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
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AL East
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AL Central
|
AL West
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8 pitchers
|
13 pitchers
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11 pitchers
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17 pitchers
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12 pitchers
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8 pitchers
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Santana
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Volquez
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Lincecum
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Halladay
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Lee
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E. Santana
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Hamels
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Sheets
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Webb
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Lester
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Danks
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Saunders
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Nolasco
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Oswalt
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Haren
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Mussina
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Greinke
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F. Hernandez
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Moyer
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Dempster
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Billingsly
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Matsuzaka
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Buehrle
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Duchschere
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Lidge
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Zambrano
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Lowe
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Shields
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Floyd
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Lackey
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Jurrjens
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Sabbathia
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Peavy
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Burnett
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Meche
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Weaver
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Pelfrey
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Lohse
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Cain
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Guthrie
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Galaraga
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Rodriguez
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Hudson
|
Lilly
|
Cook
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Litsch
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Baker
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Arrendondo
|
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Wellemeyer
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Johnson
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Garza
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Soria
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|
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Wainwright
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Jimenez
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Rivera
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Nathan
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|
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Maholm
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Funetes
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Papelbon
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Vasquez
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|
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Looper
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Kazmir
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Jenks
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|
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Valverde
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Marcum
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|
|
|
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Pettitte
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|
|
|
|
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Beckett
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|
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Wakefield
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|
|
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Howell
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|
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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, 4th in the majors. The Cardinals bullpen posted a 4.06 ERA,14th 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, 12th in the majors. The Marlins bullpen had a 4.29 ERA, 19th in the majors. The Marlins won the World Series.
-In 2001, the Yankees bullpen had a 3.38 ERA, 3rd 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, 14th in the majors. The Yankees bullpen had a 4.52, 18th 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.