Royals proving it's more important to have a great bull pen than great starters

A bullpen? Can't read the full subject but I've been crying for the tigers to fix the goddamn BP for three years. We win the ws last year if we have a BP.

Problem is you have no clue how good your bullpen is going to perform year in year out. How are all those great bullpen guys doing in Texas that shut down the Tigers in 2011 or the guys the BoSox had last year? Bullpens are generally crapshoots. Tigers came up snake eyes last two years.

I think last year if you look at the names we had coming out of the pen, you would think to yourself "holy shit, we're gonna win sooooooooo much"

Joe Nathan might be a HOF closer. Soria was dominant last year. Jobba has great stuff and honestly I love the flare he brings. Coke is bad. Albuquerque (sp?) quietly had a fnatastic year out of the pen.

There are things to love about that pen but no one in there is coming out throwing gas like Miller for the orioles or Herrera for the royals. needed that kind of pitcher this year.

Crap shoot. Defensive backs are who they are in large part because they can't catch the ball. Relievers are who they are because they aren't good enough to start, have only a couple pitches, and generally inconsistent . They can be great one year and garbage the next.

Royals also have .212 hitters belting clutch home runs and 8 guys generally playing out of their ass. Complete opposite of Boston last year when their best 2-3 hitters carried the team.

I don't think you need the best bullpen to win it, you just definitely can' t win with the worst.

Giants vs KC who wins?

I think the Giants can take them.

steveschneider wrote:Giants vs KC who wins?

I think the Giants can take them.

Anyone but the Giants! Can't stand their fans and they've already won two of them recently. I'll pull for KC hard if that's the WS.

playoff baseball is a crapshoot.

tig ol bitties wrote:playoff baseball is a crapshoot.

This.

I don't value sabermetrics as much as some people, but according to the stats, in a 7 game series, the worst team in the league will beat the best team in the league 15% of the time.

With playoff teams, it's obviously much more of a coin flip.

tig ol bitties wrote:playoff baseball is a crapshoot.  

"With some definitions of “best” in hand, let’s look at how often the “best” team has won the World Series. We begin our study in 1969, or the first year more than two teams appeared in baseball’s postseason.  Specifically:

   from 1969 to 1993, four teams made the post-season.
   from 1995 to 2011 (there was no post-season in 1994), eight teams participated in the playoffs.
   this past season, ten teams were in the playoffs.

Given these definitions, how often has the “best” team won the title?

From 1969 to 1993 – or across 25 seasons — here is what we see:

   Top team in winning percentage won the World Series 7 times.
   Top team in Pythagorean Win-Loss won the World Series 8 times
   Top team in Simple Rating System won the World Series 11 times

So no matter how you define “best,” the “best” team in baseball failed to win the World Series half the time when four teams made the playoffs.

When we look at the playoffs with at least eight teams, the “best” teams do even worse.  From 1995 to the present (across 18 seasons) we see the following:

   Top team in winning percentage won the World Series 3 times.
   Top team in Pythagorean Win-Loss won the World Series 3 times
   Top team in Simple Rating System won the World Series 5 times

Again, being the “best” doesn’t seem to guarantee a title.  More than two-thirds of the time, the “best” team fails to end the post-season as a very happy team.

So even if a team could increase its payroll and buy the “best” team, the playoffs in baseball are simply not designed for the “best” team to consistently triumph."

http://freakonomics.com/2012/11/09/does-the-%E2%80%9Cbest%E2%80%9D-team-win-the-world-series/

He hit that one a wong way!

Rodeo Burger wrote:

This.

I don't value sabermetrics as much as some people, but according to the stats, in a 7 game series, the worst team in the league will beat the best team in the league 15% of the time.

With playoff teams, it's obviously much more of a coin flip.

Just read the article WBill posted, do you have a link to that stat of 15% of the time.

WBill wrote:


"With some definitions of “best” in hand, let’s look at how often the “best” team has won the World Series. We begin our study in 1969, or the first year more than two teams appeared in baseball’s postseason.  Specifically:

   from 1969 to 1993, four teams made the post-season.
   from 1995 to 2011 (there was no post-season in 1994), eight teams participated in the playoffs.
   this past season, ten teams were in the playoffs.

Given these definitions, how often has the “best” team won the title?

From 1969 to 1993 – or across 25 seasons — here is what we see:

   Top team in winning percentage won the World Series 7 times.
   Top team in Pythagorean Win-Loss won the World Series 8 times
   Top team in Simple Rating System won the World Series 11 times

So no matter how you define “best,” the “best” team in baseball failed to win the World Series half the time when four teams made the playoffs.

When we look at the playoffs with at least eight teams, the “best” teams do even worse.  From 1995 to the present (across 18 seasons) we see the following:

   Top team in winning percentage won the World Series 3 times.
   Top team in Pythagorean Win-Loss won the World Series 3 times
   Top team in Simple Rating System won the World Series 5 times

Again, being the “best” doesn’t seem to guarantee a title.  More than two-thirds of the time, the “best” team fails to end the post-season as a very happy team.

So even if a team could increase its payroll and buy the “best” team, the playoffs in baseball are simply not designed for the “best” team to consistently triumph."

http://freakonomics.com/2012/11/09/does-the-%E2%80%9Cbest%E2%80%9D-team-win-the-world-series/

Great read.

KC in six