I mean, seriously. You let Y2K Pedro travel back to '68 and batters are going to be convinced that he was from another dimension. It would be like having to face Nolan Ryan if Ryan had pinpoint control of the heater, a changeup that danced with an 18-20mph spread from the FB, and a knee-buckling breaking ball.
In fairness the Gibson rule was MLB baseball enforcing the rules on mound height that they'd stopped doing after Maris set the HR record. But, yeah, Y2k Pedro pitching in Busch or Chez Ravine in the 60s (as the Cardinals and Dodgers liked to push the limits on the pitching mountain) would have been functionally unhittable. Even at 32 starts he's going to lead MLB in KOs.
Depth?
To bring this all full circle, one of the big reasons the Dodgers only have one World Series win after making the playoffs pretty much every year is Clayton Kershaw. When your ace is terrible, it's going to sink you in a short series.
I'd pay to see Pedro pitch in 1968.
Shows how hard it is to win championships. Need to peak or get hot at the right time.
Absolutely, and the luck factor seems to have only increased under the latest system. In the last 3 years we have 3 teams in the World Series that won less than 90 games. And we have the Dodgers winning 100 or more all 3 years and not making it the Series in any of them.
Plus the following 100 win teams: 2023 Orioles and Braves, 2022 Braves and Mets, 2021 Devil Rays and Giants.
Kind of why being in contention for a wild card at the deadline feels important. If you feel you have the pitching to win…
Organizationally the goal should be to be in the hunt at the trade deadline EVERY Year - and then if you think the team has a shot make deals that make you a tough post season team. That is what the Rangers did last year with Montgomery and Scherzer.
Just as a FWIW (and I think I get what you mean, but when you look at the numbers) this is kind of a loser's goal. All you're basically saying for a goal is to "not be one of the 10 worst teams in the sport."
The league average ERA was 2.90. I maintain that Pedro was better in 1999 and 2000.
I don't necessarily like it either, but it's just reality that it's one big crapshoot now.
The number of innings pitched is an important component of a pitcher’s value to a team. Adjusted for the run scoring environment, etc, the quality of Pedro’s innings in 2000 vs Gibson in 1968 was better, but Gibson threw 40% more of those really good even if slightly less good than Pedro innings. That goes a long way. Look at Gooden in 85 or Carlton in 72. Being the most dominant and the most valuable aren’t necessarily the same thing. To take it to an extreme, Rivera in 2008 had better rate stats than Pedro in 2000 but he only pitched 70 innings, so who cares.
Also at that point, wasn't LAD's pitching down to basically Bobby Miller?
Or the Dodgers showed that over 162-game season that they were a better team than the Diamondbacks and Arizona showed over a five-game series that they were better than Los Angeles.
If this is so, you'll be perfectly happy with a Sox team that gets the last WC spot?
Zing! Totally nailed me, dude. I’ve made it pretty clear over the last bunch of years how if the Sox don’t win the division, then I don’t want them in the playoffs.
Not for nothing, but I have always thought of the playoffs more like a poker game than a crapshoot (I'm just talking overall, I don't honestly know if you're saying they are or are not a crapshoot, ha, but I don't think they are, more like a poker game). There are things you can do in poker to stack the odds in your favor - and of course you're going up against other people and not just against math. Sure, sometimes the cards just won't go in your favor, but it's a lot more nuanced than just pure dumb luck.
I mean if last year was a one off, than sure....
It's not a zinger, it's just that your position isn't logically consistent.
Agreed. There's certainly chance in baseball, and in a short series, maybe someone is hot or someone is cold, etc. But that's part of the game, and sometimes, the strategy and approach on the field creates those hot and cold streaks. To discount that is to effectively argue the players have no agency - that they're random number generators, as opposed to say, a pitcher who executes a specific strategy against a particular opposing lineup.
Here’s the part where I‘m an annoying tool bag and point out that Beckett was brought in when Theo wasn‘t the GM. i agree with the rest of the post, though. It’s good logic.
Fair. I’ve always thought Cherington and Hoyer knew he was coming back and were executing his strategy, but clearly I can’t prove that.
I think that a lot of people really underestimate just how important Gabriel Moreno was to last year's Arizona team.
Setting aside Rivera in 2008 or Gagne in 2003, the other factor is "compared to the rest of the league". We can hatchet up all of the stats we want and make an argument for a multitude of seasons. But if you take a step back, pitchers were more important (in as much as they threw more innings) in Gibson's era than in Pedro's era. Gibson's 304.2 innings in 1968 was good for 4th in the league, Pedro was 19th.
There’s an alternate world where they bring back one of Eovaldi or Wacha and Eflin last year, skip the Corey Kluber experience, maybe pass on Jansen. Last year probably turns out a bit differently, Bloom is still here, etc etc.
The Red Sox coming back in 2004 was a combination of talent, attitude and luck...or good fortune, as I prefer to think of it. The most notable example of the Sox getting a big break was the ground-rule double by Clark off Foulke in the 9th inning of Game 5 with the score 4-4. If the ball stays in the park the Yankees get a run there.
Because the Cardinals were shut out 3 times; scored 1 run 6 times, and 2 runs 9 times in 34 of his starts. He didn't lose all those games but it isn't easy to win when your team doesn't score for you.
Honestly the Yankees were way overmatched. That was a team built for the regular season and IMO they themselves were lucky to win 2, nevermind be Mariano Rivera away from a sweep
I believe that the postseason is mostly a crapshoot. You can go back to the 80s, the Twins weren’t better than the Tigers or Cards in 1987. The Dodgers weren’t better than the A’s in 1988, nor were the Reds better than same team in 1990. And we can go on but I think I made my point.
In other words, because the teams the Cardinals were facing similarly benefited from the higher mound, deader ball, and whatever else contributed to the extreme suppression of offense in that era. Gibson is an all-timer. But it is, was, and always will be Pedro Martinez.
Curt Flood's autobiography has great passages about Gibson. He would sit in the dugout and say "Score some runs you miserable bastards" and similar more R-rated things. Famously he told Tim McCarver when he dared to pay a visit to the mound "The only thing you know about good pitching is you can't hit it". The comparison of Pedro and Gibson is fun because they were very interesting and strong-willed guys. And they were both really really good.
Another thing about that era was a team set the height of its mound as well as its slope, so the visiting team's pitchers had to make adjustments for basically each park in which it played on the road.
In their best years I was always impressed by how Tito had them primed for the start of the playoffs, and that Cora seemed like he knew how to do this too. Mostly they rested guys down the stretch, which isn't rocket science but it does sometimes require a manager to not panic. Even setting aside the long playoff runs and titles, I'm not sure when you would say the last time is that a Sox team has bombed out of the playoffs unjustifiably? Maybe 2009? In this century even their ALDS losses were to good teams. Anyway, we haven't been on the receiving end of many random playoff exits in a while.
Yeha both the 2005 and 2009 sweeps were closer than they looked on paper IMO
Thanks for sharing this one. I had never heard that before. It seems crazy that teams were able to do that but I suppose it’s not entirely different from teams being able to construct their ballparks to basically whatever dimensions they like.
I'm not sure about Cora. There was 2018, but they played right down to the wire in 2021. The rest of the time his "off days" and so forth haven't really borne fruit. (Plus he rode Vazquez like crazy.)
The Yankees were way overmatched in spite of coming that close to sweeping us? OK.
I continue to hope that the Sox are waiting to swoop in on Montgomery, but I do wonder if they just don't like his metrics. There was a recent article about "Stuff+" that showed he does not have overwhelming ball dynamics (I just made that term up, but I think you get the point). The irony being that the Yankees traded him away for this same reason and all he has done since is win.
He also has a well above average fWAR (which relies on FIP) for 4 straight seasons counting abbreviated 2020.
