Well, there were also those win totals. But I am sure you can figure out a way to handwave those away.
If that’s what is most important, we wouldn’t have playoffs at all. We’d simply award the title to the team with the best regular season record.
Playoffs answer the question “Who won the playoffs this year?” Win totals answer “Who had the best regular season this year?” I am answering the latter, as was Happy. “[M]any people [are] claiming the AL Central was so inferior to the AL West” and that is why they are making the claim. It is only tangentially related to who won a 5 game playoff series.
I don’t think the Rangers and the Angels are into that new fangled sabermetric thing.
I was paraphrasing something some football coach said – we didn’t lose, we just ran out of time.
After falling behind 6-0, the Reds kept getting runners on base, and had the tying run come to the plate in the 8th and 9th. So they absolutely refused to die, which is a good thing. That they couldn’t get the runs home is either choking, or clutch relief pitching, depending on your POV.
I’m not hand-waving anything away. They had more regular-season wins in a supposedly tougher division, which I had heard as evidence that the A’s were a tougher/better team than Detroit because the Tigers had less wins in a supposedly wimpier division. But head-to-head, both during the regular season and into the playoffs, I saw no evidence of Oakland being the better team.
That being said, kudos to Oakland for a great season.
Alex Rodriguez is not in the starting lineup for game five. Ibanez will DH and hit fifth, after Cano and Teixeira, and Chavez will play third base and bat ninth. Jeter is playing shortstop.
Great news! A-Rod has had exactly one good postseason in his life. A sure sign of fall is A-Rod striking out three times in one game. It sure wouldn’t break my heart if he retired.
Just dropping in this thread to brag a little: got a last minute ticket to tonights Nats v. Cards game! Go Nats!
Yeah, well, coaches usually say idiotic things.
Can we just do that and declare the Reds and Nats co-champions?
I’ll take that
7 games isn’t much better. You really think a 5 (or 7) game series really gives an accurate assessment? Better than a 162 game season?
This isn’t true.
And guess who has the better postseason OPS (as of today). ARod or Jeter?
Well both teams did what they had to do in 162 games to win their divisions and make it to the playoffs. That’s what I take away from the results of the 162-game season. But only one team did what it had to do to make it to the ALCS. Are you saying the A’s are still better than Detroit? Even though they lost to them, head-to-head, in both their regular-season series *and *their post-season match-up?
If you’re saying Oakland’s a better team than Detroit because they won more regular season games, why don’t we just skip the post season and give the championship rings to the team with the best record in 162 games?
The missing word here is “matchups.” Anyway Oakland was pretty clearly better than Detroit in the regular season. In the playoffs it comes down to matchups and there is a larger amount of randomness and upsets because of the format. Yes, you learn more about teams from 162 games than you do from five or seven. We have playoffs because people want to see the best teams play each other and because playoffs are dramatic. They are less fair, but they’re fair enough and interesting enough that on the whole it works.
Just came back from the gym, where SportsCenter was on. I wasn’t paying strict attention, but I believe they spent an entire 30 minutes on “OMG A-ROD NOT IN THE LINEUP!!!” freaking out.
:rolleyes:
This is the conundrum of all sports championships. We don’t give trophies to the “best team” – we give them to the winner of the final game/series.
Detroit is obviously going to be better in a 5 game series than they were in the regular season. In the regular season, Justin Verlander does not start 40% of their games.
The Yankees get on the board after Teixeira hits a single, steals second, and Ibanez singles to center. Manufacturing a run to get off the schneid and take a lead.
Sorry, Cal, but if it nicks the pole it is fair, not foul.