2017 Major League Baseball Playoffs Discussion

Quote: RisingDough

I'm a HUGE Cubs fan and of course I wanted a win in game 4! I'd love a comeback however unlikely it is. I actually think our season probably comes to an end tonight but you never know.

It is never fun to watch your team lose in the playoffs.

Quote: DrawingDead

I think this would be an excellent time for Chicago to panic.

After that grand slam by Kike, Cubs fans should be worried about 2017...
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Papa John's marketing math question: I need two pizzas. Do I choose this offer (after a Grand Slam tonight):
https://www.mlb.com/sponsors/papaslam

Or this one:
PROMO CODE: GET2NOW
Buy any Pizza at regular menu price and get a 2nd pizza of equal or lesser value free
:)

That's funny about the pizza! I'm happy the Dodgers are up 9-0. No thanks to Joel I'm gonna beat the book today and that puts me at about 16% picking lifetime I think.

#KikeMyFriend

No offense to Mr. Dough, as these remarks are not directed at his Cub at all, only for other people's Cubs:

Gooooooooooooooooal! Cubs lose, Cubs lose, Cubs lose, and the Cubs lose!

With that accomplished all is now well and good with the universe once again, no matter the outcomes from here on. And incidentally, I also get to be paid for my little wager from 10/12 booked at the kinda sorta okay price then of -160 on LA to win the Pennant in the NLCS.

End of gloat, and Cubs corpse dance.

IMO, if it becomes NYY vs. LAD the location may be likely to matter more than usual for how individual games are played moving through the series. Dodger Stadium and the Yankees ballpark are polar opposites, probably pretty good representatives of far ends of the NL/AL difference (especially in most NIGHT games in Dodger Stadium), and each team is particularly well constructed for their ballpark. If Houston gets through, methinks not so much contrast & advantage/disadvantage from contrasting 'park effect' and the optimal style of play called for.

Is it good news or bad news for Houston's playoff aspirations that an Astros coach (Alex Cora) is going to become the next Boston Red Sox manager?

Cubs got killed tonight - it was sad to see the Cubbies be out of it before the 4th inning. Wow. Though I wanted the Dodgers to win, I wanted to see a better game.

I think the Yankees finish off the Astros this weekend. Yankees starters have figured it out an the bullpen seems to be invincible and the offense has awakened. I wouldn't be surprised if they go all of the way and upset the Dodgers. Yankees right now are better on paper, but either team can win.

Quote: DrawingDead

IMO, if it becomes NYY vs. LAD the location may be likely to matter more than usual for how individual games are played moving through the series. Dodger Stadium and the Yankees ballpark are polar opposites, probably pretty good representatives of far ends of the NL/AL difference (especially in most NIGHT games in Dodger Stadium), and each team is particularly well constructed for their ballpark. If Houston gets through, methinks not so much contrast & advantage/disadvantage from contrasting 'park effect' and the optimal style of play called for.

I'd like to rephrase that slightly: Nevermind.

The National Weather Service is warning of a heat wave in LA for a few days next week, which happen to be the days scheduled for games 1 & 2. And instead of the usual 7pm night games they will start at 5pm to accommodate the national TV broadcast. While during the days scheduled for games 3, 4, 5 NY is supposed to get drizzly, showery, chilly. All of which could completely flip the script between how those ballparks affect play. Or not. So nevermind.

I have no intention of doing this, but I was a little curious what tickets would be going for with a World Series being played in Los Angeles. I've heard that maybe a few people live there, and some of them might have a little money to spend on sporting events. Apparently that rumor is true, since the cheapest bad seats near the top of the upper deck start at over $900 and climbing (in the secondary market on StubHub) and of course it ranges up and up in price from there and you could spend over $20k for a really good seat, or around fifty grand for a couple of them. You could, but I won't be doing any such thing.

Break-even level of probability implied in current (noon 10/20 - prior to ALCS gm. 6) median of futures betting odds / FiveThirtyEight probability estimate of winning World Series:

Los Angeles Dodgers...64%/56%
New York Yankees.......29%/30%
Houston Astros............15%/14%

Poor performance for the Yankees hitters and Girardi. Congrats to J. Verlander and the Astros.



Game 7 coming up...

I expected it to go Seven. Was hoping it wouldn't but with CC taking the mound, we have all we could ask for.
Been playing with house money since Cleveland.
Yankees are undefeated in elimination games.
CC has won ten straight starts following a Yankee loss.
The Preseason favorite ,at home, against a team few people would even make the playoffs preseason.
Does it get much better than this?

Quote: #PuigYourFriend

May the nice fans all get to enjoy much good beisboll tomorrow for 23 innings.

Sincerely
Your friend
YPuig

EDIT at 9am-10/21 to add:

ALCS Game 7 odds at LV books range from
NYY +124, HOU -132 (SouthPoint); to,
NYY +110, HOU -120 (Jerry's Nugget)

FiveThirtyEight's probability estimates:
ALCS Game 7 & AL Pennant: NYY 48%, HOU 52%
To win the World Series: LAD 57%, NYY 21%, HOU 22%

Dodgers vs the Astros for the championship!

Congrats to DD for picking/projecting the WS teams. Well done sir!

It was an enjoyable year to be a Yankees fan, but their season is now over.

^TYVM for noting that, Sir. I'll take that as license to crow briefly once, and only once. Any who wish are of course free to be annoyed. Or be very annoyed. But my personal World Series has been won.

Quote: DrawingDead

...Before the CHC-WAS game I placed wagers on both the Dodgers & Astros to win the World Series, each of them booked at 2/1....

Heads I win, tails I win, lucky me. Time for me to party like it's 2015 in Kansas City again. Crowing license now expired.

With my straddle wagers booked at identical odds, mi biesboll banco has no preference, so beyond enjoying two teams that I think merit being there, I'll need to fabricate a rooting interest between them. Maybe something here will come up to supply me with that. Yuli vs. Yasiel?

A year or two, and the Yankees may be annoying many as the perennial beast of the AL East.

Quote: National Weather Service - Los Angeles

Sunny and hot, with a high near 103...

I've made some small Game 1 wagers (Dodgers ov 3.5 runs, for ex.) on the expectation of a change in the usual 'park effect' at Dodger Stadium, based on preliminary data I have for that venue from a project I've been working on to investigate some variable factors affecting run totals that I think are not efficiently priced into the ov/un betting market.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/259362594/hot-temps-could-affect-world-series-game-1/

Quote: Mike Petriello / MLB.com

...<SNIP>...

...In 2017, the Majors slugged .391 in games where the temperature was 59 degrees or below. They slugged .479, nearly a hundred points higher, at 90 degrees and up. That's the equivalent of Kole Calhoun at the low end and Corey Seager at the high end...<SNIP>...Runs per team game were just 4.29 at 59 degrees and below, up to 4.51 between 70 and 79 degrees, 4.91 between 80 and 89, and a massive 5.47 above 90....

...<SNIP>...

I also have a handful of other small wagers on some obscure propositions that tend to have correlation in some cases to each other, and in others to game and series results, but I think are mispriced either in relation to one another or if one assumes that the higher volume headline odds are at least roughly in the right neighborhood, and I do. I think detailing them and the interrelationships would get beyond boring for almost everyone, but anyone who'd like to fade my little prop tickets should probably be betting on something like a 1-0 Houston win.

After opening in some places at around -140 (implied odds of ~58%) apparently money keeps coming in on the Dodgers to win the Series. Last night they were -165 and I understand are at -170 and even -180 (implied probability of ~64%) in some books. FiveThirtyEight prediction is at 55%/45% LAD/HOU for the eventual Series outcome. I thought fair value was around -150 or -160ish.

EDIT to add, postgame: So that old baseball cliche is true, that good pitching and calling a low strike zone beats reduced air density from high ambient air temperature. Or something like that. A cluster of wagers related to higher than anticipated scoring all lost, while the other cluster of those partially correlated to each other and/or to LA winning that I thought were mispriced in relation to the others all won. The net was a wash. I'm not sure what I think of the experience of watching the game with a bunch of these odd little props in mind. I probably won't choose to repeat it tomorrow.

I hope anybody in mourning over the untimely demise of their team or wagering ticket has recovered enough to watch the last two standing have at it. So far this has been an excellent Series, and with it nowhere near done yet I see some longtime baseball writers are debating whether it might end up being known as a "great" one or "classic."

Game 5 lines Kershaw/Keuchel are around LAD -140, HOU +130. FiveThirtyEight thinks 52% vs. 48%.

Another incredible game.

Quote: Rigondeaux

Another incredible game.

And you said that in about the 6th.

Quote:

Game 5 In-game Box Score, Top 9th:
Yikes, egads, and gabeejus frackin heist.

Quote:

Overnight Series betting line, newly revised:

Tilt.

Miscellaneous thoughts of a random irrelevant nature:

1. I think Tom Verducci is right: Historic World Series Home Run Rate may be Result of Slicker Baseballs

2. When Gurriel takes his helmet off his cool-baller-dude hairdo gives him an uncanny resemblance to a palm tree, doncha think? When this is over they should plant him in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium.



Bottom 10th addendum - list of arms potentially still available in bullpen: Me.

OMG OMG OMG. Was that about the greatest baseball game ever played? Or at least that I followed; I don't claim to be knowledgeable. I found it on SIRIUS ( driving) at the top of the 7th, managed to get back in time to see the 9th and 10th.

Learned something today. Great life hack: I might be the last to know. When you're listening to a game (was listening to PIT/DET til it ended), and you push the Info button, IT TELLS YOU THE SCORE! What a brilliant idea. It appears where you usually can see the artist/song.

Could NOT believe Springer misplayed (according to the announcers) that line drive that made it 8-7, then goes out and hits a solo HR on ONE pitch to cancel it out, first guy up after that happened. Poetry!

And 4 runs, starting there, on 6 pitches! How did LA manage to make it back to a tie? Just wow.

Btw, the Sirius announcers (ESPN radio) are a fantastic listen. Enjoyed them more than the tv guys. Might be worth turning off the tv sound and let them call the game.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Btw, the Sirius announcers (ESPN radio) are a fantastic listen. Enjoyed them more than the tv guys. Might be worth turning off the tv sound and let them call the game.

Sirius XM (they merged back in...2008? Has it been that long?) also has both the Dodgers and Astros home town radio broadcasts, complete with local commercials.

For the rest of the Series, Houston will be on channel 176, and LA on 185.

Keep in mind, however, that there is a lag inherent to satellite radio - about 15 seconds if you're listening on an actual radio or through the Roku app, and I think it's about a minute if you're listening on a mobile device. The audio and video will be out of sync unless you're watching through a DVR of some sort and can pause the video to get it to match the audio.

There are at least three audio broadcasts of the game. ESPN radio with play-by-play Dan Shulman. When he's not doing ESPN Sunday night baseball duties, he pops up on Toronto Blue Jays telecasts when one of the regulars are away (30+ games last year), and it is absolute delight compared to one of of the two regulars. Shulman is Canadian and got his chops with Blue Jays radio and television.

The other two broadcasts are by each team's regular audio crew. My favorite thus far of course had to be the Yankees broadcasts. You might not like the Yankees, but you have to appreciate John Sterling (now 28 years as the Yankee broadcaster) when he yells - 'it is high, it is deep, it is gone!!!!", though his enthusiasm sometimes gets the best of him.

Of course the Dodgers had Vin on the TV side. He is absolute gold.

As for the game last night, although I want the Astros to win, the level of anxiety both real fans must have gone through would have led one to mental collapse. What a dumb game. For the Dodgers to bring in Brandon Morrow three nights in a row in a crucial situation when they could have gone to someone else astounds me. The Astros just lacked a bullpen. Two Cy Young candidates start and 25 runs scored in the longest 9 inning World Series game ever, the same pair having pitched the shortest WS game in over 20 years in game 1?

Wow.

It had to come to this. just had to. It is right and good and proper that this will go seven. And then for the winners to collapse into a frenzied mass of gelatinous goo becoming a permanent part of the mound at Dodger Stadium, and the disconsolate oh-so-close almost winners to check themselves into a rehab farm in Malibu followed by indefinite sabbatical at a goofy hippie-mystic's secluded quasi-monastery.

At Las Vegas books the early "overnight" lines I've got have HOU at something from +130 to +135, and LAD from -140 to -150. The median of the opening brick & mortar books' lines results in an implied probability of about 43% vs. 59% (break-even pct.) with the effect of the vig. FiveThirtyEight puts it at a nice round HOU 40% vs. LAD 60%.

No line available on which player will have a moment that inspires an awesomely majestic statue in his honor, and about which approximately twelve million people will claim to have been there when he did it. And which of them will spend much of his life trying to escape being this century's Bill Buckner. But for some vague reason I can't quite put my finger on I'm looking for Puig to do something spectacular. One way, or the other.

I think tonight's game will be more about pitching "lack-of-performance" over offence and defensive blunders. And bad bullpen decisions. Using Morrow for 3 in a row was a poor decision. The Astros have sidelined their closer. I would not be surprised at all to see Kimbrel come in tonight.

Watching the 13-12 game was not fun. People call that an incredible game, but it was for the wrong reasons. No world series team should have a pitching staff that allows 12 - 13 runs, never mind both teams. Clearly that game was about bad management -- pulling their starters out too early and allowing an exhausted bullpen to work. It seems to be the playoff culture. And in a game 5 where it was pressure-packed and where pitchers were exhausted, I think it was a terrible decision to go to the bullpens so early.

I would bet on the Astros if I could, because it really is a crap shoot and spending $100 to win $125 is better than spending $100 to win $65. I think Springer is the hero for the Astros with a go-ahead double in the top of the 9th against Jansen.

Looking forward to the game!

It was like going to a World Series game and watching a bar league softball game break out. 13-12 is not a great game. It might be a fun game to watch, but watching pitcher after pitcher on what is supposed to be an elite team utterly fail to do their job doesn't make it a great game. Go scroll ESPNs 20 greatest games and see how many of them have scores in double digits for both teams.
Give me a 4-3 game any day. Unless, of course, my team gives up 12 runs. Then I certainly want them to score at least 13.

Quote: billryan

Give me a 4-3 game any day.

Yes. Won by some sparkling defense and great work on the basepaths.

Double digit dingers flying around the ballpark isn't the kind of baseball I prefer to see either, but I've mostly come to be at peace ('cause I have no choice) that that's how it is in the game now, and will probably be for a while. And how it has been becoming since the middle of 2015, when the increase in scoring led by an explosion of home run hitting began, quite suddenly, as the supply of MLB baseballs was replenished from the factory in Costa Rica.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2017/06/baseball-s-power-surge

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-mlbs-new-home-run-era-its-the-baseballs-that-are-juicing/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-juiced-balls-the-new-steroids/

https://www.theringer.com/2017/6/14/16044264/2017-mlb-home-run-spike-juiced-ball-testing-reveal-155cd21108bc

Quote: Ben Lindbergh & Mitchel Lichtman

<SNIP>...The current barrage began in earnest immediately after the 2015 All-Star break, leading to the largest increase in the rate of home runs/batted ball between a season's first half and second half since at least 1950 (when Baseball Prospectus's database begins)....<SNIP>

And I strongly suspect that all has contributed a lot to current fashion in how starting rotations and bullpens get used, whether well or poorly, and maybe inevitably to eventually get pitching staffs covered in jalapeno batter & deep-fried.

Okay, so cancel the heroic statue. The "under" won, but it wasn't a particularly well played game from where I sit. I think one of them staggered to the conclusion better than the other, even though I think they were two very good baseball outfits.



Ya wanna git sum political incorrectness? Well I gotcha ur politically incorrect right here pal:



So, must adjust now to no major sports for the next five months. But the sports calendar isn't going completely dark; tomorrow in the Fall League the Surprise Saguaros play an afternoon game and the Scottsdale Scorpions host a night game...

Dodgers ran into some bad luck, balls hit hard at people with people on base. In the end they left too many runners on and once Morton came in the Dodgers never threatened again.

Like I said, a crap shoot. Darvish choked. If Darvish was anything "Darvishlike" you'd see a pretty different result I am guessing.

If you don't already have it on the way, you missed your chance:

Quote: auctions.mlb.com

2017 World Series Game 7 Game-Used Dirt Jar (Astros First World Series Championship in Franchise History)

Sold Out
PRICE: $49.99
Listing #: 2073870

Listing Type: BUY NOW

Maybe they should've charged more.