The Official 2015 World Series Thread

[A_B]

Story of the series right here, Mets win expectancy late in 3 of 4 losses ...

Game 1: Peaks at 90% when Perez grounds out to start the 9th
Game 2: Reaches 83% after Escobar's leadoff groundout in the 8th
Game 5: Enter top of the 9th at 94.3%

That's brutal.

Just unlucky.

[mister d]

I mean ... yeah. That's a huge part of it. A 95 win team can't out-good a 90 win team 3 times in 5 games with those kinds of odds. Which isn't taking anything away from KC actually coming back, but I imagine that's pretty unprecedented.



(And if its not, I know its one or both of the two most painful series of my life, so fuck off, I'm not checking.)

[SportsDoc]

The Royals are amazing. They have obliterated all three of the closers they have faced this postseason.
Their combined ERAs must be 100.

What? Familia didn't give up any hits and did exactly what he needed to do to get out of that jam. If Duda makes a decent throw home, this game is over.

Disagree with that. If Duda fires a strike to the glove at the chest, Hosmer is still safe. He would have had to fire a perfect bullet to the ankle so Hosmer would have slid into the tag to get the out. Even though infield was in and Wright "looked" him back, a shift was on and there was no one to keep Hosmer close at third, he had a big jump.

[Brontoburglar]

The Royals are amazing. They have obliterated all three of the closers they have faced this postseason.
Their combined ERAs must be 100.

What? Familia didn't give up any hits and did exactly what he needed to do to get out of that jam. If Duda makes a decent throw home, this game is over.

Disagree with that. If Duda fires a strike to the glove at the chest, Hosmer is still safe. He would have had to fire a perfect bullet to the ankle so Hosmer would have slid into the tag to get the out. Even though infield was in and Wright "looked" him back, a shift was on and there was no one to keep Hosmer close at third, he had a big jump.

A good throw might have gotten him. He was still a long way from home.

Also felt like d'Arnaud played it like a force play. He had a chance to move a step to his right to make the catch and then try the tag. I understand the "I need to rush it" feeling, but he hardly moved away from the plate to catch it.

[mister d]

Also felt like d'Arnaud played it like a force play. He had a chance to move a step to his right to make the catch and then try the tag. I understand the "I need to rush it" feeling, but he hardly moved away from the plate to catch it.

Both him and Wright (pretty casual flip) seemed to get caught by Hosmer's decision to go. Duda was on it, but decided to aim for the netting instead. Which, obviously, all should be put on Familia who only induced an easy grounder to a corner when he could have gotten consecutive strikeouts instead.

[SportsDoc]

They were 3-18 against Familia in the series. They didn't get to him, "it" got to Collins.

But, he did blow 3 saves and 2 of them were his fault (not last night). That's not good. He's a strikeout type closer who didn't get strikeouts in crucial situations. Again, in the end, that's on him. Add to that, the Mets defense was Green Bay awful, and you get what we got.

[mister d]

Right, Game 4 is also his fault for not bailing out Clippard and Collins and then Murphy. Bad job.

[mister d]

What Familia did was give up a bad HR at an even worse time, then pitch wonderfully in situations that were completely fucked by his manager and half a dozen teammates. Calling them "blown saves" only underlines how ridiculous that stat is.

[SportsDoc]

Right, Game 4 is also his fault for not bailing out Clippard and Collins and then Murphy. Bad job.

Like it or not, fair or not, that's what closers get paid to do. And he didn't.

[mister d]

Like it or not, that's not at all what closers "get paid" to do.

[Brontoburglar]

Familia in the postseason

14.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K

Familia in the WS

5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 K

It's such a shame he went from basically unhittable to really, really good in the span of the NLCS to the WS

[mister d]

He was given an inherited runner in scoring position in all three of his save situations, too. That's how you can go .167/.167/.333 and blow three saves.

(Regular season: .207/.261/.309)

[rass]

I mean ... yeah. That's a huge part of it. A 95 win team can't out-good a 90 win team 3 times in 5 games with those kinds of odds. Which isn't taking anything away from KC actually coming back, but I imagine that's pretty unprecedented.

miraculous?

[Brontoburglar]

I mean ... yeah. That's a huge part of it. A 95 win team can't out-good a 90 win team 3 times in 5 games with those kinds of odds. Which isn't taking anything away from KC actually coming back, but I imagine that's pretty unprecedented.

miraculous?

Winning in that fashion consistently in the playoffs sure isn't "normal."

[mister d]

And I imagine even more fun once its over and you don't have to care about luck running out.

[A_B]

So they scored 8 times as many runs in late innings as anyone else over the playoffs. In the late innings you usually face hard-throwing relievers, which it was proven beforehand that the Royals hit fastballs and struck out less against them than other teams. So in doing what they did all year, does that make them lucky all season long or do they have a skill set that worked in the regular season and in the postseason?

(This doesn't excuse Collins, who absolutely should have pulled Harvey)

[Brontoburglar]

that stat meant nothing, AB

[mister d]

11 of the 13 runs scored off Mets relievers were pitchers who averaged under 93 MPH on their fastball during the regular season.

(Even with Niese playing up, I don't think he was above that.)

[degenerasian]

Let's just say the Royals are aggressive. They're aggressive at the plate and on the basepads. Pressure on the defense. Murphy's errors are because he's in a hurry, it's in his head. No other team sends Hosmer on that play but the Royals are programmed to be that way. And heck they have a 3-1 lead worse case Hosmer gets thrown out, Yost gets laughed at again and they go home for two against a depleted Mets pen.

The Jays with 2nd and 3rd nobody out would have struck out at least twice.

[mister d]

[brian]

Normally I'd be skeptical about Photoshopping (not by you), but I'll buy that one 100 percent.

[Brontoburglar]

Let's just say the Royals are aggressive. They're aggressive at the plate and on the basepads. Pressure on the defense. Murphy's errors are because he's in a hurry, it's in his head. No other team sends Hosmer on that play but the Royals are programmed to be that way. And heck they have a 3-1 lead worse case Hosmer gets thrown out, Yost gets laughed at again and they go home for two against a depleted Mets pen.

The Jays with 2nd and 3rd nobody out would have struck out at least twice.

Can argue that the Royals weren't as aggressive as they could have been, either. Mets hadn't thrown out a baserunner stealing all October and I believe runners vs. Syndergaard/Harvey/Matz were 31-36 on stolen bases (per Stark).

[mister d]

Normally I'd be skeptical about Photoshopping (not by you), but I'll buy that one 100 percent.

I'm blocked by Schilling. I know that doesn't mean I couldn't do it, but its fun to mention anyway.

[Sabo]

Normally I'd be skeptical about Photoshopping (not by you), but I'll buy that one 100 percent.

Looks legit. Look at his timeline.

https://twitter.com/gehrig38" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SportsDoc]

Like it or not, that's not at all what closers "get paid" to do.

Let me get this straight. Closers do not get paid to get big outs without giving up runs late in games, usually with RISP when they arrive at the mound? OK ... what do they get paid to do, then?

[mister d]

Falls apart at "... usually with RISP".

[Brontoburglar]

Also probably worth noting that if we're going to talk about players getting paid that Familia made just over $500K this season.

[mister d]

I counted by hand, but if I did it right, Mariano appeared in 85 playoff games as a closer. 5 times he was asked to come in with the tying or go-ahead runner in scoring position. Familia was 3 times in just the World Series.

[Joe K]

I counted by hand, but if I did it right, Mariano appeared in 85 playoff games as a closer. 5 times he was asked to come in with the tying or go-ahead runner in scoring position. Familia was 3 times in just the World Series.

And weren't their either 0 or 1 out in at least two of those situations? I can't imagine there are any closers who are regularly brought into games in that scenario, let alone closers who routinely convert the save opportunity there.

[SportsDoc]

I counted by hand, but if I did it right, Mariano appeared in 85 playoff games as a closer. 5 times he was asked to come in with the tying or go-ahead runner in scoring position. Familia was 3 times in just the World Series.

Oh no, the poor poor pitcher had to come in 3 times with RISP. Who cares how many times. It's his job! Of those 5 for Rivera, how many did he blow?

[howard]

Hey Bronto

Congrats. Your team is really good and they played great, last year and this year. Relentless.

[Steve of phpBB]

This seems like a silly dispute.

Of course it was Familia's job to prevent the other team from scoring. And of course he failed last night.

But shit, it is the job of every pitcher to prevent the other team from scoring. This past season, with 2430 games, only 54 shutouts were thrown. So that means the starting pitchers failed 98% of the time.

Baseball players fail all the time. Most of the batters who went up to the plate last night went back to the dugout without reaching base. Those guys all failed too.

Saying that a player failed really doesn't say anything useful.

[brian]

Maybe put a better way, a manager's job is to put their players in a position where they can succeed. Putting Familia in a position he's not used to wasn't a great idea. It's easy to Monday morning QB of course, but in a regular season game, Familia probably starts the 9th and who's to say it would have mattered. He might have given up two runs anyway.

[Joe K]

Maybe put a better way, a manager's job is to put their players in a position where they can succeed. Putting Familia in a position he's not used to wasn't a great idea. It's easy to Monday morning QB of course, but in a regular season game, Familia probably starts the 9th and who's to say it would have mattered. He might have given up two runs anyway.

Agreed. And not only did Collins put Familia in in a situation he wasn't used to, by waiting until after the Hosmer double, he put him in in a situation where the Royals could easily score the tying run even if Familia didn't give up any hits. Which is exactly what happened. It's pretty harsh to define "failure" as coming in there and not allowing a ball to leave the infield.

And the Murphy error played a huge role in Familia's "failure" in Game 4. If Murphy makes that relatively routine play, the Mets are still up 1, with two outs, and can play their infield at normal depth.

[mister d]

Oh no, the poor poor pitcher had to come in 3 times with RISP. Who cares how many times. It's his job!

So we agree you're "this is how closers are usually used" point was bullshit?

[degenerasian]

Also the whole closers have to pitch in the 9th keeps biting managers. Collins make two mistakes last night.

1) not starting the inning with Familia
2) once Familia doesn't start the inning then he has to play the matchups. Once Cain walked Niese needed to face Hosmer

[DC47]

"The key was paying Alex Rios $10MM to be replacement level. If they hadn't, whoever played RF might have been sub replacement level. I am very smart at baseball."

(Crazy world, in that with a few better decisions and well timed hits, we'd have similar people arguing Cuddyer wasn't a huge and predictable disaster and that his leadership and influence on the younger players was immeasurable.)

Rios started out hot, then dealt with injuries. In the end, his season was bad, far under-performing his contract. But in the end he was the guy they started in the post-season. Was he a bad move, or was his season ruined by injuries? Who can say.

Still, Rios was just one out of many roster moves. I'm surprised someone so fond of statistics would cherry pick one move -- and the worst one -- out of a much larger sample.

Dayton Moore did quite a bit from the time his team came close to winning the seventh game of the World Series to the 2015 roster deadline. How many have turned over a roster more completely after coming that close? It seems beyond obvious that Moore was right a lot more than he was wrong. Way more right than just about any GM has been in the past couple decades.

I'm a Tigers fan with a huge appreciation for Dave Dombrowski. I believe that the Tigers had a bit more than their share of bad luck in 2015. But I have to say that Moore thoroughly whipped Dombrowski with his personnel moves.

[DC47]

Here is some material from today's Wall Street Journal article Building Royals From Baseball’s Scrap Heap -- Kansas City’s bet on cheap veterans to replace stars has team on cusp of title. My bolds.
_____________________

[snip] Shields was a rental, of the two-year variety, a mercenary added to push the Royals to the next level and then collect a big paycheck elsewhere. Losing him was the kind of problem that Moore needed to overcome if his Royals club were going to avoid being a one-year wonder. To get back to the World Series this year—and to finally be crowned champions, as they were Sunday night as they beat the Mets four games to one—the Royals needed to replace departing stars like Shields, strong players like DH Billy Butler, and midlevel contributors like outfielder Nori Aoki.

Even the best farm systems can’t provide those kinds of players annually. To go one step further than Shields’ Royals, and win the World Series, the Royals had to conquer an arena few realize they even compete in: free agency.

Off-season attention naturally falls on free-spending teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, who are the kings of free agency because they spend the most. The midmarket Royals can’t spend with those clubs, so they must pick through baseball’s bargain bin—and this season, nobody did it better.

The young, homegrown core of this Royals team gets all the attention, and is unquestionably the heart of the squad. But it is the work done on the fringes, in replacing bigger-name stars with cheaper, under-the-radar veteran alternatives in search of a World Series ring, that brought the Royals their championship.

No team in the playoffs featured more players acquired this past year in free agency than Kansas City, who have 10 first-year players acquired from other teams on their World Series roster—seven of them free-agent signings. The Mets, by comparison, had 17 players on their World Series roster who made their major league debuts with the organization, and most of their recent additions were acquired via trades.

Many of the new Royals signings were lottery tickets that have paid off, like pitchers Kris Medlen and Ryan Madson, who didn’t pitch in the majors in 2014 before re-emerging as big-time assets in 2015. [snip]

But that’s what the Royals have to do—find veteran free-agent long shots who might bounce back. And this year, Moore hit on nearly every single one of his bets. New addition pitchers Madson, Medlen, Chris Young, and Franklin Morales—all unwanted for one reason or another—combined to stabilize the bullpen and the rotation behind bigger names Davis and Kelvin Herrera.

[snip]Those complementary players helped, but the Royals wouldn’t have won if they couldn’t figure out how to replace Shields atop the rotation and Butler at the DH spot. [snip]

He needed cheaper alternatives, and he found them. Years ago, Moore identified the unheralded Edinson Volquez, 32, as a viable successor to Shields, 33, and this past winter signed Volquez to a two-year, $20 million deal. Volquez posted a 3.55 ERA in 200 innings this year and excelled for the Royals in the playoffs, starting Game 1 last Tuesday before leaving the team to deal with the death of his father. Shields, who inked a four-year, $75-million contract with the San Diego Padres, didn’t fare as well, with a 3.91 ERA in 202 innings. Volquez returned to his team to duel with Matt Harvey Sunday, keeping the Royals in the game long enough for their dramatic ninth-inning comeback to play out.

Kendrys Morales, who replaced Butler at DH, was another player Moore targeted early, noting that he fit the Royals offensive style—put the ball in play, show doubles power, rarely strike out, hit high-velocity fastball pitching. Team scouts and analysts also believed he was primed for a bounceback after an ugly 2014. Morales signed a surprising two-year deal with a third-year option, and immediately lived up to it with 22 home runs and 106 RBI, far outpacing Butler’s production.

[snip]In hindsight, it’s easy to forget that at the time, nearly all of the Royals’ signings seemed like long shots, from the injury-riddled pitchers to the older vets like Volquez, Morales and Alex Rios.

“It looks good now—it didn’t look good at that time, and I think Dayton took some heat for signing guys like Morales and Rios,” Yost said. “But we did extensive background work on their character and their makeup, and we still thought that they had plenty of baseball left in them.”

Rios was perhaps the one disappointment among Moore’s big signings, dealing with injuries and illness that badly hampered his season. But he bounced back to contribute in the playoffs and, like the other veterans, said that he made the right move by coming to Kansas City—where this group of older players, now drenched in champagne have validated Moore’s faith in them.[snip]

[mister d]

I cherry picked there because I wanted to make a Cuddyer point and we'd already had the long-form version of this conversation a month or so ago.

[howard]