GO D'backs... 1 inning away from 2 game lead.
cubs are gonna get swept along with phillies and yanks!
you are right... the national media (ESPN) just wants the cubs to win. maybe they are still sour the D'backs beat the yankees in the WS in 01.
also if you are in a close game then you are going to use your best relief pitchers to hold the game but if you are down by 4-5 in the 6th it doesnt matter who you put out there the game is essentially out of reach. so you are just putting guys out there to eat the innings doesnt matter how many runs the other team scores then.
Then why are you attempting to assert how poor of a stat it is? There's a reason that stat exists, and there's a reason that only one team has made it out of the first round with such a statistic.
Seriously, if you admit up front that you know next-to-nothing, my guess would be it's better not to be so haughty as to assume that you "know" it's wrong.
how many of those teams that were outscored had the best record in their league?
a stat is just that a stat... doesnt mean anything. that is why the game is played.
2-0
Of course, over a small sample size, run differential CAN be very misleading.
However, over the course of a 162 game season - it is usually very indicative. Teams like the D'backs are the exceptions and anomalies.
When - in over a century of MLB, only 5 teams have made the postseason with a negative run differential - that's not meaningless.
That's not to say that that Arizona can't be the second team ever to still win the series with that hanging over their head, but they are likely to be the underdog from here on out.
Ah yes. Fielding percentage means nothing. Batting average and slugging percentage means nothing. J.D. Drew is a better hitter than Albert Pujois. Well so what if Pujois has stats on his side. They mean nothing!
Honestly, baseball is a statistician's dream sport for a reason. Just because unpredictable stuff can happen from time to time doesn't break the rule. It just shows there are exceptions. Golden State beating Dallas last year doesn't mean that seeds are worthless, does it? Does it mean that W-L record is worthless too, since Dallas won 67?
Or, more to the point, if you need to win a game, would you go with a pitcher who's got an ERA over 8.00, or one that has an ERA in the low 3.00s? Because if you honestly answer that question as you should (the latter), you cannot say that stats mean nothing. Even IF the pitcher with an ERA of 8+ has more wins, that hardly suggests he's a better pitcher, does it?
that is not my argument. all im saying is stats do NOT win games.Ah yes. Fielding percentage means nothing. Batting average and slugging percentage means nothing. J.D. Drew is a better hitter than Albert Pujois. Well so what if Pujois has stats on his side. They mean nothing!
Honestly, baseball is a statistician's dream sport for a reason. Just because unpredictable stuff can happen from time to time doesn't break the rule. It just shows there are exceptions. Golden State beating Dallas last year doesn't mean that seeds are worthless, does it? Does it mean that W-L record is worthless too, since Dallas won 67?
Or, more to the point, if you need to win a game, would you go with a pitcher who's got an ERA over 8.00, or one that has an ERA in the low 3.00s? Because if you honestly answer that question as you should (the latter), you cannot say that stats mean nothing. Even IF the pitcher with an ERA of 8+ has more wins, that hardly suggests he's a better pitcher, does it?
I'll use the Mariners this year as an example. As of August, they were leading the wild card. However, they had the same run differential as the Orioles. The stats were pointing that they would more than likely fade down the stretch...which of course happened.
For every D'Backs, there are numerous squads like the Mariners. Every statistical group has a set of outliers.
mariners also faced good teams above .500 down the stretch.
except they do.
there is a high correlation between teams with the best run differentials and playoff squads.
there is a high correlation between team OPS and runs scored. there is a high correlation between WHIP and K/BB rates and runs allowed.
that doesn't mean that you have to necessarily have the statistical advantage to win the series. but I'm a GM, I'm going to feel much better about the team that I am assembling if that stats are in my favor.
explain the dbacks to me then
yeah, to make the playoffs you have to beat a few good teams over the course of the season.
that said, an 88 win team may not be the best example to prove my point.
i'll stay with that, of the 16 teams that had a negative run differential this year, 14 of them had a losing record, 15 missed the playoffs.
in 2006, of the 13 teams that had a negative run differential, 12 had a losing record and 13 missed the playoffs.
in 2005, of the 16 teams that had negative run differential, 14 had a losing record, 15 missed the playoffs.
in 2004, of the 12 teams that had negative run differntial, 12 had a losing record and 12 missed the playoffs.
this is a correlation.
no they don't... you guys are looking at an entire season or putting a team together. im looking at most one series.
in 2004 no team has been down 3 games in best of 7 and won the series. statistically the red sox had 0 chance of winning YET they won the series.
a rare exception that can occur when baseball is played for over 100+ years. even if there is just a 1.5% chance that a team with that kind of differential can make the postseason, that still means it is likely occur 5 or 6 times over the past century.
however, trying to win on a regular basis while being outscored by your opponents over the course of a season isn't exactly a sound strategy. in fact, no team has ever made the playoffs in consecutive seasons under such conditions.
here is a stat no nl team has come back from down 0-2 in the nlds
cool, dig up another stat, the team with the better regular season record wins the series how many times in the post season?
i'd expect this to be around .550-.600ish
And before 2004, no team in either league had come back from down 0-3 in a 7-game series, period.
it has, however, happened when the LCS were in the best of 5 format. want to guess to who?
i'd expect you're correct. but in last year's playoffs the better record only went 2-5. the only wins were mets in the first round and tigers in the LCS.
You intimate too much. I never said I know next to nothing. I simply said I don't know enough of baseball's statistics or history to know why one particular stat is so damned important. It's one stat. Why not look at pitching stats? Isn't there a general understanding that good pitching teams go far in the postseason? Well, the Diamondbacks probably had a top-5 pitching staff in the NL, and of the NL team in the playoffs, may have the very best top to bottom, beginning to end.
I simply asked why run differential can trump other telling stats? So many are speaking in absolutes. Well, in baseball there are no absolutes.
I know enough of baseball to know that.
I think Dominator's response was exactly what I was looking for. If you win two of three in a series, then what the does it matter if you lose the one game by a -load of runs? You still take two of three.
The Diamondbacks have consistently been the best close-game team in the bigs this year. They were in far more games than they weren't. But every one in a while, they lose and lose big. So the what? They won 90 games playing their smart baseball, using pitchers in spots only when they were within reasonable striking distance to win, or then allowing the "fall" guys like Medders, Nippert and Gonzalez to eat up the remaining innings.
It's one of the few things I applaud Melvin for. He handled the rotation and bullpen brilliantly. he has the best record in the NL and a 2-0 lead on the series favorite to show for it.
the problem with that line of thinking is that when you get down big - that's almost always a loss. but when you play in close games - 'luck' factors in quite a bit. you can have the better bullpen, the better manager, but things still might not go your way.
that's why run differential is correlated to successful teams.
that doesn't mean that the diamondbacks can't win it all anyways (although I still don't think they will, but with their national league opposition, the pennant isn't a stretch), but run differential is not a meaningless stat.
The DBacks have as good of a shot to win the WS as anyone, if I do say so myself.
The ability to win close games is a sign of poise, if nothing else, and that says a lot.
This I can except. And, I never said it was meaningless. I asked why it was "nail in the coffin" relevent to a team's success.
Everyone wrote the Diamondbacks off because of it. Well, they are more prepared to scrap and scrape for a win than any team they'll face. Maybe they won't always have that opportunity, as you said, but in the playoffs pitching is more important than is offense, and if you take Medders, Nippert and Gonzalez out of the equation, the Diamondbacks staff is probably top-three in these playoffs. And before you say, well you can't just take those players out, as a matter of fact, you can, as Melvin rarely pitches them unless a game is out of hand. They are the fall guys. Unless the game is out of hand or in lengthy extras, they won't see the diamond, 'cept through the bullpen fence.
I get what you're saying, but the Diamondbacks have had to battle from the beginning of the year onward just to stay in the playoff picture. They've been fairly consistent during that stretch of making sure they won two of three in a series. With just about a dozen or so exceptions, they've been successful.
My main point isn't to diminish the stat itself, but merely the perception that it's the almighty tell of a team. I think it's a highly subjective statistic that works with teams with terrible pitching staffs and good offenses better than it works with teams with very good pitching staffs and average/mediocre offenses. With the pitching the Diamondbacks have, they'll be in more games than not, and with it and their manager and their knack for timely hitting and experience having to gut wins out, I'll give them an edge in the majority of close games.
I am realistic. I think they will win this series, compete in the next with a good chacne to advance to the World Series. If such happens, I think they'll need Byrnes, Young, Drew, Jackson and Reynolds to be hotter than hot at the plate with every pitcher on or they'll be lucky to force a game six.
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