2023 WS Game/Discussion Thread: 2021 100+ Game Loser Edition
- Thread starter DeadlySplitter
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Food for thought: if the Sewald trade doesn't happen, very likely that both teams miss the playoffs entirely.
I honestly thought Sewald was looking toasty and it was a shrewd trade by Seattle getting off of him. He's really found it again.
Lots of people on Twitter freaking out about MLB has to be upset with this small-market matchup.
Dallas/Ft Worth is the 5th biggest media market and Phoenix is 10th. That's pretty darn good.
Dallas/Ft Worth is the 5th biggest media market and Phoenix is 10th. That's pretty darn good.
Well, Philly is 4 and Houston 7 (according to this list, which has Phoenix 11th), and both those teams seem to have more of a national following than what we have. But I agree, it's not like we're getting KC vs. Milwaukee.
Seems like any market that isn't LA, Chicago, or the large east coast metropolises (NYC, Philly, Boston, DC) is considered too small for impactful TV ratings. Maybe folks think MLB would be better off only putting teams in those markets?
The Diamondbacks adjust mid-series to essentially nullify the heart of the Phillies lineup over the final two games. I suspect the pitching braintrust will figure something out for Garcia
Yeah, I think Heim is a major player this series. He is 8th best at throwing out runners according to savant. Felt like the Diamondbacks really got back to their roots in games 6 and 7, which I think was wise. While they have had some memorable and dramatic home runs in the playoffs, which helped them win a number of come from behind games, I don’t think they can match Texas’ power. If Heim can pick one or two off early and make the Dbacks hesitant, it neutralizes one of their advantages.
Considering Realmuto had the best catcher pop time in the majors this year and Heim was 43rd, I'd say that's a tall order.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/poptime
One issue for the Diamondbacks to consider is roof open or closed. Traditionally, the park has played much differently with the roof open. Pre-2018 numbers suggest a dramatic power increase with the roof open. They installed the humidor in 2018, and I don’t think they have been relevant enough for anyone to do a deep dive of the impact since, but you have to imagine an incremental difference.
They have played very few roof open games this year. It was unseasonably hot for the NLCS, but in classic AZ desert fashion, the temperature takes a bit of a nosedive around Halloween.
I expect the philosophy with the roof will be what it always is in Phoenix: it should always be open if it is comfortable enough to be open. That is, the strong preference is open. So it will be open, I think. That seems to give a bit of an edge to Texas, as the better offense.
Here is some history: https://www.ocregister.com/2023/10/10/roof-open-or-closed-dodgers-pitcher-lance-lynn-likes-arizonas-chase-field/
They have played very few roof open games this year. It was unseasonably hot for the NLCS, but in classic AZ desert fashion, the temperature takes a bit of a nosedive around Halloween.
I expect the philosophy with the roof will be what it always is in Phoenix: it should always be open if it is comfortable enough to be open. That is, the strong preference is open. So it will be open, I think. That seems to give a bit of an edge to Texas, as the better offense.
Here is some history: https://www.ocregister.com/2023/10/10/roof-open-or-closed-dodgers-pitcher-lance-lynn-likes-arizonas-chase-field/
Pop time isn't everything though. As noted above Heim ranked significantly better at actually making outs during the regular season.
For sure. I'd imagine it's more the delivery times of the pitchers than it is Heim being better than Realmuto at throwing out runners. I'm sure someone more knowledgable than me can break this down further.
Well, my obvious rooting interest (Phillies) and my obvious rooting-against interest (Astros) are both out. I can really go either way here. My instinct is to go with the team that has never won before, which means Rangers; but my other rooting metrics (which should be discussed in another forum) lean towards the Diamondbacks.
So...I just hope both teams have fun and we get seven games to delay the offseason a bit longer.
So...I just hope both teams have fun and we get seven games to delay the offseason a bit longer.
I'm a big fan of Eovaldi and want to see him do well. But Texas has Chapman, and Arizona doesn't. Also, I enjoyed the D-backs' poise and grit in Games 6 and 7, so I suspect I'll end up rooting for them.
I've had a soft spot for the DBacks since 2001 for obvious reasons. I also tend to favor the NL when the Sox aren't involved. So if I have to have a rooting interest, it's for Arizona.
They are decent sized markets but neither team is particularly popular; there’s little appeal outside the market for either team. Having no east coast team hurts too; surely will be the lowest rated non-COVID WS at least which will give plenty of cranky sportswriters something to write about.
Hopefully a long competitive series!
Since the turn of the century, the highest rated World Series....
2004 - St. Louis/Boston
2001 - Arizona/New York
2016 - Chicago/Cleveland
2003 - Florida/New York
2000 - New York/New York
The lowest rated in the same time frame....
2020 - Los Angeles/Tampa Bay
2021 - Atlanta/Houston
2022 - Philadelphia/Houston
2012 - San Francisco/Detroit
2008 - Philadelphia/Tampa Bay
I guess I can see where the idea comes from that having a big baseball market involved helps. That's certainly the case for Boston, New York, and Chicago. On the other hand, Philadelphia doesn't appear to be big enough to carry a match-up to high ratings, nor does Houston. MLB probably didn't have much preference for match-up came out of the LCS. None were likely to draw monster ratings.
2004 - St. Louis/Boston
2001 - Arizona/New York
2016 - Chicago/Cleveland
2003 - Florida/New York
2000 - New York/New York
The lowest rated in the same time frame....
2020 - Los Angeles/Tampa Bay
2021 - Atlanta/Houston
2022 - Philadelphia/Houston
2012 - San Francisco/Detroit
2008 - Philadelphia/Tampa Bay
I guess I can see where the idea comes from that having a big baseball market involved helps. That's certainly the case for Boston, New York, and Chicago. On the other hand, Philadelphia doesn't appear to be big enough to carry a match-up to high ratings, nor does Houston. MLB probably didn't have much preference for match-up came out of the LCS. None were likely to draw monster ratings.
I feel like the biggest problem from the network perspective is that the regular season was a six-month advertisement for juggernauts like the Dodgers and Braves...and then we got the Diamondbacks. Now, I'll happily watch whoever's involved, but I can understand the average fan deciding not to watch a team where they can't name any of the players.
Funny. If you're like me, I find red state/blue state/purple state thoughts seeping into my rooting interests, but when I admitted that to DDB Jr. he kind of got pissed off and made some compelling points. I'll leave it at that.
Some view this as a feature, and some as a bug. I'm dismissive of it, because I'd watch no matter what, I but I understand where people are coming from. Baseball is unique though. There's nothing that can be done about it. If you have a playoff, it's always going to be a snapshot in time, and there is more variability month to month in baseball than in the other sports. I think the bottom line is that this is a problem that will sort itself out, because as bad as the 100 win teams did this year in the postseason, over time, they will continue to have a higher chance of being the same teams that are playing well at the end of the year than other teams. Just didn't work out that way this year.
I feel the need to point out that outside of a three week span where they played really, really bad (like worst team in the league kinds of bad), the Diamondbacks are not a "normal" 84 win team. From July 14th until August 11th, they were an absolutely disastrous -62 in run differential, while going 5-20. Before this stretch they were tied for the NL West lead, and after this stretch they righted the ship and went 27-20.
I know you can't ignore the fact that they had that stretch in July/August, but they had a run differential of +47 outside of that on the season. Their recovery in August almost exactly coincides with the return of Gabby Moreno, as well.
The team is exciting to watch on the base paths, they play excellent defense, and they have a pitching staff that is built for the playoffs, and they are probably going to be even better next year.
Corbin Carroll is one of the most exciting young players in the game. Moreno might be the best all around catcher in the game. Alek Thomas is a blast to watch. Evan Longoria is trying to finally get a ring. Christian Walker is a hidden gem. Ketel Marte is an absolute pro and I think one of the more underrated players in the game.
Gallen, Kelly, Pfaadt are a really solid 1-3, and they have 3 or 4 stud relief pitchers.
This team was built for the postseason, and if you watch them through anything other than a league standings page that shows a -15 run differential and can't find a way to enjoy watching them play, then baseball just might not be the sport for you.
I know you can't ignore the fact that they had that stretch in July/August, but they had a run differential of +47 outside of that on the season. Their recovery in August almost exactly coincides with the return of Gabby Moreno, as well.
The team is exciting to watch on the base paths, they play excellent defense, and they have a pitching staff that is built for the playoffs, and they are probably going to be even better next year.
Corbin Carroll is one of the most exciting young players in the game. Moreno might be the best all around catcher in the game. Alek Thomas is a blast to watch. Evan Longoria is trying to finally get a ring. Christian Walker is a hidden gem. Ketel Marte is an absolute pro and I think one of the more underrated players in the game.
Gallen, Kelly, Pfaadt are a really solid 1-3, and they have 3 or 4 stud relief pitchers.
This team was built for the postseason, and if you watch them through anything other than a league standings page that shows a -15 run differential and can't find a way to enjoy watching them play, then baseball just might not be the sport for you.
DDB Jr is right and I have to keep reminding myself of that. I will also leave it at that.
The worst World Series ratings would be Houston/Tampa Bay, if the Astors had stayed in the NL.
Lots of first timers. That's interesting
Don't follow the umps very much, but it's nice to guys getting a shot at this
I should check out their ump scorecards for the year
I believe that Quinn Wolcott is ranked #1 and there is a significant drop-off after that.
Highest rated in terms of what? TV eyeballs? Something else?
Edit, must be TV (Nielsen) ratings.
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Philly probably doesn't draw from outside their area because they've been around for 140 years and been shitty for like 120 of them. Being a good team with recognizable players for a few years gets you fans from all over the country. The Bash Brothers A's had fans everywhere. The A-Rod-Junior-Unit Mariners made a lot of fans. And obviously the Papi-Manny-Pedro Red Sox were popular all over. Maybe being in the World Series with Adolis Garcia and Corey Seager puts Rangers hats on fans outside of Texas, even if this year's TV ratings are going to be bad.
Quinn Wolcott will be the reserve umpire for the opener and will call balls and strikes for Game 2. He will be followed behind the plate by Márquez, Rackley, Knight and Carapazza.
Wolcott, 37, was the most accurate at balls and strikes this season at 96% among umpires working the plate for more than one game, according to umpscorecards.com. Miller was at 94.1%, Knight 94%, Rackley 93.9%, Carapazza 93.7% and Márquez and Reyburn at 93.5% each.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/38750434/bill-miller-named-crew-chief-5-umpires-first-world-series
Going to game four with my dad. First time going to a postseason baseball game. Ideally that would be the clinching game, but I don’t foresee that happening
Still...all things considered; NOTHING is better than going to a World Series game with your dad. I'm sure he feels the same way.
Agreed. My dad and I went to game 1 of the 2013 Series and it's absolutely one of our all-time favorite things we've ever done. Hope you have a blast, @azsoxpatsfan!
I feel like there should be some sort of era-adjusted Nielsen ratings for these sorts of things. In the aughts, the top weekly show generally pulled 25-30 million viewers a week; meanwhile, no weekly show has pulled more than 20 million live viewers since 2016. So I think the takeaways from the above are mostly that 1.) baseball is largely following the trends of the era, 2.) the Chicago/Cleveland matchup was really popular, and 3.) Philadelphia/Tampa Bay (and, to a lesser extent, San Francisco/Detroit) was a network's nightmare. Adjusting these by era probably get you a better sense of how popular each team is/was for the networks, but it's hard to tell from the above. It's likely no coincidence that the three least-watched series were the last three.
Fake edit: Actually, you know what? Rather than being the annoying critic for RHF's helpful post and saying what we should do, I'll just do it.
For the math...first, I took the Nielsen rating for each World Series. Then I took the average Nielsen rating of the highest-rated weekly show each year, and then took the average over a half-decade (so 2000-2004 are grouped together, 2005-2009 are as well, and so on). Divide Nielsen for the World Series by half-decade average highest show, and we get some sort of indication of how popular each series was relative to other entertainment. It's a quick back-of-the-envelope idea, but it at least gives us a sense of what's going on.
Here are the ratings:
So....curse-breaking, Yankees, Mets, and epic seven-game series are popular; Phillies, Rays, and Tigers aren't; and Covidball never happened.
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I'd say one of the more legit/deserving ones in recent years, in 2014 they steamrolled the AL playoffs (8-0 in 3 rounds) before losing the WS in 7 to a superhuman Bumgarner and Bochy and friends, then they came back the next season, had a better regular season record than 2014, and finished the job.
I'll watch this WS and probably enjoy it, but I think for me postseason baseball has basically become meaningless, a bit like this in-season tournament they're starting this season in the NBA. Yes, someone will win both, yes, those teams will deserve it based on the current system, but for me it signifies and proves basically nothing. Many here have talked here about the 2020 MLB season like this, as it was shortened etc. I always thought that was silly but now I think I get it, that's how I feel about the postseason now.
Do I have an easy answer? I mean, dump divisions and just allow the top few records in each league to go to the postseason and seed them correctly, but of course there is zero chance of that happening. Will I still live and die with every game the next time NYY make the postseason? Probably, but part of me will still find it pretty meaningless either way.
And as long as I'm ranting, I can't stop thinking recently how odd it is that we all basically have been trained to ignore postseason results when deciding who belongs in the Hall of Fame, and on the flip side, we ignore regular season results when deciding how successful seasons are. This is truly ludicrous.
Who is “we?”
I don’t think Ortiz gets in on the first ballot without the October heroics
Yeah I almost mentioned him by name, a very rare exception. I personally don't give a shit about the Hall of Fame, but if we (a collective 'we', to answer your question) valued individual performance like we do team performance (1 winner, 29 losers), guys like Bernie Williams would be in.
I mean, why is Bruce Bochy considered a HOF lock and Bernie Williams only lasted one year on the ballot? Again I don't care even one tiny bit about the specifics I'm using here, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the dichotomy as I think I never fully realized it myself until this month.
Definitely not undeserving, but those are their only two playoff appearances since 1985. Almost completely irrelevant for 40 years except for 2014 and 2015. Baseball is weird.
Replying to myself, but an even better example is going to be when Bochy gets in and Madison Bumgarner doesn't come close. I mean, huh?
Bernie should be in just for his style and good-guy-ness (and on field play) that made me respect a Yankee, any Yankee. He rose above them all, no offense.
Another thing “we” do is put so much significance on number of championships when debating great players in the NBA and NFL, but not in baseball. Jordan has more rings than Lebron, Mahomes needs at least five or six to be in the GOAT discussion with Brady, etc. But nobody holds it against Willie Mays and Hank Aaron that they only won one World Series, or that Ted Williams and Griffey Jr. never won at all.