World Series Preview
posted in Post-season, St. Louis Cardinals, World Series |I really wish St. Louis would have taken care of business in Game 6 to give me a little time to actually look up stuff and write stuff. As it is, I think every baseball writer who isn’t paid as such is probably scrambling and hopefully among the bunch of us, you learn something useful.
The series:Detroit swept St. Louis in June, 10-6, 7-6, 4-1. Bilfer does a lot better job at this than I do.
Interleague:
Detroit, 15-3. St. Louis, 5-10.
The team:
St. Louis won 83 games. In the National League. Jim Leyland says this doesn’t matter. We would expect him to say as such. If you’re good enough, you make the playoffs. If you’re not, you don’t. That’s the knowledge of Leyland. For St. Louis, 83 wins was enough to keep playing. In the National League. I know, I’ve mentioned that, but still. The Cards beat the Padres. Some would say improbably. I’m apt to agree. Baseball Prospecus’ secret sauce suffered a rare defeat in predicting that series. In seven games, the Cardinals beat the Mets to advance to the World Series. While this sounds like an upset — and probably is — it’s not as big an upset due to a weak Mets’ pitching staff, an increasing tired bullpen, and batters that couldn’t put up runs, reminscent of another New York baseball squad. Oh, and secret sauce was wrong on that series, too. But ask anyone, I actualy called the Cards to win it.
Pitching:
So what do the Cards have? Pitching wise, Game 1 starter is Anthony Reyes (who, by the way, was nearly traded with Dan Haren to Oakland for Mark Mulder). There’s Jeff Weaver, as you probably remember or will hear a million times, floundered for the LA Angels earlier this year while his brother flourished. He stunk up the joint in St. Louis, too. Until the playoffs. And a couple improbable starts later, he’ll be on the mound Sunday. Chris Carpenter needs no introduction. Today, neither does Jeff Suppan. He just won the NLCS MVP for two beautiful starts. Their closer, Adam Wainright, is a rookie. You may have seen him take care of business against the Mets. (I’m thinking Bobby Jenks suddenly).
So it’s not like the Cardinals have a pushover of a pitching staff. As good as Detroit’s? I doubt it. They gave up more runs this season without having to regularly face the Yankees, Indians, White Sox and Blue Jays. They don’t have a lot of strikeouts or a great closer, if you’re keeping track of the secret sauce.. Baseball Prospectus also points out they had 36 strikeouts in seven games of the NLCS.
Defense:
But, oh, that defense is really good. Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, they don’t really need any introduction. Good thing there’s no defense against a home run! (Excluding the Mets’ Endy Chavez). But the Tigers also have the top defense (by efficieny rating) in baseball, so I think you have to give that to Detroit, too.
Offense:
The lineup? I wouldn’t really worry. Albert Pujols is obviously the big worry. His hamstring was said to be bothering him, but his OPS is nearly 1.000 anyway and he averaged a run per game but just four RBIs in the NLCS. But he’s good in any league. Other than that, they don’t have the power of the Tigers. They don’t have the speed of the Tigers. (!!!) Yes, the Tigers have NO speed, so that is saying a lot. They don’t particularly like lefties. (Cept maybe Pujols). The meat of their order seems to do fine against righties though. If people want to question who those guys in Detroit’s order, at least 7-8-9 all have 25+ homers. The Cards? Not so much. They are, like Detroit, balanced. Just not as good.
The conclusion:
The Baseball Prospectus simulation gave Detroit the title every 2 of 3 simulations. But we dont’ need a computer to state the obvious. This is a mismatch. This scrappy Cardinals team might be able to do some damage. Or it might not. But really, that’s about its only hope. T
Tigers really should sweep this. You hate to say that though, since no one ever sweeps when you predict them to. So everyone will say Tigers in five. Even if it’s Tigers in six, I find it extremely unlikely that the Cards have any real shot. (Which, as we’ve learned, doesn’t mean much. People have failed at predicting the futurs for St. Louis and Detroit the entire playoffs). Still I’ll say Tigers in 5.
Baseball Prospectus says:
BP posted its analysis late Friday/early Saturday. They agree, Tigers have been offense, defense, starting pitching and bullpen. But they, too are cautious.
Sphere ItThe Tigers are pretty clearly the superior team, with no one area of particular dominance but small edges across the board, with the mostly trivial exception of the bench. My hunch, however, is that this will be a competitive series, with the Cardinals getting a good performance out of Reyes in Game One and winning Carpenter’s start in St. Louis. We�ll take the Tigers in six, but if the series goes the distance, setting up a probable Carpenter/Robertson pitching matchup that represents the least favorable permutation for the Tigers, we could see an upset.
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Wrong!