MLB general postseason 2020 thread

Astros series setup in perfect spot for Dusty Baker to produce the playoff nut buster crushing loss across their fan-base that he has delivered to every town he has managed within before.

I am not liking the Rays situation currently.

LA

(xpost) I've subscribed to this theory the last few years that whenever every conceivable sign points to a game going one way, expect the opposite to happen; sports just doesn't make sense a lot of the time. So with 90% of baseball fans nauseous about the prospect of the Astros in the WS, wouldn't surprise me at all if the Rays win.

Stop trying to put hopeful thoughts in my head! (I realize the odds are pretty much 50/50)

like a football bouncing, we just don't know where it's going to go

clemenza otm

betting line is rays -118 and dodgers -140, both of which i find kind of surprising

Or, if you believe momentum to be a myth, probability would heavily favour the Rays. A .667 team should beat a .483 team about 63% of the time, all else being equal. The likelihood of the .483 teams winning four in a row would be--I think--.37 x .37 x .37 x .37, or about a 2% likelihood. (But I'm not sure. Does every game have to be treated independently, in which case it's the same 37% for tonight? I mean, the probability of flipping a head is always 50%, but if you step back, the probability of four in a row is about 6%.)

http://sabr.org/journal/article/probabilities-of-victory-in-head-to-head-team-matchups/

A .667 team should beat a .483 team about 63% of the time, all else being equal.

given the unbalanced schedule other things are not equal, but yeah

it's the same 37% (or whatever) for tonight, although the starting pitcher matchup will make predicting any one game by overall records essentially meaningless

both teams have scored 21 runs in the series

Even factoring in the cheating, I think the Astros are a much better team than their record would indicate.

Agree with that, and to take their record literally is, I think--putting the cheating aside--wrong. It reminds me of the ILB poll a few years ago that included the 2000 Yankees as one of the worst WS winners because they were 87-74 for the season. It was, within the context of the Yankee-revolving-door, the same basic team as the '98/99/01 teams; the core was there anyway, plus other overlap. This year's Astros team is more or less the same Astros team of the last few years--not as good, but realistically closer to the WS team than to a .480 team.

Cardinals 2006 team was probably one of their worst to make the playoffs yet won it all. Looking it up they were only 83-78 that year. Same deal though, as they were in the playoffs nearly every year those days.

Was going to mention them, too, but then I noticed they were even worse in 2007...but they do go along with the general point, though.

Even factoring in the cheating, I think the Astros are a much better team than their record would indicate.

yeah -- they won 100+ games the last three years, and even with verlander out and cole gone they're still pretty decent

This year's Astros team is more or less the same Astros team of the last few years

I don't think the Astros are as bad as their record but losing Verlander and Cole is huge

stunned that treinen didn't give up a game-tying homer there

losing Verlander and Cole is huge

I was just thinking of Cole (so more the regular-season 2020 team); you're right, they're without Verlander right now, and that is decidedly not as strong a team.

If you hate the Astros and you're bigger on karma than probability, I would think that losing tonight, after coming all the way back--as opposed to getting swept and shrugging "Not our year"--would be the best possible way to see them exit. (Unless you're a big Rays fan, where the sweep would have obviously been better.)

What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here?

Game 7 bitch

https://i.imgur.com/1uGHkJo.jpg

ok, rays vs astros, who are we rooting for here?

guess i'm going rays, since they have no money, they do have arozarena, and also fuck the astros

the amazing raaaaaaaaaaaandy

7 HRs this postseason - that's your Mazda Rookie Record - driving matters

I really hate the rays but the Astros pulling a 2004 red sox might be too jokerfied even for me

Why would anyone hate the Rays

you don't have to appreciate their deranged cheapness just because they make it work or because the front office displays unprecedented ingenuity. they lack a concrete team identity because the FO refuses to hold onto 90% of their players when they start to cost money. they're a team of part-time journeymen and it's not because they have to be, it's because the FO is smart enough to make their cheapness work. when i root for a team to win i'm rooting for players, not executives and a probably also underpaid analytics department

moneyball's nothing but an excuse these days

fuck em i like the cheaters more

Kinda lame to put the onus of bad ownership on these players.

Part-time journeymen is a bit much, too.

agreed it's no fun when the Rays are good but baseball is fundamentally set up to reward that sort of teambuilding

can't root for them if i can't remember who any of them are!

it's fine, in 2 or 3 years they'll all be on completely different teams, including ones i might actually like. i'll root for them then.

Well if we are going to dislike teams for having bad owners on top of disliking teams that have too much financial power there won't be a lot of baseball left to enjoy.

i'm not talking about their owner, i'm talking about how their owner affects the entire structure of the organization, which is unique

Well if you can't enjoy or remember players that went 136 and 86 over the last two regular seasons because of that you might be knocking on the wrong door.

it's not a problem i have with any other team! well except the diamondbacks, but that's mostly because of their branding

why are you so invested in my distaste for 1 out of 30 mlb teams?

do they read ilx

i'm sorry blake snell i always pick you in fantasy

Sorry, I don’t mean to be that way. I’m just tired of seeing negative vibes everywhere I look there’s always someone hating on something or someone.

i didn't mean for that to come off confrontational, i'm genuinely interested in why people on the internet tend to get so defensive over the A's and the rays. most of the hate people have for opposing teams has nothing to do with the actual players on the teams. i don't see why it's any less valid to hate a team for an extremely shrewd FO than it is for an extremely spending one, other than... the past 20 years of internet sabermetrics fandom imposing a weird morality on analytic ingenuity. i've been reading fangraphs for fifty years, that doesn't mean i have to like teams for giving them a lot of content.

xp no worries VHS i'm being a crank

to be fair to myself i've been super positive about the astros, go astros

I’m bandwagonning hard on the Dodgers, so it’s not like I care that much, I do enjoy watching these Rays play that being said.

It’s just, I’m not going to let sleazy owners and nerdy FOs alter my appreciation of Ji-Man Choi or Ronald Acuna.

it all gets mixed in

Holding out to see if it’s somehow possible that all four of these teams lose.

i feel u

i totally get why some people feel the way x does about the Rays; but one of the main things i love about them – i don't care if it's the players doing it or the FO or analytics departments – is how they've transformed the game. the opener, for example, they took some heat for it at first – but now there's a lot of teams doing it (possibly the majority). love the line-up/bench of moving parts. i don't have a hard time liking their players either, even if they are role players or journey men (not that i would call many of their guys the later).

There’s something about Fairbanks expressions that I love. Like he’s half terrified or something.

Like watching Richie Cunningham pitch.

brilliant analysis

https://i.imgur.com/Xw9vEeM.jpg

charlie morton got two more outs and exited having thrown 66 pitches

you hate to see it

Stoked for the Rays. In case you haven't been paying attention, they dominated the league this year (.667) and have been almost as good in the playoffs (.643) to date.

The other time Tampa was in the series, that was the crazy ending to the regular season, right, where all those games were decided almost simultaneously?