To my mind, “manufacturing” runs implies what is also know as “small ball.” It relies on putting runs together out of walks, stolen bases, sacrifice bunts or hits, and aggressive base-running instead of depending on the long ball (extra-base hits).
Give me seven games and I will be happy. After WS I will have baseball withdrawal until Spring.
I will be happiest if the Sox get the ring. The Sox have style!
LAD are boring. And I hope Machado goes 0 for 30. And doesn’t get a job next year.
Manufacturing runs is scoring without relying only on hitting. So if a guy walks, steals second, advances to 3rd on a grounder to 2B and then scores on a sac fly, that’s pretty much the definition of a manufactured run. I have not watched the Dodgers at all this year, but I guess asahi is saying they don’t play much “small ball.” Looking at stats, they led the NL in home runs, but were middle of the pack (8th) in batting average. They were below average in stolen bases.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, led the AL in battering average by a pretty good margin, but were 6th in home runs. The Sox were also 3rd in stolen bases.
I was being facetious. I understand quite well what people think it means.
My point is that, when a team is good at scoring runs, then saying that they need to be “better at manufacturing runs” is essentially meaningless. Two runs scored from a single and a home run counts exactly the same on the scoresheet, as far as I understand it, as two runs scored from a combination of “walks, stolen bases, sacrifice bunts or hits, and aggressive base-running.”
I’m not arguing that teams should place all of their hopes on the home run, and nor am I arguing that hitters should swing for the fences on every pitch. There’s nothing wrong at all with a Walk; it gets you on base, keeps the inning going, and gives the next hitter a chance to advance you even further. Stolen bases are fine in the right place, provided that you have a success rate that justifies the attempts you are making. Sacrifice bunts are generally not worth the effort, except in a couple of cases: when the hitter is a pitcher, and when the game is late and close and a single run is crucial to the outcome.
The Dodgers walked more than any other team in baseball this year. They had far more sacrifice bunts than the Red Sox, which is exactly what you would expect when comparing a National League team to an American League team, because the NL team sends a pitcher to the plate at least a couple of times per game. Boston had far more stolen bases, and a higher SB success rate (82%, compared to 75% for the Dodgers).
Boston had a significantly better batting average, but their superior average works out to less than one hit per game over the Dodgers. Much of that is offset by the Dodgers’ higher walk rate. In team OBP, Boston has an advantage of 6/1000, or about 36 baserunners guys getting on base over the course of a 6000-plate-appearance season. And some of that advantage is negated by the Dodgers’ pitching staff’s superior WHIP.
Boston scored an average of half a run per game more than the Dodgers during the regular season, while LA allowed about one quarter fewer runs per game than the Red Sox. But you know what? You can’t score a quarter of a run, or half a run, in an actual game. What we’ve got here is two outstanding teams, about to play a 7-game series where the result could turn on a few key plays. I might turn out to be wrong, but I suspect that, if the Dodgers lose the World Series, an inability to “manufacture” runs won’t be the main culprit.
If you take out pitchers, they bunt about the same, which is to say not at all. Boston had just seven sacrifice bunts all season and LA had just eight from non-pitchers.
Good teams do not bunt. Teams don’t bunt much at all anymore, but there has never been a correlation between bunting and scoring a lot of runs.
I think, too, that it should be borne in mind the Dodgers are not stupid, and they know what works in Dodger Stadium and it ain’t hitting for average. Dodger Stadium is a pitcher’s park, and it’s specifically horrible for contact hitting because all the foul ground kills you on popups. It IS, however, a decent home run park. Walks and homers are always a pretty good way to win, but in Chavez Ravine, even more so.
I don’t buy it. Fenway’s bases are ninety feet apart, the pitcher stands 60’6" from the batter, and the field is made of grass. Literally the only weird thing about it are the outfield fences and even that’s not as unusual as people make it out to be; it’s not like the Monster is thirty feet behind the infield cutout. The Red Sox don’t have a particularly big home field advantage.
I am pretty unconvinced that a good major league team like the Dodgers is the slightest bit fazed by Fenway Park.
Fenway is Fenway, and it is not some huge advantage for the Red Sox. It has been around for over 100 years, and teams know how to play there.
It’s not like the Homerdome large advantage was for the Twins in the late 1980s / early 1990s.
It’s not meaningless, especially when you consider the fact that in a World Series, you’re going to be facing the best pitchers in the league - pitchers who are really, really good at locating and avoiding long balls. The cream puff pitchers are done. Alex Cora’s not going to pull Chris Sale in the 3rd inning so that he can give the Dodgers more chances to figure out Boston’s relievers.
Yes the Dodgers are good at scoring runs, but a higher percentage of their runs comes from power. Over the years, we’ve seen what happens when good pitchers locate pitches so that power hitters can’t drive the ball. You need some lead-off hitters as well as hitters in the 6, 7, and 8 spots who can slap the ball the other way when the runners are on 2nd. You also need speed on the base paths to advance on sacrifices or to steal in order to get into scoring position with 1 or 2 outs. If the Red Sox were purely an offensive team and didn’t have great pitching, I’d say the Dodgers are the clear favorites because of their pitching advantage from inning 1 through inning 9, especially in the bullpen.
For Boston to win, they need to take the lead through the 6th and 7th innings. I happen to think they’ll do that. They might struggle the first time through the order, but they’re going to start making contact in innings 4 through 6, and they’re going to pummel Dodger pitching. If, on the other hand, LA can keep it close going into the final innings, then the advantage goes their way.
Finally! An argument that actually bears some resemblance to the realities of the contest.
It is certainly true that the equation sometimes shifts during the postseason, due to the way that pitching rotations work. If Team A has five decent starters, but no standouts, and Team B has thee Cy Young contenders and two scrubs, then Team B probably has a decent advantage in the playoffs because the top three in the rotation pitch most of the games.
But I don’t think that any of this really supports the following:
As I suggested in my previous post, the Red Sox hitting advantage over the Dodgers works out at less than one hit per game, and that is at least partially offset by the Dodgers’s better OBP and WHIP.
You seem to be suggesting that the Dodgers hit homers or nothing, but that’s simply not true. The Red Sox hit about 890 singles this year, and the Dodgers hit about 830. About the only area where Boston have a really noticeable hitting advantage over LA is in doubles, and that could actually be one area where Fenway plays a role; plenty of line drives off the green monster end up going for two bases.
You say that “Over the years, we’ve seen what happens when good pitchers locate pitches so that power hitters can’t drive the ball.” Sure, that sometimes happens, but there are also occasions where good pitchers get hit, because they’re facing good hitters. Your argument strikes me as a slightly different version of the old canard that, in the playoffs, “Pitching shuts down hitting.” Well, yes, except when it doesn’t.
None of this is to downplay or minimize Boston’s hitting talent. They scored more runs than any other team in baseball for a reason. They have some fantastic hitters, they were the best team all year, and they probably deserve to be a slight favorite in a 7-game series, even against another outstanding team.
So if a team that has really good pitching didn’t have really good pitching, you’d conclude that having worse pitching would reduce their chances of winning? Well, that’s certainly a radical position to take.
Another radical position: If they have the lead through 7 innings, they have a good chance of winning the games. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of baseball games do you think are won by the team leading after 7 innings?***
What next? “The team that scores the most runs in going to win”? Your name’s not Joe Morgan is it?
*** Since 1957, in all games, the numbers are:
Home team leading:
By 1 run: 77.5% winning percentage
By 2 runs: 89.4%
By 3 runs: 94.9%
Visitor leading:
By 1 run: 75.6%
By 2 runs: 87.4%
By 3 runs: 94.3%
Yeah, they get them out. The thing is, that’s also what happens to the bad hitters, the leadoff hitters, the number 8 hitters, and the slap hitters. There isn’t a type of hitter that does disproportionately well when the good pitchers come out.
It’s kind of odd to suggest the Dodgers are unlikely to do well against playoff pitching when in the last couple of years they have beaten so many playoff pitchers. They’re 17-9 in playoff games in 2017-2018. 18-9 if you count the division tiebreaker. I mean, it’s working.
Boston had a higher OBP than Los Angeles, even accounting for the difference in league.
“Less than one hit per game” is literally true but it kind of suggests less of a difference than it is. A team that gets 1500 hits and a team that gets 1400 hits are a long way apart in terms of offensive ability. That it’s “less than one hit a game” starts to lose sight of the fact some teams are a lot better than others. Those seemningly small individual differences make a big difference in terms of likelihood of winning.
Bostion scored 19.5% more runs than the average team - just a hair less than one run a game. That does not at first glance appear to be a big deal, but in terms of effect on winning it’s an incredible number. It is very rare for any team to get to 20% above league average; maybe five or six teams in my 46-year lifetime have made it to 25%, and only one (the '76 Reds) hit 30%. The Red Sox’s run scoring ability, though less than a run per game better than average, was so good that even if their pitching staff had been league average, they would probably have still made the playoffs, albeit likely in the Wild Card game.
I have a weird idea: why not wait to see who wins, and how? 
I’ve got to remember to tell my wife I love her this afternoon, just before Game One starts. Because we won’t be speaking to each other for the next week or so.
Wife - Boston born and bred
Me - Bleeds Dodger Blue
One of us is going to be smug and the other pissed off no matter what happens.
No offense, but I sure hope your wife is the pissed-off one.
Also <sneak brag> keep an eye out for me on TV tonight. 
Sorry, I transposed the numbers for the two teams in that post. I noted in a previous post that Boston had the better OBP, then somehow turned it around.
Right, but the point I’m trying to make in this thread is that those differences are, in most cases, far more significant over the course of a 162-game season that they might be in the course of a 7-game series.
The difference is really big in the long run, and the incredible hitting talent that Boston has must surely give them and their fans confidence in their ability to win the World Series. If they win the series, whether it be in a 4-3 nailbiter where Game 7 goes to extra innings, or in a 4-0 snoozefest, I won’t be surprised.
But it’s also totally within the realms of possibility—even likelihood—that their undoubted long-run superiority in hitting might be overshadowed, in the short run, by factors such as one or two players having a big night, or one or two players having a bad night, or a lucky (or unlucky) bounce of the ball, or a few line drives getting into the gap instead of going straight to a fielder, or even a close call on fan interference. That’s the main point I’ve been trying to make.
Boston was the best offensive team in baseball this year, and yet it’s still well within the range of normal expectation that the Dodgers might win the World Series. I’m just trying to counter the notion that Boston’s offensive superiority can be reduced to the fact that they know how to “manufacture runs,” and the Dodgers don’t.
This also was part of my point in the first place. Note that I’ve made no predictions about who will win, because I’m waiting to find out.
I get vaguely annoyed by self-assured predictions of how series like this are going to play out, especially when those predictions are based on fairly nebulous terms like “manufacturing runs.” The sheer hitting and pitching talent of the team is much more important than anything so imprecise.
Such predictions are easy to make and have no consequences, because if they come true, the person can just say “I told you so,” and if they don’t then you get either silence, or some sort of blase handwaving about how things don’t always go as you expect. But that’s precisely the nature of a 7-game series: things don’t always go as you’d expect.
For the record, I’m cheering for the Dodgers, partly because I’ve never seen them win it before, and it’s always fun to see a new team win it all, and partly because I’ve come to dislike the Red Sox just about as much as I dislike the Yankees, although to be fair to Boston, it’s less about the team (many of whose players I like a lot) than it is about their fans.
Oh, I see your point. Any team can beat another one a seven game series. Well, maybe not the Orioles.
When you put together ALL the numbers, the Red Sox and Dodgers are essentially equal. I think LA is being ludicrously underrated. The Dodgers scored the most runs in the National League AND allowed the fewest. That is rather clearly not a common thing - I don’t know how many times in baseball history that has ever happened but I bet it isn’t 30 times in over two hundred combined AL and NL seasons.
Another bit of trivia for everyone; LA did not have any pitcher who pitched enough innings to win the ERA title, which, I am quite certain, is a totally new event for any pennant winning team and until recently pretty much never happened even for bad teams.
What fun is that?:dubious:
Ain’t that the truth.
In my previous post, I was actually going to argue that any team can beat any other team in a short series, but I remembered the Orioles and decided against making that particular point.
Not sure if you’ve seen this, but the folks at FivethirtyEight actually have the Red Sox as 60% favorites to win the series. That seems pretty damn high to me, especially in a series between two such strong teams.
They give the Sox a 65% chance of winning tonight’s game. I know Sale has been amazing, but I’m not sure I’d ever handicap a Clayton Kershaw start that heavily, unless he was going to pitch from a wheelchair or something.
I’m surprised by those numbers considering Sale’s recent health issues. I wonder if that was taken into account?
The money line is BOS -147, so Vegas considers the Sox a pretty decent favorite, too.
The A’s were heavily favored in '88. Didn’t mean much then. Hope it doesn’t mean much now.