The Indians Stole the Game They Needed
Like a lot of people, I don’t gamble, but, like a lot of people, I have done it before. I was a sophomore in college, and I thought I knew an awful lot about baseball, so I thought, you know what, I bet I can monetize this. I decided to lean on my baseball expertise to bet on individual baseball games. I bet for two days, I lost about four hundred dollars, and I haven’t tried it again since. I’ve learned more about baseball over the decade, but, have I, really?
If there’s one thing we know about baseball, it’s that we can’t predict it. The smaller the sample, the wilder it gets. But we can be so, so easily tricked, and never is that more clear than it is in the playoffs. In the playoffs, see, individual games are under greater scrutiny. And when you get to the World Series, people are searching for possible keys everywhere. *Everything* is important. This pitcher’s vulnerability could be exploited. That player on the bench will have a good matchup. The guy over there’s a bad defender. We examine these games in so much detail that we start to convince ourselves the games can be actually predicted. We convince ourselves the games will make sense. Earlier Friday, in my chat, I fielded countless questions about the degree to which the Indians would be screwed in Game 3. Road park, Josh Tomlin pitching, wind blowing strongly out, DH in left field. It was all lining up for the Cubs. It was so easy to believe, yeah, this is the Cubs’ game. How couldn’t it be?
You can stare at a coin all you like, but heads or tails will still come up half the time. An exhaustively-examined game in the World Series is not meaningfully more predictable than an unexamined regular-season game in July. Give it one game at a time, and baseball’s likely to baseball. Give it one game at a time, and Tomlin and the Indians can knock off the Cubs 1-0 in a pretty extreme hitters’ environment.
In a sense, Terry Francona got to follow the familiar script. How did the Indians prevent enough runs? They went and got Andrew Miller in the fifth. He ceded the mound to Bryan Shaw, who is worse, but still good. And he ceded the mound to Cody Allen, who is worse than Miller, but better than Shaw. The three primary relievers recorded 13 outs. Seven of those were strikeouts. This is what the Indians have seemingly been doing all month.
But of course that’s only part of the story. Indians relievers faced 17 batters without allowing a run. Josh Tomlin faced 17 batters without allowing a run. The Tomlin part was the worrisome one — the Tomlin part was supposed to be the weakness. Tomlin is a contact pitcher, and the wind was blowing, and the Cubs are good. This isn’t how anyone expected it, for Tomlin to keep the opposition scoreless.
And, you know, he probably wouldn’t do it again. The circumstances were most definitely not good. But, when he needed to, Tomlin busted out one of those curveballs. He wasn’t supposed to pitch well against the Red Sox. He wasn’t supposed to pitch well against the Blue Jays. Tomlin has allowed three runs in 15.1 playoff innings. Just as his own success has allowed Andrew Miller to overshadow Cody Allen, Cleveland’s bullpen success has overshadowed the success of the rotation, which has a combined playoff ERA of 1.70. It takes a village to make Andrew Miller an overnight celebrity. He wouldn’t be known as he is if it weren’t for all the other parts pulling their weight.
Tomlin went far enough, and he got enough grounders. Any single game is a battle of execution, and Tomlin executed his pitches with greater frequency than Cubs opponents executed their swings. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t care to speculate, but the Cubs blinked, and then they were facing better pitchers all of a sudden. They missed their early opportunity, and then the assignment got tougher. The Indians squeezed out their one run, even though the game-winning at-bat did cost them another inning of Miller. Anyone would take that trade. Miller was no longer needed.
It’s important to point out the Indians didn’t play a perfect game. This wasn’t a case of the Cubs simply being suffocated. In terms of what some might consider fundamentals, Francisco Lindor bounced into a devastating bases-loaded double play in the fifth. Beyond that, though — Lindor was picked off in the top of the first. Rajai Davis was thrown out at third in the seventh. Jason Kipnis was thrown out at first in the seventh, when it looked like he could’ve or should’ve been safe. In the bottom half, Lonnie Chisenhall missed a fly ball that gave Jorge Soler three two-out bases. And then in the ninth, Mike Napoli fumbled Jason Heyward’s two-out grounder. The Indians were far from flawless. This is a game they could’ve lost. With two on and two out in the ninth, Javier Baez fouled off a first-pitch fastball from Allen.
It was almost the same pitch he took deep against Johnny Cueto.
Baez just missed it, and he didn’t get a better chance. Allen didn’t throw another pitch in the zone. Baez struck out anyway. A checked-swing strike conceivably might’ve gone the other way —
…but Baez did appear to commit too much. The last pitch he swung at was more than four feet off the ground. Before that pitch, with the count two balls and two strikes, Baez stepped back, took a breath, and let out an audible “WHEW.” It was like some manifestation of the pressure of the moment. One thing Baez has shown this month is that he’s definitely able to handle the pressure, but on the last pitch of the game, he didn’t have much of a chance. His natural aggressiveness got the best of him, and Allen executed his high fastball perfectly. It was the entire game in one at-bat. Like the Indians, Allen wasn’t perfect, but one mistimed swing can work wonders. Baez missed the chance he got, and Allen didn’t supply other chances.
This wasn’t supposed to be a particularly winnable game, not for Cleveland, not given the circumstances, but one swing from Coco Crisp did all the damage they needed, and now it’s the Indians who are the World Series favorites. And as you project the series out, there could be another two starts from Corey Kluber. Win the two starts and the Indians win the championship. This game, they stole; those games, they could take, as they took Game 1. It’s how they would’ve drawn this up.
But now we get back into the problem we discussed at the beginning. There’s no such thing as “just take the Kluber games.” You can’t take the Kluber games for granted, in part because he’ll be on short rest, but in larger part because these are individual baseball games, against another good team with other good pitchers, and sometimes things go as you think, and other times Josh Tomlin blanks the Cubs in Chicago. The tricky part for the Indians is that there’s no guarantee they’re going to see more of the Kluber they saw a few days ago. Yet even the focus on the Kluber games is somewhat inappropriate, because there are other games in the series. Unpredictably winnable games. They just played nine innings of one of them.
Friday night, the Indians stole a baseball game. If it happened the same way in April, we wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. The calendar says it’s almost November. There’s a path to winning, now — winning the last thing to win — a path to winning without anymore theft.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
What an awesome game. Finish it in five, Tribe.
You’ll need to win game 4 first. You’ve committed a cardinal sin.
He’s a Dodgers’ fan, not an Indians’ fan. I think you only officially bring bad luck by counting your chickens before they’re hatched if it’s your team.
Don’t eat your chickens before they hatch either. Not enough meat, you have to eat more than a dozen of them for a decent snack.
I was at Dodger Stadium for game 3 of the NLCS. Quite a few Dodgers fans were counting their chickens then. (“We’re getting World Series tickets, right?”)
Game three of the NLCS…..good times.
John,
I don’t know how you feel but I can’t stand these scrubs. Yeah, they are the best team in baseball but how everyone is drooling over them is simply sick. Hopefully the Tribe can do what our teams could not.
I can’t stand them either. And this ‘best team in baseball’ stuff is ridiculous. Who announces this and repeats it all year before the season is even finished?? Cubs’ fans have been saying it all year because they think it’s as good as winning the world series–if their team can’t win on the field (and it’s looking like they can’t), then they can still say to fans of other teams ‘well they’re still the best’. And fangraphs writer who wish they could have actual jobs with actual baseball teams can pretend that the real championship is being decided by their analysis.
It’s not a cardinal sin. Hacking another team’s email, that’s a cardinal sin.
Jim Bouton, to his Pilots teammates in Ball Four; “let’s win two today.”
Unnamed teammate; “we have to win game 1 first.”
Bouton; “uh oh, I’d committed a cardinal sin.”
this is from memory, so the quotation marks won’t be perfect. Neither is the analogy (although it’s a family member, a cousin if not a brother). But you get the gist of it. And if any of you are going to give Jim Bouton a thumbs down….well……..
The cubs definitely have a curveball problem, this isn’t a fluke, we’ve seen this in the regular season and the playoffs. The nlds would have been a different story if samardzija had used his curveball the first time through the order instead of stupidly insisting on avoiding it until the second time.
lol still bitter af eh
On the contrary, I’m not bitter, your guys won fair and square. I just wish our guys had been smarter.
I’m for the Giants, too, and it we had one stinking relief pitcher worth anything, we’d have played game 5. You really should be quiet.
We didn’t even need one stinking relief pitcher worth anything, just a manager who would have left Moore in to pitch the 9th.
You see, Jeff, this is why your pieces stick in my head: you’re able to sift through, and pinpoint the most principal impressions from the gurgling, bubbling collective consciousness. I had ALL of those thoughts about the game as I’m sure a lot of people did, but they were buzzing around incoherently amidst all of my other thoughts. Like my favorite lyricists and comedians, you are able to succinctly express your thoughts and it’s all wrapped up in the Jeff Sullivan charm all of us readers love.
I’m a Cubs fan, but that was an excellent game, and this was an excellent piece. Thanks, Jeff.
Mark, you just said exactly why I’m such a huge fan of Jeff’s, only much better than I ever could have.
Thank you.
Well I’ll never touch your truly interesting fact prowess, so thank you.
Stole or outplayed. Whichever. Everyone has missed that Tomlin…other than a terrible August….has been a huge contributor to the Indiana’s success this year. To dismiss him as a guy who basically “got lucky until better pitchers came in” is insulting to a great performance.
And if you want to talk “stealing”, I’d love to see a breakdown of the strike zone Hendricks was given vs Tomlin’s. Awful officiating.
uhh he had a 65% strike rate and one strike out the whole night. do you honestly think those numbers constitute a dominant performance?
and maybe you should look at the pitch tracker: http://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=2016-10-28&team=Cubs&dh=0&season=2016 and maybe you’d like to talk about all those black spots on the right third of the zone called against hendricks.
He’s not a strikeout pitcher. He kept the Cubs off the bases and didn’t make many mistakes. I don’t know how you could watch that game and NOT think he pitched well…
because he wasn’t consistently hitting his spots for one, idk if you paid attention. and two, the cubs completely abandoned their patience approach and swung at the first thing that looked over the plate. if they had laid off a few pitches they could have run his pitch count up, and most definitely would have put tomlin in a difficult spot, since again, it’s not like he was pounding the zone. the cubs hitters bailed mediocre pitching out last night. a 1.9 K/9 rate is a joke, even for contact pitchers.
I can guarantee being more patient against Tomlin is not the way to go.
I was going to say. Tomlin has the lowest walk rate of any qualifying pitcher in the majors. Patience is not the right strategy with him.
13 of the cubs 30 swings were on pitches out of the zone. tomlin threw 28 pitches in the zone, out of a total of 58.
i get that this in-zone ratio is around league average. but that’s why the cubs typical patient approach works. they usually swing 45% of the time, as opposed to 52% yesterday. the cubs typically swing out of the zone 29% of the time, as opposed to 43% yesterday.
Looking at Pitch FX data, both Tomlin and Hendricks had 3 strikes that were called balls. But Hendricks also had 5 balls that were called strikes and Tomlin had none.
Or look at the Twitter account of IndiansUmp. They record pitches that both hurt and help the Indians. Last night they recorded 7 ball/strike calls that hurt the Indians and 0 that helped them.
http://wtam.iheart.com/onair/mike-trivisonno-2339/home-plate-umpire-john-hirschbeck-totally-15250801/
are you joking right now?
the pitch/fx shows 6 called balls by hendricks that were touching the edge or fully in the zone. only two of the pitches he got called for strikes were outside of the edges
I don’t know what that chart is on Fangraphs that you linked to (I assume that’s what you’re referring to).
I’m talking about the Pitch F/X data. Here’s the chart for Hendricks. You can clearly see 3 strikes that were outside the zone and 3 balls that were inside the zone. (I said 5 balls outside the zone earlier cause sometimes it’s hard to discriminate the colors on the graph).
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=543294&game=gid_2016_10_28_clemlb_chnmlb_1&batterX=&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=&league=mlb&pnf=&zlpo=&cache=1.gif
You can expect silence from ima on this, emh. I’ve had countless arguments with Cubs fans like this. They always but always insist that their pitchers were cheated by the umpire, and when you show them f/x charts to the contrary, they just slink away.
Ooh, that thumbs down must have been one of those Cubs’ fans slinking away.
tell me if you’re counting the same pitches i am, there are three called balls against hendricks that were in the zone, and two called balls that are on the edge of the zone. there are three called strikes for hendricks that were out of the zone, and two that are on the edge of the zone. i’m not defending the umpire’s strike zone because it was indeed shit, but he was bad all around.
Of the missed strikes (black circles inside the zone), 7 of 9 were against Indians pitchers. Both of the missed balls (red dots entirely outside the zone) were for Hendricks. So that means 9 of the 11 most missed calls went the Cubs way. It’s time for cameras.
Hmm. Now who’s bitter?
(that was to imachainsaw)
you troll any article that has the cubs involved in it somehow
sounds like you’re bitter about being called bitter
u mad bro
i clearly am, and you’re 12
Is it that Tomlin is good, or the Cleveland defence/bullpen are making him look better than he is? His lowest FIP by month are 3.73, 4.93, 5.31, 4.74, 7.12, 2.88. Over his career his ERA is right in line with his FIP. This year there’s a fairly decent gap.
Seems to me the reason Tomlin didn’t allow many runs is because:
A) Francona pulled him early to allow the Cleveland bullpen to get out of a jam when runners are on base (thus keeping the ERA down)
B) Stellar defence making Tomlin look far better than he is (something more important for a low K pitcher like Tomlin).
Not that we should ignore August, as it happened, but for the most part he had a massive FIP/ERA difference. So I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Tomlin is a massive part of Cleveland’s success, or that the guys around him made him look far better than what he was.
Tomlin surely isn’t this good, but I think there have been two things which have contributed to this success this postseason that can’t be hand waved away as pure luck:
1) Francona simply will not allow him to succumb to the times-through-the-order penalty. In fact, Francona had what I considered to be an abnormally short leash even by his own standards last night. He pulled Tomlin with 2 outs, a man on second, and Montero coming to the plate, a batter who had an 85 OPS+ this year and a 93 OPS+ over the last 4 years. I didn’t see the need to go to Miller there. But such is the extent to which Francona is not allowing his starters to get beaten when they are being seen for the 3rd time or wearing down. Can’t do this in the regular season, but this isn’t the regular season.
2) Maybe more important for Tomlin, though, is that he’s almost ditched his cutter and relied heavily on his curveball, which was really good last night. Down in the zone, a sharp break, and was fooling Cubs hitters all night.
Again, he’s not the 1.76 ERA pitcher he’s been in the postseason, but he’s not simply been the beneficiary of a bunch of swings by batters that have just been slightly off. He’s pitched well, hasn’t been exposed too much, and the Indians are sitting up 2-1 in the World Series because of it.
It isn’t just that. The Blue Jays and the Cubs are weak against curves (he was less effective against the Red Sox although still not bad): http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=7&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=12,d
He’s been their stopper for the past two years now. Ever since he had Tommy John in 2013, he’s been getting better and better, especially now that he’s a full year removed from shoulder surgery. He’ll clearly never put up gaudy numbers in the strikeout column, but he doesn’t issue free passes, constantly (as seen yesterday) induces soft contact and has always pitched very well with runners on base. He’ll never be a Cy Young candidate, but Francona is the second Tribe manager to rave about Josh every opportunity he’s given. I know it’s silly to talk about “makeup” on a stats sight, but he’s just confident and unfazable. And he has a nasty curve.
There is no conceivable definition for “stopper” whereby Tomlin is the one instead of Kluber.
15-1 following a loss, going back to his return from shoulder surgery at the end of 2015. Pretty good definition of a stopper.
Sorry, 16-1 counting last night.
He’s literally the most horrible with runners on base, relative to his own performance with runners not on base. His split is insane!
Don’t forget his ability to pitch to the score.
Dude, did you see the Indians’ OF last night?
Personally, I can’t see an argument for Tomlin being any more a beneficiary of his defense than Hendricks has been.
I too was sure Tomlin was going to get clobbered but I think we often make the mistake to try to treat postseason baseball like football or basketball games. there is still an edge in the postseason but even the most lopsided games featuring two playoff teams are not more than a 60-40 thing. and sometimes those 40% happen too.
mainstream media often try to backward rationalize outcomes like that was the only possible outcome.
I wouldn’t call the Indians the favorites yet though. If kluber loses tonight the Indians are still where they were before: needing one extra win of the other starters which probably makes the cubs a 60% favorite again. two kluber wins are far from granted even in the regular season against worse teams he only won 67% of his games.
maybe statistically you can expect the indians winning 55% of their games against the cubs with him if even that. that means they probably will need to steal another game to win it all.
indians definitely got the breaks that cant fall the cubs way if you want to beat such a juggernaut. not saying they were lucky, they outhit the cubs 8-5 and stranded the same number of runners but it could have easily gone the other way.
Indians are 14-2 in Kluber’s last 16 starts, including the postseason. Granted none of those games were in Chicago on short rest but I think it’s a bit more representative of how he was pitching near the end of the season.
As for the “indians definitely getting the breaks”…what are you talking about??? Hirschbeck made about 6-7 horrible calls last night, all in favor of the Cubs. Throw in two baserunners getting thrown out, a GIDP with the bases loaded, a close play at first that could have gone either way (but went in favor of the cubs). Seriously, this game probbably should have been 3-0 or 4-0.
Does a run score if Heyward had been in right field on the Coco crisp RBI?
that’s real tough to say. i think since heyward gets better reads and has a quicker step than soler, he could have afforded to play a few steps in front of where soler was playing, and then he probably would have made that catch without much difficulty. but oh well
According to Mike Petriello, that type of ball was a hit 100% of the time this year:
http://m.indians.mlb.com/news/article/207495532/statcast-proves-soler-couldnt-catch-crisp-hit/
100% of 17 batted balls all season. that’s not a huge sample size.
the argument they make for why heyward ‘couldn’t’ have made that play is because his average distance from home is bigger than where soler was positioned. they assume that heyward would have positioned just as far as he normally does for anyone that’s not coco crisp. for coco. crisp.
According to tweets from Tango based on statcast data (if I’m reading them right), Crisp’s hit falls in pretty much all the time, so the particular fielder and normal fielding position adjustments didn’t matter.
The whole run has been completely flukey and “stolen” and at best gimmicky. Could we please, please get an article on what a fluke this entire Indians playoff run is in comparison to historical playoff teams, and how this team has as little business as any team ever going 9-2 in the postseason.
They’ve gotten 5 shutouts in 11 games. Against the red sox, blue jays, and cubs. Let’s be reaslitic.
diamond Hoggers
During the film’s Fluke and “stolen,” and it is better to know. We have an article about this coincidence Play Run all Indians were compared with the history of playoffs teams and how this team is a small business that each team has ever produced, 9-2.
Historical teams? Like the 69 Mets, who relied on platoons, strong bullpen, and young pitchers without pedigree to beat the heavily favored Orioles superteam?
It’s baseball. Stuff can and does happen.
Like a batted ball hitting Carrasco’s hand.
Would anybody be debating Cleveland’s worthiness if Carrasco and Salazar were available for seven innings each, like during their 94-win regular season?
Stuff happens.
Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it helps.
But Cleveland’s team isn’t chopped liver.
Win or lose by monday, they fought their way to Wrigley and beyond; a bit of respect is due .
I’m as quick to criticize “playoff-built” teams as anyone, but the Indians are an exception for that very reason. Tito is doing what he’s doing just as much out of dire necessity as he is due to playoff strategy. *This* version of Cleveland, not much should have been expected and yet here they are where they are. The version of Cleveland with their #2 and #3 starters, who help to form possibly the best top-three in the American League? Yeah, that team’s legit. Not gonna begrudge them due to unfortunate timing and severity of injuries to those two.
Diamondhoggers seems to have a totally unbiased perspective on the Indians.
I don’t even understand what you’re asking for. It’s pretty clear the Cubs are the better team, and Fangraphs has data to back that up all over its site. It’s also pretty clear the Indians have outplayed the Cubs. The Tribe’s performance may be unsustainable or a bad bet, but so what? That’s why they play the games.
I think the separation between the teams is a bit overplayed. The Cubs had a 106 wRC+ on the season. Cleveland, 102. It’s not like there’s a massive difference between the offenses. While they don’t have Salazar or Carrasco, do you know who’s better than those 2 on an inning by inning basis? Dan Otero, Shaw, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. Those relievers are also as a group better at preventing runs than Arrieta, Lester and Hendricks. And you get get 5 innings a game from those relievers. So you’re left with the Cubs having a marginal early-inning pitching advantage in games where Kluber isn’t starting.
The Cubs non-pitcher wRC+ was 113, a big difference compared to the Indians’ 103.
Non-pitcher wRC per 36 PAs:
Cubs: 4.97
Indians: 4.50
I think you’re understating the Cubs’ offensive advantage, but I do agree that the exaggerated reliever usage eats into that advantage.
I don’t think “non-pitcher wRC+” is a thing? Isn’t wRC+ league adjusted? If you took every NL pitcher out of the equation, the Cubs wRC+ wouldn’t be 113.
Of course non-pitcher wRC+ is a thing; that’s why fangraphs provides a position filter for “NP” on its batting leaderboards.
Beyond that, wRC+ is already calculated after removing pitcher plate appearances. You can see this in the Glossary, or by noticing that the league wRC+ for non-pitchers is 100: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=np&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
If you add pitchers back in by clicking “All” in the position filter, you can see that league wRC+ is actually only 97, because pitchers (obviously) are significantly worse than league average.
When folks say ‘league average wRC+ is 100,’ the ‘league average they are referring to is ‘the average once you remove pitchers from the pool.’
If you’d like to confirm this for yourself, consider:
The League Average batting line for all players in 2016:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
The League Average batting line for all non-pitchers in 2016:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=np&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
The difference between the two is that the position tab in the league average stats is ‘All,’ the second is ‘NP’ [i.e.: non-pitchers].
Hope that clears it up.
Thanks, I don’t follow the NL so didn’t realize they have a non-pitcher wRC+ stat that removes all pitchers from the equation. I suppose since the Cubs do have a natural DH at the moment in Schwarber there’s some validity to that. Otherwise it wouldn’t really make sense to remove the pitchers from the equation as a cross-league team comparison, since you’re comparing a team that has 8 regulars on offense to a team that has 9.
It doesn’t seem right to describe that early-inning (more like, half-game!) advantage as “marginal”. Arrieta, Hendricks, and Lester — all who will or have been on the mound for non-Kluber starts — compared to Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin (both on short rest, for games 5 and 6) is a pretty significant gap, whether you’re counting run prevention or DIPS.
It is marginal though. You have a 1-run difference in FIP, which is based on 9 innings. So, a half run over 4 innings having Arrieta instead of Bauer for those innings? That’s marginal.
but the cubs got to beat up on trash CIN and MIL staffs all season, while CLE had a much more difficult schedule; the pirates, brewers, and reds all had worse (or equal) records to CWS, the 4th place team in the AL Central
Exactly.
I’m not sure which site you think you’re posting on, but this site had a few preemptive articles before the Wild Card games basically saying the Cubs are not just the best team in baseball, but by far the best team in baseball, and nothing that happens over the next few weeks of postseason baseball will do anything to make that statement not true. More over, many writers on this site have pointed out just how little playoff baseball actually resembles the rigors and strategy of regular season baseball, therefore almost rendering them distinct sports. So, the playoffs are, by design, “flukey”. That’s been said multiple times by multiple writers on this site (and on many other sites). In fact, I’ll write the article you’re looking for right here:
“See, that’s what we were talking about.”
Cool?
This site has had issues with the teams winning pennants and championships before. This won’t be the first time the spreadsheets come up short.
you can tell your baseball IQ isn’t very high
Just dumb. 1988 Dodgers, beating a juggernaut Oakland team. 1973 Mets, regular season record of 83-79 but pushing the A’s to a 7th game in the series. 2012 or 2014 Giants. 1959 Dodgers….the main point of Jeff’s article is that, in a short series, the best team doesn’t win nearly as much as they would be expected to.
The analytic metrics which are emphasized on the Fangraphs site focus on certain criteria in determining which team is ‘best’. If different criteria were employed, the results would be different. For example, Jeff wrote an article before the playoffs based on criteria according to which the Dodgers, not the Cubs, are the ‘best’ team in a playoff context. If Cleveland wins this year, this will be the third year in a row in which the World Series is unexpectedly won by a team whose pitchers staff had a real ace who could pitch deep into games, a couple of other decent averagish starters, and a superdeep and good bullpen (this was also true of the 1988 Dodgers). This kind of team is consistently underrated by the Fangraphs’ models because the non-ace starters have mediocre WARs and relief pitchers more or less never have high WARs (the teams with the highest team pitchers’ WARs are those with a lot of strong starters like the Mets, Nationals, Dodgers, and Cubs this year). But these teams seem to be pretty good at unexpectedly winning World Series’. So does this mean that they are not the ‘best’ because overall quality is defined in terms of WAR? This seems questionable.
1. In any short series, it is possible for the “better” team to lose a decent % of the time, because the difference between any 2 playoff-caliber MLB teams isn’t going to be drastic.
2. The “better” team under regular-season conditions might not be the “better” team under playoff conditions, due to the way they’re constructed (your comment above).
These two facts are NOT mutually exclusive.
Both true. My comments was directed towards tramps like us talking about ‘the best team’ as though there must be a single universally-accepted set of criteria for determining which team is generally ‘best’, implying that they are simply best in all situations, which is not the case.
but how do you decide which team is “best?” I’ll admit right up front…I do not have the understanding of advanced stats you have. Not even close. And I agree, there is not a single set of criteria to determine that. And yet, by what metric would one claim the 1960 Pirates were better than the Yankees? Well, besides the most important one, which is that they beat them, 4 games to 3. Beyond that, what could anyone point to as even making an argument for the Bucs as the “better” team? I guess my main point is that sometimes just simple randomness results in a team winning, without explanation.
I don’t see any point in deciding which team is generally ‘the best’. It’s just a pointless discussion. If there’s a specific context then there can be a discussion, like which team in the nl west is going to win the most games in a 162-game season over the course of 6 months. Or which team is best at winning a wild-card game. Or which team is best at winning a 5-game series with days off after game 2 and game 4. Or which team is best at winning a 7-game series with days off after game 2 and game 5. You can see right away that different metrics will give different answers.
Hahaha, this Indians team is nothing compared to the beautiful madness of the 2014/2015 Royals.
Actually they’re pretty much the same idea.
It’s a mixed bag on how they varied from the norm. On the one hand, the 14-15 Royals were much further away from the three-true-outcomes focus on offense than Cleveland this year. On the other hand, the Indians have taken the Royals heavy use of the stacked bullpen and redoubled it, pulling starters even earlier.
Yes, i was referring to the pitching.
Lloyd: I want to ask you a question, straight out, flat out, and I want you to give me the honest answer. What do you think the chances are of a 94-win Indian team going on a 9-2 run in the postseason?
Mary: Well Lloyd, that’s difficult to say. We really don’t…
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came to Fangraphs just find out Mary, just… The least you can do is level with me. What are their chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd:You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one out of a million.
Lloyd: so you’re telling me there’s a chance. YEAH!
Jeff, i loved the article! It had a very joe posnanskian tone. I’m a huge fan of his writting, as i am of yours.
This seems unfair to the Indians. They were very good last night, and I thought the Cubs were lucky to have a chance to win it in the 9th. Cleveland could have been up 3-0 or so when they went to Miller, they just had poor sequencing almost all night.
I agree. They squandered a ton of chances last night. They had runners on the whole game. I thought they’d regret those missed opportunities but they certainly didn’t “steal” the game. They put pressure on them from start to finish and prevented the Cubs from doing the same until the late innings. What a game!
As a huge Giants fan, I take no insult in knowing my boys had an incredible amount of luck in their recent runs to 3 World Series title. Calling Cleveland “lucky” is a compliment.
“Luck is the residue of design.” -Branch Rickey
The general advice on gambling on anything is to try out the system before committing serious money to it. You want to bet on baseball games? Then find out the lines, do a mock series of bets (or trivial bets) for a couple of weeks, see how it goes. Sometimes you find out that knowing a lot about a subject does not mean you know anything about gambling money on the subject. There are stories of brilliant economists that lost everything in the stock market.
Game 3 had more excitement than a 1-0 score could ever explain……made me forgive the sleeper game 2 was.
There are people who tell me all the time that I should use my knowledge to be a betting man.
Well… I have a brother who was probably told the same things. He lost hundreds of dollars doing that. So…nah, I’m happy enough to be able to watch and not fear certain outcomes because of financial reasons, thanks.
Tough to say the Indians “stole” this game, though I think I understand what Jeff means.
I like Smoltz as an announcer, and I think he was on point in the 4th inning when he claimed that Tomlin was outpitching Hendricks. Smoltz made this claim a couple more times throughout the game about each team’s respective staffs, quite correctly I’d argue. Yes, Hendricks had more strikeouts, but Tomlin just wasn’t throwing balls that a hitter could actually, you know, hit. All night, Cleveland pitchers just made really good pitches left and right. They made some mistakes, as every pitcher does, and if you went through every dominant pitching performance in history, especially shutouts, you’d find a handful of pitches that batters missed that they could have punished. If batters never missed those pitches, you’d rarely ever see shutouts!!
But when I look at the final box, I see a Cleveland team that allowed 7 baserunners, with one coming on a ball that should have been 7 rows into foul territory and a Chicago team that allowed 11 baserunners. I’d expect the team that allowed fewer baserunners to win the game. They did. No theft necessary.
Obviously with normal distribution of hits and luck and fair umpiring, the indians would have won by several runs. But i think ‘stole’ is used when (1) the winner is away from home, (2) the pitching matchup seems to favor the home team, and (3) the final score is close.
If that’s how you define “stole”, then sure, they stole one. To me, and I think most, the term connotes an excess of luck and (not to steal Andrew Miller’s nickname) circumstances outside of their control causing them to be handed the win in a non “clean” fashion. “Won” or “outplayed” would be more accurate, I’d even accept “outperformed”. “Stole” is just a bit insulting to the effort Tomlin and the rest of the pitching staff put out there in a hostile environment.
People can use the word in different ways. For me and in this context, it doesn’t denote luck at all. It just denotes something contrary to expectations.
“Stole” simply means CLE won a game that, before it began, CHI was favored to win.
Yes, that’s all I meant by it. I didn’t love the headline, but I’m seldom good at headlines.
The headline is okay. If some people couldn’t figure out the intended meaning, which is pretty obvious after reading the article, or decided to quibble about it anyway or didn’t read it, that’s on them.
I feel if this comment wasn’t buried in the replies a lot of commenters would look a lot less stupid.
“stole”, One would think they if they didn’t watch this game. The Indians dominated in ever aspect of this game but couldn’t get that hit with RISP, Yes the came in as underdogs with Tomlin on the mound who typically gives up a lot of HR and the wind blowing out but he came out and performed the whole pitching staff did yesterday. Another thing the strike zone was extremely inconsistent mostly negative towards the Indians. Napoli struck out looking twice with pitches that were outside among other calls.
Every aspect? Intelligent baserunning is one area in which Cleveland lagged far behind. And that was supposed to be an edge for them.
nobody cares
Real good column here. Thanks. Good sports writing gets too little credit.
What app do I have to disable on my PC to get fangraphs.com to not be constantly frozen up? I remember someone mentioning this, I want to say it was Adobe Flash or Windows Media Player but I’m not sure. (btw – I’m ok with the pop-up ads and all. Just want to be able to type a two sentence comment without it taking half an hour because the site freezes after every other keystroke)