What did we learn from the past week's wild card round results?

[tntoriole]

Best teams often don’t win the postseason. 
Mets win one of the last 6 with Braves then they win the division.  
 

Back before wildcards, the Os often had much better record than the AL West winner but stayed home. 
 

I think the two teams with best record should get the bye .. irrespective of division. 
Particularly when they go to balamced schedule   
 

A 101 win team should not have to play a 2 out of 3 first round. 
 

Having said that … Os and Mets 1969 World Series.. better teams don’t always win 

[spiritof66]

Not new stuff, but for me these things were reinforced over the last few days:

• All the thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent on analysis of players and matchups, from the primitive to the cutting-edge, seeking ways to give teams an edge in talent acquisition, roster construction and in-game decisions, means practically nothing over the course of two or three games.
• A best-of-three playoff series has no proper place (well, maybe a financial place) in baseball.
• As many of us thought he would, Manny Machado has matured out of the obnoxious behavior that he showed occasionally with the Orioles.
• Cito still sucks. 

[bpilktree]

I think what it will really show over time is do you hold a starter back at end of season and give him extra day or two or keep him on schedule as that is what he is used too.  That will be the biggest decisions I think a manager will have to make.  their will be some factors in there with is pitcher slightly injured or healthy.  Have they pitched more innings then they have before and when did team clinch playoff berth.

Manoha got was on 6 day rest and didn't pitch well.  Gausman was on 5 days rest and only threw 3 innings in that start and gave up 4 runs. 

Castillo was on 5 days rest and pitched great.  Ray had 5 days rest and didn't pitch well.

Mcclanahan was on 5 days rest and pitched great.  Glasnow was on 4 days but was on pitch limit coming back from injury and pitched well.  

Bieber was on normal rest and pitched great.  Mackenzie was also on normal rest and pitched great. 

Scherzer was on 5 days and was terrible but also most likely injured.  Degrom got 7 days rest and pitched good, Bassitt was on 6 days and was bad.

Darvish got 6 days rest and was great.  Yu usually pitches well with extra rest because of Asian leagues giving them 5 days often.  Snell got 5 days and pitched pretty poorly.  Musgrove got 5 days and pitched excellent.

Wheeler pitched on normal rest and was great.  Nola was on normal rest and pitched great as well.

Quintana pitched on 3 days but was a short start 40 pitches and was good.  Mikolos pitched on normal rest and was ok.  

One year not going to show anything but of the guys that were on normal rest gave up 2 runs with Bieber, Mckanzie, Nola, and Wheeler giving up 0 all together.  

 

[Number5]

Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  Sometimes you get rained out.

[maybenxtyr]

Build your best team for 162 and let the playoff chips fall where they may. 

 

The fact that Toronto is home instead of moving on shows that the best team in paper doesn't always win. 

[eddie83]

Division round will be over after tonight. 
 

Key point to me is pitching health/availability. 
 

Dodgers the best team in sport start a 16-1 Gonsolin in Game 3. Was hurt down the stretch and didn’t pitch for about 6 weeks. He goes 1.1 IP. Dodgers pitch great that game but lose. Game 4 Dodgers are up 3-0 bottom 7. Kahnle starts inning, struggles and other pen arms scuffle and they lose. 
 

Braves in Game 3 start Strider who had a great year but didn’t throw last 2 weeks of season. He pitches bad and can’t get out of 3rd inning. Game 4 Morton who struggled in Sept can’t go past 2 innings -he also was hit by a line drive. 
 

Yankees pen in Game 2 throws well but use Taillon in extras and lose. Boone didn’t want to use Holmes back to back days in Game 3 and they blow a 2 run lead in the 9th. Yankees pen ravaged by injuries this year. Cole saved them last night, have to see what happens tonight. 
 

Pretty telling to me that 3 of the best teams in the sport are running short on pitching in some spots and they all had byes. 

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Division round will be over after tonight. 
 

Key point to me is pitching health/availability. 
 

Dodgers the best team in sport start a 16-1 Gonsolin in Game 3. Was hurt down the stretch and didn’t pitch for about 6 weeks. He goes 1.1 IP. Dodgers pitch great that game but lose. Game 4 Dodgers are up 3-0 bottom 7. Kahnle starts inning, struggles and other pen arms scuffle and they lose. 
 

Braves in Game 3 start Strider who had a great year but didn’t throw last 2 weeks of season. He pitches bad and can’t get out of 3rd inning. Game 4 Morton who struggled in Sept can’t go past 2 innings -he also was hit by a line drive. 
 

Yankees pen in Game 2 throws well but use Taillon in extras and lose. Boone didn’t want to use Holmes back to back days in Game 3 and they blow a 2 run lead in the 9th. Yankees pen ravaged by injuries this year. Cole saved them last night, have to see what happens tonight. 
 

Pretty telling to me that 3 of the best teams in the sport are running short on pitching in some spots and they all had byes. 

When was the last time the Dodgers played a meaningful game heading into that series?

Edited October 17, 2022 by Sports Guy

[Just Regular]

The rainout forcing NYY and CLE into four games in four days is fun stuff.    Sure, Taillon and Civale are "starting", but Cleveland in particular didn't have to use any of its top bullpen arms last night, even before Bieber throw day drama.

They can probably get 4-5 innings out of Clase, Karinchak and Stephan tonight.

For offseason, with Cody Morris bubbling up as a decent backend rotation guy behind Bieber-McKenzie, Quantrill, Civale and Plesac are all guys it feels like around time for Cleveland to move on from.

If you told me right now we would win a pair of respectable SP3's like Jameson Taillon and Aaron Civale this offseason, I'd guess that's probably past my mid-case expectation for what we'll take to camp.    If we made short series next fall thanks to their "fancy Jordan Lyles" contributions, I'd guess we'd also be wondering how many extra innings we could funnel to Bryan Baker, baseball being what it is these days.

[eddie83]

57 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

When was the last time the Dodgers played a meaningful game heading into that series?

June? 
 

At end of day their high priced closer wasn’t good enough to be on their roster and they started someone who wasn’t healthy in Game 3 of a best of 5 that was 1-1. 

[eddie83]

37 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

The rainout forcing NYY and CLE into four games in four days is fun stuff.    Sure, Taillon and Civale are "starting", but Cleveland in particular didn't have to use any of its top bullpen arms last night, even before Bieber throw day drama.

They can probably get 4-5 innings out of Clase, Karinchak and Stephan tonight.

For offseason, with Cody Morris bubbling up as a decent backend rotation guy behind Bieber-McKenzie, Quantrill, Civale and Plesac are all guys it feels like around time for Cleveland to move on from.

If you told me right now we would win a pair of respectable SP3's like Jameson Taillon and Aaron Civale this offseason, I'd guess that's probably past my mid-case expectation for what we'll take to camp.    If we made short series next fall thanks to their "fancy Jordan Lyles" contributions, I'd guess we'd also be wondering how many extra innings we could funnel to Bryan Baker, baseball being what it is these days.

Let’s see what happens with Grayson next year. If they slow play him people will lose it. What’s his innings cap? 
 

Do you want him in September/October or April/May?

[Just Regular]

11 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

Do you want him in September/October or April/May?

I want him to throw about 22 starts of about 6 innings on average, be good, and figure out Sept/Oct when we see what the roster looks like after the trade deadline.

Basically, I'll feel lucky if we get the 2012 Nationals Strasburg "problem" in the big picture.

Gear shift near the All-Star break if the circumstances look right, but March-April-May, just use the best pitchers please.

I'll let the Orioles figure out the PR what to do with him roster and service time wise if he has an All-Star caliber first half but is "out of bullets" in the second half.     Pitchers should pitch when they are healthy, they won't always be.

[eddie83]

2 hours ago, Just Regular said:

I want him to throw about 22 starts of about 6 innings on average, be good, and figure out Sept/Oct when we see what the roster looks like after the trade deadline.

Basically, I'll feel lucky if we get the 2012 Nationals Strasburg "problem" in the big picture.

Gear shift near the All-Star break if the circumstances look right, but March-April-May, just use the best pitchers please.

I'll let the Orioles figure out the PR what to do with him roster and service time wise if he has an All-Star caliber first half but is "out of bullets" in the second half.     Pitchers should pitch when they are healthy, they won't always be.

I would rather have someone available later myself. 

[Moose Milligan]

Teams that peak at this time of year or are hot heading into the playoffs probably stand a better chance.

And playoff baseball is the best.

[Fiver6565]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:12 PM, tntoriole said:

Best teams often don’t win the postseason. 
Mets win one of the last 6 with Braves then they win the division.  
 

Back before wildcards, the Os often had much better record than the AL West winner but stayed home. 
 

I think the two teams with best record should get the bye .. irrespective of division. 
Particularly when they go to balamced schedule   
 

A 101 win team should not have to play a 2 out of 3 first round. 
 

Having said that … Os and Mets 1969 World Series.. better teams don’t always win 

There were three such teams (101 wins) in the NL anyway, so one was going to the WC even under your described scenario.

 

Its fine the way it is.  Don't add teams, and gotta win your division to get a bye.  Keeps winning the division as an important thing (even though its not the MOST important thing), which it should be in a 162 game season.

[Fiver6565]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Teams that peak at this time of year or are hot heading into the playoffs probably stand a better chance.

And playoff baseball is the best.

Also there are many cases where the cream does rise to the top, we just don't remember those because no one is surprised when it happens.  AL is an example - Houston already through, and NYY will probably be favored in their game 5 (at the very least, they aren't out - and they would be losing to a division winner).  So regardless, much closer to chalk in the AL.