Red Sox vs Dodgers WS Thread (2018 non Cubs games)

[Sammy Sofa]

I don't doubt getting rid of an absolutely incompetent manager is one of the few cases where a manager can actually impact a team's success, but I seriously doubt something along the lines of, "man, I'm glad that THAT guy is gone and we all get along so great," is accounting for them playing at a, what, 110+ win-pace? And I especially doubt it's something that can keep up for more than another month.

 

It seems mostly like several of their bats got hot at the same time.

[TMan92]

Aguilar with a complete lack of hustle must have Brewer fans steaming

[TMan92]

I don't doubt getting rid of an absolutely incompetent manager is one of the few cases where a manager can actually impact a team's success, but I seriously doubt something along the lines of, "man, I'm glad that THAT guy is gone and we all get along so great," is accounting for them playing at a, what, 110+ win-pace? And I especially doubt it's something that can keep up for more than another month.

 

It seems mostly like several of their bats got hot at the same time.

 

The explanation is surely the following

 

Bader is Mike Trout

Wong is the best 2nd baseman in baseball

Fowler poisoned everything

Carpenter is Stan Musial

Yadi at 36 will be able to play every day for the rest of the season without wearing down

That Gomber guy won’t regress

[Schwarber Fan]

Cardinals scare me just because they’re hot and losing to them would be incredibly annoying

 

Agreed, we'll see how they fare long term with Schildt but these aren't the same stale-ass cardinals from 2015. I think the Cubs should be better for a while but they have good pitching and much improved chemistry. Basically breaks down like this:

 

Teams I want to face: Phillies, Rockies, Brewers, DBacks

 

Teams I'd rather miss: Dodgers, Cardinals, Braves

 

No thank you to the DBacks. Agreed on the rest.

[soccer10k]

Cardinals scare me just because they’re hot and losing to them would be incredibly annoying

 

I know it doesn’t mean a ton but I like that we’ve only faced them once in a playoff series and we won that series (and in dong-tastic fashion) and I don’t want them to get a chance at revenge.

 

Plus if they get in they have a chance to win it all and I definitely don’t want that to happen.

[mul21]

I don't doubt getting rid of an absolutely incompetent manager is one of the few cases where a manager can actually impact a team's success, but I seriously doubt something along the lines of, "man, I'm glad that THAT guy is gone and we all get along so great," is accounting for them playing at a, what, 110+ win-pace? And I especially doubt it's something that can keep up for more than another month.

 

It seems mostly like several of their bats got hot at the same time.

 

Living down here and seeing it on a daily basis, Matheny was like playing for Debbie Downer who also made you have a constricted butt hole. Him being lauded as this leader of men when he took over was a bunch of BS and he only got by as long as he did because he had guys on the team who did the dirty work for him. Once they were gone, he had no idea how to run things and I just think his ineptitude made everyone significantly worse that they really are. No doubt they're on a massive, unsustainable heater right now, but I think they're much closer to this (assuming their pitching stays reasonable healthy) than they are to the middling .500 team they've been the last couple years. And I hate it so much. These clowns down here are so damned annoying.

[Sammy Sofa]

Are they more like a 90+ win team than a .500 win team? Sure.

 

Are they closer to being a 110+ win team than a .500 team? Heck no. And this hot streak has been the latter, not the former.

[Sammys Boombox]

Are they more like a 90+ win team than a .500 win team? Sure.

 

Are they closer to being a 110+ win team than a .500 team? Heck no. And this hot streak has been the latter, not the former.

 

Sure, but them being a 90+ win team that makes the playoffs and contends with the Cubs for the division is a lot less enjoyable to me than an 80-win team that continues to not rebuild but also misses the playoffs. Until this hot streak they were looking at 3 straight years of that exact scenario. And the year before that they were bounced quickly in the NLDS by the Cubs.

 

I get what you’re saying from a mathematical perspective, but I believe the previous poster was saying they’re more of a competitive team as opposed to a non-competitive team wasting seasons in neutral and providing some serious schaudenfreude.

 

I just hope they lose the Wild Card game in some horrific fashion in like the 18th inning.

[Sammy Sofa]

Most pre-season projections had the Cardinals being competitive, so yearning for them to just be spinning out in neutral yet again was likely going to be wishful thinking regardless.

[Brian]

today would be a good day for the Reds to win on a Homer Bailey day for the 2nd time all year.

[Sammys Boombox]

Most pre-season projections had the Cardinals being competitive, so yearning for them to just be spinning out in neutral yet again was likely going to be wishful thinking regardless.

 

Except that’s exactly what was happening like a month ago. Their postseason odds on Fangraphs were low single digits.

[Sammy Sofa]

Right, and now it's not. The position they are in now is more in line with where they were predicted/"expected" to be than how they were doing a month ago. Similar to how it would be unrealistic to think they just be a middling .500 team largely just because, assuming they will keep playing at this type of pace for the rest of the season is a stretch.

 

As we were reminded so many times when the Cubs were farting in each other's faces, these things have a tendency to even out in the end.

[George Hayduke]

Right, and now it's not. The position they are in now is more in line with where they were predicted/"expected" to be than how they were doing a month ago. Similar to how it would be unrealistic to think they just be a middling .500 team largely just because, assuming they will keep playing at this type of pace for the rest of the season is a stretch.

 

As we were reminded so many times when the Cubs were farting in each other's faces, these things have a tendency to even out in the end.

 

This is using the Gambler's Fallacy though. If you thought they were truly an upper 80s to 90ish win team, you certainly shouldn't have expected them to play .500 ball the rest of the way. But it's much more unreasonable to have expected them to play far beyond .500 ball for the past month because that would now get them closer to "where they were predicted/'expected' to be".

 

Said another way, it was much more likely they would now, a month later, still be closer to the .500 team they were a month ago and had been for 2/3 of a season than the upper 80s to 90 win team they were projected to be in March.

 

All of this of course doesn't mean anything because the Cardinals have just been lucky and the Cubs are clearly better. I also don't believe them carrying a hot streak into the playoffs says anything positive about their chances either. But I do believe the playoffs are mostly a crap shoot, and to that end I am annoyed that the Cardinals are now much more likely to make it. Because ultimately their chances, should they get in, are mostly as good as anyone else's, and unluckily losing to your rivals in the postseason knowing that they're just not that great a team would be extra painful. I think this is basically the point Boombox and others were also making.

[Sammy Sofa]

But it's much more unreasonable to have expected them to play far beyond .500 ball for the past month because that would now get them closer to "where they were predicted/'expected' to be".

 

But that's not what anyone was expecting; that's just what has happened. It could have happened earlier in the season. It could have been more spread out. Regardless of how it went down, it's playing out so that they're likely to end up more in line with the pre-season projections; baseball being baseball. It would have been unusual for them to just sputter and drastically underperform as a .500 team for the season, and it would be unusual for them to continue to keep playing out of their minds for another month. They're likely the team in between those performances, and that's what they're more likely to do for much of the next 4+ weeks than to go back to sucking or to keep kicking bonkers ass.

[George Hayduke]

It would have been unusual for them to just sputter and drastically underperform as a .500 team for the season

 

But unusual or not, that's exactly what happened until a month ago. And so because of that, by far the most likely scenario was that they would finish up at 83ish wins, because projections are progressive, not regressive. It assumes their 4 months of .500 ball would combine with 2 months of the slightly above average ball their true talent level suggested. The fact that they've instead played at a 110 win pace the past month is like the 98th+ percentile outcome. It wasn't at all wishful thinking to assume that wouldn't happen, given what we knew a month ago. To suggest that it was reasonable to expect their record to "even out" this much assumes they were "due" some hot streak, which is not how probability works.

[PackLandVA]

So are the Cubs gonna win the division then? :headscratch:

[itisallpartoftheplan]

Homer Bailey gives up a 2 out 2 run double to Austin Gomber then Carpenter hits a 2 run bomb. I’m feeling nauseous.

[Sammy Sofa]

It would have been unusual for them to just sputter and drastically underperform as a .500 team for the season

 

But unusual or not, that's exactly what happened until a month ago. And so because of that, by far the most likely scenario was that they would finish up at 83ish wins, because projections are progressive, not regressive. It assumes their 4 months of .500 ball would combine with 2 months of the slightly above average ball their true talent level suggested. The fact that they've instead played at a 110 win pace the past month is like the 98th+ percentile outcome. It wasn't at all wishful thinking to assume that wouldn't happen, given what we knew a month ago. To suggest that it was reasonable to expect their record to "even out" this much assumes they were "due" some hot streak, which is not how probability works.

 

These things have a not so weird way of balancing out over the season. I don't think them them tearing it up for a month is anymore unusual than how they were under .500 in June and July; we've seen plenty of teams go through some variation of that. They're going to end up with about 90 wins and a decent run differential as expected, so that they got there with the help of a big month doesn't really stand out to me as something all that odd.

 

It reminds me somewhat of the 2015 Cubs, TBH.

[itisallpartoftheplan]

Bases loaded for Juan Soto 2 out. 3-2 Brewers.

[NOLA]

Have fun playing that 12:35 game tomorrow before the Cubs series Milwaukee.

[TMan92]

I guess Thom said that nobody for the Cardinals would start for the Cubs. Cardinals Twitter hilarity ensues.

[TMan92]

4-3 Nats

[17 Seconds]

the nats color guy is the lamest person ever

[TMan92]

Wheels coming off of the Crew. #thatsmycrew

[TMan92]

That is probably the worst pitch I have ever seen to Saladino. 5-4