The Baseball Playoffs Have Begun

With the stupendously unfair wild card games out of the way, we can focus on true playoff baseball.  “Unfair” because one game in baseball is irrelevant, a rounding error over the course of 162 games.  The outrageously bad Baltimore Orioles won 61 fewer games than the Red Sox, but they still won 47 games.  A good NFL team needs at least four years to win 47 games.

Bad as they were, the Orioles had a four-game win streak and two three-game win streaks.  In late July, they won three games in a row by scores of 15-5, 11-2, and 11-5, against a Tampa Bay Rays team that won 90 games.  That was after the Orioles had traded away their best player, Manny Machado, and their best relief pitcher, Zach Britton.  They did it again in late August, after trading away a starting pitcher, their closer, and their starting 2nd baseman.  That time, they won three in a row over the 73-win Toronto Blue Jays by scores of 7-0, 12-5, and 10-5.  A really bad baseball team can still win consecutive games convincingly.

My general point is that one game in baseball signifies almost nothing, it certainly doesn’t prove anything.  But, over the past two days, one game consigned the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago Cubs to the 2018 dustbin along with the Orioles.  This, despite the Cubs winning 95 games, the second most in the National League, and the A’s winning 97 games, more than any NL team.  Life isn’t fair, and neither is the MLB playoff format.

Now the real fun begins.  There will be four five-game series to (essentially) send teams to the Final Four.  But because it’s baseball, they don’t use exciting lingo, they use “AL division series” or, even worse, “ALDS,” which don’t convey anything meaningful.  The series doesn’t determine a division winner.   Perhaps “AL semi-finals” would be better. At a minimum, it conveys something comprehensible.

The chart shows the playoff teams, their wins (out of 162 games), and their run differential, the number of runs they scored above the number their opponents scored against them.

Three of the teams (Red Sox, Yankees, and Astros, all from the American League) are great — many wins (100+) with a huge run differential.  Two of the teams (Dodgers and Indians, the other AL team) are very good — over 90 wins and a huge run differential.  The other three teams are good — 90+ wins and a positive run differential.  Each of these eight teams is good enough to win the World Series.  And each of them could lose to the Orioles if they played one game today.

If baseball were like hockey, which reseeds teams after each round of their playoffs, the Red Sox would play the Indians.  That is, the playoff team with the best record in the AL would play the playoff team with the worst record in the AL.  But baseball deems the Yankees inferior because they did not win their arbitrarily assigned division, even though they won 100 games.  And the Indians are deemed superior because they won a division, never mind that it is the only division with just one team over .500.

Looking at these numbers, the Astros should play the Dodgers again in the World Series.  (The Astros won last year.)  But looking at the numbers, the Cubs, with 95 wins and a run differential of 116 should have defeated the Rockies.  The numbers don’t matter, what matters (generally) is whose starting pitcher is better today.

The game one starters suggest what we already know:  that the best teams are in the AL.  In the Rockies/Brewers game, the 144th best starting pitcher Antonio Senzatela (Rockies) is matched up against Brandon Woodruff (Brewers), who isn’t even ranked because he has only started four games in 2018, none since June.  I’m not expecting a pitcher’s duel.  In the other NL game, Mike Foltynewicz (Brewers), the 25th best starting pitcher, is up against Hyun-Jin Ryu (Dodgers), the 91st ranked starting pitcher.

The average starting pitcher ranking in game one for the NL is 87, ignoring Woodruff’s non-ranking.[1]  Meanwhile, tomorrow in the AL, Justin Verlander (Astros 3rd) is matched against Corey Kluber (Indians 5th) and Chris Sale (Red Sox 2nd) faces off with J.A. Happ (Yankees, a relatively paltry 17th).  The AL game one starters average 7.

A 100-win team will lose in the first round of the playoffs.  Maybe two.  Because all three 100-win teams play in the American League, only one of them can make the World Series.  There is no question that the cream of the crop plays in the AL.  But – for the first time in years, the NL won more inter-league games than it lost.

As you watch games, consider this:  the eight teams remaining averaged 4.95 runs scored per game and 3.98 runs against per game.   It’s not rocket science and it’s not revolutionary, but I predict that five runs will win most games this post season.  Enjoy.

[1] All of these rankings come from billjamesonline.com, one of the great websites in America.  The rankings are based (roughly) on the last season and a half.