The Rays were the better team playing in the toughest division of the better league. They went through two division winners, including the best or second-best team in baseball, to get here. They have more talent, 1 through 25, than the Phillies do.

The Phillies played very well in the NL postseason, but there’s no way to avoid the fact that had you seeded the playoff teams 1-8, the Brewers and Dodgers would have been seventh and eighth, in some order. That’s how you can go 7-2 with Ryan Howard slugging .323, among other so-so performances. The Phillies shut down their opponents to get here, allowing just over three runs per game. That’s not likely to continue.

Prediction

For all of the detail above, I keep coming back to one point: the Rays are a much better baseball team than the Phillies are. The gap between the leagues is real, and when you adjust for it and other factors—as third-order wins do—you find that the Rays were actually ten games better than the Phillies this season. They’ve also beaten better teams to get to the Series. Compare the rosters, and while the Phillies have their share of frontline talent, perhaps even more than the Rays have, the Rays have almost no dead spots on the roster, and are much stronger towards the bottom of the lineup, the back of the rotation, the bullpen, and the bench.

Three of the last four World Series have been AL sweeps. The presence of Hamels makes that result unlikely, but even he won’t be enough. Rays in six.

FTN wrote:Ready for Joe Sheehan's take?

The Rays were the better team playing in the toughest division of the better league. They went through two division winners, including the best or second-best team in baseball, to get here. They have more talent, 1 through 25, than the Phillies do.

The Phillies played very well in the NL postseason, but there’s no way to avoid the fact that had you seeded the playoff teams 1-8, the Brewers and Dodgers would have been seventh and eighth, in some order. That’s how you can go 7-2 with Ryan Howard slugging .323, among other so-so performances. The Phillies shut down their opponents to get here, allowing just over three runs per game. That’s not likely to continue.

Prediction

For all of the detail above, I keep coming back to one point: the Rays are a much better baseball team than the Phillies are. The gap between the leagues is real, and when you adjust for it and other factors—as third-order wins do—you find that the Rays were actually ten games better than the Phillies this season. They’ve also beaten better teams to get to the Series. Compare the rosters, and while the Phillies have their share of frontline talent, perhaps even more than the Rays have, the Rays have almost no dead spots on the roster, and are much stronger towards the bottom of the lineup, the back of the rotation, the bullpen, and the bench.

Three of the last four World Seri

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... cleid=8233

FTN wrote:Ready for Joe Sheehan's take?

The Rays were the better team playing in the toughest division of the better league. They went through two division winners,... That’s how you can go 7-2 with Ryan Howard slugging .323, among other so-so performances. The Phillies shut down their opponents to get here, allowing just over three runs per game. That’s not likely to continue.

MattS wrote:Sheehan really is sloppy. Obviously, I'm biased for the Phillies, but third-order wins don't adjust for everything. Clay Davenport made up 3rd order wins, I think, and applying those in addition to other factors important in the playoff, he has the Phillies at 52%. I don't get why you would ignore the upgrade Davenport made from 1st to 3rd order wins to adjust for other factors, presumably with nearly no understanding of how that was done, and ignore the upgrade to the upgrade.

The Phillies had a better pythagorean record than the Rays. The reason that the third order wins are different is primarily because the Phillies let up fewer runs than would be expected given their opponents' batting line against, and the Rays underscored what would have been expected given their own batting line. Why is this true? Is it noise? If so, then the 2nd and 3rd order records are better. Or is that the Phillies have a specialized bullpen and can leave guys on base a lot late in the game? Wouldn't that affect be amplified in the playoffs? It seems like that's a large part of the reason, though Hamels and Moyer both stranded more baserunners than you'd expect.

Still, Sheehan completely ignored Davenport's explanation for the Phillies at 52%-- the lefty issue. While Hamels and Moyer both have no defined platoon advantage, and platoons do seem to be somewhat more of a pitcher effect than a hitter effect, the fact is that the Rays have a team SLG against LHP of .396. That's Iwamura, Crawford, Pena, and Floyd all in the top of their lineup, all not hitting lefties very well. Longoria, their righty masher has a reverse platoon split even, though looking through his numbers, I expect that's just noise-- his BB/K is still better against lefties.

All in all, Hamels beating Kazmir twice probably makes the Phillies champions. The game 1 odds are 50% meaning that the game 5 odds will probably be about around 59% for that game. Take those two games, and it'll be tough for the Rays to win. While we are underdogs at 43% on Vegas, Baseball Prospectus' number guys (NOT Sheehan) do tend to beat Vegas pretty often, and I'm inclined to think it's closer to 50%. Sheehan repeatedly shortcuts his math, and it shows. He picked the Phillies to be .500 this year, on the basis that they were bound to have some regression to the mean after a few guys had career years. Silver predicted we'd be 10 games over .500-- obviously accounting for regression to the mean, but considering all factors. Sheehan remembers rules of thumb and goes with them. The point of sabermetrics is to go against rules of thumb and actually structurally understand what's going on. He's obsessed with Lidge's homerun/flyball rate being low-- undoubtedly, that's true, but he's ignored the fact that since he started blowing that horn so loud, Lidge's groundball rate has risen, making him less of a "flyball pitcher" as Sheehan calls him. And he's not a flyball pitcher. Many of his balls in play are flyballs (though not really this year, only like 1/3 IIRC), but too few of his opponents put the ball in play. Flyball pitchers are guys like Blanton. He may have the same flyball% of balls in play of Hamels, but he's more of a homerun risk but Hamels gets Ks. A high K rate limits the number of homeruns as much as a high groundball rate does.

philliesphhan wrote:I guess both the Rays and Red Sox won their division

Warszawa wrote:I wonder which World Series discussion will win?

Warszawa wrote:Another Philly Santa story
[url=http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8701610/On-the-Mark:-Philly-fans-will-be-singing-the-boos?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=49]On the Mark: Philly fans will be singing the boos
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you know what? F Santa. Its really really getting old.

It was December 15, 1968. The Eagles

Warszawa wrote:Another Philly Santa story
[url=http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8701610/On-the-Mark:-Philly-fans-will-be-singing-the-boos?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=49]On the Mark: Philly fans will be singing the boos
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you know what? F Santa. Its really really getting old.