With the World Series matchup now set, here are three things to keep an eye on today…
1. Diamondbacks’ wild run goes into the World Series:
The Diamondbacks knocked off the Phillies in the NLCS and are now headed to Texas to face the Rangers in the World Series. The D’Backs only won 84 games in the regular season and actually had a run differential of -15, but none of that matters now. They knocked off the Brewers, Dodgers and Phillies to put them in the final showdown, which begins Friday night.
2. Melvin moving on:
It was reported yesterday that the Giants are going to hire Bob Melvin as their manager, after the Padres gave him permission to pursue the gig. The Giants have a press conference scheduled for today and it seems fair to expect that the Melvin move will be made official. That will leave the Padres looking for a new bench boss, joining the Angels, Mets and Guardians as clubs without a manager. The Astros and Brewers could join that list soon with Dusty Baker and Craig Counsell each on expiring contracts.
3. Astros chat:
Yesterday, MLBTR’s Anthony Franco took a look at what could be ahead for the Astros as part of our Offseason Outlook series. Each entry of that series comes with its own team-centric chat where readers can ask questions focused on the club. If you want to chop it up about the Astros, it gets going at 9:30 am Central but you can click here to ask a question in advance.
Atta Boy Phillies
3. Astros Cheat
Time to move on. Get on with your life.
Renounce the title. Flags fly forever and so do the nature of those flags.
Astros cheated. Bonds cheated. Ironically neither had to.
I think you can move on with your life and still shake your head at what the Astros did.
But if you want to be proud of your accomplishments while basing them on a rotting foundation, no one can stop you. It says more about you than it does me.
I’m just pointing out that’s what it looked like at first glance. I personally don’t care if they were banging on a trash can or not. Get over yourself.
You don’t care they cheated. Acts without consequences, welcome to the new dichotomy.
Alvarado probably shouldn’t be included on any future playoff rosters. Doesn’t seem like he handles pressure very well.
Atta boy Avocado.
Call him playoff Guacamole
He had a 1.13 era and a 1.25 WHIP what are you talking about?
Welcome to the postseason, where recency bias trumps common sense
Since the advent of division play and especially the wild card, the best baseball team is unlikely to win the World Series.
It’s the nature of the sport.
@Halo11Fan
If you add in more and more teams, it becomes more random. Before they changed it in the 60s, we had the top two teams playing each other. Adding in a division series meant there was more potential for random outcomes of hot teams. Now with 12 teams, you have even more randomness.
The best baseball team at the time of the World Series wins the World Series. I love it! I also love the sabermetrics folks who are twitching right now at the run differential not meaning anything for the DBacks in the playoffs 🙂
@Manfred Rob’s Earth Band
But… but… but… Atlanta was the sabermetric darling and lead the league in everything under the sun from HRs to OBP to Batter Showoff %. and they still lost. Waaaah!
So, without going down the saber metric rabbit hole, but focusing on who won the regular season divisions and past World Series winners, doesn’t the addition of all the wild card teams plus 3 divisions (and the randomness it generates) make it difficult, if not impossible, to compare current World Series champs to past World Series champs?
Given the decreased odds and randomness factors existing today, the Yankees almost certainly would not have won all of those World Series titles in prior years.
So, if we are going to treat the current system as legitimate, do we need to discount prior years flags as illegitimate? Tell the Yankees to take down 2/3 of their banners?
Point is that Without consistency of what we’re measuring when anointing someone “World Series champion”, there is no consistent definition of World Series champion, and thus, being a World Series champion becomes meaningless.
It’s not meaningless, it’s only meaningless for crowing the best team. But it’s always been meaningless for crowning the best team.
If you win this tournament, you are World Series Champions.
Without going down the rabbit hole, it’s harder for the best teams to win the Word Series today than it was prior to division play.
Why not just draw an arbitrary line wherever you feel like it then?
The Pirates won 20 in April, I’ll draw the line right there and say they are the world champs.
No it doesn’t. No one who understands baseball believes that. When bullets go for outs and the squibbers/bloops go for hits don’t come close to evening out.
The randomness of events are in fact random in short series.
The NCAA tournament almost never crowns the best team all year either.
But baseball or Basketball give you a lot of games to figure a series out. Best of 7 in the ALCS and WS is a long damn time. Though, the WC has made the tournament more wonky. I think the teams with byes are going to have to take a hard look at what they do during the time off.
In basketball, the shooter is responsible for the shot. In baseball, the batter can hit a screamer, and it’s an out. The batter can not hit the ball hard enough to break a pane of glass, and it could be a hit.
The randomness of a batted ball event makes it impossible to determine the difference between two reasonably matched teams in a seven game series.
I’m wondering if MLB should look into some kind of mid season tournament like the FA Cup in England.
Invite everyone, do it around the All Star break, pick a neutral site, you could probably play four games a day, make it single elimination, base it on current standings, and the winner gets a trophy and the players get a nice bonus pool.
This way you can still have some random playoff, and the championship can be decided by real winning teams. Of course you need 32 to make it work though.
Or do an NCAA style.
NCAA tournament vs NIT.
Top 4 go to main stage
5-8 go to secondary stage.
I’d be fine with this happening a week before the all star break. Best of 3. Pick two city locations to host. Most wins by AL/NL teams decides the home field for world series.
16 teams get in, Top 4 teams play at home a best of 3 with a catch; top 4 teams win one game before their opponent wins 2, they move to round 2.
Bottom 16 teams play best 2 of 3. Winner gets the first overall draft pick, second gets the 2nd pick etc.
Sounds like you don’t like that the best teams in the regular season often aren’t the best in the post season. I think unpredictability is what makes baseball the most interesting and exciting sport.
Been a diehard dbacks fan since the start of their franchise. The real philly fans I say to you great series. The ones who talk trash and leave early I say you get what you deserve. I fought Torey so much cause of questionable decisions. However I cant argue with results. Also Moreno is the MVP for us all year. When he was gone we were one of the worst teams in baseball. That man changed our entire franchise, and kept Toreys job available. Remember in the middle of the year he got hurt and we lost so many in a row. He came back kelly got traded and he were are! Hazen deserves so much credit. Thompson move was not even looked at by anyone. Sewald turned out to be brillant. Pham was a veteran needed. It’s one thing to buy players, it’s another to do it with no money and have to find so many missing pieces. All this with his tragedy with his wife. Amazing man!
Yeah, I still can’t believe the Jays chose Kirk over Moreno, and overpaid for Varsho.
Great trade for ARI though. Carroll is gonna be a superstar, if he’s not already.
Can’t believe the Jays picked Moreno over Jansen. Can’t believe the Jays traded Moreno plus Gurriel for an overrated player with inflated metrics.
Without that trade, Zona misses the playoffs. Without that trade, Jays probably draw Tampa in round 1.
Atta boy, Phillies. Up 2-0 and 3-2 and you let the DBacks win it. Ha! Ha!
But I’m sure all the trash talk that applied to the Braves last week in no way transfers to the Phillies now.
Now, it’s just baseball, and we just missed hitting that home run. As if fractions of an inch don’t decide every fly ball vs home run.
Manfred playoffs are a disaster. 5 playoff teams was perfect. 3 wild cards dilutes the field and for as random as a spot of baseball its not a surprise the 6 seed is going to the world series again. Whats the point in 162 games when everybody gets in?
Why complain? ALL the major sports have the playoffs formatted so that nearly 40% of the teams in their league gets in. More TV $$$, and the joy(sarcasm) of watching your favorite sport go on and on for another month + of excitement!
I’m definitely not complaining.
Basketball and Football are less random than baseball and hockey.
This isn’t complex.
“my dodgers lost wah wah wah”
Point of 162 games is top 6 teams get in. Not 15.
Football 7 get in not 16
Basketball 8 get in not 15
6 seed going to the playoffs is great. underdogs are always a fun story. Guys like Merrill Kelly getting dominated by the dodgers in regular season and coming out just putting the dodgers offense to sleep in the post season is a great story.
If somebody told you before the season your average expectations team would win 84 games you wouldn’t take that. That never gets you in the playoffs as a wild card before 2020. But sure keep pretending adding more and more wild cards doesn’t make an already random sport worse. Any team but the tanking A’s could go on a run like this
Rules are pretty simple
Win and get in.
NFL has had 7-9 teams win a division hosting 11-5 teams and upsetting them.
Basketball have had 8 seeds knock out 1 seeds.
Happens in every sport. Baseball fans are just unhappy their teams werent able to get it done in post season.
Diamondbacks won more games than cubs, reds, padres, giants, pirates, mets, cardinals, nationals, rockies. Of those teams Padres, Cardinals, Mets, Giants had aspirations of competing. to some degree. They didn’t do their job. Plain and simple.
A 100+ win team should easily beat an 84 win team. Dodgers were 8-5 in games this year against Dbacks. Unhappy with the result> Dodgers should have played better.
Every 100 team lost and that bye week is a massive part of it. The wild card game used to punish teams by not having them set up their rotation. But good ol Manfred can’t be kean to wild card teams. Two off days sandwitching the wild card series flips the advantage by keeping their rotation in tact. MLB sold their soul for expanded playoffs.
100+ win teams lost before a bye week too. Playoffs are always a crap shoot.
Kelly faced the Dodgers 3 times in reg season. Lost one giving up 2 Rs and 2 no decisions that he gave up zero runs. They did not dominant him in any way.
Sorry must be thinking about his life time stats.
16 games
54 runs
106 hits
.315/.381/.511
Thank You shapiro and your CARRY ON BAGGAGE atkins of the Toronto Blue Jays, FOR the Huge lopsided trade that PUT US INTO THE WORLD SERIES !!
The ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS BASEBALL CLUB !!!
That Sewald trade is pretty close in importance. I can’t imagine they make it here without a shutdown closer. He’s been incredible for them.
Hard to believe that Arizona could knock Philly off. I hope they upset one more team.
The ALWC’s did at least have postseason records. 84 wins and in is crazy though for 2/3 teams.
It is pretty shocking. The Phillies looked unbeatable. That’s baseball. I give a lot of credit to DBacks pitching coach Brent Strom.
He deserves a lot of credit. Brandon Pfaadt’s emergence has been huge for them.
They’re severely outgunned in the rotation again in this series. If Gallen doesn’t show up—it’s gonna be an uphill battle. Been true for every round and they’ve still advanced. Who knows. I would’ve bet my life on Philly.
Rangers win their first world series or Evan Longoria finally gets a ring after waiting since 2008 ish to return to the big dance. I’m fine with either outcome.
I’m sure the folks at the Fox network are going to be THRILLED with their ratings bonanza from a Texas v Arizona World Series. Their Southwest numbers might be high, but I suspect this will be among the lowest rated World Series ever. Not that it really should matter, but it does help the future of the sport.
Phillies got snake bit!
Phillies were better in the short series.
In the the 7 games vs Arizona, only when harper hit, did the phillies win. Rest of the offense was MIA, not withstanding in the 10 run scored wins.. Even despite the bullpen meltdown, phillies are a 5 game series team.
Raise you hand if you had Texas and Arizona (and your not a fan of them) at the beginning of the year… either your a liar or please let me tag along with you in Vegas!!!
@olmtiant
Well, before the playoffs started, I made a random guess that Arizona would be in the final. I also though Baltimore would be playing them but I was wrong on that.
York.. kudos for that at beginning of playoffs but anyone who could have done this back in April is either the only real person with esp.. or Johnny Carson ( Karnac)
In 2021 Moreno hit .373/.441/.651 for a 1.092 OPS in AA. All before he was hit by a pitch breaking his thumb. 145 plate appearances.
In 2018 Vlad Guerrero, untouchable in a trade, faired better in AA with .402/.449/.671 for a 1.120 OPS.
Difference is offset by Moreno’s incredible pop-up time and advanced D while Vlad tried fielding at 3B with a frying pan. One guy wasn’t to be traded, the other dealt for a high metric, low ability 4th outfielder. Blue Jays would have been better off dealing an injury-prone Jansen for a low level prospect just to save a few million. If Zona wins the World Series they should send the Jays front office at the scout that recommended this trade a World Series ring.
Don’t forget about Ginkel.
I continue to love all these comments about the great teams who failed to advance, instead of the positives about the team that beat them. Dbacks thrive on being the underdog! Actually they are vastly underrated, but keep talking about everybody else…and watch the underdog Dbacks win the World Series. Of course, after they do many of you will continue spouting the ridiculous notion that the World Series Championship means nothing (unless your favorite “good” team wins it).
Worst to playoff team who disposed the no mlb and no playoff experience moniker. Most of them are 2nd or 3rd year players. Why don’t the marlins do this?
Beat WS ding dong Ditch team.
Diamondbacks slaying giants.
They slayed the Phillies. Giants were not in the playoffs,LOL.
Lower case g. Try and keep up. Also, Brewers and Dodgers, along with Phillies. All big spending teams.
Next up, another big spending team, the Rangers.
Pho q! Keep up with that!
Arizona Diamondbacks… Team of destiny