SWP 2014, part 3: The Winning Teams

Every year, with only 10 playoff spots, there are bound to be some good teams that accumulate winning records, but that don't make it into the postseason tournament. Let's take a look at the five teams with winning records who were left out of the October party.

Seattle Mariners
Lineup: 7/9
Rotation: 3/5
Bullpen: 2/2

The Mariners defied a lot of expectations this year, mostly because their actual team was very different than their projected team, which was named just 11th best in the league. Actually, both the discrepancies between the actual 2014 roster and Sports Illustrated projections (Corey Hart and Justin Smoak) show up in my SWP project in a bench capacity. The SI folks thought that Hart would actually be healthy enough to play right field with Smoak at first, Logan Morrison the DH, and Michael Saunders patrolling center field. As you can see by the ^'s on the lineup at left, Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik replaced his underperforming parts by shifting some positions around and making some timely trades. Kendrys Morales and Austin Jackson ended up also underperforming, but as it happens, any team with a 3,000 point all-star has a pretty good chance of doing well. You can't fault SI for missing the two pitchers they did because Roenis Elias was a rookie and Chris Young ended up winning the comeback player of the year award (read: nobody could see his resurgent season coming). Also because James Paxton and Taijuan Walker would have been rotation mainstays had they been healthy enough for the whole year. I took a bit of liberty giving SI a 2/2 in the relief pitcher department since Tom Wilhelmsen actually had more points than Danny Farquhar, but he pitched in fewer games and would have had fewer innings if he wasn't called upon to make two spot starts late in the year.



Cleveland Indians
Lineup: 9/9
Rotation: 3/5
Bullpen: 2/2

Take a good look: the Cleveland Indians lineup is what total, 100% lineup predictive success looks like. The batting order is a little different, Swisher and Santana swapped projected positions, and nobody saw Michael Brantley coming (Rotowire.com projected him to hit 8 home runs and hit .280) but all the pieces are there. The pitching was also a bit of a mess due to Justin Masterson's injury issues (which eventually got him traded to a playoff team, yet left off the playoff roster) and Zach McAllister's ineffectiveness: both pitchers still show up on the SWP project because they eclipsed 10 starts and 60 innings, but neither were in the top five. Another player no one saw coming: Corey Kluber, who could very well steal the AL Cy Young award from King Felix just for novelty's sake, because as you can see, the more experienced pitcher clearly had the better numbers. The bullpen situation is very similar to San Francisco's in that both projected relievers served as the closer at some point in the season, but while Sergio Romo was simply demoted, John Axford was demoted and traded to the Pirates.



New York Yankees
Lineup: 7/9
Rotation: 2/5
Bullpen: 1/2

Seven out of nine is actually a pretty decent ratio, especially when both discrepancies show up on the bench. Basically Carlos Beltran was supposed to start in right field with Alfonso Soriano the DH and Ichiro on the bench, but Soriano was eventually granted his release, Beltran wasn't healthy enough to stick in the outfield full time, so Ichiro had to step up. Kelly Johnson was supposed to hold it down at third base in A-Rod's absence, but he had to spend significant time at first when Mark Teixeira went down, opening the door for rookie Yangervis Solarte, who was eventually traded for another third baseman who doesn't show up here: Chase Headley of the Padres, now a free agent. The pitching is a different story. You can't blame SI too much for missing everyone but the two Japanese starters (Kuroda and Tanaka) since this rotation was veritably ravaged by injuries. CC Sabathia was supposed to be the staff ace before his season ended in early May. Ivan Nova succumbed to the Tommy John epidemic after just four starts. Michael Pineda did technically qualify as a starter by my standards, but he wasn't anywhere near the top five. If they re-sign Kuroda and McCarthy (who thrived after being traded to New York), if Pineda has a good deal more luck with injuries than he's had for his whole career, and if Masahiro Tanaka's torn elbow ligament miraculously doesn't continue to tear, the Yankees should be alright next year. But that is indeed a lot of if's. Another piece they'll have to replace is their #1 relief pitcher David Robertson, who will test the free agent waters. Projected RP2 Matt Thornton was already shipped out to Washington after the deadline last year.


Toronto Blue Jays
Lineup: 8/9
Rotation: 3/5
Bullpen: 1/2

The top four out of the five non-playoff teams with winning records are from the AL. I wonder if this means we'll finally see some consistency across the leagues with the DH rule. The only missed projection for the offense was at second base, where rookie Ryan Goins was in fact given the job to start the year (with Brett Lawrie at third) but who ended up spending most of the season in the minors. Lawrie did in fact play most of his games at third, but he did qualify at second, so I shifted him over on my list to make room for the more offensively talented Juan Francisco (who I definitely streamed into my fantasy lineup during his hot first half). In the rotation, Drew Hutchison and rookie Marcus Stroman were the ones SI didn't predict, placing reliever Esmil Rogers and oft-injured Brandon Morrow in their places. I myself thought that Todd Redmond would blossom into a starter, but instead he served as their top setup man, beating out projected RP2 Steve Delabar, who only managed 30 innings on the year.

Milwaukee Brewers
Lineup: 8/8
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 1/2

Finally a non-playoff NL team with a winning record! The Brewers improved over their 2013 showing, but were eclipsed in a strong Central division by the Cardinals and the Pirates (although they did finish well ahead of the disappointing Reds). Their offense was clicking on all cylinders with the superhuman feats of Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy making up for Ryan Braun's regression to a non-performance enhanced statistical realm. The pitching was also remarkably consistent, with the only wrong guess being Marco Estrada, who was in fact a starter for a lot of the year before he was demoted to the bullpen. SI apparently didn't get the memo that projected closer Jim Henderson had lost his job to projected RP2 Francisco Rodriguez before this magazine was published - but neither did I, if you check my projected lineups on the subject.

Atlanta Braves
Lineup: 7/8
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 1/2

Alright, I know I said there were only five non-playoff winning teams, and that's true, but the Braves and the Mets tied for second place in the NL East division, and they would have made it to .500 with two more wins apiece, and there are two leagues, no matter how one-sided the talent level might be, so I've decided analyzing a couple of bonus teams. Hooray! The only discrepancy in the lineup is at second base, where SI incorrectly assumed that opening day starter Dan Uggla would be the starter beyond July, where he was unceremoniously dumped and later signed (and dumped) by the Giants. Aaron Harang was a late signing, so it makes sense that he wouldn't appear in this issue, but you're going to laugh when you see that SI predicted Freddy Garcia to do significant fill-in work for the injured Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen. Bullpens are super hard to predict, so I don't fault SI at all for assuming fireballing former closer Jordan Walden would serve as the primary setup man rather than David Carpenter. I would fault them if they somehow left out Craig Kimbrel as the guy for whom they'd be setting up.



New York Mets
Lineup: 6/8
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 0/2

The Mets did overperform in order to achieve such a decent winning percentage, but in the grand scheme of things, they finished about where expected: SI has them ranked 12th in the NL... with just the Phillies, Marlins, and Cubs behind them, two of whom they did beat in their division. The offensive discrepancies exist mostly due to trades: SI thought that Ike Davis would beat Lucas Duda for the first base job, and I guess he ostensibly did until he was traded to the Pirates giving Duda the job by default. While Chris Young does show up on my list in the "NL DH" spot (read: most-used bench guy), he didn't get a chance to eclipse the speedy Juan Lagares in center field due to his trade to the Yankees. The only pitcher missing from SI's projected rotation is rookie Jacob deGrom, as they thought Japanese veteran Daisuke Matsuzaka would be the primary fill-in for Matt Harvey. On a side note, this rotation is going to be absolutely terrifying when Harvey returns from his Tommy John procedure. Projected closer Bobby Parnell missed basically the whole season due to injury and Vic Black underperformed, causing swingman Jenrry Mejia and little-known reliever Jeuris Familia to take over closing duties, with Carlos Torres quietly serving as one of the most capable long relievers in the league.

There were many more teams who took the field in 2014, but none of them performed all that impressively. If there are teams any that anyone would like to see in greater detail, let me know in the comments section or shout out on Twitter @Hunter_S_Batman and perhaps I'll factor them into a future post. Until then, keep your eyes (but not your hands) on the Hot Stove and try to stay warm through the offseason!

SWP 2014, part 2: The Rest of the Playoffs

Having analyzed the final four teams last post, it's time to take a look at the other six teams who made the postseason, comparing their aggregate 2014 lineups to the projected lineups from this year's Sports Illustrated preview issue. Again, this is not to pick on SI for the roster spots that they got wrong - since it's no fun to be petty and they're pretty accurate overall - but rather just to have a benchmark for comparison to track some of the interesting changes that took place throughout the season.

Los Angeles Angels
Lineup: 8/9
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 1/2

Much like Kansas City, the Angels had a plan offensively and they stuck with it, making this team very easy to predict. The only batter that the folks at SI got wrong wasn't even a position player, as they thought veteran Raul Ibanez would hold down the DH spot. Even with youngster C.J. Cron getting the most time here, DH was still the weakest link for this team with guys like Efren Navarro and Brennan Boesch getting far too many at-bats there. Although to be fair, they didn't stop the team from winning the most games in baseball (despite being ranked 9th in the league by SI). SI wasn't wrong by assuming that Hector Santiago and Tyler Skaggs would occupy the 4th and 5th spots of the rotation, and it's unclear that Matt Shoemaker would have gotten a shot had Skaggs not gone down with an injury. The same is true for putting Ernesto Frieri as the projected closer, as he did indeed start the season in that role, but lost it fairly quickly and was later shipped to Pittsburgh for their ex-closer Jason Grilli. You'll notice that Huston Street's name is in italics here - that's because he failed to reach 40 innings with the Angels, but I left him in because of his important role and ludicrously high swp/g totals.

Washington Nationals
Lineup: 7/8
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 2/2

I could very easily haven given the SI crew an 8/8 here, since Ryan Zimmerman (projected as the starting 3B with Rendon at 2B, where he did also qualify), but I decided to ding them since Zim a) missed a lot of time due to injury and b) had to effectively abandon third base for left field. I could also have dinged SI in the relief pitcher department since they named Tyler Clippard as the RP2 - the job that technically went to Drew Storen points-wise - but that's only because he won the closer's job towards the end of the season, whereas Clippard was consistently a quality setup man. Keep in mind this team that was supposed to win the World Series, according to the cover of the magazine, and they did do exceptionally well this year, so it makes sense that their projections were mostly accurate. The only one that was just unabashedly wrong was assuming that Taylor Jordan would hold down the fifth starter spot over Tanner Roark, but maybe the SI analysts weren't paying attention at the end of 2013.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Lineup: 7/8
Rotation: 5/5
Bullpen: 1/2

SI pegged the Dodgers as the best team in the NL this year, and they were very good, and they put their team together pretty much as SI predicted. The only discrepancy was at second base where Cuban import (and 2014 minor leaguer) Alex Guerrero was projected to start, leaving All-Star Dee Gordon on the bench. Josh Beckett succumbed to an injury that effectively ended his career (he retired at season's end), but he did serve as the team's fifth starter when active. I feel bad giving SI a wrong answer in the bullpen since Brian Wilson was utilized as an RP2 setup man type even through the playoffs, despite his complete ineffectiveness, but there were just so many pitchers in this curiously weak bullpen who did better than the Beard that I just couldn't justify giving it to him.






Detroit Tigers
Lineup: 7/9
Rotation: 5/5
Bullpen: 2/2

Again, this team mostly stuck to the plan except for where injuries and trades were concerned. Before the breakout of J.D. Martinez caused Austin Jackson to be expendable, Jackson/Rajai Davis was the CF/LF plan as projected. Jackson actually had more games in CF, but I gave the nod to Rajai since he logged more overall games in the outfield. Detroit was left scrambling at shortstop when Jose Iglesias went down for the year with shin splints and projected starter Alex Gonzalez did get a handful of games towards the beginning of the season, but it was a Suarez/Romine combo for the vast majority of the year. In terms of innings pitched for the starters, SI got one thru five correct, even though David Price was obviously a much higher upside pitcher after he was acquired from the Rays in the biggest three-team blockbuster of the year. Even though Al Alburquerque wasn't the second-most-used relief pitcher (remember how Joba Chamberlain in key sitiuations basically cost them any shot they might have had at winning the ALDS?), he did score the most points of all Tigers setup men, so I consider that a correct prediction for SI.




Oakland Athletics
Lineup: 7/9
Rotation: 3/5
Bullpen: 0/2

Pandemonium is the best way to describe how this A's roster was put together throughout the season. The batting order predictions were actually quite accurate: SI had John Jaso behind the plate (which was his primary position until a concussion ended his season) with Derek Norris on the bench and *shudder* Daric Barton listed as the primary DH. And although I listed Alberto Callaspo at second base ahead of Eric Sogard, that was really just a ploy to get more offensive prowess into the starting 9 (although I justify my decision because Callaspo played a bunch of games at other positions as well). In the rotation, three out of five is pretty generous, considering Tommy Milone only barely sneaks by Jon Lester into the top five (by innings pitched) when the traded lefty was not nearly as impactful as the acquired lefty. Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir were the only other two starters correctly projected to be in the rotation: the other two spots went to Dan Straily (who did start the season there, but was subsequently traded) and A.J. Griffin (obviously before it was learned that his injuries would keep him out for the season). The two projected relievers did qualify for inclusion on my swp list, but at the very bottom of the barrel, as Jim Johnson lost his closer's job almost immediately and Ryan Cook wasn't used nearly as much as high leverage setup men Luke Gregerson or Dan Otero. Oh well, you can't get them all right!


Pittsburgh Pirates
Lineup: 6/8
Rotation: 4/5
Bullpen: 1/2

As is the case with most teams that did surprisingly better than anticipated, some of the key players came out of nowhere. Or in this case, the Mets, as Ike Davis was acquired early in the season as the left-handed (read: primary) part of a first base platoon with Gaby Sanchez, the SI projected starter. Jose Tabata was projected to start in right field, but he was demoted early on, leaving two lefties - Travis Snider and Gregory Polanco - to take charge of the role. But the main story here that nobody saw coming was Josh Harrison, a projected bench player who very nearly won the batting title while filling in at both corner outfield spots and third base, making July 8th birthdays everywhere proud. The one starting pitcher SI got wrong was Wandy Rodriguez, in that they thought he would play a role on this team commensurate with the salary Pittsburgh was paying him, when that was in fact not the case. Jason Grilli did start the season in the closer role but obviously flamed out rather quick (see the Angels section above), ceding the job to his primary setup man Mark Melancon, so having those two as the top projected relievers was not an unreasonable pick at all.


Of the 20 teams who didn't make the playoffs, five managed to finish above .500 on the season. I'll probably continue this feature with those teams next time, and then see what happens from there.

SWP 2014, part 1: The Final Four

Well, another baseball season is officially in the books and the San Francisco Giants are officially making a habit of winning the championship every even-numbered year. While it would have been nice to see some new blood hoist the trophy over their heads this year, it is slightly gratifying that at least half of my prediction came true: the Giants did indeed win, but they by no means trounced their opposition, as the Royals battled till the bitter end and it was only the double-MVP-worthy awesomeness of the MadBum that put them down. So I'd like to congratulate San Francisco on an exciting, hard-fought World Series and a well-deserved victory. You made a lot of fans everywhere very happy.

So now, with a few days left before the free agent feeding frenzy begins, it seems like a good time to look back on the season that was in an overall big picture type way. And as it happens, I just finished my age-old SWP lineups project that I've done for the past decade and a half. This differs from the projected playoff lineups I posted in that those had the current lineup that I thought was most likely to play in the tournament, whereas the SWP project shows the overall composition of a team over the course of the whole year. Plus it comes with a cool team logo.

I use the same fantasy point system that I have been using since the start of this blog, which is called SWP after the Small World fantasy client where I first saw it implemented. This was a format without draft or auction - rather each player had a dollar value attached to them and each team owner had a salary cap with which to build their team. I don't remember the exact year I started playing, but one of my earliest memories was windmill slamming Ichiro Suzuki as a rookie for cheap and feeling really great about it.

The documents have evolved over the years - they started with just the lineup listed in positional order, rotation, and bullpen listed by games played. But as my favorite website baseball-reference.com started putting up more information such as batting orders, my lists reflected that as well. I also added bench players and adopted a somewhat complex qualifying system (shown at right) mostly to determine which pitchers fit in which category. Suffice it to say, any batter that logged more than 200 at bats and any pitcher with 40 innings/appearances are now represented.

Based on their most recent football preview, Sports Illustrated's projected lineups may be a thing of the past, but thankfully we still have them from the 2014 baseball preview to serve as a point of comparison. So as I go through the teams (starting in playoff finish order and then we'll see where it goes from there) I'll be keeping a running total of what SI got right, not to maliciously point out errors, but as a way to keep track of what unforeseen changes took place over the course of the season.

San Francisco Giants

Lineup: 7/8

Rotation: 5/5

Bullpen: 2/2

As you can't see, cuz I'm not posting pics of the projections, SI predicted the makeup of the world champions impressively well. The only discrepancy stems from their optimism that veteran Marco Scutaro would return from his injuries to play a significant role for this club, which of course he did not, allowing rookie Joe Panik to lock down this spot, possibly for years to come. While they technically did predict the team's top 5 starters listed in terms of innings pitched, Matt Cain was absent for most of the second half with injuries and Tim Lincecum was a non-factor pitching out of the bullpen. There is of course no way they could have predicted the acquisition of Jake Peavy, who actually equalled the production of Bumgarner in his brief sample size. Both the too two relievers listed ended up serving as the closer for part of this year, so that has to feel gratifying.

Kansas City Royals

Lineup: 9/9

Rotation: 4/5

Bullpen: 1/2

Turns out both participants in this year's World Series were pretty easy to predict. The folks at SI got the Royals offense down even to the batting order... that is until manager Ned Yost went rogue and switched things up late in the final month. The only thing they got wrong was assuming Bruce Chen would stick as the fifth starter, a job he ceded to Danny Duffy early on. I know that bullpens are hard to predict (which is probably why SI hedges their bets by only naming two relievers) but it is worth noting that there was no mention of Wade Davis in the magazine, making his historical season all the more impressive.

St. Louis Cardinals

Lineup: 8/8

Rotation: 4/5

Bullpen: 2/2

The only offensive player SI missed for the Cardinals was Jon Jay, who curiously didn't show up at all in the preview article, not even on the bench, despite the fact that he ended up leading the team in outfield appearances. There was again of course no way for them to predict that projected #5 starter Joe Kelly would have been traded for actual #5 starter John Lackey. There was also no reason to predict the emergence of Pat Neshek as an All-Star middle reliever, which they didn't, but I gave them a perfect bullpen score because their projected setup man Seth Maness logged more innings.

Baltimore Orioles

Lineup: 6/9

Rotation: 5/5

Bullpen: 1/2

The Orioles definitely went through some changes as the 2014 season progressed, which resulted in some wonky predictions. To be fair, Matt Wieters and Jemile Weeks did start the season at catcher and second base, respectively. But Wieters saw his season end due to injury before the All-Star Break and Weeks was demoted to the minors and found himself traded for a relief pitcher for the second time this year. Projected left fielder David Lough did log a lot of games in the field, but mostly as a defensive replacement. While a run prevented is technically worth as much as a run scored, this team was all about the long ball, so more often than not, LF at bats went to home run threats like Nelson Cruz (when not DH-ing), Delmon Young, and Steve Pearce (when not filling in for Chris Davis at first, or indeed pushing him over to third base).

The rotation situation is similar to the Giants, with the non-factor being utterly disappointing Ubaldo Jimenez, but unlike in San Francisco, his replacement Kevin Gausman did not come via trade but rather through the prospect pipeline. As with the offense, SI's bullpen projections match how Baltimore filled out the card at the start of the season, but while Darren O'Day remained a top flight setup man, they did not project that Tommy Hunter would lose the closer job to lefty Zach Britton. (And neither did I, based on my fantasy draft. That's why you never pay for saves...)


So that's the first round of charts. Next will be the rest of the playoff teams and then depending on how exciting the hot stove season gets, I'll likely continue with the rest of the teams.

Handicapping the 2014 World Series

Will Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco" be
the next song banned from the radio?

Well, here we are, nearing the end of the MLB postseason when excitement for baseball is supposed to reach a fever pitch, and what do we get? The longest amount of time with no baseball games since opening day. Seriously, when was the last game of the NLCS? Thursday? That's a layoff as long as the All-Star Break, but this time we don't get the All-Star Game in the middle of it. I know the precious TV programmers must know their schedules 500 days in advance, regardless of the outcome of the playoffs, but I don't think it's fair to make the fans wait almost a full work week between playoff rounds. And that's not counting the fringe fans who might have tuned in to a game or two over the weekend but who have lost interest after four long days off.

And not only is it unfair to the fans, it's a serious drawback to the players as well. MLB's reporters are doing all they can to convince us that the time off won't hurt the Royals (who have been sitting for one more day than the Giants). But past results are not encouraging for playoff teams coming off long rest periods facing up against hot opponents. Last week, my friend brought up the 2007 Rockies who, like the Royals, won their play-in game and swept the first two rounds of the playoffs. Then they sat for a week and got steamrolled by a Red Sox team coming off one of the most exciting ALCS's in recent memory. I would add to that the 2012 Tigers, who swept the Yankees in the ALCS, sat for a week, then got swept by (who else?) the Giants after their dramatic come-from-behind NLCS against (who else?) the Cardinals.

I'm not saying this situation is exactly analogous to those two examples since these Giants will have been off for almost as much time as their opponents and the Cardinals never really seemed like a big threat in this year's NLCS. But did you see the energy in San Francisco after they won Game 5 on that walk-off home run? The players were going nuts, the fans were going nuts, much more so than when Jarrod Dyson's prediction came true in Kansas City a day earlier. I know the time off allows both teams to line up their ideal pitching rotations for the World Series, but the Giants also get to carry all that momentum with them into the next round.

They say baseball is a marathon, not a sprint, and the Royals' postseason so far has seemed an awful lot like a sprint - and not just because of all those stolen bases, heyo! For all Grant Brisbee's reasons and more, I'm rooting for the Royals to take home this year's World Series trophy - even though I don't subscribe to the theory that you should support the team that eliminated your favorite team on principle. But honestly, with how the playoffs have been shaping up so far I'm not sure if the speedy upstarts are in a great position. Although perhaps the radio stations of San Francisco's anti-Lorde antics will be enough to shift the karmic tide back to the underdogs. Tune in to the World Series starting tomorrow at 8pm ET on Fox to find out!

Divisional All-Stars 2014: National League

So I made a mistake on the chart from Tuesday's post. Did anybody notice? I'll reveal it at the end in case anybody wants to take a stab at guessing what it was. I'll give you a hint: it happened when I was rearranging the bullpens in order to give everyone a lefty. I'm not changing it because it's too much of a pain to re-screen grab those charts and upload everything again. Plus, I think people should own up to their mistakes on the internet, even though I have been known to use the "Update" button if I find a particularly glaring error.

Anyway, on to the National League, going west to east, here are your Divisional All-Stars!

A pair of injuries made this team a lot worse than it might have been. If Paul Goldschmidt (1,693 / 15.5) and Troy Tulowitzki (1,455 / 16.0) had not missed the ends of their seasons (or if I put more stock in average PPG than overall fantasy points), the two of them would likely be holding down the first base and shortstop positions (as well as the 3 and 4 spots in the batting order), respectively. But as it stands, Adrian Gonzalez's penchant for driving in runs and Hanley Ramirez's last year before free agency stand front and center. Well, actually not too center for Hanley, whose own injury-shortened season was not bad, but neither was it spectacular enough to overshadow any of the four star outfielders who hit above him in my batting order. Other than one of those outfielders, this offense is made up entirely of Dodgers and Giants, which is not surprising considering one of those teams won the second-most games in the league and the other very well might be heading to its third world series in five years.

Speaking of the Dodgers and the Giants, this top three doesn't quite rival the AL Central team, but it comes close. Well, maybe less close if you take the playoff version of Clayton Kershaw as opposed to his regular season variety, but he's still undeniably the best pitcher in the sport right now. Meanwhile, Petco Park continues to revitalize the careers of marginal pitchers, both in the rotation and the bullpen. While it's not a requirement for me to have these teams feature a player from each club in their respective divisions (the AL Central was notably Twins-absent, but both Brian Dozier and Phil Hughes showed up in the AL Wild Card squad), the Diamondbacks do get a representative in Brad Ziegler, who just barely squeaked in over Tim Stauffer (616 / 14.0), who was cut to make room for the lefty Jeremy Affeldt.

This team is pretty self-explanatory, except that it might seem weird to have Josh Harrison, a guy who qualified at three different positions last year, listed as the DH. In fact, it might seem weird to have a DH listed at all on a National League team, but I always prefer getting a ninth batter in there so we can more easily compare the two leagues to each other. Notable exceptions include rookie base stealing phenom Billy Hamilton and reputation rebuilding slugger Ryan Braun, who haven't yet become / aren't anymore considered to be one of the elite central division players. Also, Cubs franchise shortstop Starlin Castro narrowly missed inclusion in favor of the formerly steroid-aided power of Jhonny Peralta, making him the second Divisional All-Star who was suspended in 2013 due to Biogenesis related issues.

Before looking at this post, I wondered who would have guessed that 2014's highest overall fantasy point scorer was Reds ace Johnny Cueto, but that was indeed the case. He didn't quite reach Kershaw's point per game totals, but remember the Dodgers' top pitcher also missed most of the first month of the season due to injury. Like Kershaw, Adam Wainwright is another guy whose regular season far outshines his playoff performance, plus it's pretty much thanks to him that the NL won't receive home field advantage in this year's World Series, but you can't get a much more solid number 2 starter. But do you know who actually (very slightly) outperformed Waino in PPG? The surprisingly successful Jake Arrieta, who might be a reason for Cubs fans to have some hope for the future - that and the roughly 1,000 promising offensive prospects they have moments away from the majors.

K-Rod is back, and just in time for him to hit free agency again! His last couple of go-rounds, he's signed with the Brewers at a discounted rate, but with Jim Henderson due back from shoulder surgery and Jonathan Broxton still under contract, the need might not be great in Milwaukee. Pat Neshek and Tony Watson present what might be the best righty/lefty combo in this little experiment (their main competition being Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller in the AL East).

This lineup is a little top-heavy, with Giancarlo Stanton's season-ending injury coming later enough than those of his fellow MVP candidates from the NL West that he still easily leads this club in points. Anthony Rendon did give him a run for his money, however, which is all the more impressive considering he did it while playing two different positions, and that he's still playing out the contract he signed out of the draft in 2011. (The questionable nature of the 5th year option in that deal is the reason for the question mark in his Free Agency status column.) With Denard Span's club option a virtual lock to be picked up following a season in which he set a Nationals franchise record in hits, this team has a staggering zero players slated to hit the open market next year.

Looking at Tanner Roark's numbers and the way they match up with the other powerhouse starters in this rotation, it's a crying shame that he wasn't utilized more in this year's postseason. Not that it there's a guarantee that it would have made a difference in the Nationals' chances, but he's too talented to be used as an occasional short reliever. Speaking of short relievers, the ones on this club leave a little to be desired. Carlos Torres pitched a ton of innings and Tyler Clippard is a former closer, but if I were Craig Kimbrel, arguably the best closer in the game, I would hope for a slightly better bridge from my starters.  It might be a little unfair to have Alex Wood in the swingman slot here, since his point total would put him as the number 2 starter on the NL Wild Card team, but he did relieve in enough games to qualify, so in a way he justifies the lack of a true setup ace.

Unlike his middle infield partner in Philadelphia, Jimmy Rollins has showed some signs of slowing these last few years, but he brought just enough speed and pop to beat out Tulo's injury shortened season for the Wild Card shortstop honors. Ditto for both Lucas Duda and Adam LaRoche, except replace Tulo with Goldy and omit the part about the speed. Overall, this lineup is a little bit awkward looking, not only because it's overwhelmingly left-handed, but because it lacks a clear established middle of the order thumper. Devin Mesoraco's season was a revelation when healthy, but neither he nor Corey Dickerson have a track record to think that they won't seriously regress toward the mean. But the same thing happened to Matt Carpenter from last year and he still ended up on this team, so perhaps there is hope yet.

Speaking of regression, there is no way that fill-in starter Alfredo Simon comes close to the dominance that he showed in the first half of this season, but I can picture him morphing into a very valuable bullpen piece if he struggles as the innings pile up. Doug Fister on the other hand is only getting better, as he looks to have figured things out in his first year in the NL. Jonathan Papelbon doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the back end of the bullpen, but as it happens they have an insurance policy in Mets closer Jenrry Mejia, who started enough games to qualify for swingman status. Plus Philly's closer-in-waiting Ken Giles is also waiting in the wings.


So there you have it: four teams made up of the best of the NL organized by division and position, to go with the AL's four similar teams. Speaking of the AL, the answer to my above trivia question as to what mistake I made on Tuesday: Yankees reliever Adam Warren was mistakenly placed on the Wild Card team when he really should have been on the AL East squad, switching place with Blue Jays lefty Brett Cecil. Riveting stuff, I know. At least you know that someone is paying attention...

Divisional All-Stars 2014: American League

I know the playoffs are in full swing, but now that the A's are out of it, I'll leave the day-to-day commentary to the beat reporters and analysts that spend more time following the games themselves (or at least to the bloggers who have access to cable TV on which to watch the games). Instead, I'll publish the first fruits of my exhaustive 2014 baseball database in the form of an age-old project of mine: Divisional All-Stars! For those of you who haven't seen any of the other times I've done this project in the past, it basically consists of eight lineups - one for each division plus one wild card team in each league - made up of the best players at each respective position in that division.

The format in each year has been slightly different, but what gave me the most consistent tsuris was figuring out how to place players who changed teams (or, more specifically, divisions) mid-season. I've tried it where a player belongs to the division in which he received the most plate appearances or scored the most fantasy points. But this year, seeing as I spent so much time keeping up to date 40 man rosters this season, I'd just have each player belong to the team with which he finished the season. That might be a blatant bias towards the AL West, who gets two top of the line starting pitchers and an elite closer while losing just Yoenis Cespedes. But we'll see how it works, and if it's terribly overpowered, we can always try another pass. It's not baseball blogging unless you have to do it twice!

Since I was just talking about the AL West, that seems like a perfect place to start:

Starting your lineup with the AL batting champion and following that up with the universally-agreed-upon best player in baseball is not a bad place to be as far as this little thought experiment is concerned. Second string second baseman Cano performed just a tick below the next couple people in the lineup, but I thought it was important to get a lefty in there (if only so we could have someone to pinch hit Jonny Gomes for in a crucial situation), plus I've heard that lineup construction doesn't matter much anyway. Second base was obviously deep in this division - Howie Kendrick had a great season but remains on the bench - but third base was even deeper, with both Adrian Beltre and Kyle Seager showing up on the AL Wild Card team (see below).

The presence of Brandon Moss in the outfield is a good reason to say a word about positional eligibility: in order to be play at a certain position, a player needed at least 20 games at that position during the regular season, with the exception of corner outfielders (who I allow to play either corner outfield spot) and center fielders (who I allow to play any outfield spot). Moss qualified in both right and left field, as he filled in for the injured Josh Reddick and the departed Yoenis Cespedes, respectively. It's interesting that Moss scored higher than his nearest competition (Dustin Ackley) by nearly 200 points despite his abysmal second half, which was caused by either the departure of his beloved lineup protector Cespedes or the torn cartilage in his hip that required offseason surgery... YOU DECIDE!

I mentioned that Lester and Samardzija would not have belonged to this team if I had used the formula from years past, but this starting staff would still have been pretty darned impressive without them: Jered Weaver would have taken the fourth slot with one of either Dallas Keuchel or Hisashi Iwakuma to follow. As it stands, all three of them ended up on the Wild Card team. The same goes for the closer position: Wild Card stopper Fernando Rodney did almost as well as Street in his first season with the Mariners, while David Robertson of the Yankees would easily finish games for the best-of-the-rest. Just for a minute, look at Otero's numbers vs. Gregerson's (even not accounting for the blown saves) and tell me who you think should have been pitching in late and close situations.

Remember the days when Victor Martinez qualified as a catcher? Or when Miguel Cabrera was a third baseman? If either of those was still the case, this team could have had those two plus rookie sensation Jose Abreu holding down the 3-4-5 spots in the batting order. I feel like it's a little ironic that the reason Carlos Santana no longer qualifies behind the plate is the emergence of Yan Gomes, who is no slouch, but at least the Santana at third base experiment worked well enough to avoid having Trevor Plouffe start at the hot corner. Meanwhile, if breakout star Michael Brantley hadn't qualified in center field, this team would have had to put up with Rajai Davis instead of Torii Hunter. Speaking of Hunter, I made a somewhat sentimental decision to start him rather than his teammate who had another breakout year, J.D. Martinez (1,592 points / 12.9 PPG) because a) Hunter has a stronger track record of success than one partial season and b) it might be his last year if he decides to retire.

There's no doubt that this squad has the strongest starting rotation out of all the Divisional All-Star teams, and it wouldn't even have been close if David Price were disqualified and replaced with Phil Hughes, the Wild Card's staff ace. I don't believe that Corey Kluber should win the Cy Young over Felix Hernandez, but he did have a season for the ages, Chris Sale was dominant, even having missed time in the beginning of the year, and both Max Scherzer and James Shields likely pitched themselves into supermassive free agent contracts. The bullpen is basically the same thing that Royals fans got to watch all season long with a couple guys from Cleveland thrown in. I also fudged the numbers to get Phil Coke in there instead of Al Alburquerque, because studies have shown that it's good to have at least one lefty in the pen for those tough matchups.

At first glance, it isn't hard to tell that this team is all about the Dominican Republic: the first five spots in the lineup are filled with guys who the Dominicans would LOVE to trot out there in the next World Baseball Classic. But cultural solidarity was not the only reason for arranging the lineup thus: even though a guy like Zobrist profiles more as a prototypical #2 hitter while Bautista would normally hit in a middle of the order power position, I took a page out of the Mike Scioscia/Sabermetrics book and bat the team's strongest hitter second (he actually started 21 games at that spot in the batting order this year, enough to qualify there if I used the same system as defensive positions).

The rotation definitely looks a little weak, especially considering the other two divisions we've seen so far. Tanaka obviously has lights-out stuff, but the status of his partially torn UCL has got to be troubling to the Yankees, even though his long term doesn't necessarily enter into this project. In the meantime, it feels like none of these other four guys would be aces on the majority of contending teams. The bullpen is rock solid though, with a first year closer who's really blossomed in the role, three well-publicized middle relief aces, and a rookie who totally flew under everybody's radar to put up an awesome season. It looks like this team's strategy would be to out-slug its opponents early while holding on for dear life in the late game.


With the Wild Card team, I like to start off with a quick breakdown of what divisions were deep enough to supply an overflow. In this case, we have five from the central, six from the east, and a whopping 10 from the west. Most of those western folks are pitchers, as I mentioned earlier. Most of the central folks are batters, including the two top offensive scorers Dozier and Abreu. And the east fills in the outfield and bullpen cracks. It's interesting to see that almost all these starters outmatch the starters on the AL East team, but where this team is at a huge disadvantage is in the bullpen, where none of the ace setup men are available. There seems to be a good mix of impact power hitters and scrappy contact/speed guys in the lineup, which could prove for some frustrating matchups for opposing clubs.


Next time I'll come back with the NL teams. Until then, go back to watching the actual playoffs.

ALCS 2014: Position-by-Position Preview

I started my position-by-position previews with the NLCS because my last post was about one of the participating teams, even though the AL's championship series will start before the NL's. But there's still time before tonight's ALCS opener between the Royals and the Orioles (say those names five times fast) to examine which team has the advantage, positionally speaking.

Royals vs. Orioles

C: Salvador Perez vs. Caleb Joseph/Nick Hundley
All-Star starter vs. replacement level... well, replacements. It doesn't take a degree in Sabermetrics to figure this one out. It would have been much more of a contest if Baltimore's opening day catcher and franchise player Matt Wieters (who was actually elected to start the All-Star game with 13.0 fantasy points per game in the season's first month) had not missed most of the season with Tommy John surgery. But if "if's" and "but's" were candy and nuts, then... how does the rest of that go?
ADVANTAGE: KCR

1B: Eric Hosmer vs. Steve Pearce
Pearce's 2014 was a feel-good story about perseverance and a great attitude towards the game, while Hosmer's was that of a much-hyped prospect who has failed to live up to expectations. I might be reading this wrong, but baseball-reference claims that Pearce was worth 6 (six) wins above replacement while Hosmer tallied just 0.8 in 2014. But all that goes out the window in the postseason: Pearce did hit a respectable .300 in 10 ALDS AB's, but Hosmer has that total beat by a full .100 with two HR's added to the mix and a key triple in the Wild Card game. Baseball might be a marathon, not a sprint, but it's also a game of momentum, and it's clear where that lies right now.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

2B: Omar Infante vs. Jonathan Schoop
Neither of these players are what you'd call offensive powerhouses: Schoop has the upside of youth (he's only 22 and a rookie) and more power in his bat, but Infante has veteran scrappiness and postseason experience (albeit with an unimpressive track record - .557 OPS in 34 games).
ADVANTAGE: KCR (but it's close)

3B: Mike Moustakas vs. Ryan Flaherty/Kelly Johnson
Again, this one wouldn't be close if Baltimore's preternaturally talented third baseman Manny Machado had not gone down for the year with a knee injury. Moustakas was on the same prospect clock as Hosmer, and like his counterpart across the diamond, he's made up for a lackluster 2014 season by blasting a couple of long balls in the division series. Also, Moose was the starting third baseman on a playoff team for the whole season, which is more than replacement-level types Flaherty and Johnson can say.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

SS: Alcides Escobar vs. J.J. Hardy
Except for his two curious power outages (2010 and 2014), Hardy has been one of the most consistent power hitting shortstops in the game for the last 8 years. And apparently his career-low power numbers this year didn't keep the Baltimore brass from signing him to a three-year extension between the two playoff serieses. Escobar has a lot of speed and is adept at laying down bunts (he was in the top 10 in sacrifice hits each of the last four years), which is clearly the most important skill to have in a Ned Yost offense.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

LF: Alex Gordon vs. Alejandro De Aza
The story of Alex Gordon is the reason Kansas City fans have to still be optimistic about Eric Hosmer/Mike Moustakas types. Gordon was a number 2 overall draft pick in 2005 who struggled at his original position of third base, but once he moved to the outfield, he finally became the middle of the order bat (and gold glove defender) they were looking for. Left field has been somewhat of a revolving door for the Orioles: Steve Pearce spent some time there before first baseman Chris Davis was suspended for attention-enhancing drugs, Nelson Cruz and Delmon Young were stashed there when not DH'ing, and David Lough is a popular defensive replacement type. De Aza was deemed expendable by the White Sox after OPS'ing .663 for them through his first 122 games, but after the trade, he busted out to the tune of and .877 OPS and hitting 3 of his 5 2014 HR's in just 20 games. A high upside player for sure, but not nearly as dependable.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

CF: Lorenzo Cain vs. Adam Jones
Cain was just recently promoted to the #3 spot in the batting order, but his main assets are his speed (28 SB in 33 tries) and defense (2.7 defensive rWAR). Meanwhile, Adam Jones is coming off three straight All-Star appearances, and while he won gold glove awards the last two years, the metrics say that he really didn't deserve them. In fact, the two are neck and neck in overall rWAR (5.0 for Cain, 4.9 for Jones), but as I mentioned above, more than half of Cain's were because of his glove whereas all but 0.3 came from Jones's bat. And a right-handed hitter who can threaten 30 homers a year while playing a difficult defensive position is a rare talent indeed.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

RF: Nori Aoki vs. Nick Markakis
Both of these guys were their teams' leadoff hitters for most of the year, until Aoki was bumped to second in the order in favor of Alcides Escobar. I'm not holding that move against him (even though I'm not sure why a guy with 1 home run and a .710 OPS should hit in a spot where you probably should have your best hitter on the team), I'm just not really sure what Aoki brings to the table except a strong hitting for average tool and (wait for it) the ability to lay down bunts. Markakis gets on base at about the same clip (.342 against Aoki's .349) and he at least has some power (he hit 14 home runs this year, pretty close to his 162 game average of 17, plus one in the division series). He also out-WAR'd the competition 2 to 1.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

DH: Billy Butler vs. Nelson Cruz
Nelson Cruz is living proof that you can make the most out of your second chance. Just a year after being suspended for using actual performance enhancing drugs, he signed a one year deal to prove he can play un-juiced and responded by leading the AL in home runs. Butler made a lot of headlines when he stole his first base since 2012 in the playoffs, but if you're a DH and you're clogging up the basepaths and you're not hitting home runs, then you're doing it wrong.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

SP1: James Shields vs. Chris Tillman
Although Chris Tillman has had a very consistent last couple of years (he averaged 33 starts, 206 innings, and a 3.52 ERA since 2013), he's honestly not an ace on many teams, let alone many of these playoff teams. Plus, James Shields has been averaging 33 starts, 223 innings, and a 3.64 ERA for the past 8 (eight) years. He is the very model of consistency, has a reputation for coming up big in the clutch (when he's not being pulled for a reliever in head-scratching situations), and will enjoy making many millions of dollars while pitching for the Yankees or Red Sox next year.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

SP2: Yordano Ventura vs. Wei-Yin Chen
Here we have a battle between the electrifying rookie fireballer and the command and control soft-tossing lefty. Not that 91 mph is Jamie Moyer-esque, but neither is it 97 mph. As you might imagine, the 23-year-old Ventura has struggled with the walk (69 allowed vs. just 35), while the 28-year-old Chen has struggled with the long ball (23 allowed, or 1.1 per nine innings, vs. 14 - 0.7 per 9). Of course Kansas City doesn't hit a lot of home runs (their 95 on the year was last in the league), but neither does Baltimore take a lot of walks (their 401 was ahead of only the Mariners and... the Royals). It's a very tough decision, but I think I have to go with the upside of the young phenom.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

SP3: Jason Vargas vs. Bud Norris
Vargas is another soft-tossing lefty (I think an 87.3 mph average fastball velocity definitely qualifies) and while Norris is by no means an electrifying rookie fireballer, he still throws hard (93.4 mph average) with a good slider and has seemed to respond well to his first taste of playing in the postseason, having shut out the powerful Tigers over 6 innings in his only playoff appearance. Vargas also pitched 6 innings against the Angels, but he gave up two runs and struck out only two, while Norris punched out one per inning. By the way, I always feel like "Bud" should be short for something like "Budrick" - but it turns out Budrick is not a real thing and Norris's first name is actually David.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

SP4: Danny Duffy/Jeremy Guthrie vs. Miguel Gonzalez/Kevin Gausman
I listed both the fourth and fifth starters under this heading because, as you know, I'm totally obsessed with the short starter/long reliever strategy when you don't have four dominant pitchers in your rotation, which I would say is definitely the norm. But even though no major league managers seem to share my views, I'm going to evaluate them as a team. Duffy and Gonzalez both severely outperformed their FIP's (Duffy's 2.53 ERA should have been closer to 3.83, but Gonzalez 3.23 should have been 4.89) and they both have pretty similar peripherals. Also, Duffy is coming off some missed time in September, so it's not clear how long he'll be able to go in a start. If we start getting into Guthrie territory, the choice is clear.
ADVANTAGE: BAL

CL: Greg Holland vs. Zach Britton
Britton has pitched brilliantly since winning the closer's spot from Tommy Hunter in early May (37 saves with a 1.65 ERA and 60 strikeouts). But Greg Holland is the best right handed closer in the game, no questions asked: he saved 9 more games, with an ERA 21 points lower (yes, LOWER than 1.65), and struck out 30 more batters.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

RP: Wade Davis/Kelvin Herrera/Brandon Finnegan vs. Darren O'Day/Tommy Hunter/Justin Miller
I thought this would be an easy pick, since Wade Davis had one of the most dominant seasons for a relief pitcher maybe ever (1.00 ERA, 72 innings pitched, 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings, better than Holland), but Darren O'Day has been no slouch himself (1.71 ERA in 68 innings with 9.6 K/9). Tommy Hunter obviously flamed out in the closer's role, but he has been very serviceable since, and while Kelvin Herrera throws gas, he has shown some vulnerability in the playoffs. Andrew Miller might be one of the most desirable relief pitching commodities going into the offseason free agent fest, but 2014 first round pick Brandon Finnegan, despite only 7 innings in 2014, is looking like he might turn into this year's Francisco Rodriguez. Plus, come on, Wade Davis, man. Unfair.
ADVANTAGE: KCR

Pretty one-sided in terms of which team has the best positional matchups, but as you know, baseball is not a game of matchups. It is a game of moments and momentum, of making the right plays at the right times and having everyone on the team rise to the occasion together. Either way, this series promises to be a lot of fun, and I will definitely be pulling for whoever wins here to go on and win the World Series. Hopefully my support doesn't curse them like it has seemed to curse the A's, but I figure it's better to speak my mind than to be superstitious.

Enjoy the ALCS tonight at 8pm ET on TBS: Very Funny!

NLCS 2014: Position-by-Position Preview

For two brief outs, it looked as if at least one of my predictions for Game 4 of the NLDS would prove accurate. Gio Gonzalez had made it through four strong innings for the Nationals, and in came Tanner Roark - by all accounts the superior pitcher this year - for some (ostensibly) long relief. Roark could not hold down the fort, however, giving up two hits and loading the bases before giving way to lefty Jerry Blevins after just 2/3 of an inning. Who knows if Washington manager had planned to leave Roark in for multiple innings as I suspected he would, but sometimes the best laid plans don't turn out how you expect.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, Bruce Bochy yanked his starter Ryan Vogelsong with two outs and nobody on in the sixth for lefty specialist Javier Lopez, who did his job. But then rather than giving 2014 no-hitter author Tim Lincecum the shot at a three-inning save, he went with rookie Hunter Strickland, who promptly gave up a game-tying home run to Bryce Harper. The Giants ended up winning on a wild pitch by Washington's fifth pitcher of the night Aaron Barrett, and advance to the NLCS without The Freak having thrown a single pitch in the Division Series. Have we seen some of the weirdest deployments of bullpen weapons of all time in this postseason so far or am I imagining it all? Either way, let's look ahead at the National League's championship series by doing one of my favorite playoff tropes: going position by position.

Cardinals vs. Giants

C: Yadier Molina vs. Buster Posey

It's not really fair to compare these two players either offensively or defensively, because they are very likely the best at their positions in those respective categories. Molina has had a tough injury-plagued year, but both his pitch framing skills and ability to throw out potential base stealers (he led the league with 48% of runners gunned down) can have a big impact on a game. Posey's offensive production can be favorably compared to Matt Holliday, by far the Cardinals' most dangerous hitter, and that's coming from a typically offense-light position. It's close, but I'm going to have to give it to the bat here.

ADVANTAGE: SFG

1B: Matt Adams vs. Brandon Belt

Talk about tough injury-plagued years: Belt got off to a hot start to the year, but was never the same after breaking his thumb in May. Adams, meanwhile, just singlehandedly put his team into the next round by doing the unthinkable: hitting a home run off a Clayton Kershaw curveball as a left-handed hitter. In this case, both the momentum and the full-season track record are clear.

ADVANTAGE: STL

2B: Kolten Wong vs. Joe Panik

It's the battle of the rookies! Both of these youngsters unseated veteran counterparts - although most pundits believed Wong would start for St. Louis over Mark Ellis, and Marco Scutaro played exactly five games for the Giants - and both performed well down the stretch. But here the stats speak for themselves: though Panik has a stronger OPS (.711 to .680), Wong has advantage in HR (12 to 1), SB (20 to 0), and rWAR (2.2 to 1.1).

ADVANTAGE: STL

3B: Matt Carpenter vs. Pablo Sandoval

These guys have both been incredibly clutch throughout this entire postseason. Carpenter hit three home runs against the Dodgers, but Sandoval had that huge ninth-inning RBI double to send game 2 into extra innings. This one is also close, but I have to give it to Carpenter based on his recent power surge and eye-popping plate discipline (he led the league with 95 walks).

ADVANTAGE: STL

SS: Jhonny Peralta vs. Brandon Crawford

Crawford did hit that grand slam that pretty much locked down the Wild Card game, but isn't known for hitting home runs in general (also his hair is kind of gross, but that's just one blogger's opinion). Peralta does have a (rather infamous) track record as a power hitter, and definitely is in a position to contribute more for his club as the playoffs continue.

ADVANTAGE: STL

LF: Matt Holliday vs. Travis Ishikawa/Juan Perez/Michael Morse maybe?

As I mentioned earlier, Holliday is clearly St. Louis's biggest offensive threat, so there's no question he beats out whatever replacement level scrubs the Giants can trot out while Morse recovers from his oblique strain. Even if San Francisco's opening day left fielder is be ready to play in the NLCS, he still doesn't bring the same production that Holliday does.

ADVANTAGE: STL

CF: Jon Jay vs. Gregor Blanco

In a perfect world, the Giants would have Angel Pagan out here and in the leadoff spot with Blanco filling in for Morse in left. As it stands though, these two are basically the same exact player: they both hit (and throw) left handed, they're both glove-first fourth outfielder types, they both hit for decent average but very little power, and they even ranked within 10 spots of each other according to MLB's preseason rankings (441 for Jay, 433 for Blanco). Jay has slightly more offensive prowess (.750 OPS vs. .707) but Blanco has more speed (16 SB in 21 tries vs. 6 in 9), and based on the fact that San Francisco trusts him enough to fill in as their leadoff hitter, I'm gonna have to give him the nod here.

ADVANTAGE: SFG

RF: Hunter Pence vs. Randal Grichuk

Ah, the David Freese trade is immediately paying dividends. After trading Allen Craig to the Red Sox and watching Oscar Taveras struggle at the plate, the Cardinals slotted the rookie (and #12 on the organizational prospects list) Grichuk into RF, where he put up three home runs and a .678 OPS in 47 games. Pence vs. Holliday would have been close, but this matchup is quite figuratively a no-brainer.

ADVANTAGE: SFG

SP1: Adam Wainwright vs. Madison Bumgarner

The Giants haven't announced whether Bumgarner will start on Saturday after having pitched the Wild Card game and Game 3 of the NLDS last Monday, but either way, these are the two staff aces and deserve to be compared as such. It's hard to put any NL pitcher not named Kershaw or Cueto up against the likes of Wainwright and expect them to come out on top, but MadBum has quietly turned himself into an elite starter. Wainwright has a 200 point edge in swp (to the tune of 10 ppg) and a full 2 more rWAR (6.1 to 4.0), but Bumgarner has a better K/BB ratio (5.09 to 3.58) and nearly as many complete games/shutouts (4/2 to 5/3). If these two do square up against each other in Game 1, that will be a marquee matchup indeed.

ADVANTAGE: STL

SP2: Lance Lynn vs. Jake Peavy

Did you see Peavy pitch Game 1 of the NLDS? He looked not only sharp stuff-wise, but fired up as can be. I mean, this is a guy who is excited to be back in the postseason and it shows. Lynn has flown under the radar to put up some great numbers this year (2.74 ERA, 181 strikeouts in more than 200 innings), but Peavy was dominant since he came over to the Giants at the deadline (2.17 ERA, 6 of his 7 wins on the year), and I think you have to tip your hat to the veteran exuberance on this one.

ADVANTAGE: SFG

SP3: John Lackey vs. Tim Hudson

Here's another ex-Red Sox pitcher brought in specifically for the playoff push, but this time he's playing for St. Louis. Lackey's numbers haven't been as eye-popping as Peavy's since coming to his new team (4.30 ERA, 3-3 record), but he is the PPP to end all PPP's with a career 2.92 postseason ERA in 17 starts, including the seven innings of one-run ball he threw against Los Angeles in the NLDS. Believe it or not, Tim Hudson just won his first ever postseason series at age 38 (remember he played on those famous-for-choking early 2000's Oakland A's teams) and he definitely contributed with his own seven inning, one-run performance against Washington. I think in this battle of veterans, I'm going to give advantage to the one who's slightly younger and has slightly more postseason experience.

ADVANTAGE: STL

SP4: Shelby Miller vs. Ryan Vogelsong

I guess Mike Matheny has determined that Michael Wacha hasn't sufficiently recovered from his late season injury to earn a starting spot here, despite the fact that he was lights out in the 2013 playoffs (4-1 with a 2.63 ERA in 5 starts). Shelby Miller was the opposite of that, giving up a run in his only postseason inning last year, but he pitched decently enough in the NLDS, and he did have a solid year in 2014. Ryan Vogelsong is nothing special, but Bruce Bochy does have long man Tim Lincecum waiting in the 'pen for a potential short start/long relief situation that... oh, never mind, you've heard this before.

ADVANTAGE: SFG

CL: Trevor Rosenthal vs. Santiago Casilla

Every time Rosenthal gets on the mound he just exudes the feeling that he's going to give up some baserunners. I know that the ninth inning is no joke and the pressure must be even more insane in the postseason, and I know he saved 45 games this year, but there is something to be said about that lights-out confidence that a great closer *cough Greg Holland* should have. But on the other hand it's not like Santiago Casilla inspires that much great confidence: if he did, he likely would have started the season as the Giants closer over Sergio Romo. When in doubt, I have to give the nod to the guy who's had the job all year.

ADVANTAGE: STL

RP's: Pat Neshek, Seth Maness, Randy Choate vs. Sergio Romo, Jean Machi, Jeremy Affeldt

This is a close matchup too. Romo is the former closer but Neshek is the All-Star with an ERA under 2. Maness and Machi are basically the RP versions of Jay and Blanco: both righties with much better ERA's than FIP's (2.91 vs. 3.38 for Maness, 2.58 vs. 3.43 for Machi). Choate and Affeldt are LOOGYs to the extreme. It's even a push when it comes to the long relievers: San Francisco has erstwhile starter Yusmeiro Petit, but St. Louis can counter with hard throwing Carlos Martinez.

ADVANTAGE: PUSH

So these are my opinions on how the two teams facing off for the NL Pennant stack up against one another. Stay tuned tomorrow as I try to complete a preview for the AL version before the game starts at 8pm ET.