2018 MLB playoffs thread

The opposite of the 1984 Tigers
A team full of Hall of Famers with no title

 

The 2013 had a team full of Hall of Famers? Is three considered a team?

 

Three is about what you need to win a title. This is a little dated, but you can see the list from back in 2013. Two or three HOF's is about what it takes.

Does Every World Series Champion Have a Hall of Famer? | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Price was the best SP in the WS; hard to fathom given his prior track record. Told my wife he was 0-11 before the ALCS clincher and WS victories and her response was "wow, he was that bad?" (She did fast forward through the game though saying "man he is sloooooooow") Give him huge credit for righting the ship. He looked good in WS, not like escaping with a bunch of loud outs. I did not think this team would sustain its hitting, but those scrappers (Pearce #3?) just did it. Great run for the Red Sox.

 

Interesting take

By Ken Levine: Open letter from a Dodger fan

Sitting in the stands, the same stands I’ve sat in since I was a kid, I felt a real disconnect to these Dodgers. These weren’t my “guys” – these were pawns management was putting out there on this particular night. Analytics have taken over Major League Baseball. And no team tries so hard to crunch numbers to get an advantage than the Dodgers. Their top management team is a collection of Wile E. Coyotes who clearly believe they’re smarter than everyone else. There is so much maneuvering during the season it’s ridiculous. Hardly a day goes by when they don’t change the roster. The message is clear to the players: “we have a game plan and the minute you don’t fit it you’re gone. Oh, and we change the game plan at our prerogative.”

 

I do not get the criticism. You mean management will replace you if they find a better way to do things? Oh my god, what a terrible concept.

 

About 25 other teams would love to change places with your back-to-back pennants. Team hadn't been to the World Series in 29 years, but sure, lament your good ol' days

 

I get your point there that the people in charge have the final say and their final say is in the best interest of winning. The criticism is management has scripted rage game so much there's no flexibility for ad libbing. So Baez gets pulled in today's game when 10 years ago he stays in and no one questions it. In today's game the hitters with the most power get benched in favor of a left-right match up. The problem with numbers is they tell you what to do to win a majority of the time not all the time. It doesn't account for the deviations that ultimately make up the mean. Sometimes you need to recognize the deviations and make adjustments. If your bosses won't allow you to do that, there's something wrong. You have a manager to manage the game.

It's clear analytics is the wave of baseball's future. Managers have to adjust. Of they don't, I get it. Management has the final say. You're not wrong, but when the world series is on the line, the equations change. Or Bumgarner either doesn't get into Game 7 or he's pulled before the ninth inning. That was a once in a generation performance that probably doesn't happen if the Dodgers' front office was in charge.

 

When do we blame the players for not getting the job done?

Not one of the relievers the Dodgers used with a 4-0 lead in the seventh could save the game. That's Dave Roberts' fault?

 

Five years after 1984, the 1989 Tigers went 59-103 ... with Whitaker, Trammell and Morris still on the roster. Based on Dombrowski's M.O. of mortgaging the future for the here and now (a situation of which Detroiters are feeling all too painfully right now), I wonder what the Red Sox will look like five years from now. John Henry's checkbook is deep, but how long can you sustain a team with free agency before the farm system betrays you?

 

If it’s David Price, apparently never.

 

A team whose bullpen fails will always look like a bad team and its manager will always look like a dope. This was true even when I was young and bullpens were used about half to a third as much as they are now.