I Can Predict the Future

Admittedly, it's a small sample size - but what did I say yesterday? That the NLCS was going to be decided based on which team's lineup hit better beyond its superstars (STL's Murderers' Row of Pujols/Berkman/Holliday; MIL's 1-2 Punch of Braun/Fielder). Well, Milwaukee won Game 1 yesterday, 9-6...and the numbers don't lie.

*Rest of Cardinals' Lineup: 4-23 (.174), 5 runs, 3 RBIs
Rest of Brewers' Lineup: 8-27 (.296), 6 runs, 3 RBIs

*Granted, the Cardinals have one less batter with which to match up against the Brewers here. But it's the principle of the thing.
 
So yeah. At least in Game 1, my theory was given some weight. I'll keep tracking this, because A) I want to be proven right, and B) I'm now curious to find out if I in fact was right.

NLCS Preview

I'll just get right to it then, seeing as the game starts in 40 minutes (from the time I'm writing this sentence).

2.5 Outta 4 Ain't Bad

Well, I nailed the ALDS predictions exactly. Can't say the same about the NLDS. Correctly picked the Brewers to win, but the Dbacks took them one game further than I thought they would. And I was all kinds of wrong about the Phillies-Cardinals. But happily so - I like the Phillies, but I like the Cardinals too and was happy to see the underdog win. Bud Selig and his cronies must be simultaneously ecstatic and scared out of their minds. For as much as the final 4 teams prove all his arguments about parity...there are no East Coast teams left. The likely favorite to come out of the NL plays in the MLB's smallest market. The TV ratings from here on out, no matter the World Series matchup, might well reach historically bad levels. So as great as these matchups are in terms of competitive balance, they couldn't have turned out much worse from a business standpoint. Selig should at least be happy, however, that the Rangers managed to take care of the Rays - the Rays may be on the East Coast, but their own fans *generally* don't care about them.

Interesting note - the 4 teams left were the 4 middle playoff teams in terms of payroll. As a result, the average payroll of the remaining teams has dropped to $97.2 - which would have put them at 13th this year if they were a real team ($6 million behind the mediocre Dodgers and $5 million ahead of the Rangers). Just a nifty tidbit.

They Think WHO Should Manage The Red Sox?

In the wake of Tito's being let go by the Sox today, ESPNBoston ran a piece listing off some of the possible candidates for the newly-vacant manager position. The biggest names thrown out by Joe McDonald & Gordon Edes were Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Valentine. This was (and as of 2 minutes ago, still is) the graphic that ran with the article on the front page:

I see Torre. I see La Russa. But I don't see Valentine. And I could not, for the life of me, figure out for the longest time who the guy in the middle was despite knowing his face very well - except that it wasn't Bobby Valentine, or for that matter, anybody else listed in the article. 5 minutes ago, I realized who that is - and now I wonder why ESPNBoston is apparently trying to indicate that Bobby Cox is a possible candidate to be the new manager of the Red Sox.

That's going to be embarrassing for someone when they catch whoever screwed up.

About Last Night...

Robert Bleeping Andino.

No, actually I'm not going to talk about last night. It's still too raw. I'll leave it to these guys - Joe Posnanski, Tom Verducci, and Jon Paul Morosi - who put it in much better terms than I ever could. Scroll down far enough on Mr. Posnanski's, and you'll notice a familiar name among the comments.

What I'm really going to do is do a quick rundown of the first round of the playoffs. You may remember that last year, I attempted to show why baseball didn't need a salary cap - using the payrolls of the playoff teams as my examples. That was so much fun that, before I offer up a quickie preview/prediction of each divisional series, I'm going to do it again.

The Next Level of Live Blogging

Devoted readers of this blog may remember my last attempt at a live blog - Election Night, 2008. It was a rousing success at keeping track of what went on that night, and it still serves as a reminder of all the historic events that unfolded. Unfortunately, it also serves as a reminder of two things - 1) all the inanities served up as analysis by the news networks, and 2) the fact that it wasn't actually a live blog. It was more of a running diary that I published after the fact.

Back Again

Yes, that's right. I'm back - again. And this time I mean business. Why, you ask?* Why, Sean, are you back - you're at grad school. Doesn't that take up most of your time?

*All three of you that will likely read this. Just go with it, for now. I like pretending that more than myself and maybe a random Google bot read this every now and then. Give it time.

You'd be correct, I am at grad school. It does take up most of my time. As I've proven over the years, I am not the greatest at keeping this blog updated even when I do have free time. However, there's a game-changing difference this time around - another blog.