Write On Sports LLC - "2006 Playoff Preview: First Round " by Peter Nemerovski

2006 Playoff Preview: First Round

2006-10-02 00:16:29 | By: Peter Nemerovski

As you may have heard, the Major League Baseball playoffs begin on Tuesday. Here is a preview of the four first-round series:

Tigers vs. Yankees

Entering play on August 8, the Tigers were 76-36 and ten games clear of second-place Chicago in the American League Central. Of their final 50 games, the Tigers won just 19, to finish one game behind division champion Minnesota. The Tigers’ abysmal finish included five consecutive home losses to close the season, the last three of which came at the hands of the woeful Kansas City Royals. To say the Tigers are limping into the postseason would be an understatement. But if they can somehow win three of five games against the Yankees, all will be forgiven.

Detroit’s strength is its pitching. Its 3.82 ERA was the best in the American League this year. Some of their young arms -- especially starters Jeremy Bonderman and Justin Verlander -- faded down the stretch, but the Tigers’ problems in August and September were mostly attributable to a punchless offense. While the offense and starting pitching are shaky, the bullpen is excellent: closer Todd Jones converted 37 of 42 save chances, including 21 of his last 23, and set-up men Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya have generally performed well.

The offense is another story. Detroit’s .776 OPS was seventh-best in the American League, but even that middling figure is inflated somewhat by the team’s red-hot start. (It includes, for example, Chris Shelton’s 1.186 OPS in April).

The Yankees, on the other hand, are good. They are beyond loaded on offense, probably the best offensive team to enter the postseason since the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. They recently got outfielders Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui back from injuries, but it hardly matters: even without those two bats in the lineup, the Yankees were scoring more runs than any other team in baseball by a wide margin.

As for their pitching, it is above average, and certainly good enough. Much media coverage has been, and will be, devoted to whether or not Randy Johnson and his 5.00 ERA are able to pitch in the playoffs, but the truth is the Yankees should not need him. He is at best their third-best starting pitcher -- behind Chien-Ming Wang, who had a breakout season, and the reliable Mike Mussina -- and the dropoff from Johnson to number four starter Jaret Wright (4.49 ERA) is slight, if it exists at all. As in past years, nearly every game against the Yankees will be an eight-inning affair, thanks to closer Mariano Rivera, the best relief pitcher in the history of the game.

Can the Tigers win? Stranger things have happened. At least I think they have. The Tigers will not score many runs in this series, so the key will be for their starting pitchers to go deep into games and hold the Yankees’ bats in check. I don’t see that happening.

Pick: Yankees in three.

Athletics vs. Twins

This series features two teams that have consistently underachieved in recent postseasons (or, I suppose, overachieved in the regular seasons, depending on how you look at it). Oakland missed the postseason each of the last two years, but from 2000 through 2003, they made the playoffs each season. Each time, they were eliminated in the first round. (Note: I refuse to refer the first round of the baseball playoffs as the “Division Series.” The winner of a first round series does not win a division; the only reason I can think of why it might be called the Division Series is that each participant comes from one of baseball’s six divisions. What’s wrong with calling it the First Round, the American League Semifinals, or the World Series Quarterfinals?)

Minnesota has had slightly more success in recent years, but that’s only because they played Oakland in the first round four years ago, and somebody had to win. Minnesota won that series in five games, but was eliminated in the American League Championship Series (I’m OK with that name) by eventual World Champion Anaheim, four games to one.

Perhaps owing to their recent history of postseason disappointment, or perhaps because they were never really challenged for the AL West championship, Oakland comes into the playoffs with surprisingly little hype for a team that won 93 games playing in a good division. (The last-place Seattle Mariners finished just six games under .500.) Oakland has better hitting than any of their recent playoff entrants, led by the rejuvenated Frank Thomas (.918 OPS) and emerging star Nick Swisher (.870).

Oakland’s pitching is once again solid, led by ace Barry Zito. Where they go after Zito in Game One remains to be seen: Rich Harden was injured most of the season, and Joe Blanton and Dan Haren are inconsistent and untested. Huston Street saved 37 games this year, but young closers often struggle in the postseason.

Minnesota comes into the playoffs on a serious roll, having overcome a 25-33 start to win 96 games; that’s 71-33 over their last 104 games. The Twins are therefore a trendy pick to win this series, and are widely perceived as the biggest potential threat to the mighty Yankees. But the Twins are far from a complete team. Their offense is vastly improved, but they rely heavily on young players with little postseason experience. They had exactly two good starting pitchers this year, and one of them, Francisco Liriano, is injured and will not pitch in the playoffs. However, their bullpen is arguably the best in baseball. If the Twins can stay close in the games Johan Santana does not start, they could go deep in the playoffs.

This series could go either way, and I have a hard time getting too fired up about either of these teams. Assuming the Yankees dispose of the Tigers, they should have little difficulty getting by the winner of this series and into the Fall Classic. I think Oakland’s experience and Frank Thomas are the difference here, so I give them a slight edge.

Pick: Athletics in five.

Dodgers vs. Mets

If you only watch one first-round series, watch this one. The winner here will advance all the way to the world series, and this five-game series between two evenly matched teams will be played at a high level.

The Dodgers are a good team, and they benefit perhaps more than any other team in the playoffs by shortening their starting rotation from five to three or four. Their top two starters -- Brad Penny and Derek Lowe -- are as good as any other playoff team’s top two, and their third starter (Greg Maddux) is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. The Dodgers have struggled somewhat with their middle relief this year, but their closer, Takashi Saito, has been automatic (24 saves in 26 chances, with an astounding 107 strikeouts in just 78 1/3 innings.)

Maddux is, in my opinion, the key to the Dodgers’ postseason hopes, so he gets his own paragraph. When the Dodgers traded for Maddux, I thought he had nothing left in the tank. I was wrong. He went 5-3 with a 3.30 ERA in twelve starts for the Dodgers; without Maddux, the Dodgers are probably watching the playoffs on TV. But Maddux has struggled at times this season, and during his brief tenure with the Dodgers, he benefited from ample run support, pitcher-friendly ballparks, and from making half of his twelve starts against the dredges of the National League West: the Diamondbacks, Giants, and Rockies, all of whom played horribly in the second half. If Maddux pitches like he did for the Cubs this year, the Dodgers are in trouble. But if he continues to pitch well, as I think he will, the Dodgers could find themselves in the World Series.

Offensively, the Dodgers don’t look like much on paper. But they can score: their 816 runs this year were good enough for fourth in the National League, and only twelve fewer than the Mets’ much-hyped offense. Their clutch hitting this year has been sensational. Look for Nomar Garciaparra to hit a walk-off home run in the playoffs, and for pinch-hitter extraordinaire Olmedo Saenz to come off the bench and get a big hit.

The Mets had a nice season, but they played indifferently down the stretch (14-15 in September), partly because they wrapped up their division early and had little to play for in August and September. Their offense is solid: David Wright and Jose Reyes enjoyed breakout seasons, and Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran provide tremendous power in the middle of the lineup.

The Mets’ starting pitching is, in a word, old. Tom Glavine, 40, was their most reliable starter this season, and he had a good enough year (15-7, 3.82 ERA). With Pedro Martinez injured, their number two starter will likely be either Steve Trachsel, a 35 year-old with a 4.97 ERA, or Orlando Hernandez, listed as 36 years old (if he’s 36, then I’m 12). John Maine, 25, is better than either Trachsel or El Duque, but he has never pitched in the postseason. The bullpen has been solid, anchored by closer Billy Wagner, who converted 40 of 45 save opportunities.

I guess I haven’t seen them play enough this year, but I just can’t get excited about the Mets. The Dodgers have momentum -- they won nine of their last ten regular season games -- and superior pitching, and in a mild upset, they will advance to the LCS.

Pick: Dodgers in four.

Cardinals versus Padres

On Friday, September 1, the San Diego Padres lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-2, at Petco Park. I mention this because I was there. The whole time I was thinking about what a lifeless, anemic baseball team the San Diego Padres are. But after that game, a funny thing happened: the Padres won 20 of their last 28 games to overtake the Dodgers (sort of) and win the American League West. With a first-round matchup against arguably the worst team to make the playoffs since, well, the 2005 Padres, the 2006 Padres are virtually assured of a berth in the National League Championship Series. I wish I could explain how the Padres turned their season around, but I’m not really sure. I know Trevor Hoffman’s 14th season with the Padres was his finest, and that he converted 11 of 12 save chances during the final month of the season. Hoffman gets my vote for NL Cy Young.

But somehow the Padres managed to get leads in all those games, and maintain those leads long enough to get the game into Hoffman’s hands. They got a great season from first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, and they pulled off the greatest trade of the season, acquiring catcher Josh Bard (.943 OPS in 93 games for San Diego) and relief pitcher Cla Meredith (1.07 ERA in 45 games with the Padres) from the Red Sox for backup catcher Doug Mirabelli, who was hitting .182 for San Diego at the time of the trade, but caught fire and hit .193 for Boston after the trade.

The Padres’ starting pitching is OK. Jake Peavy’s numbers aren’t good, but he finished strong, and everyone seems to agree his stuff is nasty. Chris Young is a solid, if inexperienced, number two; after that, it’s either Clay Hensley or David Wells, who pitched well enough down the stretch after being acquired from Boston. (Hey, the Red Sox really did make the playoffs, they’re just playing for the Padres.)

The bottom line on the Padres is that their pitching is pretty good, but their offense is not. I have no doubt that they will score runs against any St. Louis pitcher not named Chris Carpenter, but they will struggle to score runs against either Los Angeles or the Mets.

As for the Cardinals, I suppose I have tipped my hand. The Cardinals are not a good baseball team. On Thursday, July 27, the Cardinals opened a four-game series in Chicago against the Cubs. At the time, the Cardinals were 58-42. They lost all four games to Chicago, and went on to lose 36 of their last 61 games. Along with the Tigers, the Cardinals are a good argument for going back to just four divisions and four teams in the playoffs each year. The Cardinals still have some good hitters -- Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Chris Duncan all had nice seasons, and Jim Edmonds can still hit -- but unless Chris Carpenter is pitching, they simply cannot get anyone out. Their other starters are beyond awful; that they gave a combined 48 starts to Jason Marquis and Jeff Weaver tells you all you need to know. The bullpen is a nightmare. This team is going nowhere.

The best thing St. Louis has going for it is its matchup against San Diego, the third-worst team in the playoffs (behind St. Louis and Detroit). But if they win more than one playoff game this year, I will be surprised.

Pick: St. Louis in five. (Just kidding. Ha! San Diego in four.)

For the record, my other predictions:

ALCS: Yankees over Athletics.
NLCS: Dodgers over Padres.
World Series: Yankees over Dodgers.

Comments

Jason commented,
you were way off
April 30, 2007 1:22 p.m.

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