Thursday, October 04, 2007 |
Vetting The Angels The Chronicler Way (Sort Of)
But it's good to revisit your assumptions and look deeper, and hopefully, more rationally. Rather than engage in name-calling or other juvenalia (not that he's liable to do that, but there are others ...), the Chronicler took a look at the ALDS matchup after his off-the-cuff guesstimate of a four-game series loss, coming to the conclusion that the Angels will win this series in four.
I still don't see it; the problem, ultimately, is that the Red Sox have the best pitching staff WHIP in the league, getting right back to Bryant's point about baserunning. There's a superficial case to be made that the Angels are a better team, based on front-line talent; as the Chronicler does, let's compare each team's best nine or so players (I'll use ten here because it actually helps the Angels a bit by bringing in one of their quasi-regulars from the bench), only instead of using OPS+, I'll use win shares:
Angels Red Sox
Player WS Player WS
=====================================
Guerrero 31 Ortiz 29
Cabrera 25 Lowell 24
Figgins 22 Youkilis 20
Kotchman 16 Pedroia 19
Izturis 16 Crisp 16
Matthews 15 Ramirez 15
Anderson 14 Drew 12
Kendrick 9 Lugo 12
Napoli 8 Ellsbury 6
The Angels come out better at five positions (Vlad vs. Ortiz, Cabrera vs. Lowell, Figgins vs. Youkilis, and Napoli vs. Ellsbury), worse at two (Kotchman vs. Pedroia, Kendrick vs. Lugo) and tied at two others, a result surprisingly happy for the Angels. However, it should be stressed that at no point is an Angels advantage what you would call compelling. This also (mostly, for reasons I'll get to later) coincides with the Chronicler's findings; at the top, the Angels are actually a slightly better offensive club than the Red Sox.
One surprise that came from changing metrics was in the pitching staff. Lackey actually has had a better year than Beckett, and in fact the Angels are better in their top three than the Red Sox:
Angels Red Sox
Player WS Player WS
=====================================
Lackey 22 Beckett 19
Escobar 18 Matsuzaka 12
Weaver 12 Schilling 10
Saunders 7 Wakefield 10
Santana 3 Lester 4
Where the Chronicler found the Angels relief staff a bit behind was in the relief staff. How's that stack up by win shares?
Angels Red Sox
Player WS Player WS
=====================================
Rodriguez 12 Papelbon 12
Shields 7 Okajima 10
Speier 6 Delcarmen 5
Moseley 5 Lopez 4
Huh. That makes no sense to me; Papelbon had a much lower ERA (1.85) vs. Rodriguez (2.81). Let's try WXRL, a Baseball Prospectus metric that tries to measure wins added:
Angels Red Sox
Player WXRL Player WXRL
====================================
Rodriguez 4.26 Papelbon 5.14
Shields 2.70 Okajima 4.43
Speier 1.95 Delcarmen 1.65
Oliver 1.23 Timlin 1.56
As with the Chronicler's piece, there's a huge gap between these bullpens, and the difference between Papelbon and K-Rod is striking, which correlates (to me anyway) about at the difference between these two clubs.
What I guess I don't get, though, is the Chronicler going from these significant shortcomings to the assertion that the Angels will take it in four. That's an unsupported leap of faith; given home field advantage, Red Sox pitching that completely derails the Angels' offense, and a noticeably superior Boston bullpen, how do you get there from here? I still say, Red Sox in four, with a sweep a real possibility.
Labels: angels, postseason
The real difference maker is Escobar. Plain and simple. Boston's #2, whether it be Dice K or Schilling, has not had near the year Escobar has had. Escobar is in the Beckett/Lackey front-line category.
i think any one who rationally argues against your stance Rob, is that you are looking at year-long composites to determine your post-season hypothesis, but guys like Carrasco, or RoadErvin for instance, or even Matthews are irrelevant at this point in time. Thankfully, i can't even recall the name of the Angel's first DH this season who was cut in June.
To win it, the Angels just need Escobar to pitch as he has for most of the season and shut down the Sox twice. If so, there's a solid chance Weaver can outduel Schilling, or Lackey beats Beckett.
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