You have to have good hitting AND good pitching in the playoffs. The key is that the top pitching is more important in the playoffs - but making the playoffs is key, and doing so with your best players rested is key, thus depth is important.
A big key to the Sox playoff run was their ability to rest some guys some in september, because they had the lead, because the back end guys had played well enough so they took the pressure off the top guys. Like the Celtics - Garnett, Pierce and Allen are the guys, but nearly everyone has helped out, so the big 3 will be fresh for playoff time.
Where myself and Zen disagree is with the health of the Yankees and Blue Jays. I don't see any reason to think that the Yankees will be healthier than they were last year - they WEREN'T all that injured - their offense, in particular, was very healthy.
And the Jays have gotten older and managed to trade their injury prone 3B for a 3B MORE injury prone.
Were Schilling healthy or even likely to be healthy, I'd predict the Sox to have the best record in baseball and go all the way. With Schilling's issues, that's less likely, though I'll still predict them to win the east... cause this is the first time in over a decade when I could possibly do that!!!
|