The Good Phight's Postseason "Predictions"

A few thoughts on the baseball playoffs without the Phillies:

It sounds goofy as shit, but the truth is I just love the game. I could watch two beer league teams play and find it at least reasonably compelling. So yes, I'll be watching, and presumably I'll enjoy it. After all, I enjoyed every postseason between 1995 and 2006.

Then again, this might be a bit like watching a sci-fi flick after actually going into space. For at least part of the last five Octobers, I wasn't watching the playoffs so much as living and dying the playoffs. My beer intake this October probably will be about a third of what it was last year, maybe a tenth of the liver-pummeling totals that lubricated the World Series runs of 2008 and 2009. And I'm not an angry or rabid drunk; it was more like I needed the alcohol to stay, if not calm, then restrained at the marginal level required of someone who lives in a co-op.

In my more cynical moments about baseball I wonder if we fans are just dopamine junkies, groping for our legally sanctioned highs vicariously through the actions of physical freaks. I certainly feel pretty goddamn dumb when Jonathan Papelbon blows a save or Ryan Howard waves over the outside breaking pitch for a game ending strike three and I actually yell or hit something. But no matter: we take meaning where we find it and rationality, cause and effect, is way beyond the point. I think it's the absence of meaning that I'll be missing this month.

The picks:

NL WC: Braves over Cardinals

AL WC: Orioles over Rangers

NLDS 1: Nationals over Braves, 5 games

NLDS 2: Reds over Giants, 5 games

I suspect these will both be very good series. And I'll admit these are more wishes than predictions per se. I detest the Braves, dislike the Nats, am mildly pro-Giants other than that jackass Pence, and the Reds are my second favorite NL team. Washington has the best rotation and worst bullpen, which should mean low-scoring, high drama games. Actually the Reds have the only particularly impressive lineup of these four NL teams.

ALDS 1: Tigers over A's, 4 games

ALDS 2: Orioles over Yankees, 5 games

Really no idea here, but my guess is that Beane's shit still doesn't work in the playoffs and that Verlander will go insane this month. The O's as we know shouldn't be here at all, and I don't think they'll be back, but it would be fun to see them dispatch their most hated rivals.

NLCS: Reds over Nats, 6 games

At some point, those young Washington pitchers will pumpkinize. Mid-month seems about right. I'd like to see Werth go off, though; still love that guy.

ALCS: Tigers over Orioles, 5 games

And speaking of clocks striking midnight... after dispatching the A's and O's, the Tigers will be loathed by lazy sportswriters everywhere.

World Series: Tigers over Reds, 7

Since I'm basically telling a story here anyway, the Series must go the distance. I think I just trust the Tigers' three or four superstars more than the Reds' half dozen or so stars, and Leyland over Dusty Baker.

But by then I'll just be waiting for free agency and trading season to start, concocting dubious trades involving Kyle Kendrick and Dexter Fowler, checking Zach Collier's numbers in the Arizona Fall League and quietly counting down the days to Clearwater.

WC:

Texas over Baltimore: Darvish will save Texas season

Atlanta over St. Louis: Medlen has been unreal. And it's Kyle Loshe.

Division:

As over Tigers in 4: by far the best series of them all.

Gnats over Braves in 5: I refuse to care enough or watch any of this series.

Yankees* over Rangers in 3: FHOFRI wins the series MVP with 2 game winning HRs.

Reds over Giants in 4: Aroldis Chapman strikes out more batters in 4 innings than Timmay and Zito combined

ALCS:

Yanks* over As in 7: FHOFRI wins the series MVP with 4 Hrs. 2 in the deciding 7th game, which he doesn't start, but goes 15 innings.

NLCS:

Reds over Gnats in 5:

Gio and Zimmerman both blow up from overuse (poetic justice) while Stevie looks on from Boras luxury box.

WS:

Yankees* over Reds in 6

FHOFRI hits his 8th HR of the post season off of chapman in the bottom of the ninth, pinch hitting with 2 outs, down one after Derek Jeter beats out an IF single with grit hustle and determination. Jeter, who went 2-24 in the series, is named MVP.

*I'm rooting for the Yankees. Sue me. I lined in Manhattan for a while. We're a big market team and they're the only one of us still in it. We bullies gotta stick together, no? Screw the 99%!! Also, I want to see FHOFRI get a ring. As soon as they're eliminated I'll stop watching, just like the rest of the country. Cause deep down, if it ain't us, I could give a rats ass. Catz out.

AL:

Baltimore over Texas in the play-in game

Baltimore over New York in the ALDS1

Detroit over Oakland in the ALDS2

Baltimore over Detroit in the ALCS

NL:

St. Louis over Atlanta in the play-in game

Washington over St. Louis in the NLDS1

Cincinnatti over San Fran in the NLDS2

Cincinnatti over Washington in the NLCS

Baltimore over Cincinnatti in the WS

I have to root for Baltimore, because they've taken last year's (69-93)^-1 to finish 93-69 this year. How cool is that. And they've done it with awesome guys. Awesome guys with awesome stories. They've got Mark Reynolds who took away Ryan Howard's single-season strikeout record. Three times. They've got Robert Andino, who did this. They've got Manny Machado, who is also 19 and also pretty good, except Bryce Harper. They have a Pythagorean record of 82-80. They've got Randy Wolf. Sortof. They've got Jim Johnson who finished with 51 saves, despite being the fourth-best reliever on the team. They've got Chris Davis, who is awesome and I should not of traded to Cormican because he's a better pitcher than Wilson Valdez! They've got Buck Showalter. They've got this place. They've got Boog Powell and his barbeque stand. They've got Adam Jones, who broke Baseball-Reference. They've even got Jim Thome, who needs no explanation. But most of all, they've got this.

As for the rest of my predictions, they're not really that scientific. Baltimore is an enourmous long-shot, but the vagaries of crap-shooting give them just about as good a chance as anyone. The rest of my calculus went "I dislike this team more than that one, therefore they should lose," more or less. Science!

Baltimore over Texas in the WC

I realize this may violate some unspoken rule of being a baseball fan, but I just don't really believe in Kris Medlen. And I promise it's not because I dropped him in fantasy and suffered an ignoble fall to fifth place. I'm admittedly having a hard time maintaining this belief while checking through his most recent starts, because lord he looks like an incredible pitcher. And he might be. But I think the Bravos have to be perfect here to overcome their middling offense (Heyward, Prado, and Freeman notwithstanding). This prediction may also be a factor of knowing that resident Phillies fan nightmare Brian McCann won't be playing, seeing as the Braves will be without their backup plan of just having him hit unexpected, mammoth home runs at the last minute.

Baltmore over Texas is likely part wishful thinking, though I have a major soft spot for the Rangers, but it's also one part feverish baseball logic. Darvish's pitching notwithstanding, these are two slugging baseball teams, and even if Baltimore's pop is partly Camden Yards centric, it's not like Arlington is playing like SafeCo or anything; I think they outhit the suddenly mortal Rangers bats. Much as I will posit with the A's, my smug certitude against the idea of a hot team last year ended up being equal parts infuriatingly wrong and embarrassingly wrong.

NLDS1 - Cincinnati over San Francisco in five

NLDS 2 - Washington over St. Louis in four

In terms of the first prediction, I'm not so hateful of the baseball-iteration of the Giants, so much as I am still mad about 2010. That means it's not so hard to root for them, outside of a temporal anomaly. Also, pencil me in as the odd TGP writer who wouldn't mind seeing ol' bug-man Pence get a ring. Still, I think the Reds are a more consistent team offensively, even taking into account GodKing Buster Posey and the random other streaky player on the Giants at any given time. The pitching skews Giants, but not enough to matter in the end. Still, this is one of the series that I'll probably watch most of.

That other series? Not gonna watch that one so much. I'm mad at the Nats, though it's a kind of simmering mad, and I hate the Cards just about as much as any team, non-Braves or Yankees division. So, this is partly wish-fulfillment, in the way that one wishes for a day old Hungry Man dinner over a swift kick in the crotch, but I think the Cards are depleted and not as talented (yecch) than the Nats.

ALDS1 - A's over Tigers in five

ALDS2 - O's over Yankees in four

I picked the A's here mostly because they're hot, and I'm trying to mix my old baseball wisdom with my newfangled computer numbers a little more in an attempt to live my own version of dialectical morality. That said, this is the Sophie's Choice of the playoffs for me, as, due to friends' rooting interests as much as my own concordance with WL's demand to see Moneyball: The Revenge, I just would rather see both teams win.

My dad instilled a number of values into me growing up. Some are kind of minor, some overtly political, some that don't quite jive with how I currently live, but there are a number (many of which he shared with my mom) that were kind of totemic, important values. A smattering: don't murder anyone; try not to steal from someone unless they deserve it; if they deserve it, don't steal from them violently or anything; don't feel the need to finish everything on your plate; and never, under any circumstances, root for the Dallas Cowboys or the New York Yankees. As I am not a sociopath (sorry Joe), I will be following these moral codes even against all reason.

NLCS - Reds over Nats in seven

Promises to be a good one, and probably the one I'll be most nervous about. I'm definitely a vengeance-based fan when it comes to non-Phillies October baseball, so I have pretty worked out teams to root against. The Yankees are detailed above, but beyond them, it's always NL East folks, even the ones who probably deserve a championship after misery on both sides of the US-Canada border. But whatever -- I hope Joey Votto hits ten home runs.

ALCS - A's over O's in six

I have a better metric than "hot team" this time around -- the A's pitching is better than the O's. ...wait, what do you mean that that's actually a pretty lazy metric?

WS - A's over Reds in seven

Here's the end point -- I just want an exciting World Series. I'll deal with an unappealing secondary match-up, and I'll be fine if things are dull throughout most of the postseason. But the World Series at least has to be engaging. I'll be hoping against hope that the NL pulls it out, and based on collegial friendship in my department, I'll be rooting with a friend for the Reds pretty strongly, but the realistic side of me can't help but see the A's as a version of the Reds with less top-heavy pitching and an only slightly worse bullpen. But I'm willing to be wrong! If Dusty just goes for broke and starts Aroldis Chapman in game seven, I'll die happy.

David S. Cohen captured my sentiments really closely. I'll just add a brief extension, thusly:

I'm a deep admirer of sound management practices, and as my professional world is consumed and challenged daily to fight the non-profit twilight battle of doing and providing more with less to people with less and less, the only effective weapon is passionate, sanguine, mission-driven leadership. It is rare because it almost never survives the onslaughts of fatigue, apathy, and stupidity.

Also, I like a good story. I love Philadelphia in all of its quasi-tragic weirdness. And I'm a proud nerd. If it can't be the Phillies, I'll cheer for the A's this postseason, and if they should fall, well then, I'll join David in such tasks as recommitting to the waaay overdue mortgage re-fi and the Budget-Constrained makeover it will fund.

Oh, castigate me all you want for making the fashionable pick. I understand that Billy Beane is so meh-ishly last year. But he does more with less (a $55MM payroll? is that right?) and sticks to a vision and with the franchise. I'm intrigued by the sequel concept of Moneyball 2: Told You So. He gets a fresh h/t while this High Maintenance'd cougar of a team we love heads into another off-season of cosmetic and/or surgery.

So this is really less of a paean to the A's as it is to that spirit of 2007. Yon Athletics have a lean and hungry look. I love the vibe they exude. Prospects can be valued; the waiver-wire dumpster and island if the non-tendered can be plumbed. These insights energize me.