Series Rap

Dave Paisley

It's about this time of the baseball season that we baseball fans can thank God for the World Series, secure in the knowledge that, regardless of the outcome, it sure as hell beats the Superbowl. Even a four game sweep has some drama to it over the course of a few days, whereas the average Superbowl is interesting for roughly five minutes, or whenever the fresh chips run out, whichever comes sooner.

So even in a bad year, the World Series is usually interesting to watch. This year, however, it was riveting. There are some who point to the numerous blunders, miscues and bonehead plays and wonder how it can be ranked with the best. Me, I just ask myself if it was fun and interesting to follow, and the answer is a resounding yes. The Series did feature outstanding performances, most by starting pitchers. Clemens, Schilling and Johnson were phenomenal. Mussina was good, as were Anderson and Batista. Pettitte was both good and awful, and El Duque was just erratic.

More so than most years, I really noticed the massive disruption of offense throughout the post-season. No team could crank it into high gear at all. The big offenses never really showed up, except for a handful of games where it showed up in large quantities. Cleveland's drubbing of Seattle in game 3 of the ALDS, Seattle's hammering of the Yankees in game 3 of the ALCS, and the D-Backs thrashing of the Yankees in game 6 of the Series obscured the fact that offense in the other games was really off even more than the totals show.

So it's only fair that the Series MVPs should be the two guys who were the single largest factor in keeping offense to a minimum.

Of course, the post-season features most of the contenders for individual post-season honors, and they'll be coming right up in the next couple of weeks, so I thought I'd take a look at how our regular season MVP and Cy Young candidates performed in the playoffs. Because the losers in the Division Series didn't get to play more than five games (and Houston barely even showed up) I'll show just the numbers for the final four teams.

First, let's take a look at the hitters with at least 10 AB, ranked by OPS:

BATTERS	Team	BA	SLG	OBA	OPS	G	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	E
Durazo	Az	.333	.600	.444	1.044	7	15	1	5	1	1	3	3	5	0	0	0
Jones, C.	Atl	.321	.571	.441	1.012	8	28	3	9	1	2	7	6	7	0	1	1
Suzuki	Sea	.421	.474	.488	.962	10	38	7	16	2	0	3	5	4	3	2	1
Finley	Az	.365	.462	.441	.903	17	52	7	19	2	1	8	7	8	1	1	0
Bautista	Az	.364	.455	.417	.872	10	22	3	8	2	0	9	2	3	0	0	0
Jones, A.	Atl	.310	.517	.333	.850	8	29	6	9	0	2	2	1	8	0	0	0
O'Neill	NYY	.289	.500	.341	.841	13	38	4	11	2	2	3	3	2	1	0	0
Posada	NYY	.273	.436	.394	.830	17	55	9	15	3	2	3	11	17	1	0	1
Williams, B.	NYY	.220	.441	.352	.793	17	59	10	13	4	3	11	12	13	0	2	1
Cameron	Sea	.200	.429	.349	.778	10	35	5	7	5	1	3	6	11	0	1	0
Martinez	Sea	.222	.444	.333	.777	10	36	4	8	2	2	5	6	8	1	0	0
Grace	Az	.286	.388	.386	.774	15	49	2	14	2	1	4	8	5	0	0	1
Gonzalez	Az	.246	.415	.338	.753	17	65	9	16	2	3	10	6	18	0	0	0
Javier	Sea	.227	.409	.320	.729	9	22	4	5	1	1	2	3	4	1	0	0
Sanders	Az	.259	.352	.375	.727	16	54	10	14	2	1	3	9	15	3	0	0
Franco	Atl	.278	.444	.278	.722	8	36	5	10	0	2	3	0	3	0	1	0
Justice	NYY	.233	.372	.340	.712	14	43	6	10	1	1	5	6	15	0	0	1
Soriano	NYY	.276	.379	.333	.712	17	58	8	16	0	2	7	4	15	4	2	4
Surhoff	Atl	.250	.417	.280	.697	7	24	2	6	1	1	2	0	1	1	1	0
Spencer	NYY	.229	.371	.308	.679	15	35	3	8	2	1	2	4	11	1	0	0
Giles	Atl	.219	.375	.286	.661	8	32	6	7	2	1	2	3	7	0	0	2
Bell, D.	Sea	.250	.375	.265	.640	10	32	3	8	1	1	6	1	9	0	0	1
Womack	Az	.246	.319	.297	.616	16	69	8	17	5	0	4	4	11	1	3	3
Sanchez	Atl	.269	.346	.269	.615	8	26	2	7	2	0	1	0	6	0	0	3
Williams	Az	.217	.333	.279	.612	17	60	4	13	4	1	9	6	13	0	0	4
Counsell	Az	.213	.361	.250	.611	16	61	8	13	3	2	8	2	12	1	0	0
Boone	Sea	.200	.350	.256	.606	10	40	3	8	0	2	6	3	13	1	0	1
Martinez	NYY	.186	.356	.250	.606	16	59	5	11	1	3	8	3	12	0	1	0
Olerud	Sea	.194	.278	.293	.571	10	36	3	7	0	1	4	5	9	0	0	0
Jeter	NYY	.226	.290	.275	.565	17	62	5	14	1	1	4	3	8	0	1	0
Miller	Az	.208	.245	.288	.533	16	53	4	11	2	0	2	4	19	0	0	1
Jordan	Atl	.188	.344	.182	.526	8	32	2	6	2	1	5	0	11	0	1	0
Knoblauch	NYY	.224	.259	.262	.521	16	58	2	13	2	0	4	3	5	1	2	1
McLemore	Sea	.156	.219	.229	.448	10	32	1	5	0	0	6	3	10	0	0	1
Brosius	NYY	.140	.263	.155	.418	17	57	4	8	4	1	6	0	17	0	0	4
Wilson	Sea	.179	.214	.179	.393	9	28	2	5	1	0	0	0	6	0	0	0

The first thing you might notice is that Erubiel Durazo deserved a tad more playing time for the Snakes. Most of those paltry at bats come from his stint as DH in the road games in New York. Sure, Mark Grace did well enough (certainly relative to many of his teammates) but not getting Durazo more ABs was only one of Bob Brenly's million mistakes. It's interesting to see that Chipper Jones, as he had been during the regular season, was the lone Brave cranking out any offense. Kudos to Andruw Jones for providing some additional support in the post-season.

Also, While the Mariner offense flamed out spectacularly, Ichiro Suzuki did not. Say what you will about his slap happy style, it doesn't slump much. He was the only post-season player with more than 10 at bats to hit over .400, and he even threw in five walks to crank out the top post-season OBP. Still not my MVP, but he rose a few notches in my estimation.

Skimming down the list for Yankees, you can see that the best pinstripe performances were by Paul O'Neill, Jorge Posada and Bernie "don't run out ground balls" Williams. All around a .800 OPS, there was nothing too special. Skimming down the list to second from last you'll see Scott Brosius, whose lone shining moment was the game tying home run in game 5. Right in the middle is Alfonso Soriano, whose occasional flashes of power masked a pretty mediocre offensive performance to go with his erratic fielding.

For the Diamondbacks, Steve Finley was the unlikely regular who sparked the offense, leading all post-season hitters with 19 hits, but only three of them for extra bases, though. Danny Bautista did very well in limited action, making one wonder why Brenly couldn't find more playing time for him (anyone sense a theme developing?). Grace and Gonzalez were OK, but Luis was way off from his MVP-like regular season numbers.

Finally, the Mariners were really awful offensively, with three of their main weapons, Martinez, Boone and Olerud almost invisible. All of them were at least .200 points off their regular season OPS numbers, and there was nobody available to pick up the slack.

So, as far as AL MVP candidates go, Jason Giambi only managed to klutz around at first base against the Yankees and show up his teammates on national TV, while Bret Boone just flamed out. If the MVP was based at all on post-season play there would definitely have been a chance for Suzuki to take it away.

In the NL, nobody is taking away that trophy from Bonds.

 

Next, let's take a look at the starting pitching:

Starters	Team	W	L	ERA	G	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	K/BB
Glavine	Atl	2	1	0.90	3	0	20.0	16	4	2	1	7	8	1.1
Schilling	Az	4	0	1.12	6	0	48.1	25	6	6	3	6	56	9.3
Johnson	Az	5	1	1.52	6	0	41.1	25	7	7	2	8	47	5.9
Moyer	Sea	3	0	1.89	3	0	19.0	12	4	4	1	3	15	5.0
Clemens	NYY	1	1	2.36	5	0	26.2	20	7	7	1	12	32	2.7
Batista	Az	1	1	2.49	6	0	21.2	13	6	6	3	8	13	1.6
Mussina	NYY	2	1	2.63	4	0	24.0	19	9	7	5	6	21	3.5
Anderson	Az	1	1	2.84	4	0	12.2	12	4	4	2	4	4	1.0
O. Hernandez	NYY	1	1	3.71	3	0	17.0	17	8	7	2	11	17	1.5
Garcia	Sea	1	2	3.79	3	0	19.0	20	9	8	1	7	19	2.7
Sele	Sea	0	3	4.50	3	0	12.0	16	12	6	3	4	5	1.3
Maddux	Atl	0	2	4.50	3	0	16.0	18	11	8	1	5	12	2.4
Pettitte	NYY	2	3	4.55	5	0	29.2	30	15	15	2	6	21	3.5
Burkett	Atl	1	1	5.06	2	0	10.2	13	7	6	1	4	6	1.5
Abbott	Sea	0	0	9.00	2	0	8.0	9	8	8	3	13	5	0.4
Lopez	Az	0	2	9.95	3	0	6.1	11	7	7	3	4	1	0.3

That's eight guys with significant innings and ERAs under 3.00. Tom Glavine was quietly excellent for the Braves, but got lost in their early exit when teammate Greg Maddux couldn't work his magic.

Schilling and Johnson, 9-1 combined, 1.30 ERA, what more can be said?

Jamie Moyer was really phenomenal for Seattle, winning three of Seattle's four post-season wins this year. Clemens and Mussina were very good, as were the D-Backs fill-ins, Batista and Anderson. Note that the top eight starters feature four from Arizona, two from New York and one each from Seattle and Atlanta. It certainly is the pitching, stupid.

Further down, there's an erratic Orlando Hernandez, a maturing Freddy Garcia, and Aaron Sele, who continues to struggle in the post-season. Then there's Greg Maddux, out of luck this year, and Andy Pettitte, who was emulated the girl with the curl - when he was good he was very good, but when he was bad he was awful. Paul Abbott had two appearances - one was the infamous three inning, eight run relief appearance against Cleveland and the other was the five inning no hitter with eight walks against the Yankees, so who knows how to characterize his post-season?

Overall, no problem handing the NL Cy Young to Johnson or Schilling - preferably Johnson in my book, and with his gritty performances in the playoffs I can't totally begrudge Clemens getting the nod in the AL, as is highly likely.

One final look at the four closers:

Closers	Team	W	L	ERA	G	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	K/BB
Rivera, M.	NYY	2	1	1.13	11	5	16.0	12	4	2	0	2	14	7.0
Smoltz	Atl	0	0	1.29	5	2	7.0	3	1	1	1	0	4	-
Kim	Az	0	1	4.66	6	3	9.2	7	5	5	3	4	10	2.5
Sasaki	Sea	0	1	5.40	4	1	3.1	3	2	2	1	0	5	-

Mariano Rivera - amazing, despite the last minute stumble. John Smoltz - good luck in that closer role. Byung Huyn Kim - wait and see if you can get to play for a manager that has a clue. And finally Kazuhiro Sasaki - enough with the gopher balls already...

about the author

Are you still in therapy from having to listen to Tim "Brain Surgen" McCarver for three weeks straight? Still having nightmares about a possible Yankee comeback in game 8? Lie down right here and tell Dr. Dave Paisley all about it at drdjp@strikethree.com.