one who aims for gaps instead of the bleachers…
I can dream, can’t I?
Likelihood – 15/100
Triples
Record – 26 – Kiki Cuyler (1925)
Recent – 23 – Curtis Granderson (2007)
This will happen someday. Granderson also hit 38 doubles and 23 home runs that season for a total of 84 extra base hits. There have always been guys who have that much speed but they have been suppressed for quite some time because you never wanted to make outs before the big slow guys who hit the ball so far that they don’t have to run fast. In the future, there may be a swing back towards the small ball days of the 70’s and 80’s when a good leadoff hitter was more critical to the lineup’s success than a big thumper in the middle of the order. The speed has always been there; it’s the will that’s been missing.
Likelihood – 30/100
Home Runs
Record – 73 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 58 – Ryan Howard (2006)
Does anybody know how this elephant got into the room? It’s not that big of a room…
This record will not fall and will forever be tainted because I don’t think it has been set by someone who played the game in a “clean” manner since Roger Maris in 1961. However, that does not mean that I subscribe to the nonsense that Maris is the real single season home run record holder. Bonds hit 73 home runs. I watched many of them live and highlights of nearly all of them. It was truly amazing to behold and in over twenty years of loving this sport (basically since I tried it out and found out it was pretty cool) I have never seen anything like it.
Likelihood – 0/100
Runs Batted In
Record – 191 – Hack Wilson (1930)
Recent – 156 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)
Since Wilson’s amazingly clutch season in 1930 (did he even make an out with a runner on base that year?) only three people have come within 20 RBI of his mark:
Lou Gehrig (1931) – 184
Hank Greenberg (1937) – 183
Jimmie Foxx (1938) – 175
Do you see something in common with those years? The closest anyone has gotten in the past six decades was when Manny Ramirez had 165 RBI in 1999; and he was still a solid month of games away from Hack Wilson.
Likelihood – 0/100
Batting Average
Record – 0.424 – Rogers Hornsby (1924)
Recent – 0.365 – Joe Mauer (2009)
This note should really emphasize just how good of a hitter Joe Mauer is. He’s a catcher and nobody has had a single season batting average higher than his in the past five years. it should also help emphasize how untouchable this mark is.
The number that many people associate with batting average is .406 and for very good reason. Ted Williams was the last player to hit .400 in 1941 and seventy years later, it looks like nobody will ever hit for that high an average ever again. In the past 70 years, only four players have even hit as high as .380. As long as teams carry this many pitchers on their rosters and as long as the pitchers are this good, hitting .400 will be impossible.
Likelihood – 0/100
For the next three metrics, I’m just going to lump them all together because the same guy holds all three records and he set them all with a severely engorged melon at the end of his neck… I’m just saying.
On-Base Percentage
Slugging Percentage
OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging)
On-Base
Record – 0.609 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 0.470 – Chipper Jones (2008)
Slugging
Record – 0.863 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 0.671 – Albert Pujols (2006)
OPS
Record – 1.422 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 1.114 – Albert Pujols (2008)
I honestly wish that I could see what Barry Bonds’ career could have been like had he never taken steroids. While he was very careful to say he never “knowingly” took steroids, it seems dead obvious that he was using steroids during his incredible four year run from 2001-04. I have never seen anyone look at 20 pitches in the course of a game, see 19 balls and hit the one strike 450 feet. It was a truly amazing run and it is unfortunate that it had to become tainted by his use of steroids and by his recent court conviction. Nevertheless, on the field, you won’t ever see it again.
Likelihood – 0/100
PITCHING
Wins
Record – 31 – Denny McLain (1968), Lefty Grove (1931), and Jim Bagby (1920)
Recent – 22 – Brandon Wood (2006) and Cliff Lee (2008)
I know that wins are a largely superficial statistic and considering my wholehearted (and statistically sound) defense of Felix Hernandez’s 2010 Cy Young case, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. However, given the requirements for a starting pitcher to get a win, it’s not a bad barometer to gauge a pitcher’s performance. Before you lay into me for that last comment, allow me to expound. Using wins as a barometer for a pitcher’s performance is kinda like gauging the temperature of water…. by looking at it.
In the last five years, only four pitchers have even stayed in games long enough to get 31 decisions. Their respective records were 21-10 (Roy Halladay, 2010), 20-11 (Adam Wainwright, 2010), 20-11 (Roy Halladay again, this time in 2008), and 18-13 (Carlos Zambrano, 2007). If you notice, nobody got more than 31 decisions so given these little tidbits and taking this huge leap in logic, a pitcher would have to go 31-0 to match this mark.
Likelihood – 0/100
Losses
Record – 26 – Paul Derringer (1926)
Recent – 18 – Daniel Cabrera (2007) and Rodrigo Lopez (2006)
This one won’t fall because teams aren’t that bad and a pitcher pitching that terribly won’t get 27 starts. Mike Maroth was the worst starting pitcher on the worst team in recent memory, the 2003 Tigers that only managed to win 43 games all year long. Maroth still pitched well enough to get 33 starts and he pitched well enough to win 9 games for a final record of 9-21.
Likelihood – 5/100 (maybe as a publicity stunt… and I’m tired of saying these records will never fall)
ERA
Record – 1.12 – Bob Gibson (1968)
Recent – 2.19 – Zach Greinke (2009)
This is the beauty of the advanced statistical metrics that have come along in the past few years. On the surface, it would appear that the difference between the two seasons mentioned above is so large that they don’t even belong in the same discussion. However, when you take into account things like the league average ERA, park factors, and the opposition, the gap is narrowed significantly. Gibson’s ERA+ in 1968 was 258 while Greinke’s in 2009 was 205. Was Gibson’s season better? Absolutely. Was Greinke’s season still very good? According to ERA+, it was the 33rd best season… ever.
However, to match Gibson’s ERA, Greinke would have had to allow 28 earned runs instead of the 55 he actually allowed. As long as offense is popular, this one will never go down.
Likelihood – 0/100
Innings Pitched
Record – 376.2 – Wilbur Wood (1972)
Recent – 253.0 – CC Sabathia (2008)
I’m not even going to say anything here.
Likelihood – 0/100 (I seriously flirted with the idea of negative likelihoods… still a possibility)
Walks
Record – 208 – Bob Feller (1938)
Recent – 115 – Carlos Zambrano (2006)
In a lot of ways, this record goes hand in hand with the losses record and the innings pitched record. Pitchers don’t throw 277.2 innings (as Feller did in 1938) and they don’t get anywhere near that number if they are walking 6.7 batters per 9 innings pitched (again, as Feller did in 1938).
Teams don’t allow pitchers that bad to pitch for that long.
Likelihood – 0/100
Strikeouts
Record – 383 – Nolan Ryan (1973)
Recent – 269 – Justin Verlander (2009)
This is yet another case of how pitchers aren’t allowed to throw that many innings and no pitcher in the past few years has been good enough to even get close. In fact, in baseball history, there have only been 33 seasons in which a pitcher struck out 300 batters, 14 before Nolan Ryan and 18 since. The only real threat to his seat atop this particular throne was during Randy Johnson’s great run from 1999-2001 with Arizona. He struck out 364, 347, and then 372 batters in those three seasons and averaged 12.7 strikeouts per 9 innings. During his record setting season, Nolan Ryan averaged only 10.6 strikeouts per 9 innings.
Granted, nobody has gotten within 30 strikeouts of 300 or within 100 of the record in the past five years but in the ten years before that, there were ten different seasons where a pitcher struck out 300 batters. This is a record that is somewhat vulnerable but it will take a once in a generation talent with a manager that is willing to let them pitch through jams to allow him to rack up the strike outs.
Likelihood – 20/100
STREAKS
There are two main streaks that I want to touch on here; hitting and consecutive scoreless innings pitched. In 1941, Joe Dimaggio had a hit in 56 consecutive games and in 1988, Orel Hershiser pitched 59 consecutive scoreless innings. In my opinion, both of these streaks are untouchable simply because of the logistics of breaking these records. In the case of Hershiser’s record, you’d have to throw six straight shutouts (which has only been done once in major league history) and then throw another six scoreless innings in your next start.
As for the hitting streak, given how frequently games are played in this day and age, you would have to get a hit in every game you play in for seven weeks. When Andre Ethier hit in thirty straight games, he was still 26 games away from tying Dimaggio’s streak. To put that in perspective, in Major League History only two players have had multiple hitting streaks of 28 games or more. Joe Dimaggio is the only who has managed to follow a 28 game hit streak with another 28 game hit streak without a hitless game in between.
Likelihood of either of these streaks being broken – 0/100
Likelihood that you have read every word of this post… let’s not go there.
Thanks for reading my ramblings… until next time!
Now that that rant is out of the way, I can get on to point number two. When I said that I wanted to see how close people had gotten to these records recently, I set that time frame as the past five full seasons (2006-2010). Again, the reasoning for this is simple. If I had expanded that time frame just a little to include the past ten seasons instead of five, it would have included the tail end of what some have dubbed the “Steroid Era”. Personally I hate the moniker but it’s there nonetheless so onward we plunge!
In a nutshell, what I’m going to do is introduce the (Live Ball) record and how close someone has come to that mark in the past five years. After that I’m going to include a random number between 0 and 100 that represents the percentage chance that I see this mark ever being bested.
BATTING
Hits
Record – 262 – Ichiro (2004)
Recent – 238 – Ichiro (2007)
Is this mark beatable? Yes, but it does require a very specific skill set. It should also be mentioned that Ichiro has the top three hits seasons in the last five years (coming in with 225 and 224 hits in two other seasons) so the best mark by someone not named Ichiro was Michael Young’s 217 hits in 2006.
So why do I think this mark is beatable? Mostly because of Ichiro. He is left-handed and fast, which is always a good start when it comes to racking up hits. Secondly, he doesn’t walk much. To put this in perspective, Ted Williams is widely considered one of the best hitters to have ever picked up a bat and in 9,791 career plate appearances, he walked an astonishing 2,021 times, or 20.6% of all of his trips to the batter’s box. This helped him to a career .482 on-base percentage, the best mark of all time. It also helped him “only” get to 2,654 career hits.
Closer to the other end of this spectrum is Pete Rose. He strolled to the batter’s box 15,861 times and walked 1,566 times (9.9%, less than half that of Williams). Because he was a relative free-swinger, he managed to knock out 4,256 hits, the most of any player ever.
All of that brings us back to Ichiro. In his ten (and a little bit) years in the US, he has come to the plate 7,504 times and has taken Ball 4 a grand total of 469 times, or just 6.3%. What he brings to any lineup he’s in is a relative impatience and free swinging attitude with the uncanny ability to hit the ball in such a way that with his speed, it’s nearly impossible to get him out.
Likelihood – 5/100. Just because it can happen doesn’t mean it will. George Sisler’s single season hits record stood for 84 years before Ichiro came along.
Runs
Record – 177 – Babe Ruth (1921)
Recent – 143 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)
Ruth was a transcendent talent way ahead of his time and he may not have even been the best hitter on his own team (the guy right behind him in the lineup was pretty good too). The odds of this ever happening again outside the Steroid Era are precisely nil. If it was going to happen, it would have ten years ago.
Likelihood – 0/100
Doubles
Record – 67 – Earl Webb (1931)
Recent – 56 – Brian Roberts (2009)
This is one I could actually see happening. There was some talk back in the 90’s of double man extraordinaire Edgar Martinez approaching this record. However, the closest he ever got was 52 in both 1995 and 1996.
I know that another 11 doubles is quite a lot when you’re already hitting over 50 but since the inglorious end of the Steroid Era, it is possible that we’ll see a new breed of hitter, one who aims for gaps instead of the bleachers…
I can dream, can’t I?
Likelihood – 15/100
Triples
Record – 26 – Kiki Cuyler (1925)
Recent – 23 – Curtis Granderson (2007)
This will happen someday. Granderson also hit 38 doubles and 23 home runs that season for a total of 84 extra base hits. There have always been guys who have that much speed but they have been suppressed for quite some time because you never wanted to make outs before the big slow guys who hit the ball so far that they don’t have to run fast. In the future, there may be a swing back towards the small ball days of the 70’s and 80’s when a good leadoff hitter was more critical to the lineup’s success than a big thumper in the middle of the order. The speed has always been there; it’s the will that’s been missing.
Likelihood – 30/100
Home Runs
Record – 73 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 58 – Ryan Howard (2006)
Does anybody know how this elephant got into the room? It’s not that big of a room…
This record will not fall and will forever be tainted because I don’t think it has been set by someone who played the game in a “clean” manner since Roger Maris in 1961. However, that does not mean that I subscribe to the nonsense that Maris is the real single season home run record holder. Bonds hit 73 home runs. I watched many of them live and highlights of nearly all of them. It was truly amazing to behold and in over twenty years of loving this sport (basically since I tried it out and found out it was pretty cool) I have never seen anything like it.
Likelihood – 0/100
Runs Batted In
Record – 191 – Hack Wilson (1930)
Recent – 156 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)
Since Wilson’s amazingly clutch season in 1930 (did he even make an out with a runner on base that year?) only three people have come within 20 RBI of his mark:
Lou Gehrig (1931) – 184
Hank Greenberg (1937) – 183
Jimmie Foxx (1938) – 175
Do you see something in common with those years? The closest anyone has gotten in the past six decades was when Manny Ramirez had 165 RBI in 1999; and he was still a solid month of games away from Hack Wilson.
Likelihood – 0/100
Batting Average
Record – 0.424 – Rogers Hornsby (1924)
Recent – 0.365 – Joe Mauer (2009)
This note should really emphasize just how good of a hitter Joe Mauer is. He’s a catcher and nobody has had a single season batting average higher than his in the past five years. it should also help emphasize how untouchable this mark is.
The number that many people associate with batting average is .406 and for very good reason. Ted Williams was the last player to hit .400 in 1941 and seventy years later, it looks like nobody will ever hit for that high an average ever again. In the past 70 years, only four players have even hit as high as .380. As long as teams carry this many pitchers on their rosters and as long as the pitchers are this good, hitting .400 will be impossible.
Likelihood – 0/100
For the next three metrics, I’m just going to lump them all together because the same guy holds all three records and he set them all with a severely engorged melon at the end of his neck… I’m just saying.
On-Base Percentage
Slugging Percentage
OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging)
On-Base
Record – 0.609 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 0.470 – Chipper Jones (2008)
Slugging
Record – 0.863 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 0.671 – Albert Pujols (2006)
OPS
Record – 1.422 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 1.114 – Albert Pujols (2008)
I honestly wish that I could see what Barry Bonds’ career could have been like had he never taken steroids. While he was very careful to say he never “knowingly” took steroids, it seems dead obvious that he was using steroids during his incredible four year run from 2001-04. I have never seen anyone look at 20 pitches in the course of a game, see 19 balls and hit the one strike 450 feet. It was a truly amazing run and it is unfortunate that it had to become tainted by his use of steroids and by his recent court conviction. Nevertheless, on the field, you won’t ever see it again.
Likelihood – 0/100
PITCHING
Wins
Record – 31 – Denny McLain (1968), Lefty Grove (1931), and Jim Bagby (1920)
Recent – 22 – Brandon Wood (2006) and Cliff Lee (2008)
I know that wins are a largely superficial statistic and considering my wholehearted (and statistically sound) defense of Felix Hernandez’s 2010 Cy Young case, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. However, given the requirements for a starting pitcher to get a win, it’s not a bad barometer to gauge a pitcher’s performance. Before you lay into me for that last comment, allow me to expound. Using wins as a barometer for a pitcher’s performance is kinda like gauging the temperature of water…. by looking at it.
In the last five years, only four pitchers have even stayed in games long enough to get 31 decisions. Their respective records were 21-10 (Roy Halladay, 2010), 20-11 (Adam Wainwright, 2010), 20-11 (Roy Halladay again, this time in 2008), and 18-13 (Carlos Zambrano, 2007). If you notice, nobody got more than 31 decisions so given these little tidbits and taking this huge leap in logic, a pitcher would have to go 31-0 to match this mark.
Likelihood – 0/100
Losses
Record – 26 – Paul Derringer (1926)
Recent – 18 – Daniel Cabrera (2007) and Rodrigo Lopez (2006)
This one won’t fall because teams aren’t that bad and a pitcher pitching that terribly won’t get 27 starts. Mike Maroth was the worst starting pitcher on the worst team in recent memory, the 2003 Tigers that only managed to win 43 games all year long. Maroth still pitched well enough to get 33 starts and he pitched well enough to win 9 games for a final record of 9-21.
Likelihood – 5/100 (maybe as a publicity stunt… and I’m tired of saying these records will never fall)
ERA
Record – 1.12 – Bob Gibson (1968)
Recent – 2.19 – Zach Greinke (2009)
This is the beauty of the advanced statistical metrics that have come along in the past few years. On the surface, it would appear that the difference between the two seasons mentioned above is so large that they don’t even belong in the same discussion. However, when you take into account things like the league average ERA, park factors, and the opposition, the gap is narrowed significantly. Gibson’s ERA+ in 1968 was 258 while Greinke’s in 2009 was 205. Was Gibson’s season better? Absolutely. Was Greinke’s season still very good? According to ERA+, it was the 33rd best season… ever.
However, to match Gibson’s ERA, Greinke would have had to allow 28 earned runs instead of the 55 he actually allowed. As long as offense is popular, this one will never go down.
Likelihood – 0/100
Innings Pitched
Record – 376.2 – Wilbur Wood (1972)
Recent – 253.0 – CC Sabathia (2008)
I’m not even going to say anything here.
Likelihood – 0/100 (I seriously flirted with the idea of negative likelihoods… still a possibility)
Walks
Record – 208 – Bob Feller (1938)
Recent – 115 – Carlos Zambrano (2006)
In a lot of ways, this record goes hand in hand with the losses record and the innings pitched record. Pitchers don’t throw 277.2 innings (as Feller did in 1938) and they don’t get anywhere near that number if they are walking 6.7 batters per 9 innings pitched (again, as Feller did in 1938).
Teams don’t allow pitchers that bad to pitch for that long.
Likelihood – 0/100
Strikeouts
Record – 383 – Nolan Ryan (1973)
Recent – 269 – Justin Verlander (2009)
This is yet another case of how pitchers aren’t allowed to throw that many innings and no pitcher in the past few years has been good enough to even get close. In fact, in baseball history, there have only been 33 seasons in which a pitcher struck out 300 batters, 14 before Nolan Ryan and 18 since. The only real threat to his seat atop this particular throne was during Randy Johnson’s great run from 1999-2001 with Arizona. He struck out 364, 347, and then 372 batters in those three seasons and averaged 12.7 strikeouts per 9 innings. During his record setting season, Nolan Ryan averaged only 10.6 strikeouts per 9 innings.
Granted, nobody has gotten within 30 strikeouts of 300 or within 100 of the record in the past five years but in the ten years before that, there were ten different seasons where a pitcher struck out 300 batters. This is a record that is somewhat vulnerable but it will take a once in a generation talent with a manager that is willing to let them pitch through jams to allow him to rack up the strike outs.
Likelihood – 20/100
STREAKS
There are two main streaks that I want to touch on here; hitting and consecutive scoreless innings pitched. In 1941, Joe Dimaggio had a hit in 56 consecutive games and in 1988, Orel Hershiser pitched 59 consecutive scoreless innings. In my opinion, both of these streaks are untouchable simply because of the logistics of breaking these records. In the case of Hershiser’s record, you’d have to throw six straight shutouts (which has only been done once in major league history) and then throw another six scoreless innings in your next start.
As for the hitting streak, given how frequently games are played in this day and age, you would have to get a hit in every game you play in for seven weeks. When Andre Ethier hit in thirty straight games, he was still 26 games away from tying Dimaggio’s streak. To put that in perspective, in Major League History only two players have had multiple hitting streaks of 28 games or more. Joe Dimaggio is the only who has managed to follow a 28 game hit streak with another 28 game hit streak without a hitless game in between.
Likelihood of either of these streaks being broken – 0/100
Likelihood that you have read every word of this post… let’s not go there.
Thanks for reading my ramblings… until next time!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Random Notes From the World of Sports (and the World Beyond)
There are a handful of stories floating around the world of sports (and the world in general) and while I have a lot to say about a lot, I don’t necessarily have a lot to say about these particular topics. Therefore, I’m just going to lump them in here together.
Today, my topics will be:
Jim Tressel
Osama Bin Laden
Rashard Mendenhall
JIM TRESSEL
This situation has been stewing for me for quite a while. Anyone who has talked to me over the course of the past five years knows the kind of respect that I had for Jim Tressel. I thought that he was an outstanding coach and a wonderful example to the dozens of young men that he influenced during his tenure at one of the biggest, most prestigious football programs in the country.
The way that he has handled that stature is nothing short of awful and I am sure that I am not alone in feeling betrayed by the Vest. I even praised him for his handling of the situation, saying that the five players could play in the Sugar Bowl if they promised to come back next year and serve their five game suspensions. Then I found out that he knew about it all along and told nobody. The reaction from Tressel and the university (specifically the athletic director and the president of the university) was very telling. It took Tressel days to apologize and even then it didn’t seem genuine and when the AD and the president came out and more or less scoffed at the notion of Tressel being fired, it sent the message loud and clear that at Ohio State, Jim Tressel is the be all and end all and winning is more important than integrity.
NCAA, you need to come down on Ohio State and Tressel and you need to come down hard. Tressel needs to be suspended for longer than just his self-imposed (image salvaging) five games and Ohio State needs to be punished for allowing this to happen, even if it is a relatively minor infraction. Here’s a suggestion; each time a coach is found to have done something like this, take away a few scholarships. It’s easy to see over time that the loss of scholarships can cripple a football program and while that shouldn’t be the goal, it would send a clear message that you won’t stand for this anymore.
What will happen? Tressel will get slapped on the wrist and will be forced to write “I won’t lie to my bosses anymore” 1,000 times… a task which he will give to an assistant.
OSAMA BIN LADEN
It has now been since the president said that Osama Bin Laden has been killed during a Navy SEAL raid. I found myself extremely interested in the news but not emotionally invested in it. The overwhelming sentiment that was permeating my mind was “so what?” and please, before you judge me or call me “un-American” allow me to explain. Strategically, his death truly meant something as he has eluded capture for more than two decades and has planned and ordered numerous attacks upon American installations and personnel (both military and civilian). In that sense, this was a very important day in the “War on Terror”.
However, the window for this event eliciting an emotional response from me has long since closed. If they wanted me to be dancing in the streets over the capture or assassination of Bin Laden, they would have had to do that years ago. I completely understand that was completely unreasonable especially considering that we’ve been attempting to find him and bring him to justice since well before September 11th, 2001. I do not fault the American military or intelligence services for taking this long to kill him. Personally, I think the fact that they found him at all is a testament to the quality and perseverance of all those involved.
Do I think that President Obama wrapped up the 2012 election? No.
Do I think that Al Queda is done for? Perhaps, but that has more to do with the next year than anything else.
Do I think the world is a better place without Osama Bin Laden in it? Absolutely.
RASHARD MENDENHALL
Shortly after the aforementioned assassination of Bin Laden, Rashard Mendenhall took to Twitter to express his feelings and perhaps he thought them through and perhaps he didn’t.
Personally, I have no problem with him questioning whether or not people should be celebrating the death of anyone. That is definitely a discussion that should occur somewhere at some time. Perhaps as soon after the death of Bin Laden wasn’t tactful. Whatever, my single biggest reaction to that part of his tweeting was “who cares?”
My much bigger problem was that he more or less suggested that he subscribes to the conspiracy theory that it was more than just two jetliners that managed to take down the two towers of the World Trade Center. He talks about combating ignorance with regards to the celebration of people’s deaths and yet he ignores enormous amounts of evidence that say it was nothing more than two planes. I don’t know if Rashard Mendenhall studied any structural engineering during his three years at Illinois or if he talked to anyone who has studied structural engineering before making his Tweets but if he didn’t, he is the one who is being ignorant.
Frankly, I don’t care what people think or believe and everyone is entitled to their opinions. If Mendenhall spoke to an architect, a structural engineer, or a civil engineer (or if he has studied any of those disciplines) and he has evidence that supports his theory that something other than burning jet fuel and that heartless wench gravity took down those towers, I will listen and if his evidence is at very least sketchy, I’ll admit he may have a point.
However, if he has his own hunch or his own suspicions about the events of that horrific day nearly ten years ago and they aren’t backed up by anything remotely scientific, then he is being the ignorant person that he was railing against and all he’s doing is pouring gasoline on the fire, not raising the level of debate about whether or not we should be celebrating the death of public enemy number 1.
This is something that he never addressed in the blog post he wrote. He talked about people celebrating and focused on that. In that respect, he has a legitimate point and I honestly believe that that is a discussion that should happen and I have a great amount of respect for him to bring that up, knowing how unpopular it would be. With regards to what he said about 9/11, he has since said nothing and that comment was even deleted from his Twitter page, which might be saying something in and of itself.
A sponsor has bailed on him and his team more or less came out and emphatically said that he was not speaking for us, i.e. you’re on your own. Here, he has a very unique opportunity. He can remain quiet and attempt to gradually rehabilitate his image or he can feed the beast. If he takes the former path, he might be remembered as the guy who said that one controversial thing once. If he decides to feed the beast and stand by what he said and follow up on it, get involved with discussions about that day (when, it should be pointed out, he was just 14 years old) and the 1st of May this year when the news broke, then he can be remembered as something more. Someone who had an unpopular opinion, a minority opinion, but someone who was brave enough to stand up and say this is what I think, now what do you think? If he was able to do that and if he was able to somehow remove emotion from the debate (calling him un-American for his comments was nothing short of asinine) then his legacy could be that he stood up for peace and for life.
Instead of sitting there, wherever he is, and saying nothing.
Check back periodically for more of these "Random Notes" type columns...
Until next time, enjoy the baseball!
Today, my topics will be:
Jim Tressel
Osama Bin Laden
Rashard Mendenhall
JIM TRESSEL
This situation has been stewing for me for quite a while. Anyone who has talked to me over the course of the past five years knows the kind of respect that I had for Jim Tressel. I thought that he was an outstanding coach and a wonderful example to the dozens of young men that he influenced during his tenure at one of the biggest, most prestigious football programs in the country.
The way that he has handled that stature is nothing short of awful and I am sure that I am not alone in feeling betrayed by the Vest. I even praised him for his handling of the situation, saying that the five players could play in the Sugar Bowl if they promised to come back next year and serve their five game suspensions. Then I found out that he knew about it all along and told nobody. The reaction from Tressel and the university (specifically the athletic director and the president of the university) was very telling. It took Tressel days to apologize and even then it didn’t seem genuine and when the AD and the president came out and more or less scoffed at the notion of Tressel being fired, it sent the message loud and clear that at Ohio State, Jim Tressel is the be all and end all and winning is more important than integrity.
NCAA, you need to come down on Ohio State and Tressel and you need to come down hard. Tressel needs to be suspended for longer than just his self-imposed (image salvaging) five games and Ohio State needs to be punished for allowing this to happen, even if it is a relatively minor infraction. Here’s a suggestion; each time a coach is found to have done something like this, take away a few scholarships. It’s easy to see over time that the loss of scholarships can cripple a football program and while that shouldn’t be the goal, it would send a clear message that you won’t stand for this anymore.
What will happen? Tressel will get slapped on the wrist and will be forced to write “I won’t lie to my bosses anymore” 1,000 times… a task which he will give to an assistant.
OSAMA BIN LADEN
It has now been
However, the window for this event eliciting an emotional response from me has long since closed. If they wanted me to be dancing in the streets over the capture or assassination of Bin Laden, they would have had to do that years ago. I completely understand that was completely unreasonable especially considering that we’ve been attempting to find him and bring him to justice since well before September 11th, 2001. I do not fault the American military or intelligence services for taking this long to kill him. Personally, I think the fact that they found him at all is a testament to the quality and perseverance of all those involved.
Do I think that President Obama wrapped up the 2012 election? No.
Do I think that Al Queda is done for? Perhaps, but that has more to do with the next year than anything else.
Do I think the world is a better place without Osama Bin Laden in it? Absolutely.
RASHARD MENDENHALL
Shortly after the aforementioned assassination of Bin Laden, Rashard Mendenhall took to Twitter to express his feelings and perhaps he thought them through and perhaps he didn’t.
Personally, I have no problem with him questioning whether or not people should be celebrating the death of anyone. That is definitely a discussion that should occur somewhere at some time. Perhaps as soon after the death of Bin Laden wasn’t tactful. Whatever, my single biggest reaction to that part of his tweeting was “who cares?”
My much bigger problem was that he more or less suggested that he subscribes to the conspiracy theory that it was more than just two jetliners that managed to take down the two towers of the World Trade Center. He talks about combating ignorance with regards to the celebration of people’s deaths and yet he ignores enormous amounts of evidence that say it was nothing more than two planes. I don’t know if Rashard Mendenhall studied any structural engineering during his three years at Illinois or if he talked to anyone who has studied structural engineering before making his Tweets but if he didn’t, he is the one who is being ignorant.
Frankly, I don’t care what people think or believe and everyone is entitled to their opinions. If Mendenhall spoke to an architect, a structural engineer, or a civil engineer (or if he has studied any of those disciplines) and he has evidence that supports his theory that something other than burning jet fuel and that heartless wench gravity took down those towers, I will listen and if his evidence is at very least sketchy, I’ll admit he may have a point.
However, if he has his own hunch or his own suspicions about the events of that horrific day nearly ten years ago and they aren’t backed up by anything remotely scientific, then he is being the ignorant person that he was railing against and all he’s doing is pouring gasoline on the fire, not raising the level of debate about whether or not we should be celebrating the death of public enemy number 1.
This is something that he never addressed in the blog post he wrote. He talked about people celebrating and focused on that. In that respect, he has a legitimate point and I honestly believe that that is a discussion that should happen and I have a great amount of respect for him to bring that up, knowing how unpopular it would be. With regards to what he said about 9/11, he has since said nothing and that comment was even deleted from his Twitter page, which might be saying something in and of itself.
A sponsor has bailed on him and his team more or less came out and emphatically said that he was not speaking for us, i.e. you’re on your own. Here, he has a very unique opportunity. He can remain quiet and attempt to gradually rehabilitate his image or he can feed the beast. If he takes the former path, he might be remembered as the guy who said that one controversial thing once. If he decides to feed the beast and stand by what he said and follow up on it, get involved with discussions about that day (when, it should be pointed out, he was just 14 years old) and the 1st of May this year when the news broke, then he can be remembered as something more. Someone who had an unpopular opinion, a minority opinion, but someone who was brave enough to stand up and say this is what I think, now what do you think? If he was able to do that and if he was able to somehow remove emotion from the debate (calling him un-American for his comments was nothing short of asinine) then his legacy could be that he stood up for peace and for life.
Instead of sitting there, wherever he is, and saying nothing.
Check back periodically for more of these "Random Notes" type columns...
Until next time, enjoy the baseball!
Starting Rotations
Much has been made of the pitching rotation that General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has assembled in Philadelphia. Between Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels, they came into this season with a career record of 481-275 with an ERA of 3.42, a WHIP of 1.20, and 141.7 combined Wins Above Replacement (WAR). They have won 3 Cy Young awards (Lee in ’08 and Halladay in ’03 and ’10) and have been named to a combined 13 All-Star games.
Perhaps more importantly than all of that, these four have combined for a record of 20-8 with a 2.98 ERA in the playoffs. They have pitched a total of 240.0 innings and have allowed just 196 hits with a K/BB ratio of 220:52.
In other words, these guys are good. Where will they rank among the all-time greatest pitching rotations? Obviously this is a question that cannot be answered until October or November but there’s no reason we can’t look ahead at the task that they have in front of them.
Currently, these four have combined for 5.0 WAR with Halladay leading the way with 2.1. Given the accuracy of the WAR values (only accurate to the tenth of a win) and the fact that these numbers don’t necessarily project to over a full season, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If they did project well, this is where they would end up.
Roy Halladay – 10.6
Cole Hamels – 7.1
Cliff Lee – 4.6
Roy Oswalt – 3.0
Roy Oswalt has only pitched 27.0 innings thus far, compared with at least 40.2 for any of the other three pitchers. Due to the tornados ravaging the area that he grew up in, he has been away from the team and hasn’t pitched as often as he would have. However, once he sets his affairs in order and rejoins the team, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for all four of these pitchers to end up with a WAR value greater than 4.0. As a rule of thumb, according to baseball-reference.com (where I get these WAR values) this is a good way to judge how good WAR values are.
0-2 – Bench Player
2-5 – Starter
5-8 – All-Star
8+ - MVP
According to that metric, their rotation is made up of an MVP caliber player (or a Cy Young caliber pitcher), an All-Star, a borderline All-Star, and a decent starting pitcher.
We’ve been hearing about this rotation ever since Cliff Lee shocked everyone and signed with them instead of the Rangers or Yankees but what does this mean historically? How many other teams have ever had a combination of starters this good? To answer this question, first I need to set a few criteria. First of all, I only looked at pitchers who started at least 60% of their games and qualified for the ERA title. Given that this means they would have pitched at least as many innings as team games played (162 for most years) and that at least 3/5 of their appearances would have had to be starts, this effectively eliminates relievers from this conversation. Secondly, I only looked at pitchers who put forth better than 4.0 WAR. When I got the results from this search for the all-time best rotations, I didn’t want (for instance) the 2001 Diamondbacks cluttering my data. They did have one of the best 1-2 punches ever in Randy Johnson (8.4 WAR) and Curt Schilling (7.3). However, after that, they dropped down to Brian Anderson (-0.8 WAR), the only other pitcher who qualified under these criteria.
So, to ask the question again, how many rotations had this many good pitchers?
Not too many. Since 1901, 81 teams have had three pitchers with better than 4.0 WAR. Of those, only 5 had four pitchers who crossed that threshold. Of the 76 teams with three pitchers matching these criteria, the 1909 Chicago Cubs were the best, when Mordecai Brown (8.7), Orval Overall (7.1), and Ed Reulbach (5.5) combined for 21.3 WAR. Only four other rotations in the past 110 years have crossed the 20.0 WAR barrier:
1956 Cleveland Indians (21.2)
Early Wynn (8.2)
Herb Score (7.6)
Bob Lemon (5.4)
1969 Chicago Cubs (21.1)
Bill Hands (8.8)
Fergie Jenkins (7.6)
Ken Holtzman (4.7)
1904 New York Giants (20.8)
Joe Mcginnity (10.2)
Christy Mathewson (6.1)
Dummy Taylor (4.5)
1915 St. Louis Terriers (20.3)
Dave Davenport (9.0)
Eddie Plank (6.7)
Doc Crandall (4.6)
These are the five rotations that have featured four different starters with better than 4.0 WAR.
1912 Boston Red Sox (24.1)
Smoky Joe Wood (9.6)
Buck O’Brien (5.3)
Ray Collins (5.1)
Hugh Bedient (4.1)
1991 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Tom Glavine (7.4)
John Smoltz (4.7)
Steve Avery (4.5)
Charlie Liebrandt (4.3)
1997 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Greg Maddux (7.3)
Tom Glavine (5.0)
John Smoltz (4.5)
Denny Neagle (4.1)
1913 New York Giants (20.9)
Christy Mathewson (6.8)
Rube Marquard (5.1)
Jeff Tesreau (5.0)
Al Demaree (4.0)
1967 Cincinnati Reds (20.7)
Gary Nolan (6.8)
Mel Queen (4.9)
Jim Maloney (4.7)
Milt Pappas (4.3)
Clearly, if Oswalt were to increase his performance and everyone else were to maintain their current paces, this rotation can easily go down as one of the best in baseball history.
To go a little bit further, let’s raise the WAR threshold a bit. The cutoff that b-r.com uses between a starter and an All-Star is 5.0 WAR so let’s go ahead and throw that number in. How many rotations have had three starters who have all produced more than 5.0 WAR?
Only 11 but these must come with a caveat. 6 of these 11 occurred between 1907 and 1913. Since 1920 (the widely accepted beginning of the live ball era) only 5 rotations have had three All-Star caliber starting pitchers. The best of those five live ball rotations was the 1956 Cleveland Indians (see above). However, there is another metric that I have to bring in here. ERA+ takes into account many things, including the opponents and the ballpark and how easy or difficult it is to pitch in that particular park in that particular year. Again, taking these ERA+ values and simply averaging them is problematic but it gives a snapshot of how good these rotations were when their numbers are normalized for the era in which they played. Of these 11 rotations, the best in terms of average ERA+ was the 2005 Houston Astros, featuring Roy Oswalt (2.94 ERA, 5.3 WAR, and 144 ERA+), Andy Pettitte (2.39, 5.8, and 177), and best of all, Roger Clemens (1.87, 7.2, and 226). This again illustrates the point that while the raw pitching numbers looked better way back when, it’s sometimes more impressive what the best pitchers are able to go in an era that heavily favors the hitters.
To wrap this all up, does the Phillies rotation have a chance to join these groups? Frankly, yes they do. All of them have had seasons of better than 4.0 WAR (Halladay 7, Oswalt 5, Hamels 3, and Lee 2) and their career highs, respectively, are 7.5, 6.2, 4.8, and 7.3.
It will be interesting to see where they end up after another five months of pitching…
Perhaps more importantly than all of that, these four have combined for a record of 20-8 with a 2.98 ERA in the playoffs. They have pitched a total of 240.0 innings and have allowed just 196 hits with a K/BB ratio of 220:52.
In other words, these guys are good. Where will they rank among the all-time greatest pitching rotations? Obviously this is a question that cannot be answered until October or November but there’s no reason we can’t look ahead at the task that they have in front of them.
Currently, these four have combined for 5.0 WAR with Halladay leading the way with 2.1. Given the accuracy of the WAR values (only accurate to the tenth of a win) and the fact that these numbers don’t necessarily project to over a full season, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If they did project well, this is where they would end up.
Roy Halladay – 10.6
Cole Hamels – 7.1
Cliff Lee – 4.6
Roy Oswalt – 3.0
Roy Oswalt has only pitched 27.0 innings thus far, compared with at least 40.2 for any of the other three pitchers. Due to the tornados ravaging the area that he grew up in, he has been away from the team and hasn’t pitched as often as he would have. However, once he sets his affairs in order and rejoins the team, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for all four of these pitchers to end up with a WAR value greater than 4.0. As a rule of thumb, according to baseball-reference.com (where I get these WAR values) this is a good way to judge how good WAR values are.
0-2 – Bench Player
2-5 – Starter
5-8 – All-Star
8+ - MVP
According to that metric, their rotation is made up of an MVP caliber player (or a Cy Young caliber pitcher), an All-Star, a borderline All-Star, and a decent starting pitcher.
We’ve been hearing about this rotation ever since Cliff Lee shocked everyone and signed with them instead of the Rangers or Yankees but what does this mean historically? How many other teams have ever had a combination of starters this good? To answer this question, first I need to set a few criteria. First of all, I only looked at pitchers who started at least 60% of their games and qualified for the ERA title. Given that this means they would have pitched at least as many innings as team games played (162 for most years) and that at least 3/5 of their appearances would have had to be starts, this effectively eliminates relievers from this conversation. Secondly, I only looked at pitchers who put forth better than 4.0 WAR. When I got the results from this search for the all-time best rotations, I didn’t want (for instance) the 2001 Diamondbacks cluttering my data. They did have one of the best 1-2 punches ever in Randy Johnson (8.4 WAR) and Curt Schilling (7.3). However, after that, they dropped down to Brian Anderson (-0.8 WAR), the only other pitcher who qualified under these criteria.
So, to ask the question again, how many rotations had this many good pitchers?
Not too many. Since 1901, 81 teams have had three pitchers with better than 4.0 WAR. Of those, only 5 had four pitchers who crossed that threshold. Of the 76 teams with three pitchers matching these criteria, the 1909 Chicago Cubs were the best, when Mordecai Brown (8.7), Orval Overall (7.1), and Ed Reulbach (5.5) combined for 21.3 WAR. Only four other rotations in the past 110 years have crossed the 20.0 WAR barrier:
1956 Cleveland Indians (21.2)
Early Wynn (8.2)
Herb Score (7.6)
Bob Lemon (5.4)
1969 Chicago Cubs (21.1)
Bill Hands (8.8)
Fergie Jenkins (7.6)
Ken Holtzman (4.7)
1904 New York Giants (20.8)
Joe Mcginnity (10.2)
Christy Mathewson (6.1)
Dummy Taylor (4.5)
1915 St. Louis Terriers (20.3)
Dave Davenport (9.0)
Eddie Plank (6.7)
Doc Crandall (4.6)
These are the five rotations that have featured four different starters with better than 4.0 WAR.
1912 Boston Red Sox (24.1)
Smoky Joe Wood (9.6)
Buck O’Brien (5.3)
Ray Collins (5.1)
Hugh Bedient (4.1)
1991 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Tom Glavine (7.4)
John Smoltz (4.7)
Steve Avery (4.5)
Charlie Liebrandt (4.3)
1997 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Greg Maddux (7.3)
Tom Glavine (5.0)
John Smoltz (4.5)
Denny Neagle (4.1)
1913 New York Giants (20.9)
Christy Mathewson (6.8)
Rube Marquard (5.1)
Jeff Tesreau (5.0)
Al Demaree (4.0)
1967 Cincinnati Reds (20.7)
Gary Nolan (6.8)
Mel Queen (4.9)
Jim Maloney (4.7)
Milt Pappas (4.3)
Clearly, if Oswalt were to increase his performance and everyone else were to maintain their current paces, this rotation can easily go down as one of the best in baseball history.
To go a little bit further, let’s raise the WAR threshold a bit. The cutoff that b-r.com uses between a starter and an All-Star is 5.0 WAR so let’s go ahead and throw that number in. How many rotations have had three starters who have all produced more than 5.0 WAR?
Only 11 but these must come with a caveat. 6 of these 11 occurred between 1907 and 1913. Since 1920 (the widely accepted beginning of the live ball era) only 5 rotations have had three All-Star caliber starting pitchers. The best of those five live ball rotations was the 1956 Cleveland Indians (see above). However, there is another metric that I have to bring in here. ERA+ takes into account many things, including the opponents and the ballpark and how easy or difficult it is to pitch in that particular park in that particular year. Again, taking these ERA+ values and simply averaging them is problematic but it gives a snapshot of how good these rotations were when their numbers are normalized for the era in which they played. Of these 11 rotations, the best in terms of average ERA+ was the 2005 Houston Astros, featuring Roy Oswalt (2.94 ERA, 5.3 WAR, and 144 ERA+), Andy Pettitte (2.39, 5.8, and 177), and best of all, Roger Clemens (1.87, 7.2, and 226). This again illustrates the point that while the raw pitching numbers looked better way back when, it’s sometimes more impressive what the best pitchers are able to go in an era that heavily favors the hitters.
To wrap this all up, does the Phillies rotation have a chance to join these groups? Frankly, yes they do. All of them have had seasons of better than 4.0 WAR (Halladay 7, Oswalt 5, Hamels 3, and Lee 2) and their career highs, respectively, are 7.5, 6.2, 4.8, and 7.3.
It will be interesting to see where they end up after another five months of pitching…
MLB Pre/ReView 2011
Good day, loyal readers. As I’m sure you’ve noticed (or you could easily see by looking at the archive to the right) I haven’t written in quite a while. I wanted to write a preview for the 2011 Major League Baseball season but was unable to do it before the first pitch of the season was thrown out. With my deadline removed, this undertaking was put off time and time again until I finally had the inspiration, the time, and the motivation to write it.
Without further adieu or excuse-making…
SO FAR
(Note: all standing are entering the Sunday Night game between Atlanta and Philadelphia)
After the first month (and a little bit) of the season, there are a few surprises and a few things that everyone saw coming. What I’m going to do is go division by division, saying where the teams are right now and where I predict they’ll end up at season’s end. On top of that, I’ll try to throw in a few tidbits about what’s going on and who you should watch over the next few months.
AL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
New York (19-13, -)
Tampa Bay (20-14, -)
Boston (16-18, 4)
Toronto (15-19, 5)
Baltimore (14-19, 5.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
New York
Boston
Tampa Bay
Toronto
Baltimore
New York just has too much talent and they are getting solid contributions from people that they really didn’t expect to. Russell Martin’s batting average has swooned lately but if he can maintain a slash line of .264/.368/.516, they will be in excellent shape. On top of that, it will make the transition away from Jorge Posada being an everyday player (.146/.248/.354) that much easier. Plus, they’ve gotten solid additions from Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon from the rotation and Curtis Granderson is leading the team in home runs. In short, the sky is the limit for this team.
You just knew that sooner or later, Boston would rebound from their horrific 0-6 start and thus far they have, going 16-12 since. Adrian Gonzalez is doing what he normally does and when he starts hitting a few more home runs, his numbers will be right at (or better) where they were last year. Carl Crawford is hitting better but is still well away from where he wants to be. Their pitching has been decent, definitely good enough with the above average offense that everyone was expecting. When they start hitting this team will start stringing wins together and I think they’ll finish with 90-95 wins, right where everyone expected them to be.
As for the rest of the division, Tampa Bay has played very well since a terrible start and the Orioles have done just the opposite. I don’t see any of those teams having any staying power in this division with the Yankees and Red Sox so I look for them to try to play the role of spoiler in the wildcard chase. Oh, and also to see how many home runs Jose Bautista will hit…
AL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Cleveland (22-11, -)
Kansas City (18-16, 4.5)
Detroit (17-18, 6)
Minnesota (12-20, 9.5)
Chicago (13-22, 10)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Cleveland/Detroit
?
?
?
?
Before the season, I would have predicted that the Twins would win it in a tight three way race with Detroit and Chicago. A quick glance at the standings will show that they are a combined 18 games under .500 (42-60). So what has happened? As far as the Twins are concerned, Joe Mauer has not been hitting and Justin Morneau hasn’t looked the same since coming back from the concussion he sustained last July. Chicago is just in complete disarray and Detroit is just one game under .500 and 6 games behind a team off to a torrent start so they aren’t in that bad of a spot.
The real question is; are the Indians for real? It’s easy to forget that in 2007, they had the best record in baseball (96-66) and were one out from a trip to the World Series. That team featured Cy Young winner CC Sabathia but more importantly that team featured a healthy Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore. The last three years those two guys have been bouncing between the field and the DL. This year, they have both played significant time and Hafner is putting up the kind of line (.347/.406/.526) that reminds people of just how good he once was.
Cleveland will go as far as their pitching can take them. Right now they have a 3.24 team ERA and if that continues, they will win the division. If not, look for Detroit to wait out the other teams and steal the division with a less than stellar win total.
AL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Los Angeles (20-15, -)
Oakland (18-17, 2)
Texas (18-17, 2)
Seattle (16-19, 4)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Texas
Oakland
Los Angeles
Seattle
This is one of the few divisions where they aren’t really any surprises. The Angels have been a good team under Mike Scioscia for years and seeing them in first place isn’t surprising. Texas has cooled off after a very hot start but they have players to win this division if they can stay healthy. Also look for Oakland’s young quartet of starters to lead this team to a strong second place finish.
The Mariners… well, they’re playing better than last year… that’s all I can really say right now. They are several years from contending again (and some of us just can’t wait for that).
NL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Philadelphia (22-10, -)
Florida (20-13, 2.5)
Atlanta (19-16, 4.5)
Washington (16-18, 7)
New York (15-19, 8)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Florida
Washington
New York
For the Phillies, the quartet of aces (and let’s be honest, really good former aces) has been just about as good as advertised. They have combined to go 14-6 with a 2.90 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. Most importantly, they have managed to start the season 22-10 without Chase Utley. If he comes back close to 100%, this team becomes scary good.
Atlanta also has started off very well, specifically with their pitching rotation (which sports the best rotation ERA in the NL). If they can find the offense, they will easily win the wildcard in the National League. As far as the other three teams go, it looks like the Nationals will be a showcase for really good players until they can get enough role players to make a serious run at the division. Once Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg get to the majors, this team will be fun to watch, even if they don’t win a ton of games just yet. Frankly, it’s a miracle that the Nats are even 16-18 given that as a team, their slash line is .227/.298/.348 and their leading qualifying hitter is hitting .227.
As far as the Mets go, they aren’t going to contend for the division title or the wildcard. The most interesting thing to watch with New York’s other team is if and when they start slashing payroll and dumping veterans who haven’t earned their contract in years and are making a ton of money.
NL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
St. Louis (20-15, -)
Cincinnati (18-16, 1.5)
Pittsburgh (17-17, 2.5)
Chicago (15-18, 4)
Milwaukee (14-20, 5.5)
Houston (13-21, 6.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
St. Louis/Cincinnati
St. Louis/Cincinnati
?
?
?
?
I firmly believe that this race will come down to the Reds and Cardinals yet again and this while I never would have imagined saying this a month ago, I think the Cardinals have the inside track. This is simply because even though Albert Pujols is nowhere near on track (.248/.322/.421), Matt Holiday (.398/.484/.611) and Lance Berkman (.374/.452/.738) are hitting like they want to rearrange the record books. Even though they will inevitably cool off, Pujols will inevitably heat up.
The most unfortunate story out of this division has to be the Milwaukee Brewers. They put pretty much everything into winning this year and so far it that plan has been completely derailed. There is still plenty of time to rebound but they are chasing two solid teams and they only have so much time for Zach Greinke to prove that trading for him wasn’t a monumental mistake. When you add this to the fact that with their long term commitment to Ryan Braun and the accompanying signals that they don’t believe they can resign Prince Fielder, it looks like this might be the beginning of a rebuilding phase.
NL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Colorado (18-14, -)
San Francisco (18-16, 1)
Los Angeles (16-19, 3.5)
Arizona (15-18, 3.5)
San Diego (14-20, 5)
Projected Order of Finish:
Colorado
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Arizona
San Diego
This is the only division that I see the current standings holding up throughout the season. This is due to the fact that the standings in other divisions are influenced by teams getting off to hot or cold starts that nobody foresaw.
With regards to the defending World Series Champions, I question their ability to avoid a letdown. They have many great players and if Pablo Sandoval keeps his weight down, they will be a very good team. Will they be good enough to get to the low-mid 90’s in wins? I’m not sure if they are and I think that might be what they need to do to win either the division or the wildcard.
Colorado has played well and their bullpen has bitten them a bit recently but keep in mind that they got off to a great start and are now still over .500 and in first place despite:
- Carlos Gonzalez off to a bad start with the bat (.241/.305/.336 compared with .336/.376/.598 from a year ago)
- A team batting line that is nothing short of atrocious (.237/.322/.379)
- Ubaldo Jimenez is 0-2 with a 5.88 ERA and a WHIP of 1.46 (compared with 19-8, 2.88, and 1.15 from a year ago)
The Dodger have a good team and several quality players but the ownership situation they are in is awful and unlike the Rangers last year, their situation is being played out in a huge media market and they play in a much tougher division than the Rangers had to contend with a year ago.
PLAYOFFS
The National League will be represented by Philadelphia, St. Louis, Colorado, and Atlanta while the American League will be represented by New York, Detroit, Texas, and Boston.
NLDS
Philadelphia over St. Louis
Atlanta over Colorado
ALDS
Detroit over New York
Boston over Texas
LCS
Philadelphia over Atlanta
Boston over Detroit
World Series
Philadelphia over Boston
Cy Young
Roy Halladay, PHI
Jered Weaver, LAA
MVP
Matt Holiday, STL
Curtis Granderson, NYY
Without further adieu or excuse-making…
SO FAR
(Note: all standing are entering the Sunday Night game between Atlanta and Philadelphia)
After the first month (and a little bit) of the season, there are a few surprises and a few things that everyone saw coming. What I’m going to do is go division by division, saying where the teams are right now and where I predict they’ll end up at season’s end. On top of that, I’ll try to throw in a few tidbits about what’s going on and who you should watch over the next few months.
AL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
New York (19-13, -)
Tampa Bay (20-14, -)
Boston (16-18, 4)
Toronto (15-19, 5)
Baltimore (14-19, 5.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
New York
Boston
Tampa Bay
Toronto
Baltimore
New York just has too much talent and they are getting solid contributions from people that they really didn’t expect to. Russell Martin’s batting average has swooned lately but if he can maintain a slash line of .264/.368/.516, they will be in excellent shape. On top of that, it will make the transition away from Jorge Posada being an everyday player (.146/.248/.354) that much easier. Plus, they’ve gotten solid additions from Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon from the rotation and Curtis Granderson is leading the team in home runs. In short, the sky is the limit for this team.
You just knew that sooner or later, Boston would rebound from their horrific 0-6 start and thus far they have, going 16-12 since. Adrian Gonzalez is doing what he normally does and when he starts hitting a few more home runs, his numbers will be right at (or better) where they were last year. Carl Crawford is hitting better but is still well away from where he wants to be. Their pitching has been decent, definitely good enough with the above average offense that everyone was expecting. When they start hitting this team will start stringing wins together and I think they’ll finish with 90-95 wins, right where everyone expected them to be.
As for the rest of the division, Tampa Bay has played very well since a terrible start and the Orioles have done just the opposite. I don’t see any of those teams having any staying power in this division with the Yankees and Red Sox so I look for them to try to play the role of spoiler in the wildcard chase. Oh, and also to see how many home runs Jose Bautista will hit…
AL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Cleveland (22-11, -)
Kansas City (18-16, 4.5)
Detroit (17-18, 6)
Minnesota (12-20, 9.5)
Chicago (13-22, 10)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Cleveland/Detroit
?
?
?
?
Before the season, I would have predicted that the Twins would win it in a tight three way race with Detroit and Chicago. A quick glance at the standings will show that they are a combined 18 games under .500 (42-60). So what has happened? As far as the Twins are concerned, Joe Mauer has not been hitting and Justin Morneau hasn’t looked the same since coming back from the concussion he sustained last July. Chicago is just in complete disarray and Detroit is just one game under .500 and 6 games behind a team off to a torrent start so they aren’t in that bad of a spot.
The real question is; are the Indians for real? It’s easy to forget that in 2007, they had the best record in baseball (96-66) and were one out from a trip to the World Series. That team featured Cy Young winner CC Sabathia but more importantly that team featured a healthy Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore. The last three years those two guys have been bouncing between the field and the DL. This year, they have both played significant time and Hafner is putting up the kind of line (.347/.406/.526) that reminds people of just how good he once was.
Cleveland will go as far as their pitching can take them. Right now they have a 3.24 team ERA and if that continues, they will win the division. If not, look for Detroit to wait out the other teams and steal the division with a less than stellar win total.
AL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Los Angeles (20-15, -)
Oakland (18-17, 2)
Texas (18-17, 2)
Seattle (16-19, 4)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Texas
Oakland
Los Angeles
Seattle
This is one of the few divisions where they aren’t really any surprises. The Angels have been a good team under Mike Scioscia for years and seeing them in first place isn’t surprising. Texas has cooled off after a very hot start but they have players to win this division if they can stay healthy. Also look for Oakland’s young quartet of starters to lead this team to a strong second place finish.
The Mariners… well, they’re playing better than last year… that’s all I can really say right now. They are several years from contending again (and some of us just can’t wait for that).
NL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Philadelphia (22-10, -)
Florida (20-13, 2.5)
Atlanta (19-16, 4.5)
Washington (16-18, 7)
New York (15-19, 8)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Florida
Washington
New York
For the Phillies, the quartet of aces (and let’s be honest, really good former aces) has been just about as good as advertised. They have combined to go 14-6 with a 2.90 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. Most importantly, they have managed to start the season 22-10 without Chase Utley. If he comes back close to 100%, this team becomes scary good.
Atlanta also has started off very well, specifically with their pitching rotation (which sports the best rotation ERA in the NL). If they can find the offense, they will easily win the wildcard in the National League. As far as the other three teams go, it looks like the Nationals will be a showcase for really good players until they can get enough role players to make a serious run at the division. Once Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg get to the majors, this team will be fun to watch, even if they don’t win a ton of games just yet. Frankly, it’s a miracle that the Nats are even 16-18 given that as a team, their slash line is .227/.298/.348 and their leading qualifying hitter is hitting .227.
As far as the Mets go, they aren’t going to contend for the division title or the wildcard. The most interesting thing to watch with New York’s other team is if and when they start slashing payroll and dumping veterans who haven’t earned their contract in years and are making a ton of money.
NL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
St. Louis (20-15, -)
Cincinnati (18-16, 1.5)
Pittsburgh (17-17, 2.5)
Chicago (15-18, 4)
Milwaukee (14-20, 5.5)
Houston (13-21, 6.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
St. Louis/Cincinnati
St. Louis/Cincinnati
?
?
?
?
I firmly believe that this race will come down to the Reds and Cardinals yet again and this while I never would have imagined saying this a month ago, I think the Cardinals have the inside track. This is simply because even though Albert Pujols is nowhere near on track (.248/.322/.421), Matt Holiday (.398/.484/.611) and Lance Berkman (.374/.452/.738) are hitting like they want to rearrange the record books. Even though they will inevitably cool off, Pujols will inevitably heat up.
The most unfortunate story out of this division has to be the Milwaukee Brewers. They put pretty much everything into winning this year and so far it that plan has been completely derailed. There is still plenty of time to rebound but they are chasing two solid teams and they only have so much time for Zach Greinke to prove that trading for him wasn’t a monumental mistake. When you add this to the fact that with their long term commitment to Ryan Braun and the accompanying signals that they don’t believe they can resign Prince Fielder, it looks like this might be the beginning of a rebuilding phase.
NL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Colorado (18-14, -)
San Francisco (18-16, 1)
Los Angeles (16-19, 3.5)
Arizona (15-18, 3.5)
San Diego (14-20, 5)
Projected Order of Finish:
Colorado
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Arizona
San Diego
This is the only division that I see the current standings holding up throughout the season. This is due to the fact that the standings in other divisions are influenced by teams getting off to hot or cold starts that nobody foresaw.
With regards to the defending World Series Champions, I question their ability to avoid a letdown. They have many great players and if Pablo Sandoval keeps his weight down, they will be a very good team. Will they be good enough to get to the low-mid 90’s in wins? I’m not sure if they are and I think that might be what they need to do to win either the division or the wildcard.
Colorado has played well and their bullpen has bitten them a bit recently but keep in mind that they got off to a great start and are now still over .500 and in first place despite:
- Carlos Gonzalez off to a bad start with the bat (.241/.305/.336 compared with .336/.376/.598 from a year ago)
- A team batting line that is nothing short of atrocious (.237/.322/.379)
- Ubaldo Jimenez is 0-2 with a 5.88 ERA and a WHIP of 1.46 (compared with 19-8, 2.88, and 1.15 from a year ago)
The Dodger have a good team and several quality players but the ownership situation they are in is awful and unlike the Rangers last year, their situation is being played out in a huge media market and they play in a much tougher division than the Rangers had to contend with a year ago.
PLAYOFFS
The National League will be represented by Philadelphia, St. Louis, Colorado, and Atlanta while the American League will be represented by New York, Detroit, Texas, and Boston.
NLDS
Philadelphia over St. Louis
Atlanta over Colorado
ALDS
Detroit over New York
Boston over Texas
LCS
Philadelphia over Atlanta
Boston over Detroit
World Series
Philadelphia over Boston
Cy Young
Roy Halladay, PHI
Jered Weaver, LAA
MVP
Matt Holiday, STL
Curtis Granderson, NYY
Friday, April 1, 2011
IF SOME IS GOOD, MORE IS BETTER... RIGHT?
Clearly, VCU belonged in the 2011 edition of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Selection Committee did the right thing by choosing VCU over the likes of Colorado, Virginia Tech, and Harvard. However, the Committee doubly disrespected VCU by giving them an 11 seed and then making them play an additional game just to get into the field of 64 teams.
Right?
Nope.
Based on their resume, they were a shaky 11 seed at best and they were a hair’s breadth from not even being in the tournament, First Four or not. But then how else can you explain the meteoric rise from a 23-11 regular season record to steamrolling a team from every major conference except the SEC and with the exception of their Florida State game, doing so by at least 10 points? Clearly they were underrated coming into the NCAA tournament.
Right?
Again, nope.
Every year, the NCAA tournament, accurately nicknamed “March Madness”, claims to crown the best team in all of college basketball. However, if you look at the winners closely and then look at the performance of teams during the regular season, that statement isn’t always true. In the past 29 NCAA tournaments, only 4 times has a team entered the tournament ranked #1 in the country and then gone on to win the national title. Let’s compare that, for just a moment, to everyone’s favorite punching bag; the BCS.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, how many times has the 10th best team in the country won the national title? That’s right, never. How many times has a team ranked as low at 40th had a shot at a national title this late in a season? Same as before, never. If you look strictly at seeds (and assume that each of these four teams was the best on their seed line), this Final Four is matching up the 9th, 13th, 29th, and 41st best teams in the country.
In this day and age of rampant parity, the NCAA Tournament does not necessarily crown the best team; it crowns the hottest team. The story has become downright famous by now but 24 days ago, Connecticut was 21-9 and facing a tremendous challenge. At some point in their preparation for the Big East tournament they caught fire and haven’t lost since and currently they are the highest seed left in the Big Dance.
No matter what format you choose to determine a national champion, as long as the results are determined on the field of play, there is always a chance that a lesser team will win and the true best team will be left behind. However, there is a way to minimize the chances of this happening but they are thoroughly impractical at the college level; playoff series.
Can a lesser team beat a better team in one game with everything on the line? Of course they can. VCU proved that last weekend by outplaying a better Kansas team. Could VCU beat Kansas 4 times in a 7 game series? Yes, they can, but if you want to put money on VCU, I’ll take that bet every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Playoff series expose lesser teams for all the faults that make them lesser teams; not as much depth, inferior coaching, and inferior talent among them. Therefore, the better team is far more likely to win a playoff series than a one game, winner-take-all slugfest.
As I said, series are impractical at the college level and they are also impractical for the sport of football. So we circle back to the original point which was the best team does not necessarily win the NCAA Tournament. Usually it is the hottest team and when the better team is not the hotter team, a significant gap in talent can make up for that difference. With star college players staying in college for less and less time at the NBA stepping stone schools, the overall talent level at those schools has decreased while the talent level at smaller schools has increased.
What all of this boils down to is smaller schools are led by talented veteran players while many big-time programs are led by veteran role players and green stars. Because of the shrinking talent disparity between the big and small programs, Kansas can’t afford to shoot 35% against VCU and win. Louisville can’t go scoreless for their first 7 minutes against Morehead State and win. Is all of this a bad thing? Not at all. In my personal pantheon of sporting events, the World Series ranks first and just behind it is the NCAA Tournament. I don’t care that I do poorly in my family pool and I don’t care if the best teams are left on the sidelines, watching the Final Four on CBS (if they wanted to be on the court and not on the couch, they should have played better). It is a wonderful event and this year should prove once again that by getting in with a seed other than 16, anything can happen.
MOTIVATION
Another reason for so many of these upsets is the end goal that the teams have in mind. The NCAA Tournament is set-up with several stepping stones before you even reach the national title game. For instance, let’s look at a 2 seed is playing a 7 seed in the second round. The 2 seed is seen by many as a national title contender and they are expected to give the 1 seed in their region all they can handle in the Elite 8. The 7 seed, on the other hand, had a breakthrough year and made the tournament for the first time in the program’s history. The 2 seed has dreams of winning a national title while the 7 seed has dreams of making the Sweet 16.
So what happens? The 2 seed falls flat because they were looking at their potential match-ups in the next two or three rounds while the 7 seed played like their entire season was on the line. Invariably, the 7 seed will fall flat in the next round because they already achieved their goal of playing in the Sweet 16.
To cross to a different sport for a moment, in 2007, the Colorado Rockies had a truly unimaginable run to make it to the World Series, winning 21 of 22 games down the stretch and through the NLDS and NLCS. They achieved something beyond their wildest dreams and they won the National League. When the World Series started, they were happy to be there while their opponents, the Red Sox, were not happy to just be there. Predictably, the Rockies never really got into the series and lost 4-0.
Was Kansas looking ahead to the Final Four when VCU blitzed them? Possibly. Will VCU maintain their focus and not settle for just making it to the Final Four? History would suggest no but anything can happen.
EXPANSION
So if VCU was the last team into this tournament and they made this unbelievable run to the Final Four, then clearly the tournament would be better served by having more teams… right? Yes and no. Financially speaking, they would be better served. There would be more games (for instance, depending on format a 96 team field would yield 79 games versus 65 this year) which would mean that there are more opportunities for advertising revenue and ticket revenue and so on and so forth. For all the hot air spewing forth about how people will stop watching when the NCAA’s greed becomes so obvious that everyone can see it, people will still watch the NCAA tournament and companies will still pay big money for advertising. At this point in time, there is little to no incentive for the NCAA to NOT expand the tournament.
At what point would expansion harm the integrity of the tournament though? At what point would first round games be so pointless that the tournament has become more about the advertisers and less about the players? I felt very conflicted about having play-in games at the 11 and 12 seed level this year but in retrospect, having play-in games at those levels matters. Everyone knew that no matter who won between the University of North Carolina-Asheville and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, they were going to get blown out by Pittsburgh (which UNCA did, 74-51). So I’ll admit that this little quirk in the selection process worked this year. However, that is no guarantee that it will work next year or any other year in the future.
In short, expanding the tournament any further is not a good idea. There is a beauty and a symmetry of having 16 teams in 4 different regions and have one representative from each play-off for the national title and I think if you do a little searching around the internet, you’ll find a ton of people who agree with me. The problem is that those same people (myself included) won’t stop watching if the powers that be keep expanding it… which means there’s no reason not to.
Right?
Nope.
Based on their resume, they were a shaky 11 seed at best and they were a hair’s breadth from not even being in the tournament, First Four or not. But then how else can you explain the meteoric rise from a 23-11 regular season record to steamrolling a team from every major conference except the SEC and with the exception of their Florida State game, doing so by at least 10 points? Clearly they were underrated coming into the NCAA tournament.
Right?
Again, nope.
Every year, the NCAA tournament, accurately nicknamed “March Madness”, claims to crown the best team in all of college basketball. However, if you look at the winners closely and then look at the performance of teams during the regular season, that statement isn’t always true. In the past 29 NCAA tournaments, only 4 times has a team entered the tournament ranked #1 in the country and then gone on to win the national title. Let’s compare that, for just a moment, to everyone’s favorite punching bag; the BCS.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, how many times has the 10th best team in the country won the national title? That’s right, never. How many times has a team ranked as low at 40th had a shot at a national title this late in a season? Same as before, never. If you look strictly at seeds (and assume that each of these four teams was the best on their seed line), this Final Four is matching up the 9th, 13th, 29th, and 41st best teams in the country.
In this day and age of rampant parity, the NCAA Tournament does not necessarily crown the best team; it crowns the hottest team. The story has become downright famous by now but 24 days ago, Connecticut was 21-9 and facing a tremendous challenge. At some point in their preparation for the Big East tournament they caught fire and haven’t lost since and currently they are the highest seed left in the Big Dance.
No matter what format you choose to determine a national champion, as long as the results are determined on the field of play, there is always a chance that a lesser team will win and the true best team will be left behind. However, there is a way to minimize the chances of this happening but they are thoroughly impractical at the college level; playoff series.
Can a lesser team beat a better team in one game with everything on the line? Of course they can. VCU proved that last weekend by outplaying a better Kansas team. Could VCU beat Kansas 4 times in a 7 game series? Yes, they can, but if you want to put money on VCU, I’ll take that bet every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Playoff series expose lesser teams for all the faults that make them lesser teams; not as much depth, inferior coaching, and inferior talent among them. Therefore, the better team is far more likely to win a playoff series than a one game, winner-take-all slugfest.
As I said, series are impractical at the college level and they are also impractical for the sport of football. So we circle back to the original point which was the best team does not necessarily win the NCAA Tournament. Usually it is the hottest team and when the better team is not the hotter team, a significant gap in talent can make up for that difference. With star college players staying in college for less and less time at the NBA stepping stone schools, the overall talent level at those schools has decreased while the talent level at smaller schools has increased.
What all of this boils down to is smaller schools are led by talented veteran players while many big-time programs are led by veteran role players and green stars. Because of the shrinking talent disparity between the big and small programs, Kansas can’t afford to shoot 35% against VCU and win. Louisville can’t go scoreless for their first 7 minutes against Morehead State and win. Is all of this a bad thing? Not at all. In my personal pantheon of sporting events, the World Series ranks first and just behind it is the NCAA Tournament. I don’t care that I do poorly in my family pool and I don’t care if the best teams are left on the sidelines, watching the Final Four on CBS (if they wanted to be on the court and not on the couch, they should have played better). It is a wonderful event and this year should prove once again that by getting in with a seed other than 16, anything can happen.
MOTIVATION
Another reason for so many of these upsets is the end goal that the teams have in mind. The NCAA Tournament is set-up with several stepping stones before you even reach the national title game. For instance, let’s look at a 2 seed is playing a 7 seed in the second round. The 2 seed is seen by many as a national title contender and they are expected to give the 1 seed in their region all they can handle in the Elite 8. The 7 seed, on the other hand, had a breakthrough year and made the tournament for the first time in the program’s history. The 2 seed has dreams of winning a national title while the 7 seed has dreams of making the Sweet 16.
So what happens? The 2 seed falls flat because they were looking at their potential match-ups in the next two or three rounds while the 7 seed played like their entire season was on the line. Invariably, the 7 seed will fall flat in the next round because they already achieved their goal of playing in the Sweet 16.
To cross to a different sport for a moment, in 2007, the Colorado Rockies had a truly unimaginable run to make it to the World Series, winning 21 of 22 games down the stretch and through the NLDS and NLCS. They achieved something beyond their wildest dreams and they won the National League. When the World Series started, they were happy to be there while their opponents, the Red Sox, were not happy to just be there. Predictably, the Rockies never really got into the series and lost 4-0.
Was Kansas looking ahead to the Final Four when VCU blitzed them? Possibly. Will VCU maintain their focus and not settle for just making it to the Final Four? History would suggest no but anything can happen.
EXPANSION
So if VCU was the last team into this tournament and they made this unbelievable run to the Final Four, then clearly the tournament would be better served by having more teams… right? Yes and no. Financially speaking, they would be better served. There would be more games (for instance, depending on format a 96 team field would yield 79 games versus 65 this year) which would mean that there are more opportunities for advertising revenue and ticket revenue and so on and so forth. For all the hot air spewing forth about how people will stop watching when the NCAA’s greed becomes so obvious that everyone can see it, people will still watch the NCAA tournament and companies will still pay big money for advertising. At this point in time, there is little to no incentive for the NCAA to NOT expand the tournament.
At what point would expansion harm the integrity of the tournament though? At what point would first round games be so pointless that the tournament has become more about the advertisers and less about the players? I felt very conflicted about having play-in games at the 11 and 12 seed level this year but in retrospect, having play-in games at those levels matters. Everyone knew that no matter who won between the University of North Carolina-Asheville and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, they were going to get blown out by Pittsburgh (which UNCA did, 74-51). So I’ll admit that this little quirk in the selection process worked this year. However, that is no guarantee that it will work next year or any other year in the future.
In short, expanding the tournament any further is not a good idea. There is a beauty and a symmetry of having 16 teams in 4 different regions and have one representative from each play-off for the national title and I think if you do a little searching around the internet, you’ll find a ton of people who agree with me. The problem is that those same people (myself included) won’t stop watching if the powers that be keep expanding it… which means there’s no reason not to.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
MARCH MADNESS IN FULL SWING
First of all, I have to ask… how is your bracket looking? That bad, huh? Well don’t feel too bad about it because the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is turning into an exercise in roulette. On paper, I can tell you what should have happened in each of the four play-in games, each of the 32 second round games, and each of the 16 third round games but as they say so many times that I’m sick of hearing it, games are not played on paper.
Similarly to last year, I attempted to look at the field of 68 from a statistical perspective and determine who should be the best team in the country and just like last year, I was able to predict some very interesting upsets and I also fell drastically short on others.
Before I go any further, for the sake of this post, the word “upset” will be used to describe a game in which a lower seed beats a higher seed… that’s all. Secondly, even though I referred to them correctly in the first paragraph, I will break with the new convention set this year. There were four play-in games, 32 games in the first round, and 16 games in the second round. I do not consider it a round when 8 teams are playing and 60 teams are sitting at home. I will arbitrarily say that half the teams in the field should be playing to qualify as the first round. Maybe if the number increases to 16 or 32 teams then I can call it the preliminary round or maybe the wildcard round but the first round is still when the majority of teams are playing for the first time.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, why do I call this tournament a complete gamble? Entirely due to one thing that professional leagues strive for and college leagues have – parity. The interesting part is that with regards to the NCAA tournament, parity does not mean that any team can break through and win a national championship. It simply means that any team can play for forty solid minutes with any other team in the field. When I looked at this field, I see 6-8 legitimate title contenders (Kansas, Ohio State, Duke, Pittsburgh, Florida, North Carolina, and Connecticut). I also see 6-8 teams that have little to no business being in this tournament but they won their conference tournaments so they get in automatically as a 15 or 16 seed and I’m fine with that. What we’re left with is anywhere from 52 to 56 teams that are on relatively similar ground and this theory is proven out by the fact that there are relatively few blowouts (outside of the group of title contenders I mentioned earlier) and there are 3 teams with seeds higher than 10 in the sweet 16.
There are such things as flukes but was Butler a fluke? Several of the analysts said that Richmond was a very tough draw as a number 12 seed and while they did not play Louisville, they were easily the best team on the floor against Morehead State (#13) and Vanderbilt (#5). Washington was a #7 seed and yet gave #2 North Carolina every bit that they could handle and nearly came away with a victory despite doing their best to lose the game.
My point in all of this is the seeds are blurring together. The difference between a #3 and a #12 might be nothing more than who they played during the season, the luck they had with injuries, the conference they played in, and individual match-ups they have. What makes this tournament so wonderful and so terribly difficult to predict is the fact that if Jimmer Fredette shoots the ball well and his teammates also shoot the ball well, BYU looks like a national title contender. Against Gonzaga, they were 14-28 from 3-point range and shot 52.5% overall en route to scoring 89 points and routing the Bulldogs. In their last game before the NCAA tourney on March 12, they were 19-59 from the floor (32.2%) and 6-24 from 3 point range (25%) and they were destroyed by San Diego State.
Much was made during the selection show and the three days leading up to the start of the first round about how many losses there were for these teams and many people took that to be an indictment of the overall quality of the field, saying that it was very low. However, I take a differing view. Simply put, parity rules. On March 15th, the final AP poll was released and in the top 25, five teams had 10 or more losses and another two had 9 losses. Four of those seven teams were from one conference that is widely considered the deepest and best basketball conference in the country, the Big East.
Is #9 Connecticut (26-9) a better team than #10 BYU (30-4)? According to record, no they aren’t. However, when you take into account that of Connecticut’s 9 losses, six came to teams ranked at the time, two came to teams ranked in the final AP poll, and the last (Marquette) received votes in the final AP Poll, it sounds like they were all quality losses. Would a stronger team have won some of those games? Of course, but when one team plays just three games against ranked opponents and the other plays 15 game against ranked opponents, 26-9 starts to look a lot better than 30-4.
On top of all of this, when filling out a bracket you have no idea who is going to show up. Louisville was 7 minutes into their game against Morehead State when they scored their first point. I was sure that the dry spell would end after three or so minutes when Louisville was fouled while shooting and had two free throws (which were both missed). On the flipside of the Louisville/Pittsburgh coin, Ohio State came in as a bit of a wildcard for me considering they have had some underachieving tournament teams in the past. Right now, they are playing like the number one overall seed and after spotting George Mason an 11-2 lead, they ran them out of the state of Ohio, cruising to a final score of 98-66.
SWEET 16 PREDICTIONS
Out of the final 16 teams, I correctly predicted 7 of them (Kansas from the Southwest, Ohio State and Kentucky from the East, Duke and San Diego State from the West, and BYU and Florida from the Southeast). Given that wonderful record and that I’ve correctly predicted just 31 of 48 games correctly, take this all with a grain of salt (or a salt mine worth of salt).
EAST
North Carolina likes to give up points (170 in two tournament games thus far) but they are good enough offensively. They will get past Marquette.
Kentucky is good. Ohio State could be the only great team in this field and they are clicking on all 10 (12, I don’t know, 16?) cylinders.
Regional Final – Ohio State over North Carolina
WEST
Duke struggled mightily against Michigan and Arizona has played well enough to put together last minute victories against Memphis and Texas.
Connecticut is somehow continuing their streak from the Big East tournament but they face a very solid San Diego State squad.
Regional Final – sticking to my guns, San Diego State will advance to Houston by beating Duke.
SOUTHWEST
Kansas isn’t playing like the Buckeyes but they are playing well and winning solidly.
The other three teams in the region are seeded 10th, 11th, and 12th.
Regional Final – Kansas over the three dwarves, becoming just the second team ever to advance to the Final Four by never having to play a team seeded higher than 9.
SOUTHEAST
Butler is scrapping by and they are an exceedingly dangerous team due to their veteran presence. Despite Wisconsin’s success thus far this is a team that scored 33 points in losing to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. That performance would fly in 1950 but not 2011.
Is Florida going to be able to stop the Jimmer Show? The answer is it doesn’t matter. They have to stop the other eleven guys on the roster. Against Gonzaga, BYU players not named Fredette were 20-36 from the floor and 7-16 from 3 point range for 55 points. Against San Diego State, those numbers were 9-34, 4-17, and 24 points.
Regional Final – Butler makes a return trip to the Final Four by beating whoever survives the seven overtime slugfest between Florida and BYU.
FINAL FOUR
Butler continues their magic by beating Kansas (and thus ruining any chance my bracket had at respectability) and Ohio State steamrolls San Diego State who is just overjoyed to be in the Final Four.
On Monday, Ohio State takes a 20 point lead into halftime. Once everyone changes the channel to see how well Rob Lowe will do as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on “Two and a Half Men”, Butler starts chipping away, tying the game with ten seconds left. True to this tournament’s form, Butler is called for a reach-in foul 60 feet from the hoop and the fouled Buckeye steps to the line and calmly sinks two free throws with four seconds remaining.
Then Matt Howard does what Gordon Hayward couldn’t do last year; hit a halfcourt runner at the buzzer to win the game 73-72.
Wow, I got my heart pumping just thinking about that. Enjoy the basketball people, this is the best ball that you’re likely to ever see.
(having said all that, it’d be nice but far more likely is Ohio State and Kansas playing a three overtime epic and the Buckeyes prevailing to take the trophy)
Similarly to last year, I attempted to look at the field of 68 from a statistical perspective and determine who should be the best team in the country and just like last year, I was able to predict some very interesting upsets and I also fell drastically short on others.
Before I go any further, for the sake of this post, the word “upset” will be used to describe a game in which a lower seed beats a higher seed… that’s all. Secondly, even though I referred to them correctly in the first paragraph, I will break with the new convention set this year. There were four play-in games, 32 games in the first round, and 16 games in the second round. I do not consider it a round when 8 teams are playing and 60 teams are sitting at home. I will arbitrarily say that half the teams in the field should be playing to qualify as the first round. Maybe if the number increases to 16 or 32 teams then I can call it the preliminary round or maybe the wildcard round but the first round is still when the majority of teams are playing for the first time.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, why do I call this tournament a complete gamble? Entirely due to one thing that professional leagues strive for and college leagues have – parity. The interesting part is that with regards to the NCAA tournament, parity does not mean that any team can break through and win a national championship. It simply means that any team can play for forty solid minutes with any other team in the field. When I looked at this field, I see 6-8 legitimate title contenders (Kansas, Ohio State, Duke, Pittsburgh, Florida, North Carolina, and Connecticut). I also see 6-8 teams that have little to no business being in this tournament but they won their conference tournaments so they get in automatically as a 15 or 16 seed and I’m fine with that. What we’re left with is anywhere from 52 to 56 teams that are on relatively similar ground and this theory is proven out by the fact that there are relatively few blowouts (outside of the group of title contenders I mentioned earlier) and there are 3 teams with seeds higher than 10 in the sweet 16.
There are such things as flukes but was Butler a fluke? Several of the analysts said that Richmond was a very tough draw as a number 12 seed and while they did not play Louisville, they were easily the best team on the floor against Morehead State (#13) and Vanderbilt (#5). Washington was a #7 seed and yet gave #2 North Carolina every bit that they could handle and nearly came away with a victory despite doing their best to lose the game.
My point in all of this is the seeds are blurring together. The difference between a #3 and a #12 might be nothing more than who they played during the season, the luck they had with injuries, the conference they played in, and individual match-ups they have. What makes this tournament so wonderful and so terribly difficult to predict is the fact that if Jimmer Fredette shoots the ball well and his teammates also shoot the ball well, BYU looks like a national title contender. Against Gonzaga, they were 14-28 from 3-point range and shot 52.5% overall en route to scoring 89 points and routing the Bulldogs. In their last game before the NCAA tourney on March 12, they were 19-59 from the floor (32.2%) and 6-24 from 3 point range (25%) and they were destroyed by San Diego State.
Much was made during the selection show and the three days leading up to the start of the first round about how many losses there were for these teams and many people took that to be an indictment of the overall quality of the field, saying that it was very low. However, I take a differing view. Simply put, parity rules. On March 15th, the final AP poll was released and in the top 25, five teams had 10 or more losses and another two had 9 losses. Four of those seven teams were from one conference that is widely considered the deepest and best basketball conference in the country, the Big East.
Is #9 Connecticut (26-9) a better team than #10 BYU (30-4)? According to record, no they aren’t. However, when you take into account that of Connecticut’s 9 losses, six came to teams ranked at the time, two came to teams ranked in the final AP poll, and the last (Marquette) received votes in the final AP Poll, it sounds like they were all quality losses. Would a stronger team have won some of those games? Of course, but when one team plays just three games against ranked opponents and the other plays 15 game against ranked opponents, 26-9 starts to look a lot better than 30-4.
On top of all of this, when filling out a bracket you have no idea who is going to show up. Louisville was 7 minutes into their game against Morehead State when they scored their first point. I was sure that the dry spell would end after three or so minutes when Louisville was fouled while shooting and had two free throws (which were both missed). On the flipside of the Louisville/Pittsburgh coin, Ohio State came in as a bit of a wildcard for me considering they have had some underachieving tournament teams in the past. Right now, they are playing like the number one overall seed and after spotting George Mason an 11-2 lead, they ran them out of the state of Ohio, cruising to a final score of 98-66.
SWEET 16 PREDICTIONS
Out of the final 16 teams, I correctly predicted 7 of them (Kansas from the Southwest, Ohio State and Kentucky from the East, Duke and San Diego State from the West, and BYU and Florida from the Southeast). Given that wonderful record and that I’ve correctly predicted just 31 of 48 games correctly, take this all with a grain of salt (or a salt mine worth of salt).
EAST
North Carolina likes to give up points (170 in two tournament games thus far) but they are good enough offensively. They will get past Marquette.
Kentucky is good. Ohio State could be the only great team in this field and they are clicking on all 10 (12, I don’t know, 16?) cylinders.
Regional Final – Ohio State over North Carolina
WEST
Duke struggled mightily against Michigan and Arizona has played well enough to put together last minute victories against Memphis and Texas.
Connecticut is somehow continuing their streak from the Big East tournament but they face a very solid San Diego State squad.
Regional Final – sticking to my guns, San Diego State will advance to Houston by beating Duke.
SOUTHWEST
Kansas isn’t playing like the Buckeyes but they are playing well and winning solidly.
The other three teams in the region are seeded 10th, 11th, and 12th.
Regional Final – Kansas over the three dwarves, becoming just the second team ever to advance to the Final Four by never having to play a team seeded higher than 9.
SOUTHEAST
Butler is scrapping by and they are an exceedingly dangerous team due to their veteran presence. Despite Wisconsin’s success thus far this is a team that scored 33 points in losing to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. That performance would fly in 1950 but not 2011.
Is Florida going to be able to stop the Jimmer Show? The answer is it doesn’t matter. They have to stop the other eleven guys on the roster. Against Gonzaga, BYU players not named Fredette were 20-36 from the floor and 7-16 from 3 point range for 55 points. Against San Diego State, those numbers were 9-34, 4-17, and 24 points.
Regional Final – Butler makes a return trip to the Final Four by beating whoever survives the seven overtime slugfest between Florida and BYU.
FINAL FOUR
Butler continues their magic by beating Kansas (and thus ruining any chance my bracket had at respectability) and Ohio State steamrolls San Diego State who is just overjoyed to be in the Final Four.
On Monday, Ohio State takes a 20 point lead into halftime. Once everyone changes the channel to see how well Rob Lowe will do as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on “Two and a Half Men”, Butler starts chipping away, tying the game with ten seconds left. True to this tournament’s form, Butler is called for a reach-in foul 60 feet from the hoop and the fouled Buckeye steps to the line and calmly sinks two free throws with four seconds remaining.
Then Matt Howard does what Gordon Hayward couldn’t do last year; hit a halfcourt runner at the buzzer to win the game 73-72.
Wow, I got my heart pumping just thinking about that. Enjoy the basketball people, this is the best ball that you’re likely to ever see.
(having said all that, it’d be nice but far more likely is Ohio State and Kansas playing a three overtime epic and the Buckeyes prevailing to take the trophy)
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