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2008 World Series: Clearing Up Some Misconceptions

By Dave Fleming

October 21, 2008

Before I get to my pick for the 2008 World Series, I thought I'd take a minute to clear up a few misconceptions.

Misconception #1: The Phillies have the vastly superior offense.

The general consensus is that the Philadelphia Phillies are a vastly better offensive team than the Tampa Bay Rays. After all, they have Utley, Howard, Rollins and Burrell in their lineup. They led the National League in homeruns, and only the Cubs scored more runs than they did.

The Rays? Of the hitters on their playoff roster, only Longoria and Carlos Pena hit more than 13 homeruns during the regular season. None of their regulars hit .300. Only Upton and Pena had an OBP above .350.

For all that, the Rays are pretty close to the Phillies:

	Runs	Rank	HR	Rank	OPS	Rank
Phillies	799	9th	214	2nd	0.77	7th
Rays	774	13th	180	9th	0.762	10th

The numbers are closer than I would have initially guessed: Phillies have scored 25 more runs, hit 34 more homers, and have a couple points in OPS. It’s worth remembering that the Phillies are a National League team, and their numbers are hurt by having the pitcher bat in the #9 spot in the lineup.

These numbers are misleading. The Tampa Bay Rays are the better hitting team. And, frankly, it’s not even close.

A mental exercise for you: write down a list of the top pitchers in baseball. Go ahead. I’ll wait. When you’re finished, group the pitchers by their divisions. How many are in the AL Central? How about the NL West?

Because I have some free time, I did exactly that, writing down the names of all pitchers in baseball who earned 11 or more Win Shares in 2008. There were a total of sixty-nine pitchers. Here’s how they were distributed:

NL East	NL Central	NL West	AL East	AL Central	AL West
8 pitchers	13 pitchers	11 pitchers	17 pitchers	12 pitchers	8 pitchers
Santana	Volquez	Lincecum	Halladay	Lee	E. Santana
Hamels	Sheets	Webb	Lester	Danks	Saunders
Nolasco	Oswalt	Haren	Mussina	Greinke	F. Hernandez
Moyer	Dempster	Billingsly	Matsuzaka	Buehrle	Duchschere
Lidge	Zambrano	Lowe	Shields	Floyd	Lackey
Jurrjens	Sabbathia	Peavy	Burnett	Meche	Weaver
Pelfrey	Lohse	Cain	Guthrie	Galaraga	Rodriguez
Hudson	Lilly	Cook	Litsch	Baker	Arrendondo
	Wellemeyer	Johnson	Garza	Soria
	Wainwright	Jimenez	Rivera	Nathan
	Maholm	Funetes	Papelbon	Vasquez
	Looper		Kazmir	Jenks
	Valverde		Marcum
			Pettitte
			Beckett
			Wakefield
			Howell

In terms of quality pitching, the weakest divisions were the NL East and the AL West. The strongest division, by far, was the American League East. Within their division, the Phillies batters contended against just five quality pitchers. Rays hitters had to deal with thirteen quality pitchers.

The Phillies faced Johan Santana five times last year. The Rays faced Roy Halladay five times. Unfortunately, the Rays also faced Beckett (five times), Lester (three times), Mussina (three times), Dice-K (three times), and Burnett (three times).

This paints things in broad strokes, of course: if I had time I’d look at each team’s individual game logs, and count how many times the Rays and Phillies actually faced quality pitchers. But there is no doubt that the Rays faced tougher pitching in 2008 than the Phillies did.

The other detail in the Rays favor is the return of a few important bats to their lineup. Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli were solid in the ALCS, and B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria were both remarkable against Boston pitching, each player hitting four homeruns over the seven game series. If their offense was ‘sneaky good’ over the regular season, the Rays served notice during the ALCS that the ‘sneaky’ part no longer applies.

Misconception #2: The Rays have all the speed.

Tampa Bay led the AL with 142 stolen bases. The Phillies stole 136 bases. However, the Rays were caught stealing 50 times, while the Phillies were only caught 25 times.

According to the team baserunning analysis, the Phillies were far and away the best running team in baseball, scoring a +113 on the bases.

	Baserunner Gain	Stolen Base Gain	Net Gain
Phillies	+28	+86	+114
Rays	-5	+42	+37

The Rays might be the faster team, but the Phillies are the better team on the basepaths.

(In fact, I think the Rays are the faster team. One measure that suggests this is defensive efficiency, which measures a team’s ability to turn balls into play into outs. The Rays led the majors in that category, suggesting that they have the speed to make more outs. They are the better defensive team in the match-up, and arguably the best defensive team in baseball).

Misconception #3: You need a strong bullpen to win the World Series. Thus the Phillies have an edge.

Let’s split this one in half. The notion that you need a strong bullpen to win the World Series is false:

-In 2006, the Detroit bullpen had a 3.51ERA, 4^th in the majors. The Cardinals bullpen posted a 4.06 ERA,14^th in the majors). The Cardinals won the World Series.

-In 2004, the Cardinals bullpen had a 3.01 ERA, best in the majors. The Red Sox bullpen had a 3.87 ERA, tied for ninth in the majors. The Red Sox won the World Series.

-In 2003, the Yankees bullpen had a 4.02 ERA, 12^th in the majors. The Marlins bullpen had a 4.29 ERA, 19^th in the majors. The Marlins won the World Series.

-In 2001, the Yankees bullpen had a 3.38 ERA, 3^rd in the majors. The Diamondbacks had a 3.84 bullpen ERA, 9th in the majors. The D’Backs won the World Series.

-In 2000, the Mets bullpen had a 4.35, 14^th in the majors. The Yankees bullpen had a 4.52, 18^th in the majors. The Yankees won the World Series.

Which leads to another misconception: that the Phillies have a substantial bullpen edge in this series. To be sure, the Phillies bullpen has been terrific this year. They’ve posted a 3.19 ERA, the second best mark in baseball. And Brad Lidge is a terrific closer.

But the Rays bullpen posted a 3.55 ERA, good enough for fifth in the majors. And again, that’s playing in the tougher American League, in the strongest division in baseball.

And for all the attention that the absence of Troy Percival has received, he was actually one of the least effective arms in the Rays pen, posting a 4.53 ERA. The core of the relief staff is J.P. Howell (2.22 ERA, 89 IP), Balfour (1.54 ERA, 53 IP), Wheeler (3.12 ERA, 66 IP), and submariner Chad Bradford (1.42 ERA, 19 IP).

The Phillies have a fine relief staff, but it isn’t much of an edge against the Rays.

Misconception #4: If the Rays win, they will be the first worst-to-first baseball team to ever win a Championship.

This has been repeated a lot lately. Unfortunately, it’s only true if you consider the American and National Leagues as the only ‘professional leagues.’

The American Association, that old “Beer and Whiskey League” that was a precursor to the American League, saw a worst-to-first champion in the 1889-1890 seasons. In 1889, the Louisville Colonels posted the worst record in the league, a mark of 27-111. They went through four managers during the season, and after it was all over Louisville lost their star player (and Louisville native son) Pete Browning, who ditched the team for the Players’ League.

So what happened? Well: their young pitchers came up big. Scott Stratton, 3-13 in 1889, went 34-14 in 1890. Red Ehret, twenty years old in 1889, went from a 10-29 record to a 25-14 mark. They also had a terrific year from Jimmy Wolf, who hit .363. (As an aside: the wealth of names on those old teams is remarkable: the Colonels had Farmer Weaver, Henry Easterday, and Chief Roseman, Pete Weckbecker, and Ned Bligh.)

The Colonels played the National League Brooklyn Bridegrooms in the World Series. Did they win the Championship? Well, they didn’t lose the championship: the seven game series, improbably, finished at a draw: 3-3-1.

It’s also worth noting that the St. Louis Terriers of the old Federal League also went worst-to-first. In 1914 they posted a 61-90 record, the worst in the league. Hall-of-Famer Mordecai Brown, thirty-seven years old, posted a 3.29 ERA. The next year the Terriers dropped Three-Finger Brown for another washed-up Hall-of-Famer, Gettysburg Eddie Plank, who led the 1915 Terriers with a 2.08 ERA and won 21 games. The club came in first place, tied with the Chicago Whales. They lost a tie-break game, so it’s a stretch to call them a champion. But they were an interesting, forgotten team.

The most convincing argument for first worst-to-first championship was the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League. In 1936 the Grays finished last in the league, 8.5 games behind the Pittsburgh Crawfords. A year later, Josh Gibson returned to the Grays (having left the Crawfords with Satchel Paige to play for dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic). With Gibson behind the plate,the Gray’s posted the best record in the league, a 31-13 mark. They were awarded the championship after winning a one-game playoff against the Crawfords. It was the first of the Gray’s nine consecutive Negro League pennants.

Now that we’ve clear those things up…

Prediction

I’ve been doubting the Rays since I starting writing for this site. My first article predicted their eminent demise. I picked them to lose against the White Sox in the ALDS, and did it again in the Championship Series. I was certain that they would lose after their epic collapse in Game 5.

I’ve been wrong about the Rays for six months. They are the most unusual champions I will ever see, and I think they are going to pull off a turn-around as improbably as any that has occurred in baseball history. The Phillies are a terrific team, but the Rays are better: they will win the 2008 World Series. Fingers crossed that it goes to seven games.

COMMENTS (24 Comments, most recent shown first)

PeteDecour
Dave- Thanks for that thoughtful and gentlemanly response. I should have couched my comments more courteously as well: it is just that last year and the previous years, I did not think the Phils, talent-wise, matched up to the best teams in baseball. This year, I thought with the Mets and Red Sox injuries, the Phils had the best talent playing well and everyday in baseball: three big stars mid-career, in utley, rollins and howard, a minor star in Burrell, a career year from Werth, a mid-40s career year from Moyer, solid work by Blanton, Hamels being Josh Beckett of last year, and a solid year on the whole, if you average out the block of ice and the inferno, from Myers, plus Lidge doing his Bobby Thigpen when he was good thing.

I just looked at the Dodgers and saw Manny a bunch of guys (Ethier, Kemp, Loney, Blake) who may be terrific soon, but right now are like Victorino and Werth, and not the kind of talent load of Rollins Utley, Howard, Burrell, Hamels and Lidge bring. Same with the Brewers, who remind me of the 1976-77 Phils. And even the Rays I think had less talent on the field this year than the Phils. I think Hamels, Myers and Lidge stack up this year with Kazmir, Shields and Price (altho certainly the Rays could be better next year).

But of the 8 positions, i give the Phillies 1B, 2B, SS, LF and RF, and the Rays an edge at C, 3B and CF, and the Phillies a big edge in experience. Anyway, that is why I was distempered about your picks, because I have trouble seeing how the Phillies were considered clearly worse, and because you seem to pay a lot of attention to this stuff and clearly are a bright guy. Anyway, thanks for your response,
1:52 PM Oct 30th

DaveFleming
Congrats Danny, and all the Philly Phaithful.
12:36 PM Oct 30th

3for3
Phils win. Phils Win. Phils WIN.

Danny

10:33 PM Oct 29th

evanecurb
Dave: Thanks for sharing the head to head tip form Baseball Reference. Never would have found it on my own.
9:42 PM Oct 24th

DaveFleming
As for my doubting the Phillies...

Since 1999, I've sent my friends an annual e-mail predicting how I thought the season would shape up. It started as a casual thing, a way to put to paper how that year's Red Sox would win the division. I'd cover all the teams, mention the players I thought would be up-and-comers and which teams got better during the offseason. Over time the annual e-mail got pretty big. The 2004 picks were 7000 words long.

And here's the thing: I picked the Phillies to win the NL East every single year. I kid you not: it was every single season. It became something of a running joke, and every April I'd scan their roster and try to come up with some way they'd beat the Braves.

I don't know why this happened, why I started seeing the Phils through rose-colored glasses. But I did. It bears no logic: I had never been to Philly. I didn't particularly like their players. It was just a weird thing I started to obsess over.

In 2007 I picked the Phils again, and they finally won the NL East. And you know what? I sort of stopped caring about 'em. I had been writing about them for eight years and I was tired of it. Ready to hype a new team, I guess. I picked the Mets in 2008.

So Pete's right: I have buried the Phillies some. Not intentionally, I think, and certainly not with any malice, but I quit rooting for them when they finally won.

I think that's how it is sometimes: those of us who follow baseball take an accute interest in a team that isn't our own, and we follow that team closely for a few years. Sometimes we have reasons and sometimes we don't. I have no idea why I liked the Phillies in 1999, or why it was I kept picking them to win the NL East. I only know that after they won the NL East I decided I was ready for a different team.

(And Evan: the team splits can be found on the baseballreference team pages, under the team batter and pitcher splits (the pitcher splits will give you the team W-L record). If you click on the split it will show how individual players did against a specific team (this part needs a subscription)).
7:39 PM Oct 23rd

PeteDecour
you have been doubting the Rays? You buried the Phillies against the mediocre Dodgers and now say they are "terrific" C'mon, you have done nothing but disparage them, in a weirdly passive-aggressive way.
6:05 PM Oct 23rd

evanecurb
Oops. The rest of the AL East was 50-22 against the O's, not 22-50.
5:37 PM Oct 23rd

evanecurb
Dave: Thanks for sharing the Baseball Prospectus adjusted standings. I had not seen those. No system is perfect, but the more things you adjust for, the closer you should be getting to the truth. In other words, you have defended your over the top position and defended it well. In this case, however, you are discounting the won-lost record too much. It is not the only way to evaluate teams, but in this case the Angels had the best overall W-L record against the league as a whole and they also had a very good W-L record against the best teams. (By the way, I incorrectly said in my earlier post that they were 64-33 against the East and Central; it's actually 54-33). The seven non-Angel teams that are in the BP list had a combined record of 134-111 against the AL West (.546 wp), with 54 of the 111 losses coming at the hands of the Halos. If you flip flopped the O's and Angels and put the Angels in the East, it's a pretty safe bet that the other four AL East teams would have had worse W-L records than they posted during the year. They were a combined 22-50 against the O's and the Angels were 30-16 against the AL East.

On a side note, can anyone tell me where I can find head to head w-l records by team? I have found game by game results but I can't seem to locate the team vs. team W-L summaries.
5:35 PM Oct 23rd

DaveFleming
"...the Rays have a problem with off-speed stuff."

I've heard this a few times now, and I'm not sure where it comes from. The Rays 2008 batting lines:

Vs. Power Pitchers: .230/.329/.386 (2002 PA)
Vs. avg Power/Finesse: .263/.332/.407 (1550 PA)
Vs. Finesse Pitchers: .280/.352/.457 (2443 PA)
3:23 PM Oct 23rd

aewalsh
Pitchers in the AL are giving a ton of credit to the Rays but they are also pointing out that the Rays have a problem with off-speed stuff. The Phillies are going to jam the circuits with off-speed stuff and win the Series with this and with Utley.
3:00 PM Oct 23rd

Richie
The Angels currently have the great fortune of playing in an easy division. They didn't a few years back, and again won't in another few years. 2010, I predict.
2:58 PM Oct 23rd

DaveFleming
Dear Evan,
As always, it's a pleasure to get your feedback. I figured someone would come to the defense of the Angles.

The challenge with pythagorean W-L record is that those runs scored and runs allowed are not measured against the level of competition. True, the Angels have a similiar pythagorean record to those of Cleveland, NY, Minnesota, and Chicago. But this doesn't take into account the level of competition.

Baseball Prospectus has tried to adjust for competitive imbalance on their 'adjusted standing page.' I won't get into the details of it, but they rank the adjusted win totals in the AL as:

BOS - 102.1
TBR - 97.0
TOR - 92.0
NYY - 91.3
CHI - 88.1
CLE - 84.1
LAA - 84.0
MIN - 82.9

Do I think this is accurate? Well, it's more accurate that straight pythagorean measures, as it adjusts for another contextual element, namely the level of competition. It's sort of like ERA+, as it introduces a contextual layer to the analysis.

Do I think the Angels are a top-5 team? No, I don't. But it doesn't matter, really. They have the great fortunate of playing in a weak division, and for this they have a good chance of winning the World Series every year. That thought should comfort any Angels fans who feel slighted by the adjusted standings.
12:30 PM Oct 23rd

evanecurb
Dave: "The Angels weren't one of the five best teams in the AL this year." I assume that means your top five are the three playoff teams plus two of three from among Yankees, Jays, and Twins. I think this is over the top. I know the arguments against the Halos: weaker schedule, and +12 pythagorean W-L record. But they won 100 games. They were 64-33 outside of the AL West. They were 39-25 against the other six best AL teams (Cle, Min, ChW, Bos, Tor, NYY). It is true that their pythagorean record was sixth in the league, but they were in a virtual tie for fourth with Min, ChW, Cle, and NYY. Saying that they aren't one of the five best teams in the league is a stretch. They won more games than any other team in baseball, and they played well against the teams that you rank ahead of them. I think the three best teams in the AL this year were Bos, TB, and the Angels, and I think the three are pretty close to even. If you want to throw another two or three teams into the top group and say all six are pretty close, I won't argue with you. Just don't say the Angels don't belong in the group. By the way, I am not an Angels fan (O's) so I have no vested interest here.
10:19 AM Oct 23rd

DaveFleming
Thanks, 'Shaneyfelt.' Glad you liked the table, and I think you're right: it goes a long way in explaining the quick exit of the Angels, who contended against just three quality pitchers in the AL West last year.

The Halos won 100 games, but they weren't close to being the best team in the AL. Had the Angels and Orioles switched schedules and divisions, there is a very good chance they would have finished last in the AL East.

Which isn't a diss on the Angels, not really. They won their division, and with a little luck they might've beaten the Red Sox. But the Angels weren't one of the five best teams in the American League in 2008.
11:24 PM Oct 22nd

shaneyfelt
Outstanding thought process on the pitchers in each division. Major difference. May help explain the earlier games, too.
7:58 PM Oct 22nd

Richie
Just checked 'The New Yorker' archives. They have an abstract for the article, but nothing more.
2:49 PM Oct 22nd

DaveFleming
I think Lopes would have to get some credit for the Phillies talent at stealing bases. Of the twenty-one players to ever steal 500+ bases, only Tim Raines had a higher success rate (84%) than Davey Lopes (83%). And successful base stealing is, I think, a skill that can be taught.

There was a great article about Rickey Henderson, when he was trying to break in with an independant league team, published in the New Yorker a few years ago. In the article he discussed, at length, his various strategies about stealing bases. It was a remarkable read, very insightful. You can probably find it in their archive.
12:29 PM Oct 22nd

Richie
Thanks, '3'. Given that it's his assigned bailiwick, he ought to be given some.
10:57 AM Oct 22nd

3for3
Richie:

This is Lopes second year, so he gets credit (if he should) for 2007

Danny
8:36 AM Oct 22nd

jollydodger
I hope this helps get the Rays a new ballpark. The site that already has a ballfield right by the bay would be nice. And their idea for giant sails to act as a roof/sunshield would be neat, too. We'll see.
11:59 PM Oct 21st

Richie
Was Lopes there last year already? When they ran the bases even better, I believe? When did Lopes get there?
11:57 PM Oct 21st

3for3
Good report. How much credit for the Phils baserunning should go to Davey Lopes, I wonder.

This should be an exciting series. I really hope it goes at least 6. The last few series have been over too quickly.

Danny
10:51 PM Oct 21st

Imbroglio21
Pretty good stuff. Dave didn't even need to add that Philly's interleague record in 2008 was 4-11 while Tampa Bay's was 12-6. And I root for the Phillies. So as you can see, I'm not over optimistic.
9:56 PM Oct 21st

2008 World Series: Clearing Up Some Misconceptions

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