Here are some links for you as we count down the hours until World Series Baseball:
MGL, over at The Book Blog, takes a look at how bad Ryan Howard's platoon split is. It might not be as bad as you or I would expect, but the Yankees should still attack him with their lefty relievers. Yes, even Damaso Marte.
If you've ever heard National League fans say that the American League teams have the advantage in the World Series because of the DH, it turns out they're wrong.
ESPN's Keith Law runs down the five keys to success for both the Yankees and Phillies. It's behind the insider wall, but he basically says Girardi needs to manage the bullpen better, the Yankees need to contain Ryan Howard, and beat up on the Phillies bullpen. I agree.
Matt over at Fack Youk interviewed the enemy, a Phillies blog called The 700 Level. The Phillies blogger predicts the Phils win in six, partly because of their character and intangibles. My odds say that there is an 8.41% chance at that happening.
Driveline Mechanics takes a look at how the Yankees could optimize their batting order. It's tough to argue with the numbers, but yikes. Watching Cano lead off would not be pretty.
The guys over at Its About The Money have done a good job of outlining each matchup, by position. My only problem is that they stick with just statistics from the 2009 season, when that is only a part of the picture.
As always, SG at RLYW does an indepth analysis of the matchup, and concludes that the Yankees have around a 58% chance to win. I agree with SG, I like my odds better.
Larry Mahnken, who also writes at Replacement Level, discusses why the Yankees will win at The Hardball Times.
Hopefully that will be enough to tide you over. Feel free to comment on any of them in this thread.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey there, Greg. Thanks for the link-love.
We didn’t solely base it on 2009 stats, but we did give them heavier weight than a small post-season sample size. We did note the post-season stats, but we didn’t make them our focus.
TomAto, TomAHto
Ah, you misunderstood me, Jason. I meant that the best way to look forward is to use multiple season statistics. I don’t think postseason stats should really have any weight at all.
Especially with UZR, the more seasons the better. For example, going forward, we should definitely expect Rollins to be a better defensive shortstop than Jeter. Otherwise, good job.