For the last 18 days or so, Phil's been a busy little bee.He's had a column/article a day every day since September 11.
It's been the usual amalgam of game recaps straining for big picture analysis coupled with dumb-ass opinions like "Cabrera Worth Keeping Around" and "Despite Off-Night, Alexei Rookie Of The Year Frontrunner".
And my personal favorite would be Phil passing off the declaration of Arizona as the NL West winner on MAY 1 (!) onto the Tribune instead of himself.
Sorry, Phil. You can erase your columns in the Tribune archive but BRE diligently keeps all of theirs. You said it. Not in your dippy power rankings that supposedly come from a roundtable discussion but your column.
But that's the reason Phil Watch has died a slow death here at BRE. Phil wore me down. There's nothing fun about beating up on an unmitigated moron. You need some level of sanity interjected with stupidity to keep it spicy.
100% dumb = 100% boredom.
And I've said it before and I'll say it again. Who reads Phil the first time...and comes back for MORE?
With that, let's go back for more.
Editor's note: These picks are the result of statistical analysis weighted toward pitching and defense and performance since the All-Star break. The Tribune used this formula after the regular season in 2007 and correctly picked Boston over Colorado in the World Series and six of the seven postseason series. That analysis gives us Cubs over Boston in the 2008 World Series.
Thanks for the actual formula. Oh...wait. There is no actual formula. Just some vague reference to 'pitching and defense and performance' (yet another clue that Phil's editor gave up years ago).
1. Cubs (3): Picked to go to the World Series by many during spring training, the Lou Crew handled the heat during the regular season, but it's about to get turned up several degrees. It's a veteran team with quality leaders in Derrek Lee, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Dempster and Kerry Wood, but there's no getting around the burden it carries with fans. This is a much better team than the one that got within five outs of the World Series in 2003, but Carlos Zambrano has become a question mark and the lineup remains built around guys who were shut down by Arizona in the 2007 playoffs.
Using Phil's own 'statistical analysis and tying that to players actually mentioned, let's see the results.
Kerry Wood: 3.92 ERA after the All-Star break (good for 18th among closers). 7.45 ERA in September.
Derrek Lee: .270 5 hr 34 rbi. OPSed .745 since the break, good for 3rd-to-last among first basemen with 200 abs, ahead of only Kotchman and Millar.
Mark DeRosa: Has a calf issue, hit .234 in September and his first half was nearly identical to his second half. Basically had two productive months (with August accounting for nearly one-third of his overall production).
Carlos Zambrano: Take out the no-hitter from his September starts and he has a 12.71 ERA with a 2.12 WHIP.
The team was 12-12 in September and a merger 4 games over .500 on the road for the year. There ARE issues here.
I know Cub fans don't like trends and statistics and...you know...analysis outside of "The Cubs are goin' all the way, baby!!!! WOOOO!!!!" but can they just be like real baseball fans and look at their team through sober goggles. Just once. It would be soooo refreshing.
2. Red Sox (4): The closest thing to a dynasty at this time, Boston has won two of the last four World Series and is a serious contender again. Jason Bay came up huge after being acquired in the Manny Ramirez trade, which veteran players welcomed. The Red Sox's pitching is set with a rested Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Mike Lowell's hip bears watching.
2. Red Sox (4): The closest thing to a dynasty at this time, Boston has won two of the last four World Series and is a serious contender again. Jason Bay came up huge after being acquired in the Manny Ramirez trade, which veteran players welcomed. The Red Sox's pitching is set with a rested Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Mike Lowell's hip bears watching.
Okay. Boston's played well since the Manny trade. True. But they basically had a generous schedule, allowing them to a crapload of teams under .500 and they beat them, especially in August.
Lowell's hurt. Drew's hurt. Youkilis and Pedroia cooled off dramatically in September and Ortiz still isn't his usual self.
And it was reported 48 hours ago that Beckett's start has been pushed back to Game 3 because of an injured side. Just check the wires once, Phil.
Oh yeah, and their bullpen has been anything but stellar this year.
This aren't concerns?
3. Rays (1): You need a microscope to find the separation between Tampa Bay and Boston, who could meet in the American League Championship Series. The Rays are a good bet to get past the AL Central survivor in the first round. The strength of this team is its ability to stop opponents from scoring, but none of the starters goes into the playoffs on a roll.
No complaints. About right. Though they will be riding into the playoffs without a real closer.
4. Dodgers (7): You know Joe Torre loves taking this team to the playoffs when the Yankees couldn't get there behind Joe Girardi, his replacement. Some say the key to the Dodgers' turnaround was the trade for Casey Blake, not the more widely celebrated deal for Ramirez. Either way, the lineup was successfully rebuilt on the fly. Derek Lowe and Chad Billingsley are a solid 1-2 combination.
Who is 'some'? He's hit .251/.313/.460 for the Dodgers.
Let's project Blake's Dodger numbers out to a full season (about 530 abs):
.251/.313/.460 25 hrs, 57 rbi, 30 db, 40 bb, 130 k
Guess how that's astonishingly close to being? Nick Swisher. 2008 Nick Swisher. Blake's ever-so-slightly better, statistically. He had some big hits in August, but a grand total of six RBI in September.
It's cute but entirely wrong to think Blake had a better impact than Manny. So-So-So Wrong.
Let's project Manny's numbers with the Dodgers out to an entire season (about 560 abs):
.396/.489/.743 51 hrs, 159 rbi, 42 db, 105 bb, 114 k
That's an OPS of 1.232! And an OPS+ of 213! Mickey Mantle OPS+ed higher than that exactly once. Willie Mays never did. Babe Ruth had a career OPS+ of 207.
You make the call. Who's meant more to the Dodger turnaround?
Dope.
5. Phillies (6): Charlie Manuel's bullpen, anchored by Brad Lidge (41-for-41 in save situations), is the envy of just about every team still playing. First baseman Ryan Howard is a serious MVP candidate after a 48-homer, 146-RBI season, albeit with 199 strikeouts. The Phils have a legitimate four-man rotation.
No complaints, really. I think Howard deserves serious consideration as well. He hit .352 in September when they needed him to and .320 with RISP on the year.
I don't know who this 'legitimate four-man rotation' is that Phil speaks of, though.
Hamels = Good
Moyer = Pitched kind of out of his gourd this year
Blanton = Pretty terrible
Myers = One good six-week stretch and absolutely terrible otherwise.
Legitimate?
6. Brewers (15): General manager Doug Melvin made some dubious history by sacking manager Ned Yost on Sept. 15. The move did arrest a slide in which Milwaukee had lost seven of eight games, but no one's bragging about a 6-14 record in non-CC Sabathia starts down the stretch. A shaky bullpen is sometimes exposed by poor fielding.
No. A shaky bullpen is exposed by their inherent shakiness. They're terrible.
Now. Someone explain to me how the Brewers are a better team than....THE ANGELS!
7. Angels (2): They led the majors in victories but aren't close to being the best team. Like the Cubs, their key is their organizational depth, especially in starting pitching (Jon Garland and Jered Weaver, who combined for 25 wins, work out of the bullpen in the Boston series). The lineup improved dramatically in the second half, thanks in part to Mark Teixeira, but teams with middle-infield questions usually don't go a long way in October.
100-62, folks. And in Phil's world, they're no better than the two shittiest teams on this list.
And here's the best part. See that number in parenthesis up there next to the team name. That's what they were rated LAST WEEK!
So using 'statistical analysis based on pitching and defense and performance' since the break, Phil says, as of last week, the Angels were good. They had the unmitigated gall to go 4-3 for the week, playing their Salt Lake team for the most part, and that drops them to the 7th best playoff team!
They've scored the second-most runs among playoff teams since the break, had the second-best OPS as a team among playoff teams since the break, have a clearer pecking order in the bullpen than any playoff team right now and went 17-8 to finish the season.
What's the problem?
Oh, apparently the middle infield is a concern. Howie Kendrick has committed a grand total of 4 errors in 446 chances this year and Erick Aybar, while committing 18 errors, never had a error that really meant anything. How do I know? I WATCHED THE GAMES!
If he would have written about concerns over Lackey's consistency and velocity and the second-half fade of Joe Saunders, fine. Even the crappy second half Figgins had, that would be legitimate.
But there's nothing wrong with Kendrick and Aybar that's going to stop the Angels from advancing in the postseason. Nothing.
And they are NOT a worse team, given the pitching and defense and performance and trends and heart of the lineup and bullpen and managers and bench and everything else than the Brewers, Phillies and Dodgers in the least and probably the Rays. I worry about Boston but they beat them 8 of 9 times this year, finally getting over the Red Sox hump.
JESUS!
I'm under no illusions here. The postseason is a whole new ballgame. And the Angels have their issues but...
DOUBLE JESUS!
8. Twins (12): Minnesota has come this far only by backing up more slowly than the White Sox. The Twins have gone 14-20 since Aug. 23 with a young starting rotation looking very ordinary. Batting champ Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are leaned on heavily.
I'm still mad about the #7 ranking of the Angels.
9. White Sox (9): Poised on the edge of extinction, it's hard to see Ozzie Guillen's team doing any damage in October. It's a team badly in need of rest, and at this point the only way to get a break is to be eliminated. The White Sox hit more homers than any other team but badly miss MVP candidate Carlos Quentin.
Still mad.
