plus the a's have good pitching and d, so they win with anemic offenses. In the playoffs, that advantage decreases. The A's are the dodgers of the 60's, but they don't have wills.
The A's weren't a pitching team in 00 and 01? They didn't have a good defense? My point is the A's rarely play small ball, of creating action on the field. that's all, in those years especially. Now obp is a major part of small ball btw, they've always been station to station. The post is about why they don't win in the playoffs, especially in 1 or 2 run games in the playoffs.
Read that quote of yours I isolated out. If your point was to show that they don't play small ball, then how does that fit into your point? All I said was that they didn't have anemic offenses in 2000 and 2001 and still lost.
As for the lack of small ball causing them to lose, stu gave us Retrosheet to look it up and provide examples. Would you mind verifying your statement with examples?
I concede to the fact that I probably bought into the main stream media's take on why the A's don't win in the playoffs. The more I look at posts here and do more research it seems like things are more of a luck than anything in the playoffs and the A's just happen to have had bad luck.
Well I'm always careful with the "luck" and "crapshoot" comments because it can easily give the wrong impression. It takes skill and talent to win a baseball series and the teams that win most often are the ones who played better.
The luck has to do more with the major fluxuation the sport seems to produce in a players outcome over the short term and trying to nail that down and disect it. You can't account for when a Billy Hatcher will hit .700 over a series or Barry Bonds will disappear.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject:
Quote:
OTOH, I think a team never (well hardly ever) bunting or stealing hurts them and hurts them where the odds for winning are about even (which is usally the case in the playoffs). The third baseman can play back a little more, the first baseman can move off the bag a little faster. The infielders can hold their positions and maybe not move as close to the bags.
All of this stuff gives minor edges to teams that mix up their strategies. Tango's The Book emphasizes that, like poker, doing the same thing repeatedly is a bad strategy.
All of the bone head plays listed by Dylan make me wonder if the lack of emphasis on "little ball" made the A's a dumb team. You would not have expected a little ball type player to make those types of bonehead moves. Maybe the lack of emphasis on fundamentals leads a little to ignoring the little aspects of the game.
The answer maybe in there fwiw. I don't think they're a dumb team, ever, quite the opposite. The A's under Beane have always been more station to station, just his (Beane's) style.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:38 pm Post subject:
Another thing to consider, I made the specific example of the way the tigers came out against Zito, where they were aggressive, trying to hit the gaps.How often have you seen, or heard about the A's employing that?
Now I did give an example of the way Frank Thomas came out against Johan, during the playoff, consciously being aggressive and pulling the ball, probably sitting on his change. He homered.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject:
Quote:
I agree with this list except that I believe Dombrowski and Beinfest should be somewhere on there. I'd probably take out Cashman for sure. The other one is tricky. I'm tempted to say Stoneman because of the recent GMJ signing, but I'll go with our own Josh Byrnes. It's simply too early to say he's a top 10 GM, though I certainly agree that he is better than our old GM by miles.
Welcome to the board, dback09
I wouldn't rank Stoneman or Cashman that high either, but no quibbles 1-8
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:41 pm Post subject:
Dylan wrote:
Dangerfield wrote:
Dylan wrote:
Dangerfield wrote:
plus the a's have good pitching and d, so they win with anemic offenses. In the playoffs, that advantage decreases. The A's are the dodgers of the 60's, but they don't have wills.
The A's weren't a pitching team in 00 and 01? They didn't have a good defense? My point is the A's rarely play small ball, of creating action on the field. that's all, in those years especially. Now obp is a major part of small ball btw, they've always been station to station. The post is about why they don't win in the playoffs, especially in 1 or 2 run games in the playoffs.
Read that quote of yours I isolated out. If your point was to show that they don't play small ball, then how does that fit into your point? All I said was that they didn't have anemic offenses in 2000 and 2001 and still lost.
As for the lack of small ball causing them to lose, stu gave us Retrosheet to look it up and provide examples. Would you mind verifying your statement with examples?
The tough thing, going back to these things, you can't prove it. Could Damon of tried to bunt against Rivera, going back through game situations, even with my semi-photographic memory, its next to impossible to prove. Now, its not impossible to prove that yes, the A's have Beane, have always been station to station.
Now let's talk about protection, and how Giambi was probably pitched around during those games in high energy situations.
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Another thing to consider, I made the specific example of the way the tigers came out against Zito, where they were aggressive, trying to hit the gaps.How often have you seen, or heard about the A's employing that?
Yet that same agressiveness seriously hurt them in the WS against StL. Only one game, the one they won, did they get the pitcher out before the 6th inning and there were 3 games where the StL pitcher went 8 IP and didn't hit 100 pitches. This is my point, you can say that the A's should have been more agressive, but you can't say that being more agressive is the way to approach the playoffs because it seriously hurt Det to be such.
plus the a's have good pitching and d, so they win with anemic offenses. In the playoffs, that advantage decreases. The A's are the dodgers of the 60's, but they don't have wills.
The A's weren't a pitching team in 00 and 01? They didn't have a good defense? My point is the A's rarely play small ball, of creating action on the field. that's all, in those years especially. Now obp is a major part of small ball btw, they've always been station to station. The post is about why they don't win in the playoffs, especially in 1 or 2 run games in the playoffs.
Read that quote of yours I isolated out. If your point was to show that they don't play small ball, then how does that fit into your point? All I said was that they didn't have anemic offenses in 2000 and 2001 and still lost.
As for the lack of small ball causing them to lose, stu gave us Retrosheet to look it up and provide examples. Would you mind verifying your statement with examples?
The tough thing, going back to these things, you can't prove it. Could Damon of tried to bunt against Rivera, going back through game situations, even with my semi-photographic memory, its next to impossible to prove. Now, its not impossible to prove that yes, the A's have Beane, have always been station to station.
Now let's talk about protection, and how Giambi was probably pitched around during those games in high energy situations.
Well you're adressing cause or corallation. You're saying the station to station had an effect (adversely) and it is up to you to prove that or at least offer up data beyond conjecture that it might be true. Surely we can agree on some generic situations of when to steal a base or when to sac bunt or ect.. Hell we can even play the obviously flawed Bill James game of looking at the batters after to see if a productive out would have helped or not, but unless you offer something we can actually look at you're point is lost and not convincing.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject:
Dylan wrote:
Dangerfield wrote:
Another thing to consider, I made the specific example of the way the tigers came out against Zito, where they were aggressive, trying to hit the gaps.How often have you seen, or heard about the A's employing that?
Yet that same agressiveness seriously hurt them in the WS against StL. Only one game, the one they won, did they get the pitcher out before the 6th inning and there were 3 games where the StL pitcher went 8 IP and didn't hit 100 pitches. This is my point, you can say that the A's should have been more agressive, but you can't say that being more agressive is the way to approach the playoffs because it seriously hurt Det to be such.
That isn't what hurt them, what hurt the Tigers is their pitchers couldn't throw to first.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:17 pm Post subject:
Quote:
That isn't what hurt them, what hurt the Tigers is their pitchers couldn't throw to first.
The Tigers hit .199/.237/.335 in the World Series, walking just 8 times while striking out 37 times in 161 at bats. They scored only 11 runs in 5 games.
What the hell did their pitchers throwing woes have to do with their hitting in the W.S.???
Yet that same agressiveness seriously hurt them in the WS against StL. Only one game, the one they won, did they get the pitcher out before the 6th inning and there were 3 games where the StL pitcher went 8 IP and didn't hit 100 pitches.
That isn't what hurt them, what hurt the Tigers is their pitchers couldn't throw to first.
The pitcher errors were the obvious bone crushers; however, Dylan is absolutely correct with overall game strategy. Cards pitchers developed a game plan based around expected Tiger hitting aggressiveness, and everything fell into place -- any game that can go straight from the starting pitcher to Wainwright (without putting Looper on the mound) was a huge plus for the Redbirds.
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