Perspective After a Tough Series
With a Sergio Romo fastball down the middle and with the bat in Miguel Cabrera’s hands, the 2012 MLB season came to a close last night, ending 29 teams’ hopes at a championship and making the San Francisco Giants and their fans very happy.
First off, congratulations to the Giants. They had a great year and played well in October. Well-earned title for a city that loves its team.
For Tigers fans like myself, hold your heads up high. You might have a bad taste in your mouths after a rough series, but allow me to remind you the Tigers had a successful season. I’ve heard a lot of negative talk about the team in the last day or so from national and local personalities, but they are wrong. The Tigers should be proud, but not satisfied.
It’s easy to put too much focus of the World Series because it’s the biggest stage, but any team can slump. The offense only scored six runs in four games, but the pitching (short of Verlander) was great.
The Tigers swept the AL’s best team (by record) in the ALCS and beat the AL’s best story in the ALDS. This was a good season. Big changes are not necessary. The World Series is a small sample. Victor Martinez is coming back. Young players will improve. Other could bounce back. Relax and look back with fondness.
So some parting thoughts on the 2012 Tigers (full 2012 recaps of all 30 teams to come).
The Tigers have a starting rotation worthy of envy. Verlander is the game’s best. Fister is quietly becoming a top 25 starter. Scherzer is somewhat inconsistent but showed some serious improvement this season and has always had take-over-a-game stuff. I’m still a huge believer in Rick Porcello as well. He’s a groundballer with a poor defense so some of his numbers are inflated, but the guy has never been hurt and has four major league seasons under his belt at 23 (23!!!). He’s still three or four years south of his peak. Smyly showed he can easily be a #5 starter in the show this year and could maybe even be more. All of these guys are under team control for at least two more seasons. Not bad, even if they don’t resign Anibal Sanchez, the Tigers will return baseball’s best staff by WAR.
Cabrera and Fielder are a great middle of the order and will be for years to come. Next year, they’ll get backup from Victor Martinez. Jackson took a big step forward this season. Dirks looks like a fourth outfielder or better. Infante can certainly hold down 2B.
Avila, despite what you might think, is actually a very good catcher. He’s a gold glove finalist this year and his OBP was great even if his batting average wasn’t. (Hint: Walks count as much as singles!) The power was down a little, but he had some injuries and still has a year or two til his peak age.
Peralta is also a pretty solid MLB SS. He’s solid on defense (advanced metrics love him), even if he’s unremarkable. At the plate he’s been up and down but is certainly capable of getting hits at the bottom of your lineup.
That only leaves a corner outfield spot and some bullpen spots open for next year. A lot of teams would kill to be in this position.
Refine the bullpen. Sign Torii Hunter. Get back to the playoffs. That’s my simple recommendation if you’re looking toward the next step.
This is a well-built team if you don’t care about defense. But if Dirks and (hopefully) Hunter are manning the corners next season, things get a lot better.
Don’t let anyone get you down. The Tigers have a wide open window toward a title in the near future. In fact, in the first round of World Series odds out today, the Tigers are the favorite to win in 2013.
2012 is over and I’m sad to see it go, but 2013 could be just as bright or brighter. 154 days until Opening Day.
Let’s start counting.
Every Game Could Be the Last One, But Hopefully Not
Every day could be the last day. That’s a sad realization. The Tigers trail the Giants 3-0 in the World Series and every game could be the game the Tigers get eliminated and the baseball season ends.
We’re down to the final few days, win or lose.
Based on the math we did yesterday, the Tigers have somewhere between a 3% and 9% chance of coming back to win it all. Those odds aren’t great, but as an Econ professor once told me, “That’s not like walking outside and getting hit by an asteroid.”
It’s been a fun season despite the frustrations. Even if it ends tonight, it was a great run. I know people will be upset about how the offense performed in the World Series, but 28 other teams are playing golf right now. The Tigers won the AL Central. They won the AL pennant.
It’s hard not to call that a successful season. Let’s not forget the team should be as good or better next season. Victor Martinez will be back. Fister should be healthy. Smyly will be a year older.
Avila, who actually had a better year than you think, should find his power stroke again. The Tigers will likely add a corner outfielder.
The window for a title is still open. Don’t worry if they can’t make it happen this year.
I’m pretty sure it was John Elway who coined this originally, but I remember my Dad saying it to me when my fourth grade baseball team lost the championship game. “Only two teams got to be here today, and we were one of them.
So I hope today isn’t the last day of the season. I’m hoping for four game win streak. I’m at least hoping to send the series back to San Francisco. But it was a successful season, no matter how it ends.
The most fun you can have is watching your baseball team win the World Series. The second most fun you can have is watching your baseball team lose the World Series.
I’ll take it and let’s make it last a little bit longer.
The Odds: Can the Tigers Come Back?
After a rough outing by Justin Verlander in Game 1 and a poor offensive showing in Game 2, the Tigers are down 2-0 in the best of seven World Series. This much we know. We also know that Doug Fister is invincible.
But what we want to know at this point is if the Tigers can come back and win the series despite the deficit. Let’s take three different approaches.
First, let’s use math. The Tigers need to win four of the remaining five games in any order. If we assume for a moment that each game is essentially a coin flip and have no impact on one another, the Tigers have an 18.75% chance of winning the series. This covers all of the possible ways the Tigers could win 4 games in the next 5 (plus the abstract possibility they would win 5 of the next 5) divided by the total number of ways the next five games could play out.
Let’s make ourselves feel a little better though! Each game isn’t a coin flip in the sense that the odds are truly 50/50. Most people believe the Tigers are a slightly better team and they get to play three of the next five at home, which most people believe gives you some advantage. Add in any other reasons you could imagine that point in the Tigers favor and ignore the ones that support the Giants.
If we do this, and say the Tigers are 55/45 favorites in all of the remaining games, we can create a 25.62% probability that the Tigers will win the series using them same methodology. If we go the other way and make them a 45/55 underdog, we find a 13.13% chance of a series win.
Is this a depressing finding or a happy one? The Tigers have somewhere between a 13% and 25% chance of winning this series. We’re factoring out certain complexities like how the probability of winning each game varies slightly, but those should always be within 45-55%, so I’m comfortable being a little bit oversimplified on this.
What this tells us is that if these five games were played over and over again, the Tigers would win somewhere between 1 out of every 4 to 1 out of every 7.
That makes me feel pretty good. Those are not terrible odds at all. But what if we win Game 3? Everything changes.
If the Tigers win Game 3 on Saturday, the odds now shift to 24.15% to 39.10%. That’s substantially different. Now it’s 1 in 4 to 2 in 5 odds. If they win Games 3 and 4 it’s back to even.
Now I feel a lot better. Don’t think about winning four games out of five, think about winning one game. Or two games. And then think about 2 out of 3. The Tigers are in a hole, but it’s not that deep.
Approach two is precedent. So this one is tough, because I couldn’t get the data by the time of publication, so I’m trusting a rough source. The weak source tells me a team has come back 14 times from 2-0. I want that to mean “in the World Series,” but it could include other rounds. I also don’t have good numbers on how often a team has gone up 2-0. I’m going to assume it’s half the time. (I’ll update this section if I can get my hands on it)
This is a very rough estimate given the limitations, but I’ll be wildly conservative with my guesses also. My estimate is 11% of the time when a team is down 0-2, they come back to win the series. That’s probably fair if judge that against our 13-25% guess because some of those series could have been 5 or 9 games depending on what rounds and when they happened in history. Series can also be more mismatched than this one. There’s also some psychological affect if the series gets to 0-3. I buy this as an approximate value.
Approach three is the narrative. Basically, this is a guess based on observational data that is selected in a biased manner in order to construct an argument we agree with. Allow me…
“The Tigers have had their backs against the wall all year and have come back. They’re going back to Comerica where the crowd will be rocking. They hit better at home and Verlander is the only guy who really pitched poorly in SF. He’ll be fine in Game 5. We could totally win at least 2 in Detroit, maybe 3! Yeah, then we only need one in SF, but we could probably get two if we had to! They want it more!”
So that’s less scientific, but it’s an approach. Every series is a unique event that doesn’t follow any specific rules. The first two approaches draw on previous data, but this is series has no connection to that data. It’s one single event, so anything can happen.
Here’s a test case. 2004 ALCS. Boston down 3-0 to New York. Approach 1: 4.1% to 9.15%. Approach 2: 0% chance. Approach 3: Red Sox win the series and win the World Series. A very unlikely thing happened. Unlikely things happen all the time.
So while you might be discouraged that the Tigers are down 0-2, all is not yet lost. A win in Game 3 changes everything. A win in Game 4 is even better. It’s not an ideal situation, but there’s a chance.
I predicted Tigers in 6. Tigers in 6 or 7 isn’t bad either.
2012 World Series Storylines
With the Fall Classic upon us let’s take a look at the top storylines for the series and end with a completely subjective prediction that should only be used for entertainment purposes.
1) The Tigers Rotation: The Tigers’ starters have rolled through the postseason with a 1.02 ERA. Small sample size and struggling offenses? Sure, but 1.02 is hard to do no matter what. Led by reigning Cy Young and MVP, Justin Verlander, the rotation is stacked. Fister, Sanchez, and Scherzer all range from above average to fringe-elite starters and are all pitching extremely well right now. If the Tigers get the same kind of pitching they got in the ALDS and ALCS in the World Series, the Tigers will coast to a title.
2) The Bullpens: So the Tigers bullpen, not pitching very well right now. Not pitching very well at all. Maybe that’s harsh. Benoit and Valverde aren’t pitching well right now. Coke, Dotel, Alburquerque, Smyly, and Porcello have been solid in the postseason. After two meltdowns, Leyland has unofficially removed Valverde from the closer role and gone with a Phil Coke-by-committee approach that has worked out well. I’m an advocate for closer-by-committee for all teams and at all times of the season, so I think this approach will work for them, but they still have to execute when they are called upon. The Giants on the other hand, have a strong pen with Lopez, Casilla, and Romo in the late innings and Lincecum available as a super reliever. Bottom line? Score on the Tigers pen and the Giants starters if you want to win.
3) Delmon Young: It’s weird just writing that. But Young has hit in a big way during this postseason and last. There’s a good deal of disagreement about whether or not postseason performance is a skill set, but whether it’s luck or ability, Delmon is delivering for the Tigers. If he continues to hit well behind Jackson, Cabrera, and Fielder, it will be hard for San Francisco to limit the Tigers to the two runs they need to if they are going to face those Tigers’ starters. The other Delmon angle is that he has to play LF in Games 1, 2, 6*, and 7*(*if necessary). Since coming to Detroit, Young has been a terrible OF. No one who played more than 150 innings in LF this year posted a worse UZR/150. Granted, Delmon wasn’t asked to play the field very much and was a full time DH, but he’s about to man the position for at least two of the most critical games of the season against a team that puts the ball in play. Hopefully, the Tigers’ arms can punch out enough hitters to limit the Delmon liability.
4) The Fans: Both cities have high energy fans that create a rowdy atmosphere. Both cities have great parks. I don’t know that it will affect the outcome, but it will be cool to watch on TV.
5) The Managers: Bruce Bochy and Jim Leyland are different managers, but also heavily criticized in different ways. Bochy thinks walks are outs in disguise (not my joke, but I can’t remember who told it) and Leyland thinks RBIs are baseball’s more critical stat. That said, both managers have good to excellent reputations as leaders of men, which will certainly be on display with a championship on the line. Most critically, how Leyland has handled the situation with Valverde could result in a giant meltdown or a champagne celebration. Certainly something to watch. Additionally, Leyland will be faced with the tough call on when to pinch hit for his frontline starters, and how he responds will dictate a lot that happens in this series.
6) The Tigers Defense: It wasn’t good this season. It was pretty strong in the ALCS. If it’s solid, that’s a huge swing in the Tigers’ favor.
7) Marco Scutaro: The dude is on fire. If that Marco Scutaro shows up, the Giants might just break through on the Tigers. If he doesn’t, it will be tough for them.
I’m expecting a good series and these teams haven’t seen very much of each other in the last several years and have never met in the World Series. Both clubs will be relying a lot on scouting reports instead of experience with each other, and I think that will make for a very close and unpredictable series. (As a side note, Verlander has said in the past he relies heavily on past at bats versus hitters as opposed to video)
I think this is an objective pick, but I obviously have a strong rooting interest.
Tigers in 6. Austin Jackson WS MVP.
A Long Year Coming to a Head
We covered how unpredictable baseball is yesterday. Then the Giants won Game 7 easily and celebrated in the pouring rain.
The World Series won’t be any less unpredictable, but I can tell you the Tigers and Giants will open the Fall Classic Wednesday night in San Francisco.
It’s been a long season. It’s been a long year since the Tigers lost Game 6 of the ALCS in Arlington. It’s been a long six years since they lost Game 5 of the World Series in St. Louis.
It’s been a very long 28 years since Kirk Gibson hitting the put away homerun in Game 5 of the 1984 World Series.
Seventeen other franchises have won since then. Tigers Stadium was demolished since then. Ernie Harwell is gone. So is Sparky. The city is different. Everything kind of is.
But the Tigers are four wins away from delivering a championship to a fan base that is craving one in the worst way. You can’t ask for a whole lot more.
I needed this. It was a very long, crazy, hectic year. The Tigers, like they are every year, were where I went for distraction, comfort, joy, and relaxation. They’re where I went to feel heartbreak, triumph, and community.
Even though I was suddenly a lot farther away from them, they kept me close to home. When my life was changing in big ways, the Tigers weren’t. They were on TV at 7pm, waiting for me.
2012 was a big year in my life, and I’ll always connect it to this team. A team that got off to a hot start, stumbled, and clawed their way back. Pulling away at the very end and hitting the gas when it counted most.
Cabrera’s Triple Crown. Verlander being Verlander. Scherzer staring personal tragedy in the face and finding a way to get better in its midst (I almost lost it when Dombrowski talked about his family after the clincher last week).
Saying goodbye to Inge. Kelly being baseball’s most baseball-ish dude. Quintin Berry having exactly as much fun as you should if you’re playing big league ball.
Prince Fielder not knowing how to slide. Avila getting hit with baseballs.
Avila getting hit with Prince Fielder.
Austin Jackson emerging.
It was a fun season. It was a tough season, but here we are.
I’m really hoping for four more wins. One more champagne celebration and a parade down Woodward.
One more “Mario Impemba quietly interviewing Leyland” moment. One more round of tweets from grown men pretending not to cry. One more “Justin Verlander arms raised clincher.”
I’m hoping for all of that. I think they’ll make it happen.
But I’ll be okay if they don’t. Sports are beautiful, but often cruel.
I’m proud either way.
Tigers Have Fun, Punch Their Ticket to the Fall Classic
I’m thinking about two images tonight. One happened two months ago. One a few hours ago.
On August 3, Don Kelly stood in front of his locker trying to cheer up the melancholy reporters who had to ask him how he felt after getting designated for assignment to make room on the roster for the returning Andy Dirks.
You read that right, he was cheering them up. Everyone was sad to see Kelly go. He’s one of the nicest guys in baseball. But Kelly, while disappointed to be leaving Detroit for the minors, said, “Guys, this isn’t a funeral.”
You’re damn right it wasn’t. Not for Kelly, not for the Tigers. Two months later Kelly was driving in the winning run of a topsy turvy ALDS Game 2 and literally lifting Prince Fielder off the ground.
Don Kelly was having fun.
Earlier today, Miguel Cabrera launched a two run homerun into the left field seats at Comerica Park in the fourth inning to all but punch the Tigers’ ticket to the Fall Classic. TBS showed a replay from the perspective of the LF seats. That angle had a view of the Tigers’ bullpen.
Drew Smyly, the Tigers’ fifth starter until late July and reliever since, was jumping up and down with the most genuine smile on his face. The 23 year old lefty was so excited. He’s been dreaming his whole life about pitching in the World Series. He’s going to.
Drew Smyly was having fun.
There are a lot of little moments like that. Prince Fielder and Quintin Berry have both had a lot of fun in their first seasons with the club. Walkoff wins, near no-hitters.
This team, even when a lot of fans were worrying, was having a blast. I remember Avila’s walkoff during that first weekend set at Comerica. The unbridled joy.
So 6 years after I first tasted playoff baseball, the Tigers are going to the World Series. They came close last year, but fell short. I think a lot of players grew up from that near miss. It showed this year.
They played hard, but damn it, they had fun. Baseball is fun. And it’s about to get even better.
Four more wins.
New English D 