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But it does make one wonder how an offense as bad as the Tigers could have gone this far. The
'88 Dodgers and the '73 Mets are the only teams I can remember being this inept. And I've never seen a team that strikes out so much.
Worst.
World.
Series.
Ever.
I agree that it'll be a relief to see the last of that AAAA crap.
It doesn't; not at all. 83 wins in the NL Central would be, what, 70 or so in the AL East? That's a world champion? My ###.
The '06 Cardinals are proof that the system is broken.
He looked a lot like Che Guevara, drove a diesel van
Kept his gun in quiet seclusion, such a humble man
The only survivor of the National People's Gang
Panic in Detroit, I asked for an autograph
He wanted to stay home, I wish someone would phone
Panic in Detroit
The Tigers have had some extraordinarily bad defense in this series that has been just as important as the poor hitting. It's not just the errors--Tim McCarver actually made a good point about the bad route Monroe took to Eckstein's double that drove in the final run.
The Cards having Carpenter is a big deal as well. Who knows how that series plays out if he was healthy in 2004.
From a best out of 7 sample?
That 70 win team has done what the AL East champs couldn't.
You have a point there. That being said, a lot of pople were talking about the AL's 8 game win streak in the WS and their All-Star game record as evidence that the AL is superior.
I love the smell of sore loser in the morning.
I think the better measuring stick is interleague play. I don't know how to check the records, but didn't the AL handily beat the NL in 2006?
Cmon. This is a pretty generic squad. The 2004 Cardinals - now that was a powerhouse. This team has 1 fearsome hitter, 1 very good hitter (Rolen), one good hitter (Edmonds), and a bunch of guys who are getting timely hits including a catcher who is on the hot streak of his career. Pitching-wise, they have an ace and another solid starter. The bullpen is pretty generic too.
Vanilla. Blah. But they look like they're going to be champs.
You're seriously going to argue that '06 Cards = '06 Orioles??
Ever heard of Carlos Guillen?
Well, yeah, they probably would have lost close to 90 in the AL east, and they really aren't a very good team. But baseball, like every other sport, crowns a champion. To get there, you have meet certain criteria. There's no law that says you have to be a sport's best team to be its champion. Last I checked, Kansas still has a banner hanging for 1988, and Arizona still hangs a banner for 1997.
If the Cardinals win one more game, they'll be the World Series champs. They won't be baseball's best team. But hey, let someone else try to hang that banner.
I take Carlos Guillen over 2006 Edmonds comfortably. Guillen and a healthy Rolen - too close to call.
Ordonez is probably a better hitter than Edmonds too.
Detroit's lineup is deeper than St.L's.
And collectively, the Cardinals bullpen matches up with the Tigers'.
I don't see it.
Would the Tigers even be one of them?
Yeah, but so what? Does it cheapen the World Series? Maybe it does. I don't know. I do know that probably the best video game team, the Yankees got routed out of the playoffs.
I do agree the 2004 Cardinals team was loaded. Edmonds was better, Pujols was just as great, there was Walker in right, Reggie Sanders in left, Renteria at short. But however better they were, it doesn't really matter. This Cardinals team have the mark of champions: they're benefitting from a long string of lucky incidents that seem to aid the every eventual World Series winner.
By the way, I don't think that the Cardinals organization or their fans have anything to be ashamed of. True, this 2006 team really isn't championship caliber, but I think that it's balanced by the fact that 2004, 2005 squads didn't get the trophy - and those 2 teams were championship caliber. Walker/Pujols/Rolen/Peak Edmonds/Renteria/Sanders - now that's a video game lineup.
I said the same thing last year about the Astros. Why should the Cardinals, who beat the Astros by 10 games in a 162 game season, have to play the Astros in a short series to determine who represents the NL? It's broken.
Having said that - the Cards success this postseason is the result of baseball karma.
I'm too tired to do the research, but I believe the last three times the Cards have been up 3-1 in a best of seven series, they've lost. '68 Tigers, '85 Royals, and '96 Braves beat us. It ain't even close to over.
I honestly do feel bad for you Tiger fans. Rough way to lose a game tonight.
Beating the carcass of Mark Mulder and Jason Marquis isn't something I'd brag about.
The scary thing is that the O6 Cards are better than the 06 Orioles but it's not like they completely outclass them. And mind you that the 06 O's were awful. Does Carpenter, Soups, and Weaver really TOWER over Bedard, Benson, Cabrera? The Cards have more bullpen depth given that the O's have Ray and well that's about it. And offense wise, I like Pujols, Rolen, and Edmonds over Tejada, Markakis and Gibbons but again, it's not like the Cards completely outclass the O's.
Yes. Yes I have. I would put him below Rolens but on second thought, probably better than Edmonds. Sorry for the mistake, Sir.
Also, my typing and use of extra words is the balls.
If you watched Walker and the Cardinals 3b at the end of last year (Renteria was stinking up Boston), then you might not say this. This team, without the remnants of Mulder and Isringhausen, isn't that different from last year's team.
That was amidst the first of the Cards' two 8 game winning streaks. I was at the win that broke that streak -- Victor Martinez dropped a popup that became a two base hit and Jhonny Peralta made a wild throw for the win. Sometimes you live right and good things happen to you. It's karma.
Yes.
I don't see it.
Maybe not pitching-wise, but they make up for that with the advantage in fielding.
Yes.
I suspect a comparison of ERA+ won't reveal a "huge" difference but I'm speculating. Off the top of my head, Cabrera had a better season than Weaver. It' probably push between Benson and Soup (or a slight advantage to Soups) and while Carpenter had fine season, Bedard's 06 season was no slouch.
I'm not sure what I think about Weaver going in game 5. I really do think he sucks and the Cards are living on borrowed time with him. But, Reyes had a set pattern this year of pitching poorly after pitching well, so I'm not dying to get him out there either.
In 2006, the Cardinals are being hammered for being up 3-1. And the 2006 series is called a fraud.
If people would just get some perspective in life...
Regular season records go out the door, and right now, with Rolen and Edmonds back and healthy (more or less) and Carpenter, Suppan, Weaver and Reyes in the rotation, the Cardinals are just as good of a team as the Tigers. Arguably, more so. So what is wrong with the fact that the Cards are up 3 games to 1? Heck, if they'd gotten that 2 out hit against the homophobe in Game 2, this series would've been short and sweet. And over.
So the Cards are better at starting pitching, relief pitching, and offense.
I neither loved the Marlins, nor did I glorify that world series.
Errors by Pitchers:
Tigers - 15.
Cards - 7.
Yeah, whatever. Maybe it shuts it up, but it doesn't make it untrue. The NL is very inferior to the AL, and the Cardinals are not even close to being the best team in baseball. Not even close.
If people would just get some perspective in life...
Come on, you're coming off as a bit defensive. The Cards are leading the 3-1 in the WS and they deserve every bit of credit for being in that position. But the playoff are a crap shot. The chapter on Why Billy Bean'e Sh*t Doesn't Work in the Playoffs in Between the Numbers shows that the author's best model could only explain 11 percent of the variation in predicting who won playoff series. In a short series, almost anybody can beat anyone. Winning a playoff series is about who's hot at the moment not necessarily who's the "best" team.
Umm, the 2003 Marlins won 91 games in a division in which FOUR TEAMS had as many or more wins than the 2006 Cardinals, and still lost the division by 10 games. The 2006 Cardinals won a division in which the top 2 teams finished a combined 3 games over .500.
The Cardinals aren't being vilified so much because of the comparison of their regular season record against that of the Tigers. They're being vilified because they're a mediocre team that won a bad division. In addition, based on interleague records, most people feel the AL was vastly superior to the NL this season. So we're talking about a mediocre team in the worst division in a bad league. The 2003 Marlins were much better than the 2006 Cardinals.
Doesn't change the fact that Cardinals have done exactly what they've needed to do so far. If the win the series, their trophy will be just as shiny as every other champion's. Hell, I got a 72 on my driving test, and my license is just as valid as everyone else's. To this day, I have no desire to know how I did on the bar exam beyond knowing whether or not I passed.
Anything over the bare minimum is wasted effort.
Who says the best team in baseball has to win the WS?
***
Must suck to be the Yankees and Mets right about now; highest payrolls in their respective leagues, tied for the best records in baseball, watching the 83 wins Cards try to wrap up the WS.
Life is good
Reread the post, it's matter of how much, and off the top of my head, the Cards are "better" but not by a "whole lot."
My bad, that should be three wins over a .500 162 game season. Not sure why I wrote it like that, aside from the fact that I'm kind of drunk right now.
I don't see it.
By collectively, I mean, the Cardinals's bullpen is filled with pitchers who can spin breaking balls and match up with a few batters at a time and be very successful. Then they have their sort of ace in the hole in Wainwright. Over a long season, the bullpen would fall apart under the strain but in a short series, they can be just as effective as the Tiger's bullpen which has more talent but it seems shakier nerves.
Good for you.
***
So, I gather that everyone here pretty much understands this, yet so many people are still whining about the fact that the Cards are up 3-1. Just accept that sh!t happens and shut up
It doesn't change the fact that, according to the logic of some people in this thread, the Marlins had no business winning the 2003 series against the Yankees.
Couldn't have said it better myself
The Marlins' 2003 regular season performance was better than the Cardinals' 2006 regular season performance. This is not a trivial distinction.
Sh*t didn't happen, the Card deserve to be up 3-1.
There is this stupid, stupid view in the mainstream that the team that wins the World Series is the best team in baseball.
Of course there are a lot of stupid views in the mainstream.
Also how many wins do you think missing Jim and Albert for extended periods cost them?
The team playing now isn't the team that won 82 games.
Still, I would like to eliminate the unfairness of the unbalanced schedules.
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in a world where espn analysts try to predict who will win and almost exclusively use w/l record that is a broad claim (for the record keith Law has almost officially past Buster Olney as the most clueless person to ever talk about baseball on the face of the planet, not quite there but damn close)
I'd also say that the team playing during the regular season wasn't really a 82 win team either. This team could have and should have won 90 games or so this year. They went 4-10 in the last 14 games. Heck if they go 8-6 and finish with 86 wins are people kvetching as much if they make it to the Series?
It really doesn't. Why? Because the AAAA crap was based on a whole lot more than 4 games.
Why? I don't agree with him on everything, but I think he's pretty damn smart and either the best or 2nd best ESPN employee.
Yeah, well the AAAA crap is beating the crap out of the AL crap. Not that I believed that crap anyway.
When you break it down, the Cardinals had injury problems this season at least as difficult as those that plagued the Yankees and Mets. But of course no one writes about that because that's not the media meme for this post season.
Inbetween three horrible streaks centered around losing streaks of 8, 8 and 7 games the Cardinals have played on a pace to win just as many games as the Yanks or Mets did. Each long losing streak ended immediately when they were caught & then immediately streaked back to a 6 or 7 game lead. We need to understand that this team is more streaky than most, capapble of playing very well when they are healthy, and capable of playing really badly when not. All year they have done what was necessary to stay in the playoff picture.
They are actually playing closer now to their pre-season projections than to their regular season record and it should be no surprise that it's because Rolen and Edmonds are both playing again and the hole that was Marquis and Mulder has been replaced by a young Reyes and a rebuilt Weaver. Other than that, the Cardinals are a solid ball club.
I'd venture further that our East coast friends appreciate offense too much and lack to appreciate pitching and defense. Why else would both NY teams be built on the same model, paying too much for no longer ready for prime time sluggers and pitchers while failing to field a sufficient defense or provide a decent bench of role players. In all it might explain why they haven't even had a dog in this fight since 2004.
Probably for failing to recognize that Yadier Molina is the only truly clutch player in all of MLB :P
An important difference between the quality of the teams is that the Mets and Yankees won 97 games despite all their injury problems whereas the Cardinals probably wouldn't have won that many even if they had been healthy the entire season.
Inbetween three horrible streaks centered around losing streaks of 8, 8 and 7 games the Cardinals have played on a pace to win just as many games as the Yanks or Mets did.
So, if you remove 3 long losing streaks, they played about as well as the Mets and Yankees. You could say that about a lot of teams.
I'd venture further that our East coast friends appreciate offense too much and lack to appreciate pitching and defense.
The Cards weren't a better defensive team than the Mets and the only reason why the Met starting pitching was worse because of late season injuries. The Yankee defense is bad but their pitching comparable to that of the Cardinals.
The Cardinals team playing in the WS is better than the team that won 83 games and is talented enough to win it. That's for certain but they aren't a great team. That being said, flags fly forever and there's no reason to apologize.
I repeat: This is why they play the games. If we wanted to give the trophy to the team with the most wins every year, we wouldn't need a ####### World Series.
Yes.
I suspect a comparison of ERA+ won't reveal a "huge" difference but I'm speculating.
As a masochistic Cubs fan, I rana check about a week ago. I downloaded all individual and team starter splits from espn.com into excel to find out the ERA+ for every starting staff in baseball. And then, I figured which teams had the best/worst starting rotations once you removed their ace pitcher.
I figured the Zambrano-less Cubs would be the worst. Nope. They were 2nd worst. The Orioles without Bedard were the worst.
Suppan: 107
Weaver (@STL): 85
Bedard: 120
Cabrera: 95
Benson: 94
Yeah, the Cards are pretty clearly better.
What about the Royals?
That's if you totally ignore the difference in the quality of the two leagues in looking at those numbers. If a 100 ERA+ was the same in the NL as it was in the AL, then the Cardinals are clearly better. But it's not. The Cardinals are not clearly better, but they are probably better. They certainly don't "tower" over the Orioles' top three.
Quiet, knave. You'd feel exactly the same way if it was your team losing this World Series. Especially if it was their first one in 22 years, and they were losing in brutal, inexplicable fashion. So STFU.
Right -- comparing ERA+ doesn't make much sense because the entire point of the question is how the Cardinals would do in the AL East vs. how the Orioles would do in the NL central. The Cards are a better team, but I suspect their records wouldn't be far apart if they switched places.
Aw, poor you, your team's losing. The last time MY team played in a World Series, I was six months old. And on another continent.
As a Yankee fan in 1996, I would have been turned away from a place like this if, in mid-Series, everyone complained about how much better a team the Braves were and how the Yankees exemplified everything wrong with the playoff system.
As to the issue of the "better" team and the WS, the reality is that in a seven game series even the Orioles have a decent shot at beating the Tigers. That's not a problem -- that's baseball.
I agree. These are two good teams that are pretty evenly matched, with the Cardinals playing a bit better right now. They are getting some good starting pitching. While that sucks for us Tigers fans, I can live with it. I am excited to be here. I do think that the Tigers youth and inexperience has played a key role, as evidenced by their errors.
I would put him below Rolens but on second thought, probably better than Edmonds.
Guillen is better than Rolens.
Really, I don't get this. "We didn't predict this outcome, so this outcome is illegitimate." There are a huge number of leap of logic there boggle the mind.
-how well does one season measure team quality?
-how exactly does objective team quality change based on the composition of the opponent?
-is a team physically and mentally prepared to play in November?
-how does a playoff squad compare to the team that, on average, played in the regular season or the team that was expected to play in the preseason?
I think baseball's a lot more fun when you focus on all the stuff you don't know, instead of whining when the things you think you know don't always accurately predict reality. Statistically illiterate econometrics are run amok.
1)The Cardinals are not a bad team. 82 Wins+Pujols+Edmonds-Marquis-Mulder=87-90 wins. That's not good, but that's not historically bad.
2)The Tigers are not a great team under the conditions that this series has been played. Live by the defense, die by the defense. You put a great defensive team in cold, rainy conditions, this kind of stuff can happen. Hell, remember the '97 Series, and what a shitshow that turned into?
3)The problem with this series is that the level of play isn't very high. the one disadvantage of having the 2nd/3rd best team from one league playing the 3rd-4th best team from the second league is that you increase the odds of getting a stinker series. There's no guarantee, say, that the Mets and A's could have played great ball, but at least the odds would be better.
How so? I'll take 165 ERA+ in the AL over 141 ERA+ in the NL any day.
When John Silber ran for governor of Mass. in 1990, a caller on a talk show asked him "Mr. Silber, what should we be teaching our children?" He replied, "Teach them that they're going to die." (Silber was not elected governor of Massachusetts.)
If they'd just crapped out against the Yankees, I'd be over it by now.
No you wouldn't, because they would've completed a four-game sweep over the Cardinals by now. MVP? Jeter, of course.
75 IP, 64 H, 26 R, 6 HR, 22 BB, 72 K - Wainwright
I've been much more impressed with Wainwright's stuff than Ray's. Nothing Ray throws compares to Wainwright's bender for the swing-and-miss-pitch. I'd definitely rather have the Cards' closer.
The Cardinals being up 3-1 (and they sure haven't won the thing yet) is not evidence that the MLB playoffs are "broken." If anything it's evidence that the MLB playoffs are worth playing. Nothing on earth is duller than watching two months of the NBA playoffs and knowing that only one team, or at best a short list of 2 or 3 from the field of 16, has a shot at the title. If any of the eight contenders can actually win the World Series, then we get to see a true contest. That, to me, is annually interesting.
But I understand that it might not interest everybody. There are those who enjoy seeing an NBA champion methodically strangle four opponents in long series. My favorite sport, apart from baseball, is Thoroughbred racing: now there's a sport that's impossible to keep watching unless you are prepared for all your sensible handicapping to dissolve at the hands (hooves?) of a 25-1 shot. I kind of like the uncertainty.
That's "Fletch", right?
Also, i was going to make a point yesterday about what the Cards' record would have been if Pujols hadn't been on the DL, but they appear to have gone 7-7 in the games he missed.
75 IP, 64 H, 26 R, 6 HR, 22 BB, 72 K - Wainwright
I've been much more impressed with Wainwright's stuff than Ray's. Nothing Ray throws compares to Wainwright's bender for the swing-and-miss-pitch. I'd definitely rather have the Cards' closer.
Taking into account differences between the leagues, I'd say they're even at worst. I'd rather have Ray going forward, esp. when you take into account his 2005 stats.
I think the last paragraph of post 82 should be incorporated into the BTF logo.
By the end of the series, the Cardinals were reduced to the Washington Generals as the foil agaisnt which the Red Sox dreams were finally realized, the Curse put to rest.
You want pain? Against that backdrop, the Cardinals never led in the series. The Bellhorn game-winning homer off the pesky pole. The Schilling sock. They may as well have been Hollywood extras in uniform serving as the Generic Opponent.
Then we got the final indignity of having Jimmy ###### Fallon sucking Drew Barrymore's tonsils at second base of our home field while the Red Sox celebrated.
What is the problem again?
I really do wonder about people around here. Is it mandatory that you complain about EVERYTHING? This is not meant as sarcasm. This is a legitimate question. What does it take for you to ENJOY something?
And don't give me some ham-handed breakdown of the teams and/or the Series in question. I know the participants, and I have been following the games. Tell me in simple terms what you expect from a World Series, or ANY spectacle, to walk away saying "I enjoyed that."
Where were you before game 1?
Your clients may feel differently.
Think of their demolition of the Yankees and A's to win the championship of a far superior league. Think of how they clinched at home in early nightfall games that started in the late afternoon of beautiful early and mid-October Saturdays, when post-season baseball games were meant to be played. On fields where the players could run after a simple fly ball without slipping and pick up a ground ball that was dry.
Hope that helps. :)
:)
They gained when he removed their ace.
That the system shouldn't be set up to allow a team that accomplished as little in the regular season as the Cardinals to get hot in relatively random short series and walk away as "World Champs."
And that interleague play takes a lot of the mystique away from the World Series, seeing how the Tigers have already dominated both the Cardinals and the Cardinals' division. 15-3 overall.
The same system has bit many better Cardinal teams in the arse over the last decade, so they're certainly entitled to enjoy and celebrate their success.
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