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Do we overrate our pitching prospects' chances of success?


Frobby

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What exactly were you harping on, I'm not sure I understand.

Stotle's point is that we have concentrated on developing and trading for young pitching the last few years, so we should expect to exceed the MLB average in terms of yield. It's a good point, and I accept it.

But what exactly were you saying in the second half last year?

I was just saying that OAK is a good model franchise for the Orioles to compare ourselves to as far as rebuilding goes. Based on OAK's team era (4.29) and their competitive second half, I'd say they have a good chance to make the playoffs next year if they upgrade their offense a bit. Meanwhile we have high hopes for 2010 but for most of 2009 the O's went into one of the worst extended slides in franchise history. OAK has legit chances of contending next year, meanwhile, we've got to hope for astronomical improvement and success to be in that kind of situation.

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Find where I said it was purely luck.

Well, first off, I wasn't aiming anything at you in particular. It's just a normal thing around here to act like a short postseason series is just luck. The fact that you didn't use the phrase "pure luck" doesn't change that.

How were they built for 162 and not for 7? Either the Braves or the Athletics. What's the one thing everyone wants the most in a short series? Did the Braves and A's have it?

The A's managed to eke into the postseason because they were in a weak division, then they'd get bounced in the first round like clockwork. The Braves relied on SP's and a closer, with not much in between. So, Cox would stay with a SP longer than he should, trying to get to the closer because the BP was full of temp journeymen. Given the rotation he had, that works fine over the long haul. If the postseason series were the best 11 out of 21, I bet the Braves would have a bunch of rings. But they're not 11 of 21, so the Braves don't. You don't need just 1 good BP guy, you need three of them, and the BP is the one place Schuerholz scrimped. IMO, it was his only shortcoming. By and large, he was a brilliant GM. Too bad that Baltimore boy had his great success someplace else other than Baltimore.

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Well, first off, I wasn't aiming anything at you in particular. It's just a normal thing around here to act like a short postseason series is just luck. The fact that you didn't use the phrase "pure luck" doesn't change that.

The A's managed to eke into the postseason because they were in a weak division, then they'd get bounced in the first round like clockwork. The Braves relied on SP's and a closer, with not much in between. So, Cox would stay with a SP longer than he should, trying to get to the closer because the BP was full of temp journeymen. Given the rotation he had, that works fine over the long haul. If the postseason series were the best 11 out of 21, I bet the Braves would have a bunch of rings. But they're not 11 of 21, so the Braves don't. You don't need just 1 good BP guy, you need three of them, and the BP is the one place Schuerholz scrimped. IMO, it was his only shortcoming. By and large, he was a brilliant GM. Too bad that Baltimore boy had his great success someplace else other than Baltimore.

This is a pretty classic example of the Treaian method of fitting your argument to support your already formulated conclusion, IMO.
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This is a pretty classic example of the Treaian method of fitting your argument to support your already formulated conclusion, IMO.

No, actually it's the result of working in ATL for most the Braves run of excellence, and watching them from up close year-by-year because MLB -EI didn't exist so I couldn't watch the O's.

Yes, good pitching matters, and IMO what matters the most is your best 3 SP's and your best 3 RP's. Practically nobody has a #4 and #5 SP who are worth a damn, and despite what some folks seem to think, you can't treat the BP like an afterthought, which is what Schuerholz pretty much did. So, Cox didn't have 3 RP's he could count on.

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Well, first off, I wasn't aiming anything at you in particular. It's just a normal thing around here to act like a short postseason series is just luck. The fact that you didn't use the phrase "pure luck" doesn't change that.

The A's managed to eke into the postseason because they were in a weak division, then they'd get bounced in the first round like clockwork. The Braves relied on SP's and a closer, with not much in between. So, Cox would stay with a SP longer than he should, trying to get to the closer because the BP was full of temp journeymen. Given the rotation he had, that works fine over the long haul. If the postseason series were the best 11 out of 21, I bet the Braves would have a bunch of rings. But they're not 11 of 21, so the Braves don't. You don't need just 1 good BP guy, you need three of them, and the BP is the one place Schuerholz scrimped. IMO, it was his only shortcoming. By and large, he was a brilliant GM. Too bad that Baltimore boy had his great success someplace else other than Baltimore.

The AL West was not weak at all when the A's were making the playoffs. The wildcard came from it the first 3 times the A's made the playoffs, and had a 116 win Mariners team during that span. In 2002, when the A's won the division with 103 wins(hardly barely getting in), the Angels won 99 games and the Mariners won 93.

I also think the Braves BP was often better than you're giving them credit for.

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Well, first off, I wasn't aiming anything at you in particular. It's just a normal thing around here to act like a short postseason series is just luck. The fact that you didn't use the phrase "pure luck" doesn't change that.

The A's managed to eke into the postseason because they were in a weak division, then they'd get bounced in the first round like clockwork. The Braves relied on SP's and a closer, with not much in between. So, Cox would stay with a SP longer than he should, trying to get to the closer because the BP was full of temp journeymen. Given the rotation he had, that works fine over the long haul. If the postseason series were the best 11 out of 21, I bet the Braves would have a bunch of rings. But they're not 11 of 21, so the Braves don't. You don't need just 1 good BP guy, you need three of them, and the BP is the one place Schuerholz scrimped. IMO, it was his only shortcoming. By and large, he was a brilliant GM. Too bad that Baltimore boy had his great success someplace else other than Baltimore.

You can rationalize and explain away why it was inevitable that the A's and Braves didn't have a lot of postseason success. But it all comes down to the fact that almost every postseason series in baseball is matching up a .590 team against at .560 team and that's as good as a coin flip. You can design teams or luck into teams that can push their postseason odds up a tick or two, but you're still looking at 60/40 odds of winning any one series being on the far end of things.

All luck? Of course not. But the most dominant team in baseball's odds of winning a best-of-seven series over a .520 team isn't that much better than even.

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Obviously, what you do over 162 games is more impressive over what you do in 11 playoff games.

Saying luck doesn't play some part in the playoffs is pretty ridiculous...hell, it may play a big part.

Rather than saying luck plays a big part, I'd say it's more of a matter of timing regarding how well the team is playing leading up to the playoffs and how well certain players do. So often times the better team or the better designed for the postseason team doesn't win, but I wouldn't say luck is the primary reason. It may be semantics, because you can say the Cards were lucky to have mediocre pitchers become great in the post-season, and that is true from a planning perspective, but the guys still pitched great, which isn't mostly luck. I think saying things like timing and who's hot or plays over the head is more likely to be received better by the people who don't think the postseason is largely a crapshoot.

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Saying luck doesn't play some part in the playoffs is pretty ridiculous...hell, it may play a big part.

Nobody said it doesn't play a part. In any given series it might play a key part. In any given series, lots of specific things might play an important part. But that's way different than saying the Braves, who were so good for so long, have just one measly ring because of luck and other factors that have nothing to do with how the team was constructed.

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Rather than saying luck plays a big part, I'd say it's more of a matter of timing regarding how well the team is playing leading up to the playoffs and how well certain players do. So often times the better team or the better designed for the postseason team doesn't win, but I wouldn't say luck is the primary reason. It may be semantics, because you can say the Cards were lucky to have mediocre pitchers become great in the post-season, and that is true from a planning perspective, but the guys still pitched great, which isn't mostly luck. I think saying things like timing and who's hot or plays over the head is more likely to be received better by the people who don't think the postseason is largely a crapshoot.

Well, "luck" is basically just short-hand for that which can't be controlled, no? Your example and those you're responding to are talking about the same stuff.

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Rather than saying luck plays a big part, I'd say it's more of a matter of timing regarding how well the team is playing leading up to the playoffs and how well certain players do. So often times the better team or the better designed for the postseason team doesn't win, but I wouldn't say luck is the primary reason. It may be semantics, because you can say the Cards were lucky to have mediocre pitchers become great in the post-season, and that is true from a planning perspective, but the guys still pitched great, which isn't mostly luck. I think saying things like timing and who's hot or plays over the head is more likely to be received better by the people who don't think the postseason is largely a crapshoot.

A .600 or a .650 team will have weeks where they go 2-5 or 1-6. And a .333 team will have a week or two where they go 5-2 or 6-1.

I think luck in the postseason is generally defined as having one of those kind of weeks after the regular season ends. It happens all the time, and has little to do with talent or skill or the makeup of the team. The longer the sample of games the less chance that kind of noise overwhelms the talent. In 5 or 7 games the noise wins out pretty often.

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Rather than saying luck plays a big part, I'd say it's more of a matter of timing regarding how well the team is playing leading up to the playoffs and how well certain players do. So often times the better team or the better designed for the postseason team doesn't win, but I wouldn't say luck is the primary reason. It may be semantics, because you can say the Cards were lucky to have mediocre pitchers become great in the post-season, and that is true from a planning perspective, but the guys still pitched great, which isn't mostly luck. I think saying things like timing and who's hot or plays over the head is more likely to be received better by the people who don't think the postseason is largely a crapshoot.

It usually is with you. :D

Rshack...Yes, Atlanta lacked things but still, they obviously put together a championship level team year in and year out....just as Oakland did.

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Obviously, what you do over 162 games is more impressive over what you do in 11 playoff games.

Saying luck doesn't play some part in the playoffs is pretty ridiculous...hell, it may play a big part.

Exactly. In any one game teams can get very lucky. There are teams that get lucky a lot, but over the course of a 162 game season that luck runs out.

It's not all luck, but it plays a part.

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Rather than saying luck plays a big part, I'd say it's more of a matter of timing regarding how well the team is playing leading up to the playoffs and how well certain players do. So often times the better team or the better designed for the postseason team doesn't win, but I wouldn't say luck is the primary reason. It may be semantics, because you can say the Cards were lucky to have mediocre pitchers become great in the post-season, and that is true from a planning perspective, but the guys still pitched great, which isn't mostly luck. I think saying things like timing and who's hot or plays over the head is more likely to be received better by the people who don't think the postseason is largely a crapshoot.
Instead of saying its luck, i'd refer to it as things that largely cannot be planned for.

You don't know when your hitters are gonna be on hot streaks, when your bullpen is gonna be on a HR binge, when you 2B is gonna get hurt. You build the best team possible, but a lot of things that go a long way towards determining who will win the WS is stuff that you can't plan for in December and January when you're building your roster or even July when you're augmenting it for the stretch run.

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