Earl Weaver Was a Loser

[Grandstander]

Zen:
You need to demonstrate a correlation between projected post-season wins and actual post-season wins before you can confidently assert your conclusion.
Rather easily done....they are still baseball games in October, played by the same rules as were the games played in other months, with the same performers on stage. How much more closely correlated could it get? Identical rules, same people, same umpires, same venues. You don't see the similarity?

If there is some difference, it is certainly not in the appearance of matters, is it? Therefore it is an invisible difference which you are promoting and that shifts 100 % of the burden of proof to you, Zen.

The first one is scheduling. When you play a 5 game divisional series over 8 days, you only need a 3-man starting rotation. This strongly favors top-heavy pitching teams over ones with mediocre staffs
Not at all so. Bill James conducted a study of all post season teams in an attempt to identify any advantage for temas built a certain way. Hie concluded that there was no advantage whatsoever to being a pitching team vs a slugging team, a running team vs a stron bullpen team or any other combination. So, you are incorrect in assuming that top heavy pitching is any special advantage in a short series. If it is, it has never shown up in the numbers.

The third difference is the roster. The team that starts in April is not always the team that you see in October. Clubs make major trades during the season. They pluck key players from their minor league rosters. Guys get injured. Others recover.
This is not an advantage for any particular team apart from the disadvantage a team might have if one or more of their top players is hurt. All the factors you describe above cancel one another out because they apply to all teams in the post season.

Zen....c'mon...look at the numbers again. It would take 33 games for the difference between a 100 win team to be felt over a 95 win team. The manifestation of that difference over five or seven games just does not mean anything, it does not come into play in terms of deciding a short series.

All your suppositions about mental states etc, that is all washed instantly away once you are aware of the information I have presented regarding the actual odds.

You have been raised on notions of clutch and rising to the challenge and October heroes and so forth, and unsurprisingly you are reluctant to let all that go in favor of the dry, clinical view I am presenting.

But, my dry clinical view has the virtue of being the truth.

[LouGehrig]

The 1973 Mets won 82 games. They were an offensively challenged team that struggled all season. Some key players were hurt during the season, but were healthy by September. Regardless, if those players were healthy all season, the Mets might have won 85-88 games.

The 1973 Mets were a dangerous team in a short series. With Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack, and McGraw in the bullpen, they were a formidible oppenent over the short haul.

They beat a Reds team that was 99-66 to the Mets 82-79.

The Mets then took a 3-2 lead in games against Oakland, which had gone 94-68, beating Baltimore (97-65) for the pennant.

Only a clutch hit by Reggie that an injured (in the playoffs --- throwing arm) Rusty Staub could not get back to the infield fast enough and a great pitching threesome of Hunter, Holtzman, and Blue, stopped that Mets team.

The A's were also built for a short series, although they had more offense than the Mets, which allowed their combination of great pitching, defense (see Dick Green) and offense win the division.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

The A's were also built for a short series, although they had more offense than the Mets, which allowed their combination of great pitching, defense (see Dick Green) and offense win the division.

No they were not. They were built to win as many baseball games as they could in both the regular and post season.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

No they were not. They were built to win as many baseball games as they could in both the regular and post season.

Play with words as much as you desire. The fact remains that the 1973 A's were quite similar to the 1973 Mets but were a better offensive team. Neither team won the most games in its league, and for good reasons.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

Play with words as much as you desire. The fact remains that the 1973 A's were quite similar to the 1973 Mets but were a better offensive team. Neither team won the most games in its league, and for good reasons.

This was not mere semantics, it goes to the core issue. Teams are never designed to win playoff series, they are designed to win the regular season and hopefully they are also good enough to prevail in the post season.

The argument that some teams prevail in the post season because they are "post season" teams....that is myth being promoted here and the myth I am attempting to expose.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

No they were not. They were built to win as many baseball games as they could in both the regular and post season.

The A's and Mets in 1973: The World Series Matched Two Teams With Great Pitching

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

This was not mere semantics, it goes to the core issue. Teams are never designed to win playoff series, they are designed to win the regular season and hopefully they are also good enough to prevail in the post season.

The argument that some teams prevail in the post season because they are "post season" teams....that is myth being promoted here and the myth I am attempting to expose.

Cleveland beating the Yankees is not going to help your attempts.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LouGehrig

Cleveland beating the Yankees is not going to help your attempts.

Appparently you aren't on the same page as I am. I don't get the above, I don't get how it relates to any arguments about what sort of teams prevail in the post season, what it may have to do with whether or not Earl Weaver was a great manager.....or anything. It is a chunk of isolated, anecdotal information which is proof of nothing one way or the other within the context of the subject being discussed.

Fine...some teams in the post season have good pitching. So what? Is it your argument that only those teams with good pitching are suited to win in the post season? That teams with strong pitching tend to win more often than teams whose strengths are elsewhere? If so, you are simply in error. The subject has been studied and the conclusions are unambiguous.....no particular type of team has an advanatge in the post season over a different type of team. You can have mediocre pitching and still win, you can have great pitching and still lose. Sometimes the sluggers prevail over the speed teams and sometimes the speed teams defeat the sluggers. There is no pattern suggesting one type of team is the type most likely to win.

And even if that wasn't the case, what does that have to do with Earl Weaver?

You also seemed to fail to understand the damning importance of the numbers I provided above. What you should be extracting from that awareness of the actual odds, is that the ability levels of post season teams are a lot closer than they may seem based on w-l records. If an 85 win team "upsets" the 100 win team in the WS, there is no need to go looking for the magic forumla or managerial secret or writing about how the winning team prevailed because it was "designed for the post season"....and the reason of course is that it was not really that big of an upset. Just by random chance, the 85 win team had a good shot of winning a five or seven game series.

If you take a set of strips of paper and number them from 1-100, with 55 of them being blue and 45 of them being red, and then you randomly pulled seven slips out, that you may wind up with more reds than blues is not some incredible upset. The chances for that were not as great as the chances of getting more blues, but they also were not some miraculous event, it easily happens and in fact could be expected to happen 45 % of the time.

That is what is going on in the post season, except the odds are even closer.

So....if you do finally grasp how small these differences are, how inappropriate the word "upset" is when a 93 win team beats a 98 win team, then you should also realize that post season success is a piss poor way to evaulate a manager. It is an idiotic way to evaluate a manager if you ignore what he does in the regular season in favor of his post season accomplishments.

Thus, saying that Earl Weaver was overrated because he didn't pile up a lot of WS wins....that is also foolish. If you do so, you are replacing talent in your analysis basis with luck.

[LouGehrig]

We are not on the same page, and I like the one I'm on.

With respect to your above post:


1. I never stated whether Earl Weaver was or was not a great manager.

2. My conclusion is that superior pitching beats superior hitting. From the days of Cornelius McGillicuddy to the days of Joe Torre, pitching wins. Runs scored is almost always down in the World Series, as even a cursory examination of WS statistics reveal.

3. The greatest team according to many, the 1927 Yankees, had a 3.20 team ERA. The great Yankees teams won on pitching and defense. The A’s three consecutive pennant winners (1929-1931 and 1972-1974) won on great pitching in 1929, 1930, 1972, 1973 and 1974. The list goes on and on. Merely go to

Postseason Index - Baseball-Reference.com

4. Earl Weaver DID emphasize pitching, but he emphasized waiting for the long ball at the expense trying to score by other methods.

5. Of course you can have great pitching and lose. See 1973 Mets.

6. I have not, do not, and will not correlate regular season wins and chances of winning the WS. I “knew” that the Mets would beat the Orioles. After the Orioles won the first game and beat Seaver, I thought there was hope, but I was wrong and the Mets swept the next four.

I “knew” the Mets would beat the Reds in 1973, and that was 99 wins against 82. The point is that a team that slugs its way to a division title does not have as good a chance of winning it all as a team with good pitching. I am not talking about the 2007 Angels, who lack offense and who faced Becket and Schilling --- two pretty good pitchers.

7. Simply put, pitching wins.

[DiamondDave]

Tell that to all the losing Atlanta teams

[Grandstander]

Lou Gehrig:
Simply put, pitching wins.

I think "simply" is the key word here. Because you wish to believe it, therefore it is true. Pretty simple minded.

Well, you're dead, flat wrong. The facts run counter to your ideas. You can either embrace the facts, or stick your head in the sand like your doing and say "No, no no! Pitching wins! Because I think it should!"

Repeating...the matter has been studied...by people who actually went and looked at all the post season results and attempted to find any pattern among the types of teams which prevail.

There was no pattern. Not for slugging, not for pitching, not for any particular form of baseball talent. Any type of team good enough to reach the post season, has a shot at winning regardless of the talent emphasis on that team.

I can believe the folks who took a scientific approach to this, or I can believe you who is just making stuff up.

Guess who I will believe.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by DiamondDave

Tell that to all the losing Atlanta teams

It took great pitching to beat those Atlanta teams. See Jack Morris, David Cone, Andy Pettitte, El Duque.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Lou Gehrig:
Simply put, pitching wins.

I think "simply" is the key word here. Because you wish to believe it, therefore it is true. Pretty simple minded.

Well, you're dead, flat wrong. The facts run counter to your ideas. You can either embrace the facts, or stick your head in the sand like your doing and say "No, no no! Pitching wins! Because I think it should!"

Repeating...the matter has been studied...by people who actually went and looked at all the post season results and attempted to find any pattern among the types of teams which prevail.

There was no pattern. Not for slugging, not for pitching, not for any particular form of baseball talent. Any type of team good enough to reach the post season, has a shot at winning regardless of the talent emphasis on that team.

I can believe the folks who took a scientific approach to this, or I can believe you who is just making stuff up.

Guess who I will believe.

You obviously believe what you want to believe since you do not address my points, which have been documented. Perhaps YOU can study the World Series results and see the pattern that pitching wins, or perhaps you prefer teams such as the 1930 Phillies or the 1931 Yankees.

Exactly what facts run contrary to my ideas?

These are just a few examples of pitching winning WS:

2006 Cardinals ERA 2.06
2005 Sox ERA 2.63
2004 RSox ERA 2.50

2003 Yankees ERA 2.13 Miami ERA 3.21 but when one examines the run distribution, one conlcudes that Beckett's pitching was the difference.

1960 Pirates. Look it up.

I could go on and on. Lew Burdette in 1957, Bob Turley in 1958, Schilling and Johnson in 2001, Glavine in1995.

You can find out about 1994 on your own.

You take the greatest hitters and I'll take the greatest pitchers. I'll beat you about 65% of the time.

[Grandstander]

Lou Gehrig:
These are just a few examples of pitching winning WS:
It is because you believe that episodic, anecdotal evidence means anything compared to an organized study, that you promote your ideas.

There is no need for you to guess "65%" or anything else when people have already eliminated the need for guessing by............actually counting up the times different types of teams have won. The result was.....no evidence to suggest pitching oriented teams have any advantage over hitting oriented teams.

[LouGehrig]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Lou Gehrig:
These are just a few examples of pitching winning WS:
It is because you believe that episodic, anecdotal evidence means anything compared to an organized study, that you promote your ideas.

There is no need for you to guess "65%" or anything else when people have already eliminated the need for guessing by............actually counting up the times different types of teams have won. The result was.....no evidence to suggest pitching oriented teams have any advantage over hitting oriented teams.

Why don't YOU go through the WS from 1903, 1905-1993,and 1995-2006? You will discover that pitching beats hitting.

Since you seem so well informed, why don't you hypothesize how 65% of the time was reached? It is far from anecdotal and quite familiar to those who have watched baseball games.