Official 2023 Playoff Thread

Enscheff said:
It is a bit ironic that team needs arms most after what we saw the offense do in October.

I also think the "the playoffs are a crapshoot" defense is flimsy at best, and is the type of thing I expect losers to say. I'm not going to be a boomer and claim I know the secret sauce for a team to play well in October, but I refuse to believe the Astros consistently playing well in the playoffs is pure luck. The difference in attitude/demeanor/intensity/whatever between the Braves championship team and the previous 2 early exits were glaringly obvious to anyone watching. In 2021 the Braves were the fired up team on the rail the entire game, while in 2022/2023 they were sitting around like it was a day game in July.

Something involving the intensity of the situation just doesn't seem to be there, but I have no idea what it is or how to address it.
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The Dodgers are not a "fiery" team. Yet they have consistently gone far in the playoffs over the same span. Obviously they haven not been quite as successful, but they are not far behind them.

The real reason the Astros have consistently gone far as they they've just been really, really good. They have finished with the best or 2nd best record in the AL nearly every season since 2017. Another reason for their dominance in the post-season is that they have consistently had 2 elite tier aces over the majority of that span. Unfortunately for us, at least 1 of our elite tier aces have been injured at the start of the last 2 post-seasons.

Last year our pitching sucked but the hitting was pretty good over the series. This year our hitting sucked, but our pitching was pretty good over the series. Meanwhile Philly continues to have a horseshoe stuck up their ass in terms of ****ty hitters hitting like prime Pujols against us and ****ty pitchers pitching like prime Cole Hamels. It also doesn't help that we are handicapped with a terrible manager.
 
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Carp said:
The Dodgers are not a "fiery" team. Yet they have consistently gone far in the playoffs over the same span. Obviously they haven not been quite as successful, but they are not far behind them.

The real reason the Astros have consistently gone far as they they've just been really, really good. They have finished with the best or 2nd best record in the AL nearly every season since 2017. Another reason for their dominance in the post-season is that they have consistently had 2 elite tier aces over the majority of that span. Unfortunately for us, at least 1 of our elite tier aces have been injured at the start of the last 2 post-seasons.

Last year our pitching sucked but the hitting was pretty good over the series. This year our hitting sucked, but our pitching was pretty good over the series. Meanwhile Philly continues to have a horseshoe stuck up their ass in terms of ****ty hitters hitting like prime Pujols against us and ****ty pitchers pitching like prime Cole Hamels. It also doesn't help that we are handicapped with a terrible manager.
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The part in bold is essentially the "roster built for the playoffs" argument. The most glaring example of this was when Schilling/Johnson carried the DBacks to a title. While there may be some validity to that idea of loading the front of the roster for the playoffs, the Braves had that in Fried/Strider. They also not only had star power at the top of the lineup, but they had a historically great lineup from top to bottom.

Like I said, I have no idea how to make Fried and Acuna actually show up in October, but it's becoming hard to continue saying "it's just pure luck, oh well". The Braves falling flat after the all star break and after the post season break feel like the same issue.
 
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Enscheff said:
The part in bold is essentially the "roster built for the playoffs" argument. The most glaring example of this was when Schilling/Johnson carried the DBacks to a title. While there may be some validity to that idea of loading the front of the roster for the playoffs, the Braves had that in Fried/Strider. They also not only had star power at the top of the lineup, but they had a historically great lineup from top to bottom.

Like I said, I have no idea how to make Fried and Acuna actually show up in October, but it's becoming hard to continue saying "it's just pure luck, oh well". The Braves falling flat after the all star break and after the post season break feel like the same issue.
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Acuña, historically, hasn’t had a problem showing up in the postseason. Neither has Fried for that matter.
 
So we are back to the idea that giving the best teams a week off before they start the playoffs is not really an advantage?

That theory seems to be holding true, at least to some extent, over time.

There are certainly exceptions, as there always will be, but seems to be something to it.
 
Enscheff said:
The part in bold is essentially the "roster built for the playoffs" argument. The most glaring example of this was when Schilling/Johnson carried the DBacks to a title. While there may be some validity to that idea of loading the front of the roster for the playoffs, the Braves had that in Fried/Strider. They also not only had star power at the top of the lineup, but they had a historically great lineup from top to bottom.

Like I said, I have no idea how to make Fried and Acuna actually show up in October, but it's becoming hard to continue saying "it's just pure luck, oh well". The Braves falling flat after the all star break and after the post season break feel like the same issue.
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Didn’t the rangers fall flat at the end of the year? Dbacks too?

It is largely a fluke and random
 
Enscheff said:
The part in bold is essentially the "roster built for the playoffs" argument. The most glaring example of this was when Schilling/Johnson carried the DBacks to a title. While there may be some validity to that idea of loading the front of the roster for the playoffs, the Braves had that in Fried/Strider. They also not only had star power at the top of the lineup, but they had a historically great lineup from top to bottom.

Like I said, I have no idea how to make Fried and Acuna actually show up in October, but it's becoming hard to continue saying "it's just pure luck, oh well". The Braves falling flat after the all star break and after the post season break feel like the same issue.
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But it is largely luck. Acuna in Game 4 averaged 106.4 MPH on his first 3 at bats. All outs. Then in his last at bat, with the bases loaded, he cranks one into the gap at 97+ mph and it comes up about 7 feet short of a homer. And the CFer still had to make a nice catch on it. Thems the breaks. And coming into this post-season, Acuna had a career .863 OPS in 111 PAs.

We've talked ad nauseam about the playoff format and being off for 6 days. That's something baseball needs to address.
 
Carp said:
But it is largely luck. Acuna in Game 4 averaged 106.4 MPH on his first 3 at bats. All outs. Then in his last at bat, with the bases loaded, he cranks one into the gap at 97+ mph and it comes up about 7 feet short of a homer. And the CFer still had to make a nice catch on it. Thems the breaks. And coming into this post-season, Acuna had a career .863 OPS in 111 PAs.

We've talked ad nauseam about the playoff format and being off for 6 days. That's something baseball needs to address.
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I imagine they’ll think about this playoff structure once they see the viewership numbers on this World Series.
 
chop2chip said:
I imagine they’ll think about this playoff structure once they see the viewership numbers on this World Series.
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I’ll tune in if I have a chance. No difference if Houston or Philly made it. I think a lot of people will watch because it’s probably a vast majority of carefree fans. Or it will suck because there is no bad guy to root against.
 
Enscheff said:
It is a bit ironic that team needs arms most after what we saw the offense do in October.

I also think the "the playoffs are a crapshoot" defense is flimsy at best, and is the type of thing I expect losers to say. I'm not going to be a boomer and claim I know the secret sauce for a team to play well in October, but I refuse to believe the Astros consistently playing well in the playoffs is pure luck. The difference in attitude/demeanor/intensity/whatever between the Braves championship team and the previous 2 early exits were glaringly obvious to anyone watching. In 2021 the Braves were the fired up team on the rail the entire game, while in 2022/2023 they were sitting around like it was a day game in July.

Something involving the intensity of the situation just doesn't seem to be there, but I have no idea what it is or how to address it.
Click to expand...

The "playoffs are a crapshoot" line didn't originate with Boomers. That was a direct reaction by many in the media (but especially Michael Lewis) to explain why the "Moneyball" A's didn't win a World Series.

I thought a lot about this during the Braves' post-season run in the 1990s/early-2000s and try as I might, I've never been able to truly figure it out. There were Braves' teams that fought down to the last day of the season to make the playoffs and Braves' teams that cruised into them with double-digit leads in the standings. That didn't seem to matter at all when the post-season arrived. Braves (and most successful regular season teams of that era) were built around the power/starting pitching/fielding strategy, which made me think that some teams are better suited for the long haul but their reliance on those elements made them too rigid for a short series when other qualities would need to be employed.

I'm old (as I've said many times) and one of my first baseball memories was the 1960 World Series, when the Pirates won the series 4-3 while being outscored during the series 55-27. I remember the 1966 Series when the Orioles swept the Dodgers, considered an upset. Can't forget the 1969 Mets either. If I had an answer for why those teams won, I'd have my own wing in Cooperstown.

Anyway, here's my take. During the regular season, the range of competition is much wider and that creates greater randomness. The range narrows in the post-season and, as a result, randomness is lessened along with the time frame and that makes the marginal value of each random (something outside the expected outcome) event much higher. In terms of Braves' history, I always think back to Game 4 of the 1996 World Series when Wohlers gave up the three-run HR to Leyritz. Wohlers gets blamed, but people tend to forget that Rafael Belliard didn't field a double play ball cleanly and only got the force at second. He fields it cleanly and the Braves get the double play and even if Leyritz hits the HR, the Braves are still up one. Can't prove the negative (thanks David Hume), but one little bobble probably prevented the Braves from going up 3-1 in the series.

Again, I don't think there is a ready explanation. I suppose one can cite the famous Western philosopher Mike Tyson with the "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" line and maybe there gets to be a collective slump for a team when something goes wrong and in a short series, failure to get out of a momentary funk dooms a team. Anyway, always food for thought.
 
Anybody have a preference who wins....Diamondbacks or Texans? As of now I'm not sure. I will be watching one of the Texans players, Evan Carter, and rooting for him to do well. He's only 21 and doing well. He's from my local area where I grew up and lived for over 50 years. Even saying that I'm not sure which team I'm for to win.

Diamondbacks or Texans??
 
50PoundHead said:
The "playoffs are a crapshoot" line didn't originate with Boomers. That was a direct reaction by many in the media (but especially Michael Lewis) to explain why the "Moneyball" A's didn't win a World Series.

I thought a lot about this during the Braves' post-season run in the 1990s/early-2000s and try as I might, I've never been able to truly figure it out. There were Braves' teams that fought down to the last day of the season to make the playoffs and Braves' teams that cruised into them with double-digit leads in the standings. That didn't seem to matter at all when the post-season arrived. Braves (and most successful regular season teams of that era) were built around the power/starting pitching/fielding strategy, which made me think that some teams are better suited for the long haul but their reliance on those elements made them too rigid for a short series when other qualities would need to be employed.

I'm old (as I've said many times) and one of my first baseball memories was the 1960 World Series, when the Pirates won the series 4-3 while being outscored during the series 55-27. I remember the 1966 Series when the Orioles swept the Dodgers, considered an upset. Can't forget the 1969 Mets either. If I had an answer for why those teams won, I'd have my own wing in Cooperstown.

Anyway, here's my take. During the regular season, the range of competition is much wider and that creates greater randomness. The range narrows in the post-season and, as a result, randomness is lessened along with the time frame and that makes the marginal value of each random (something outside the expected outcome) event much higher. In terms of Braves' history, I always think back to Game 4 of the 1996 World Series when Wohlers gave up the three-run HR to Leyritz. Wohlers gets blamed, but people tend to forget that Rafael Belliard didn't field a double play ball cleanly and only got the force at second. He fields it cleanly and the Braves get the double play and even if Leyritz hits the HR, the Braves are still up one. Can't prove the negative (thanks David Hume), but one little bobble probably prevented the Braves from going up 3-1 in the series.

Again, I don't think there is a ready explanation. I suppose one can cite the famous Western philosopher Mike Tyson with the "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" line and maybe there gets to be a collective slump for a team when something goes wrong and in a short series, failure to get out of a momentary funk dooms a team. Anyway, always food for thought.
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Did I understand you in saying that the regular season is more random than the postseason?
 
BabyElle said:
Anybody have a preference who wins....Diamondbacks or Texans? As of now I'm not sure. I will be watching one of the Texans players, Evan Carter, and rooting for him to do well. He's only 21 and doing well. He's from my local area where I grew up and lived for over 50 years. Even saying that I'm not sure which team I'm for to win.

Diamondbacks or Texans??
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Dbacks. I went to the dbacks vs braves in Arizona this year. Love that state
 
CyYoung31 said:
Did I understand you in saying that the regular season is more random than the postseason?
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Yes and no. The disparity in talent is wider during the regular season. While the possible events are the same in terms of success and failure, the outcomes vary on the level of competition being faced. Perhaps randomness is the wrong term. What I am trying to say is that the talent differences are mitigated (at least somewhat) in the playoffs and that constricts the range of "likely" outcomes. It's the
"unlikely" outcomes that stand out and have a larger effect in a short series.
 
NinersSBChamps said:
I’ll tune in if I have a chance. No difference if Houston or Philly made it. I think a lot of people will watch because it’s probably a vast majority of carefree fans. Or it will suck because there is no bad guy to root against.
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I'll follow it and hope to watch when I can. It's down the priority list a bit. Interesting series. Texas went out and spent money a couple of off-seasons back and Arizona has a solid bunch of younger players. I'm probably in the minority around here, but I've always respected Scherzer and I'd like something memorable out of him.
 
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