Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 28, 2006
Boring Post Season

This certainly wasn't the most inspiring of post seasons. Only one series was truly competitive. Only the Mets and Padres won a game facing elimination. Of a possible 41 games, 30 were played. There was a distinct lack of drama.

There were no huge managerial goofs. The biggest one I thought was not starting Bonderman in game 1 of the World Series, but it's not clear it would have made a difference. No one obviously left a starter in too long or used the bullpen ineffectively.

Jeff Weaver and Kenny Rogers were good redemption stories, at least Rogers was until he was suspected of cheating. Weaver very likely saved his career, adding to Dave Duncan's legend.

And it's good to see Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen win a series. Edmonds is running out of time in his career, and the injuries he sustained this season make me wonder how long he'll go on. Rolen is one of the great third basemen, and I'd hate to see Pujols go through his career like Barry Bonds or Ted Williams, a great hitter who never won a championship.

But given the dramatic series and great stories from 2001 on, this post season paled in comparison. And that's all right. Sometimes, you need a boring year to remind you of the greatness of years like 1986.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:49 AM | Post Season | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The Cards won an elimination game in the LCS vs the Mets.

In the past I've thought, and still do, that home field advantage is important because of the advantage during extra innings but this postseason every team except for the Dodgers won their series without home field advantage.

It's been an enjoyable season.

Posted by: Basura at October 28, 2006 11:37 AM

The postseason managerial "goofs" that I think of the most was Willie Randolph not bunting in the 9th inning in game 7 of the NLCS and Jim Leyland pitching to Pujols in game 1 rather than walking him.

Posted by: Mark at October 28, 2006 11:55 AM

David, it's not just that a lot of series didn't go the distance, it's that three were sweeps (OAK-MIN, DET-OAK, NYM-LA) and three more only involved one extra game (DET-NYY, STL-SD, STL-DET). A postseason has a minimum of 24 games; this one only had 30, and of the superfluous six, five featured the Cardinals (3 vs. NYM, 1 vs. SD, 1 vs. DET).

Also, a lot of postseason picks went backwards: there was more than a little smart money on NYY, MIN, SD, and LA (after the Mets rotation kept shrinking), none of whom won. Then the A's and Mets were popular picks. Both lost. Then the Tigers were favored. They lost. Weird, eh?

Posted by: Chris at October 28, 2006 12:38 PM

It was definitely not a boring postseason for STL fans. Every game between the Mets and the Cardinals was exciting, and not just because I'm a cardinals fan; they were great baseball, for the most part. Same with the cards vs the padres. And the WS games were almost all close enough to go the other way with one swing of the bat.

I guess I'm just at a loss as to what kind of "great stories" you were looking for. $200M Yankees overwhelm everyone? Obviously superior AL wins again? Just the fact that the NL won should be a story on par with "red sox win" in '04. Remember the "Tigers in 3" BS we had to deal with?

It was a great year for the underdogs, as Chris said. None of the expert's predictions had the Cards winning it all, and only one had the Tigers. That's a great baseball story all by itself.

Posted by: sleepyca at October 28, 2006 01:15 PM

Good point. How would a team follow up Mariano Rivera having a human moment in the 9th in a 7th game ...and then a rally monkey ...and then a $150,000,000 team being beat by a $49,000,000 team ...and then a Red Sox championship ...and then a White Sox championship. I think only the Cubbies or Devil rays could've followed up well on that series of stories. But hey, the Cardinals are now the 2nd team in history with double-digit championships. That's pretty cool.

Posted by: Devon at October 28, 2006 01:35 PM

I'm happy to see all the ex-Angels on the Cards get wins. Jim Edmonds was a big part of the Halos and left too early to share in the championship year. And who can't love little David Eckstein winning the series MVP?

Posted by: Adam Villani at October 28, 2006 03:57 PM

I guess i'm in the minority here, as I am not happy in any way the Cardinals won.
I don't particularly enjoy "scrappy" ballplayers like Eckstien, and Pujols is so surly I hoped he never won a championship.
I'm also damn tired of hearing how St. Louis fans are better than the rest of us from publications like Sports Illustrated.
So I'm sorry guys- enjoy your championship like you should. I'll just deal with it and write off this season as an overall disappointment.

Posted by: Bobb Decker at October 28, 2006 06:32 PM

shut up Bob, go jack ur millimeter peter off....

Posted by: Bobb Decker has a small weiner at October 29, 2006 07:45 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?