Joe Torre's Dodgers are done and I am down another game to a pair of coins.
(The quarters are a perfect 5-0 in their picks thus far and have the Yankees to win the ALCS)
Anyway, heading into making my League Championship Series picks I sided with the Dodgers, thinking that their bullpen would be invaluable due to all the late lead changes and dramatic finishes in the first round.
Normally when looking at a series I give the team with the better starting staff, especially the most dominant starter, the initial edge and then move on to the other positions to see if things balance out.
In the Philadelphia/Los Angeles series Cliff Lee looked the best out of anyone on either staff. Beyond the veteran lefty there were just questions; Cole Hamels was not quite himself in the series with the Rockies and J.A. Happ wasn't sharp either. I allowed myself to be swayed by the Dodgers win over the St. Louis Cardinals, the team with arguably the top three starters in that division series, and took LA over Philly in the NLCS.
I went with their bullpen because even though Lee was the best of the bunch, the Dodgers' starters would only have to keep things close before George Sherrill, Jonathan Broxton and the boys took over. Sadly, the Dodgers' gave up 24 runs over innings one through five in the series with Philly and even when the games were close, their bullpen was terrible. LA pitchers gave up 13 runs over the innings six to nine over the five games.
These clearly were not the Don Drysdale/Sandy Koufax Dodgers.
With Philadelphia wearing out Torre's pitchers he must have been wondering if the 74-year-old Koufax would be willing to leave his seat at the game and start warming up or if David Wells would be willing to make a comeback.
Watching Torre's facial expressions as the Phillies put runner after runner on base reminded me of his non-glory years in New York. The "I can't believe I had to let that guy start" look he got so often toward the end.
During the Yankees four World Series titles under the Torre Regime, you could count on a few things. Their order was filled with guys who would wear opposition pitchers down early and come through with clutch hits late, Mariano 'The Hammer of God' Rivera would break both the bats and spirits of opposing hitters and, maybe most importantly, they had a group of starters who would take the ball when their turn came up.
It was the luxury of the Yankees' Fort Knox payroll and Torre was a bit spoiled. His position guys during that span were great players - Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, Jorge Posada - all solid, but none could be considered the top man at his position. It was same with his pitchers, save of course for Rivera.
While Torre never really had an ace the caliber of Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling or Randy Johnson in their prime, he could count on the starters he had. He essentially credits solid, if at times unspectacular, starting pitching for the Yankees' success in the book he wrote with Tom Verducci, "The Yankees Years."
In the playoffs Torre could hand the ball to dependable starters like Andy Pettitte (15-9, 3.90 career postseason), David Cone (8-3, 3.80), David Wells (10-5, 3.17) or Orlando Hernandez (9-3, 2.55) when he needed a win. The Yankees might not have the "best starter" in the playoffs, but they did have deep, proven rotations that were tough to beat in a five or seven-game-series.
With the Dodgers, Torre used four starters in the club's two series/eight game run in 2009 - Randy Wolf, Clayton Kershaw, Hiroki Kuroda and Vicente Padilla, or in other terms a capable veteran, 21-year-old with great potential, 34-year-old sophomore and a guy who was unemployed for a portion of the season.
The crew (Wolf, Kershaw and Padilla) were solid enough against the very disappointing Cardinals, but they were raked over the coals by the Phillies. While Padilla pitched a gem in LA's only NLCS win in Game 2, he was brutal in Game 5. In the end Kershaw was 0-1 with a 9.45 ERA; Padilla 0-1, 6.10; Wolf 0-0, 5.06 and Kuroda 0-1, 40.50.
- - The Schilling Theory - -
Verducci has written about a similar principle when it comes to regular season success. He calls it "The Schilling Theory." The name comes from a prediction Curt Schilling made before the 2007 season that the American League East team whose top five starters made the most starts would win the division. The big right-hander was right and Verducci explains the theory in detail in this 2008 article (thanks to TSN's Will Hill for passing on the link).
What does it mean? Basically, when the best five guys make their starts, a team has success. It might sound obvious, but it really makes sense and the logic is sound.
Sure, not every team has a "great" rotation, but if you can avoid going with too many guys outside of your top five (Verducci refers to them as "Second-Tier Starters"), it means two things; your best starters are healthy enough to pitch and secondly are performing well enough that the manager keeps sending them to the mound.
Verducci crunched the numbers and teams that have won the World Series in the Wild-Card era have done so with very stable rotations.
What's that saying about pitching and defence?