For the NL fans, the schedule has apparently been announced for this round:
Complete NLCS Schedule (PT):
Game 1: October 10th, 5:37pm (from St. Louis)
Game 2: October 11th, 1:07pm (from St. Louis)
Game 3: October 14th, 5:07pm (at Dodger Stadium)
Game 4: October 15th, 5:07pm (at Dodger Stadium)
Game 5*: October 16th, 1:07pm (at Dodger Stadium)
Game 6*: October 18th, 5:37pm (from St. Louis)
Game 7*: October 19th, 5:37pm (from St. Louis)
I’m rooting for the Tigers at this point. I’m a Royals fan, and we’ve got to get on board with realizing that we have a major roadblock in our own division, and that if we don’t make moves to match up with them even slightly, we’re not going anywhere.
IMO, everything after GM 2 should be moved up 24 hrs. (it’s how the 1st Rd unfolded)
Mild correction: games 1 and 2 are on the 11th and 12th, not the 10th and 11th.
Yeah, someone else pointed that out to me. I copied that right off of the Dodgers’ FB page. Bad sign if the team is already planning to show up on the wrong date. 
ETA: I see they’ve fixed it now. Whew.
Tigers baby! Three years in a row going to the ALCS! JV pitched another absolute peach. 6 2/3 innings of no-hit ball; I think he’s fixed what ailed him.
And is it safe to now say moneyball officially sucks a fat one?
Well, since moneyball got the A’s the 2nd best record in the AL and one game away from the ALCS… I’d say it’s a bit premature to right it off.
Ah so losing 6 out of their last 7 ALDS appearances means it’s working? If that’s my team, I’m calling for Billy Beane’s nuts on a stake.
I give them credit, they have *great *regular seasons.
You mean the system that gets them to the playoffs with a fraction of the payroll of the Tigers?
What a silly thing to say.
Moneyball doesn’t work because it doesn’t have enough intangible clutchheartness. Everybody knows that.
Yeah, that’s the system I’m talking about.
Well, if a team’s goal is to be good enough, I suppose you could say it’s working.
Listen, I’m not dogging these guys who played a hellofa series. I wasn’t sure if the Tigs were even gonna pull it out. But looking at this moneyball system objectively, I don’t think it’s much of a success, unless you consider making the playoffs the ultimate goal every season.
Let’s look at how they’ve fared in the post season since 2000:
2000: lost the ALDS to NY
2001: lost the ALDS to NY
2002: lost the ALDS to Minnesota
2003: lost the ALDS to Boston
2006: won the ALDS against Minnesota, lost the ALCS to Detroit
2012: lost the ALDS to Detroit
2013: lost the ALDS to Detroit
Good for them for making it to the post-season 7 times in the past 14 years, but if I’m a A’s fan, I’d be a little frustrated by this point. Something ain’t working.
Given the tossup nature of a playoff series, any team that is not just aiming to get into the playoffs and hoping to win is incredibly foolish.
Oh, of course not. In no way did that look like crowing from someone whose team had just barely avoided elimination.
Making the playoffs is pretty important if you want to win championships. Speaking of objective, the A’s made the playoffs more times than the Tigers have over the same period and they’ve won the same number of championships. The Tigers have won more playoff series, and to that end it probably helps that they’re able to put more star players out on the field. The A’s can’t hand out huge contracts to multiple guys like Cabrera (whose deal is paying off), Fielder (which everybody agrees was stunningly unwise), and Verlander (whom you’d better hope ages well). So they work a different way. I’ve heard people argue they’re not really using a Moneyball system anymore because what the A’s were doing years ago is common knowledge now. But what they have to do is use the money they have more effectively, and if they’re making the playoffs, it’s hard to argue they are not doing that.
You realize how this is going to look if the Tigers don’t win the Series, right?
Yay the Tigers won.
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And Leyland should be fucking fired. :mad:
The book says you have to have a closer. And the book says he has to come in in the ninth when you have a lead.
Fuck the goddamn book!!!
And fuck the Goddamn Manager who can only sit on his ass and follow the book!!@!
Verlander was the obvious choice to pitch the ninth, no manager with an assdrop of intuition would have taken him out for a shakey ass “closer”
No manager except almost all of them. It’s just bizarre.
And how many of those managers have Verlander on a lights out day, and a “closer” who has given up runs in 3 out of 6 games?
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I really don’t care how it’ll “look.” You want to throw this back in my face if Detroit doesn’t win it all? Knock yourself out, bud. And if the Tigers do lose, I would want heads to roll in management because that would mean after all these years, something ain’t clicking. Just like in Oakland, something ain’t clicking. Unless winning the division is good enough.
I genuinely apologize for saying “Yay Tigers” in the same post that I questioned Beane’s effectiveness. That was crass. I’d root for these guys if they ever made it past the ALDS (and Detroit was out). You’re right; they almost beat the Tigers, but they almost beat a lot of teams over the past 14 years. If I were a fan of the Athletics, I would be pissed, frustrated, hungry. I wouldn’t consider the fact that my team loses in game five of the ALDS every single time to be a good thing, regardless of our market size or how many wins we had in the regular season. To make it to the ALDS that many times and lose in the exact same way every single time, and think that’s a good thing (from a front office’s perspective) shows possible insanity. Something’s gotta change.
But how many years is it going to take of losing the ALDS in game five before someone says “enough.”
I’m not blaming the A’s players or trying to piss on the A’s fans. But if in 6 out of 7 appearances in the ALDS, my team loses in game 5, I’d start to wonder what the fuck needs to happen to actually win a pennant or championship. They’re not bad teams, and that’s what makes this all the more frustrating and fucked up. Something isn’t clicking. Is it that these Billy Beane teams can’t win in the clutch? That they can’t sustain a high level of play beyond 162 games? Does he not put together a starting rotation that can win in a five-game series? Or what? This seems fixable, but Billy’s not fixing it.
After 14 years of coming this far, and having teams that win in the regular season, I say the Billy Beane method, whatever you want to call it, is unable to get them over that hump and can’t win championships. Now you could argue it’s solely the fault of the Oakland market, or it’s solely Billy’s method. I say it’s maybe a combination; small market handicap, but at the end of the day, Billy’s method isn’t the Holy Gospel that some people claim it is. Other small-market teams win pennants.
That sounds shortsighted- especially when it’s coupled with stuff like ‘this team can’t win a five-game series’ and ‘they can’t come through in the clutch.’ What’s your idea, beyond “Moneyball doesn’t work?”
Yep.
That is the Moneyball system. It was never specifically about OBP or any simple formula like that. Finding hidden value, unrecognized truth, rather than paying for the obvious, widely-hailed (but not infallible) qualities. Apart from luck, that’s still the only way for poor teams to win.
I don’t agree that short series are “tossup,” and I do agree that the A’s should be (and are) analyzing what more they need to and can do.
But still, the Tigers haven’t ultimately proven themselves. Any team that’s thrown around their money should have been respectably good by book management. It’s like buying a high-end sports car; you don’t have to be a great driver to push the gas and go faster than your average econobox.