Monday, May 20, 2013
The Changing Gigantics of SF | Bill James Online
(www.billjamesonline.com)
Is this really true?
Read More...Baseball teams change at a glacial pace. I’m not talking about how a team does in a given season…that can change quite dramatically…I’m talking about what a team is: the broad scope of a team’s talents, their strengths and weaknesses. A team that’s good at converting a double play generally stays good at turning the double-play, just as a team with a terrible bullpen can’t make that bullpen a strength, at least not quickly. A team that gets lots of production ...
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1 2 3 >We know the Giants are good, but we have no way to legitimately compare them to other two times in 3 year "World Champions." "World Series" wins just don't signal much these days. Nice work, Bud.
There were four years between the two Dodger champions I mentioned instead of two, but things moved more slowly in the days before free agency. These Giants have also accomplished something pretty solid, and it should be appreciated.
I do agree that the rapture over their inability to do anything wrong is both hyperbolic and premature. To take nothing away from their achievement, to be one of five teams that has won two of three Series six times in 40 years is coming close to business as usual.
Yeah. That's not random luck or anything.
these giants are hurt in terms of perception because folks look at offense and think san fran's offense is average or below average when this team led the nl with runs scored on the road.
that and people too often still ignore defense
like people at bbtf for example.
Wonder who of the one year deals stays this offseason?
Sometimes Pete Kozma hits for you. Sometimes Barry Zito pitches well. Baseball is random.
I think it's kinda funny that so many people complain about this, but whenever a team wins multiple championships in a short span (which is an argument AGAINST the postseason being random), people get sick of them fast and wish that someone else would've won instead. Yankees win 3 straight and 4 of 5 and people were definitely sick of them. Red Sox win 2 in 4 years and people start comparing them to the Yankees. Cardinals win 2 in 6 seasons and people start bashing them. Now Giants win 2 in 3 years and people are already starting to tire of them too.
Do we want randomness where a different team wins every season, or do we want legit teams with good cores that aren't just one year flukes? Make up your minds already.
As cool as it was to see new teams make playoff cameo's like the Reds, Nats, O's, and A's, it would've looked much more random if one of them had won the WS than the Giants.
I think a big part of the issue is that the Giants 4/5 starters, who combined for a ~77 ERA+ this season, were huge reasons why the Giants won. Not that the Giants don't have a good core, but the way the won seems to lean toward the latter, not the former.
I don't see this at all, I guess because two WS titles in three years isn't enough to convince me the Giants are all that good. I think they just hit the random lottery twice.
They needed a Padres collapse to win the NL West in 2010, and this year they had the weakest record of the NL division champs (and weakest pythag mark of any of the NL's playoff teams). And hell, if the Reds don't lose their Cy Young contender one inning into the NLDS, they may get swept in three. As juggers go, they're not.
But part of the reason for that is that their 4/5 starters are incredibly talented compared to other teams 4/5 starters, despite their poor regular season. Also, every champion has meaningful contributions from weird corners of their roster, that's just the nature of the beast.
I see what you did there.
The Giants 4/5 starters are also veteran pitchers with terrific records of success. Lincecum's 2012 season was more of a one-year fluke than his postseason performance.
The Giants have a very good team, and then they played extremely well in the playoffs. So they won the championship! good for them, good for their fans. This doesn't have to be terribly complicated.
Sure. They have many good to great players. But they're just been one of the teams that was capable of winning a title over the past several years, and they happened to do it twice. That they happened to do it twice is wonderful for them and their fans and the entitre city of San Francisco, but it doesn't make them better than the 90ish win teams they were in both those cases.
This isn't the Yankees or Braves of the 90s, teams that were year-in, year-out one of the two best teams in their leagues. It was just a good team that navigated the playoff process twice in three years (while missing it entirely in the middle).
If it's not my team, I want someone different each year. If it's my team, I want a dynasty. Else I complain. /channeling typical fan
Maybe Lincecum's regular season was a huge fluke, but Bochy certainly didn't treat it like one.
It seems that two in three years is about the closest we're going to get to a repeat these days. I admit to thinking that I thought the Giants seemed pretty random in 2010 - especially after their sub-par 2011 - but their best position player was also injured for most of last year. They don't seem flukey to me at all, anymore.
The Reds and especially the Nats look like young up-and-comers that could be contenders for a while, but looking at the O's I still don't understand why they were so good. I expect them to be around .500 next year. If they had won, they'd have seemed like the very definition of a fluke champion to me.
Yep. The only reason I even remember the likes of Mark Lemke, Jim Leyritz, and Scott Brosius is because of their flukish postseason heroics.
I don't think they're flukey. I just don't think this second title elevates them into greatness either.
The playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot, and they always have been. Even in the 20's. The fact that more teams are in the playoffs, and teams win the world series with bad regular season records is basically proof that regular season record is not a great predictor of playoff success. If we want only teams with great regular season records to win the world series then we need to go back to two best records in the league going to the series. You still won't get the best team by regular season standards sometimes, just likely the better team at the time of the series.
Maybe not the players, but I think it elevates the status of Bochy. Did Bochy make a single mistake this postseason?
Mark Lemke will always be remembered as the Homestar Runner.
Absolutely. He's got to be moving quietly (let's face it, quietly is the only way he moves) into the Hall conversation down the road. Six division titles, three pennants and two WS tites will go a long way. He'll probably need to get the W-L record over .500 (some of those Padre teardowns have damaged his overall winning percentage), but he's turning himself into a legit candidate.
What are you talking about? He didn't pull him out of the rotation during the entire regular season, in the playoffs they gave him 1 start and then crucial relief innings, and they have already announced he will be a starter next year.
I'm pretty sure Latos wouldn't have pitched in Game 1 (and Arroyo in 2, Bailey in 3 and Leake at all) if Cueto doesn't go down.
The larger point is the Cueto injury was a pretty big blow to the Reds in the series.
Ironically they may actually rate higher than that based on talent and that for the regular season their performance may have undershot their talent (plus Scutaro was a legitimate upgrade on their second base situation). The A's probably played better baseball all totaled, but the Giants likely had the better roster. The same, I guess, with the Orioles. I'd say I'd probably have the Yankees, Rangers, Reds and maybe the Nationals as having better rosters.
We want (unavoidable) postseason randomness to be significantly reduced in importance. Baseball's not really that random over 162 games. The postseason is rapidly approaching "exhibition" status, and may already be there.
This isn't, of course, to say that the Giants aren't a really good team; they probably are. Ninety-four wins is nothing to sniff at. It is to say that their postseason performance is all but irrelevant to measuring whether they're a really good team.
In any event, it would hardly be a surprise if the Dodgers went into next season as the Vegas favorites in the West.
How do we do that? Even in the days where the best record in each league automatically met in the World Series, the better team only won half the time. That's baseball (and every sport except the NBA, which IMO has the opposite problem). I just don't really see the point in getting upset about this every single season.
I think most of the people in this thread have it about right. Neither of these championships were exactly a fluke, but they certainly weren't the best team in baseball either year.
With the exception of a few years, the Giants have been one of the top 10 teams in baseball for about 15 years. With that sustained success a team would expect about one title given the current playoff format. This was their sixth postseason appearance in the current format, not counting the '98 wild card tie-breaker. The fact that they won in '10 and '12, and not '02 or '03 is randomness. Sabean was in charge then, he's in charge now. The Giants haven't discovered any secret to winning, any more than Jeter and Rivera forgot how to win after 2000.
Of course as a fan, I don't care about any of that. The Giants won and I'm happy.
Letting them play against each other in a mini-tournament seems like a fun way.
Seconded.
And I would add, as a Giants' fan, whether their true talent aligns perfectly with the results of the season/postseason tournament results is the furthest thing from my mind. It's just a blast to win. Every bit as much as it's a ##### to lose. Believe me, as a lifelong Giants' fan, I truly know the latter, and it feels great to finally get to truly know the former.
Heh. Exactly.
I didn't read the article, and if it's claiming that the Giants are an all time great team now, then yes, that's really stupid. I sure wouldn't put them on the same level as say, the 70's Reds, who also won two titles.
Mainly I just don't understand why SF winning seems to bother so many people here. They won their division, and did so with a good regular season record (unlike the Tigers, 2006 Cards, 1987 Twins, etc). In fact, they were within, what, like 4 wins of the best record in baseball? They seem like the exact type of team that people here always say SHOULD be winning.
These fanbases aren't being fooled. They don't just "think" they're still in it for a longer period of time. They are still in it for a longer period of time. There is no illusion. It is what it says it is.
but ultimately I also think it detracts from the meaningfulness of really putting together a great whole season.
Of course it does. It must. It's axiomatic. A sport cannot have it both ways.
And I've been among those who've said for, oh, about 20 years now that fewer divisions and fewer playoff rounds makes for a more compelling entertainment for we purists. But if I were running the business of MLB, I would do it largely as they do. They have a different interest than we purists.
Still doesn't mean it isn't a freaking blast when your team wins this thing.
By repeatedly pointing out the randomness of the playoffs every time we have a chance, until such time as the playoffs are properly understood to be a big, shiny idiot bauble at the end of a baseball season.
In Arlington this year, for exactly one day :) But you're right, the game was played and I was there. Beats staying home watching football on TV.
Eh. Sports are just shiny things for the purpose of entertainment in the first place. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
There really isn't much more to say about it than this. It was great watching the Tigers sweep the Yankees, but it doesn't prove they're a better team. The short-lived excitement of that will never outstrip a year like 1984 or, honestly, even 1987. Coming from way back in the last week to overtake the Blue Jays for something real, that takes you 97 wins to earn, is cooler than even sweeping the Yankees as a flawed 88-win team.
Anyway, the question is: How often does the best team win the World Series? Given the current playoff format, what are the odds?
In a typical baseball playoff series, how often does the best team win? Two-thirds of the time? Help me out here.
If that's right (actually I think that's a bit high), then doesn't that make it a 30% chance that the best team will win three playoff rounds (.67 x .67 x .67)?
I'm sure someone here has a better answer to the question.
Combined regular and postseason records sorted in order of winning %:
Washington .599
Cincinnati .593
San Francisco .590
Atlanta .577
Oakland .575
Yankees .573
Baltimore .571
Texas .571
Tampa Bay .556
LAA .549
Detroit .543
St. Louis .543
Give a small bump to the AL teams for strength of schedule... recognize this is missing other SoS factors. What do you have? A group of teams all of whom are roughly equally deserving. San Francisco is no more than 2 games from the top.
Edit: or what #49 said. Well put.
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