As has been written ad nauseum both before and during the season, the Milwaukee Brewers went all-in for 2011, particular with respect to upgrading their pitching rotation. The Brewers have won a divisional title for the first time since 1982 and are going to the playoffs for the first time since 2008, so it worked. In 2010, the Brewers starters compiled 7.7 WAR, the third-worst in baseball. In 2011, the remade rotation accumulated 12.7 WAR, which only put them in the middle of the pack, but five wins is a nice improvement. How does the rotation stack up against the others in the playoffs?

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NERD and Frankenstein’s monster have about 0.5 things in common.

New York AL (10) at Tampa Bay (8) | 19:10 ET
NERD v. Nerd
NERD — i.e. the numbers you see here designed to express in one figure the watchability of a team or player or game for the baseballing nerd — is totally trying to embarrass its creator today.

How It’s Doing That
By giving the Yankees-Rays and Red Sox-Orioles contests Game Scores of 9 and 7, respectively, while they (i.e. those games) very clearly feel like some of those most interesting games of the season.

Why That’s Happening, In Reality
The reason why that’s happening — the thing with the lower-than-expected scores — is because Boston’s playoff odds remain at about 63%. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s are only about 37%. (All per Cool Standings.)

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Ozzie Guillen always seems to make things interesting. While the quotable manager has experienced his fair share of success in Chicago, it appears the failures of the 2011 season will lead to Ozzie’s exit from the Windy City. According to sources, the White Sox have released Guillen from his contract; allowing him to pursue other job opportunities. There are already reports that Guillen will return to the Florida Marlins in exchange for two minor leaguers. Guillen’s departure marks the end of an era in Chicago — one that included a World Series championship. For the White Sox, this move is the first of many that should highlight a very interesting off-season.

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Howie Kendrick has made this and other plays in 2011.

In Preston Sturges’ 1941 film Sullivan’s Travels, protagonist John L. Sullivan learns that — instead of a socially conscious film designed to raise awareness about their struggles — that the downtrodden actually prefer the light, airy comedies on which he (i.e. Sullivan) has made his reputation as a film director.

Leaderboards of Pleasure is essentially Sullivan’s Travels in miniature. Except you read it. And it’s on the internet.

While reading this particular edition of the LOP on the internet, the reader will find that:

Howie Kendrick remains underrated.
Howie Kendrick continues to rank among the league’s most underrated players. The reader will also find that much of that is due to Kendrick’s 17.6 UZR. An interesting thing about that: Kendrick has been worth +16 runs per Defensive Runs Saved and a more modest, but still above-average, +7 runs per Total Zone (which has him as +12 at second base and -7 in left field).

More news on this story as it does or does not develop.

Liam Hendriks has been better than he’s looked.
The young Australian, now with 23.1 innings as a major-league starter, has posted a 6.17 ERA so far but only a 3.77 SIERA and 3.66 xFIP (91 xFIP-).

Murder is legal in Australia.
This is a fact that you don’t need to look up and can just tell anyone at the bar about, totally comfortable in the knowledge that it (i.e. the legality of murder in Australia) is a fact.

1. Team NERD Leaderboard
2. Underrated Player Leaderboard
3. Player NERD Leaderboard
4. Pitcher NERD Leaderboard

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I, John, take you Krista, to be my wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do us part.

The traditional Christian wedding vow has to be one of the most powerful sentences ever constructed in the English language. It’s concise, clear, and direct, and almost chillingly packed full of meaning. For better or for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. ‘Til death do us part. There’s no room left in there for ambiguity, and it’s enough to immediately make even the most love-struck individual turn somber and thoughtful. That’s a sentence that say, “This is for real, kiddo. Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

But that’s an unfair question; no matter how long and hard you think about it, you can never truly know the answer. Are you ready to spend your entire life with this person? Will you be willing and able to cope together with all the obstacles life throws at you? You can hope so, sure, but nobody out there can foresee all the difficulties they will have to deal with in life, or how they will cope in every single case. When you say that vow, you’re making a solemn pledge and a promise… but you’re also hoping like hell that you’re up to the task.

It’s so easy to judge others based on what we can see from the outside. That fact was painfully on display than this morning, when news broke that John Lackey and his wife were divorcing, a mere six months after she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a double mastectomy. The headline writes itself, doesn’t it? What sort of person leaves his seriously ill wife just at her time of need? For those that wanted to judge, it was all too easy to react negatively to the news and to cast Lackey as a villain.

But the underlying assumption hidden in that criticism — that serious illnesses strengthen relationships and reduce divorce rates — sounds backwards to me. Illnesses like cancer put a stress on a marriage unlike anything those people have had to deal with before; if anything, wouldn’t illness promote discord and stress, and increase the couple’s odds of divorcing? Let’s see what the stats say.

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Over the past two weeks, baseball fans have really pricked their ears up, as Wild Card battles that were seemingly in the bag suddenly became heated battles. As we enter the season’s final three days, both Wild Card leaders maintain slim one-game leads. What’s most interesting from a Power Rankings perspective is that if the Rankings hold as they are today, and the Red Sox and Cardinals come away with the two playoff berths, the eight teams in the playoffs will be the teams that rank one through eight in the Rankings. It’s not completely out of the question. While the Orioles have played hard down the stretch, they are still the Orioles, and anyone would rather play them than half of the Yankees’ lineup. In the National League, the Cards get to play the Astros, who suffered one of the worst defeats in their team’s history yesterday, while the Braves have to deal with the Phillies. The Phillies will throw a bullpen game on Wednesday, but before that, Atlanta has to deal with Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt. That would be a tough test at any time, but could be especially so at the moment, as Atlanta’s .296 wOBA ranks 26th in the game this month.

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At the season’s outset, we noted in our Tigers Season Preview that the team had a good front two in Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, but there was a drop off after that. The front office seemed to agree, as they went hunting for pitching at the deadline, and came up with possibly the biggest steal of the deadline in Doug Fister, who has been so brilliant since coming to the Motor City that he has slid into the number-two spot. At this point, you could call both the Tigers’ hitting (their team wRC+ ranks fourth) and its pitching underrated, but what you can’t call them is losers. They were the first team in the American League to clinch their division. It was their first division pennant since 1987, back in the good old days when Jack Morris was still pitching to the score. As they were the first to clinch, they will be the first of the four playoff teams who I will examine as we lead in to the playoffs.

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Back in May, and June, and even July, the Arizona Diamondbacks had their doubters. The San Francisco Giants were healthy and right in the race. San Francisco had a flawed offense, but one of the best pitching staffs in the league. And here were the Diamondbacks, a team relying on unproven pitchers like Ian Kennedy and Josh Collmenter, with a good offense but by no means an irresistable force, with holes in multiple places.

They still have a hole at shortstop, and I don’t know if anybody is convinced by Aaron Hill’s imitation of Dustin Pedroia — even with a .384 wOBA with the snakes, he sits at .292 on the season. But the real hole came at first base, and when teams have holes at first base, they tend to be exceptionally noticeable. Kevin Towers tried to fill it with Russell Branyan and Juan Miranda and Xavier Nady (and simply tossed aside Brandon Allen), but it was excessively clear neither could fill the role. The triumvirate limped to a combined -0.1 WAR as none of them managed to even touch an average wOBA — a cardinal sin when it comes to first base.

Enter Paul Goldschmidt

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Previewing the National League playoff rotations seemed like a timely and fun idea. Then I realized it would involve writing about the Phillies. What am I supposed to discuss? They’re boring — not “I’ll never have those 133 minutes I spent watching Moneyball back” boring, but “everyone knows they are good what am I supposed to talk about” boring.

Blogging about baseball is hard.

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