October 21, 2006
World Series Preview
The Cardinals and Tigers get underway tonight, and it sure looks like the Tigers own an advantage. (In all the tables, ranks are the team's rank in its own league.)
| 2006 (League Ranks) | Cardinals | Tigers |
| Runs per Game | 4.85 (6th) | 5.07 (5th) |
| ERA | 4.54 (9th) | 3.84 (1st) |
The offenses are pretty even when you consider the Cardinals bat a pitcher most of the season. Detroit's pitching staff stands head and shoulders above the Cardinals, however. I do have one caveat when it comes to the pitching however, but let's take a closer look at the offense first.
| 2006 (League Ranks) | Cardinals | Tigers |
| Batting Average | .269 (4th) | .274 (9th) |
| OBA | .337 (5th) | .329 (12th) |
| Slugging Percentage | .431 (8th) | .449 (5th) |
The Cardinals are better at getting on base, the Tigers are better at hitting for power. Please note that this is very close to how the Cardinals and Mets offense stacked up. That's the caveat. The Cardinals pitchers were able to contain New York's hitters, allowing just 27 runs in four games.
But the Cardinals offense wasn't great. The scored just 28 runs in the NLCS against a depleted Mets pitching staff. With Pujols, Edmonds and Rolen all injured, the big three Cardinals just aren't that fearsome.
Now for the pitching:
| 2006 (League Ranks) | Cardinals | Tigers |
| Batting Average Allowed | .268 (9th) | .257 (2nd) |
| OBA Allowed | .337 (7th) | .321 (3rd) |
| Slugging Percentage Allowed | .443 (13th) | .405 (2nd) |
Detroit posted the best ERA in the majors, not just the AL. As you can see they earned that rank by keeping batters off base and limiting their power. The low batting average allowed indicates a solid defense, and in fact the Tigers were the only AL team to turn more than 70% of fieldable balls in play into outs.
Extra-base hits represent the Cardinals biggest weakness as a staff, which plays into the Tigers biggest strength as hitters. This was true for the Mets series, and while New York hit seven home runs in that series, four came with the bases empty.
As discussed last night, the seven game series with rain outs forced the Cardinals to start the World Series with their #4 starter. Unless La Russa is willing to bring back his three other starters on short rest, the Tigers will see Reyes twice and Suppan once, which just increases the pitching advantage for Detroit.
And none of that takes into account the superior Detroit bullpen. They allowed fewer home runs and took advantage of the great Tigers defense, allowing many fewer hits. The Cardinals were a bit better at getting the strikeout, however,
So what I see is a St. Louis team that shut down a very good Mets offense facing a very similar one in Detroit. However, the Cardinals were not really able to take advantage of a depleted Mets staff due to injuries to the best hitters on St. Louis. The Detroit staff is healthy, rested and very good. The Tigers may very well be held to four runs a game, but that's going to be enough to win. It looks to me that the Tigers have about a 75% chance of winning this series. However, a low scoring series allows more of a chance for random events to affect the outcome. All the home runs Oliver Perez allowed in game four of the NLCS didn't matter, because the Mets stacked up a huge lead. But Yadier Molina's home run in game seven and Carlos Beltran's home run in game one were the difference in those low scoring games.
Since the indication to me is this will be a low scoring series, I'm pulling the odds down to 60% in favor of the Tigers. There's just too many things that can go wrong when teams don't put many runs on the board.
Regarding this being a low scoring series. Detroit has scored 44 runs in 8 games this postseason which comes out to 5.5 runs per game. They've done this off the teams that rank 7th and 12th in the majors in ERA, while St. Louis comes in at 16th this year.
The Tiger offense is on a roll. Is there any reason to think that they will fare worse against an even worse pitching staff?
Here is the Tigers hitting line as a team in the postseason: .297 BA, .353 OBP, .514 SLG
That OPS is nearly 200 points higher than what their pitchers have allowed.