ALCS 2018 - Houston Astros

JohntheBaptist

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I think the article conflated these different types of events, and frankly omitted similar events that favored Houston (like Kemp's wall-ball catch and his short HR down the line), all to drive a particular narrative that wasn't very convincing.
Fair enough. I felt like watching from a Red Sox fan perspective, they did rack up some unlucky moments, which in no way cuts into Boston's victory or achievement.

Yeah, sure, there's a lot of luck in baseball, but if you're going to complain that a team that just lost a series 4-1 was just unlucky, then what's the point of playing the series? Maybe we should just have the writers vote on the champion at the end of 162 games like they used to do in college football.
They also arguably ran into the most basic form of bad luck -- a good opponent. They didn't draw the 2014 Orioles in the ALCS, but the 2018 Red Sox, also one of the great teams in history. Benintendi caught that ball. Martinez hit that homer. Betts was in position to make that play. The Red Sox are playing for the World Series, but they're also good enough to be playing for legacy.
Guys, they won. It was an article looking at how baseball rewards success, but also how certain uncontrollable elements play a part, too, particularly in a short series. He wasn't "complaining" that the Astros just lost because of bad luck.
 

Bergs

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Do you guys seriously think the PBP guy was rooting for the other team? You're tense about the game and he's annoying you, he isn't "rooting for the other team." Its one thing to do this in a game thread but come on, this is embarrassing.

Tuning them out is both possible and not difficult, trust me.
I'm typically aware of my own hyper sensitivities. I can't be an objective listener to a playoff broadcast when the Sox are playing. I certainly found the TBS announcers annoying.

Was Anderson "rooting" for the Astros? No, not overtly. But it is often the case that announcers create a narrative propping up the trailing team to keep people interested in the broadcast (pregame and during the game). As Kimbrel implodes before our eyes, and the announcers get more and more excited about the comeback, I get more and more annoyed.
I didn't think he was very good but I agree, the whole rooting for the other team thing is dumb and embarrassing. He wasn't a Sox homer so the perception here is that he was an Astros homer.

He literally grew up as an Astros fan:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/texas-sports-nation/astros/article/TBS-Brian-Anderson-Astros-vs-Red-Sox-a-13299595.php
Turner Sports announcer Brian Anderson prepared for a career of diverse broadcast opportunities by following five baseball teams while growing up in Georgetown in Central Texas – the Astros and Rangers, the superstation-era Braves and Cubs and, of course, the Texas Longhorns.
He was absolutely rooting for the Astros, and it was clear on multiple occasions. Arguing otherwise is an exercise in forced equivalence.
 

AB in DC

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Literally what are those details here? The word "stands" does not appear and we are nitpicking over whether the go-ahead-and-never-lost lead change constitutes the winning hit.
It appears that the article was corrected after I read it. It clearly said "stands" this morning, and it apparently was updated at 12:10 pm.

Of course none of his narrative changed at all as a result -- he still talks about a camera angle that should have "saved Altuve's home run", which is borderline dishonest.
 

drbretto

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Yeah. I understand the phenomenon where it sounds like a national broadcast is rooting against your team. It doesn't mean it's not possible that there's also a little something to it. I think it's perfectly natural to have a favorite going in, especially if you're from there. I think there was a little bit of rooting for the Astros. I think it's no biggie, though. I don't think anyone behaved unprofessionally. Darling was annoying me more, and mostly because everything he said was wrong.
 

joe dokes

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He lost me when he brought up Martinez getting a gift call but fails to mention Verlander being the recipient of a far luckier strike call in Game 1 on the Benintendi at-bat.
I thought it was pretty comical that he mentioned the 0-2 pitch almost as often as the Mookieference play was mentioned the night before.
 

dhappy42

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Not the greatest thing I've ever read, but he's right. Baseball is awash in luck, and when two teams are so evenly matched, it will play a part. I thought Houston was coming up unlucky in little things too, clearly.

Saying “baseball is awash in luck” is trite. Especially for a sportswriter. It’s like saying “baseball is a game.” Ferchrissakes, it’s a sport where a batter who succeeds three times in ten is considered good. And teams that win 55% of their games can win a division. And a sport where one of the best teams can lose four straight games to one of the worst teams and it’s not that extraordinary.
 

Tyrone Biggums

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This team needs to buy 25 CPAP machines for the World Series
 

CoffeeNerdness

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Do you guys seriously think the PBP guy was rooting for the other team? You're tense about the game and he's annoying you, he isn't "rooting for the other team." Its one thing to do this in a game thread but come on, this is embarrassing.

Tuning them out is both possible and not difficult, trust me.
I don't think anyone was saying he's flagrantly rooting for the Astros, but he certainly let his bias peak out in annoying ways such as harping on calls going against the Astros or slobbering over Maldanado's defense when he was playing the position very poorly or calling a soft line out to center "bad luck" for Altuve. If he wasn't so bad at his job it probably would have passed by with little notice.
 

Wallball Tingle

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A minor footnote and I know teams change every year, but it's nice that the Sox ousted the Astros in 5 when the 2017 Yankees lost to them in 7. Anything you can do, we did better.
 

normstalls

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A minor footnote and I know teams change every year, but it's nice that the Sox ousted the Astros in 5 when the 2017 Yankees lost to them in 7. Anything you can do, we did better.
To be fair to the Yankees, the Astros were cheating though.
 

Lowrielicious

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This was my problem with the article - it's theme was pretty poorly supported. If you have "bad luck" in, say, three key instances but "good luck" in 5 key instances, it's not too convincing to ignore the good and say the outcome was because of "bad luck." Needed a little more actual thought and analysis.
This is particularly obvious in the Bregman lineout example.
Bottom of the ninth, two out, bases loaded and his line drive was caught by a diving outfielder. You could call that unlucky. Except the top of that same inning Mookies linedrive was caught by Redddick in exactly the same situation.

This luck thing evens out over a 7 game series. Or sometimes even over a single inning.
 

LynnRice75

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Any writer equating the Sox series win to being lucky, frankly, does not understand the game. Baseball is a game of inches. Always has been. There are hard hit balls that find gloves and sawed off swings that become RBI doubles. For every "lucky" or "unlucky" play you can point out for one side, there are similar plays that go the other way for the opponent.

I am equally stunned by the reports saying the Astros were hindered by injuries, completely leaving out the fact that we were without our second baseman, knuckle ball reliever, with injuries/illnesses to Sale, Nunez, Moreland, etc.

Sox simply outhit, outsmarted, and outpitched the Astros.
 

JohntheBaptist

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I don't think anyone was saying he's flagrantly rooting for the Astros, but he certainly let his bias peak out in annoying ways such as harping on calls going against the Astros or slobbering over Maldanado's defense when he was playing the position very poorly or calling a soft line out to center "bad luck" for Altuve. If he wasn't so bad at his job it probably would have passed by with little notice.
This stuff is miniscule, and just speaks to him being the bland, boring, not-that-perceptive guy we always get. They almost always start pumping the team that's down, I don't know, it just strikes me as silly to suggest he had some "bias" because the Astros were one of four teams he liked as a kid.
 

geoduck no quahog

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His bigger problem was a lack of accurate information, consistent mistakes and an inability to ever shut up.

Other than that?

He was OK.
 

E5 Yaz

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This stuff is miniscule, and just speaks to him being the bland, boring, not-that-perceptive guy we always get. They almost always start pumping the team that's down, I don't know, it just strikes me as silly to suggest he had some "bias" because the Astros were one of four teams he liked as a kid.
We want you banging your head into that wall. We need you banging your head into that wall.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Literally what are those details here? The word "stands" does not appear and we are nitpicking over whether the go-ahead-and-never-lost lead change constitutes the winning hit.

His articles are well written, have a larger point, are often humorous and clever, and he knows Sabermetrics and analysis at a deep level.

Is this the best thing he's ever written? No. But trashing him as being part of ESPNs failing journalistic integrity in the wake of deflategate is beyond absurd.
First, apologies for sloppy language on my part. I wasn’t trying to lump him into the lack of integrity/deflate gate crap. I thought I made a distinction there, but clearly not very well.

As to ‘stands’ and nitpicking, I’m not disinclined to think he may have gone back and edited it - it was quoted by more than one person and espn doesn’t have the best track record on noting edits (*cough* Chad Ford *cough*) so while I won’t hang him on that (I thought I saw it, but I could be conflating), but hey, you lie with dogs...etc etc.

Enough holes have been poked in his article and again as noted, I haven’t read a ton of him, but I think the quote I responded to is where absurdity comes into the conversation. I’d ask for a link or two (that’s not wise ass, if he’s good I’d want to start reading him and I’m not all that familiar with him); but ‘not even close’ is a tad hyperbolic when you essentially write an article saying ‘water is wet’. Of course luck comes into play in sports, this isn’t ground breaking and specific things he cites he ignores the antithesis - AB was positioned properly and made a great play; plenty of strikes went called or uncalled for both sides, it happens; etc etc.

I went back and finished reading and the entire time reading it I had the thought of it being slanted. And I’m sorry, I’m not giving in on ‘game winning’.
 

JohntheBaptist

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Saying “baseball is awash in luck” is trite. Especially for a sportswriter. It’s like saying “baseball is a game.” Ferchrissakes, it’s a sport where a batter who succeeds three times in ten is considered good. And teams that win 55% of their games can win a division. And a sport where one of the best teams can lose four straight games to one of the worst teams and it’s not that extraordinary.
When most of sports media focuses on the character and hard work of its winning participants, an article looking at the ways luck played a factor is not really trite. Sportswriters are loathe to even suggest these things lest they trivialize the accomplishments of these warriors and on and on.

The things you're describing here aren't luck in the way he was approaching it, either.

Wait, if he was only an Astros fan as a kid the perceived bias would be more legitimate?
I have no idea, someone posted an article that stated he liked the Astros, Rangers, Cubs, and Braves growing up like it was proof of something.
 

54thMA

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A minor footnote and I know teams change every year, but it's nice that the Sox ousted the Astros in 5 when the 2017 Yankees lost to them in 7. Anything you can do, we did better.
True, but we all know the Yankees master plan is to win it all in 2019 anyway, so 2017 was just a nice bonus for their fans.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Wait, you think Sam is biased towards the Astros?
I think he started with a premise and worked backwards to support it, to fit his narrative - if he is as analytically astute as you claim, he should know that a five game sample size size isn't worth citing stats on (see: ten points in obp and one point in slugging); but that's just mho. I'm not saying he's a Houston homer, but the article is clearly grasping at straws. Are you supporting the idea that the Astros will go down as one of the unluckiest teams in history? Because that's what he is proposing and using evidence that could be found in about 98% of baseball series. Again, water = wet. It's the game and nothing particularly "unlucky" happened. They had a slugfest and the Sox won. (And the comments on West are confusing - should he have wavered?)
 

jaytftwofive

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A great majority of fans in every city are paranoid homers and think the national announcers are against their team. I live in the Philly area and the great majority think Joe Buck and Troy Aikman hate the Eagles. Aikman I think is one of the most objective commentators in sports. Not pro Dallas at all. And I remember in 03 and 04 many of our posters and fans form SOSH and BDD thought Tim McCarver was anti-Red Sox, I never thought that at all.
 

Hendu for Kutch

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I'm usually not bothered much by announcers, but I thought it was pretty stark. Little things, like mentioning multiple times that Devers' HR would have only been a double in Fenway. Not just after it was hit, but several innings later. It's just such a weird comment that didn't really have any reason to exist. Made even more out of place in that it wasn't mentioned once when the Astros hit one to the same area. The harping on the Astros not getting any calls was out of place too. A neutral party would complain about bad umpiring, but wouldn't harp on one team not getting any calls (especially given that it wasn't true).

The clincher for me though was my wife sitting down in the middle of a game she couldn't give less of a shit about and saying "why does that guy sound so depressed?" about Anderson. The Sox had just taken the lead.
 

c_yesterday

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Since this has thread has turned to the media a bit, did the Astros put something in their press notes for game 5 about the Crawford Boxes? Maybe I was just oblivious, but I don't remember hearing anything about them in games 3 or 4, but all of a sudden in the last game it felt like we couldn't go an inning without hearing about Crawford Boxes. Not just the TBS broadcast either, Joe and Tim, various baseball writers on twitter... felt like a random, slightly dumb thing that kinda came out of left (and right) field.
 

MakeMineMoxie

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Part of the problem is that the national broadcasts are geared to a lowest common denominator fan and the announcers feel that they have to blather on constantly to entertain these viewers. I also strongly feel that the networks create their own narrative at the beginning of a series to build "drama" and "controversy" and what's actually happening on the field be dammed. The ALCS narrative was the coronation of the Astros as they won back-to-back WS.

I don't know who Brian Anderson is or where he's from but they can give him a one-way ticket back there. He contributed absolutely nothing to the broadcast and his boring, monotone voice had me desperately looking for a pirate feed from WEEI.

During the season I'll sometimes watch the SNY Mets feed just to hear their booth and Darling is pretty good there. I think he has an awful voice but his commentary usually makes up for it. Not this time
 

Cesar Crespo

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I watched the entire series but pretty much tuned out the announcers for the most part. Kinda surprised so many people pay attention to them enough to be bothered. From what I didn't tune out, I thought they slightly favored Houston but they also had plenty of praise for Boston and they also gave them props at the end of the series.

I'm also pretty sure one of them said Christian Vazquez had great power. They definitely sucked but I didn't think the bias was too bad.
 

Al Zarilla

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Part of the problem is that the national broadcasts are geared to a lowest common denominator fan and the announcers feel that they have to blather on constantly to entertain these viewers. I also strongly feel that the networks create their own narrative at the beginning of a series to build "drama" and "controversy" and what's actually happening on the field be dammed. The ALCS narrative was the coronation of the Astros as they won back-to-back WS.

I don't know who Brian Anderson is or where he's from but they can give him a one-way ticket back there. He contributed absolutely nothing to the broadcast and his boring, monotone voice had me desperately looking for a pirate feed from WEEI.

During the season I'll sometimes watch the SNY Mets feed just to hear their booth and Darling is pretty good there. I think he has an awful voice but his commentary usually makes up for it. Not this time
Get ready for Joe Buck and his “to the track, to the worl...” No, I think Buck has improved a lot, and Smoltz is very good, but there are still some PBP announcers I like better and of course, mandatory Eck mention for color guy.
 

The Gray Eagle

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Great article by Speier looking at the Red Sox strategy in attacking the Astros starters.

And they've been using advance scouting and video work all year long to game-plan their attack:

"All season, the Red Sox have been a team whose talented hitters featured a detail-oriented commitment to game planning to to identify both what their opponents would try to do and where they are most vulnerable.​

The Red Sox, with information from the team’s advance scouting team and analytics staff, have had a year-long conversation about what pitches opponents use in specific counts, locations where they work, locations where they miss and are vulnerable, and the visual appearance and action of pitches that might represent the margin between a strikeout and a two-strike foul-ball."​

"The Red Sox had a feel for how the Astros would attack – helped not just by ample video and heatmap data but also by input from Cora (last year’s Astros bench coach) and bullpen coach Craig Bjornson, who had worked in the same role with Houston in 2017 and thus had a feel for what Houston’s pitchers would try to do in their own advance planning... “It was a vertical attack – fastballs up, breaking balls down, stay on the edges,” he added. “We did an outstanding job [against that pattern]. We sustained it. We stayed very humble. We didn’t try to hit home runs. We stayed with the program, and in the end, it paid off.”​

The plan included staying patient and not chasing pitches on the edges or outside the zone:
"The Sox swung at 23 percent of pitchers that were on the edges of the strike zone or outside of it – easily the lowest rate of the four LCS teams. The Astros swung at 28.4 percent, the highest rate of the LCS teams. The Sox were even more disciplined in two-strike counts, swinging at just 9.7 percent of pitches on the edges or outside the zone.
The team was particularly aware of the Astros’ aggressive usage of off-speed and breaking pitches. Someone like Lance McCullers, for instance, is willing to throw literally nothing but curveballs in an at-bat."​

On Devers hitting the key HR against Verlander in Game 5:
"he remained mindful of the report on Verlander: He won’t shy from his fastball in key moments, typically at the top of the zone, where his high spin rate creates ridiculous ride on the pitch that often takes it over bats for either a pop-up or swing-and-miss.​

Devers got a first-pitch, 98-m.p.h. fastball at the top of the strike zone and ambushed it. He set his sight at the top of the ball and, rather than trying to pull it, drove it out to the opposite field for the decisive three-run homer in Game 5."
Such a difference from 15 years ago when the dunce manager ignored all the scouting work that the team provided.
 

reggiecleveland

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The social media/NY NY stuff is fun and great talk radio or hot takes material. And it may keep players focused on the task at hand as well as add to the good feelings when the aggrieved team wins. However attributing performance to players being fired up seems a bit of a stretch. If Alex Bregman's IG stories are more motivating than the incentives the players already have to play their best, the sport is in deep trouble.
You don't understand it then.

These guys are competing everyday, not just when they play, but since they were 16 to just get there. The mental grind of such a life is enormous. The Bull Durham mound meeting is popular with athletes because they all relate to losing focus, and going through the motions. The closer you get to the top the more the mental aspect matters. Jesus read anything about Tom Brady, Jordan, Russell, Bird, Jerry Rice, Kobe, and the burning desire to win is what separates them. These mlb guys spend all year, most of their life digging deep to be motivated. The well often runs dry. Providing the other team with a focus by your actions provides a focus, a unifying focus. These guys are human, and maybe they are doubting themselves maybe they are pissed about playing time, then a guy on the other team gives them a boost drawing them together.