Beware conventional wisdom. Here are 10 myths of these October playoffs, and our expert is happy to dispel them
Posted: Tuesday October 01, 2002 5:49 PM
By Tom Verducci
One night last week, over a postgame spread of barbecued chicken, Atlanta Braves pitchers Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz convened for a brotherly discussion -- brotherly, that is, in the manner of siblings wedged into the backseat of a station wagon on a long, hot ride.
"You're an idiot," Glavine said to Smoltz.
Smoltz, ever the tinkerer on the mound, had just pitched the ninth inning of a 7-1 win in Philadelphia, during which he had sprinkled in a few two-seam sinking fastballs. "You said you could tell I was throwing it," he said. "You said I was giving it away."
"I said I could see you had a new wrinkle, you dummy," Glavine said.
"That's not what you said," Smoltz said.
"I didn't say you were tipping it," Glavine said. "Leo [Mazzone, the pitching coach] gave me a heads-up. Ninety-five [mph] on the board for the four-seamer, 94 on the two. It looked like the split."
"Well, good," Smoltz said. "If it looked like the split, that's good."
Maddux, between bites, kept laughing from his sideline seat. Among them the three have 679 wins, 92 postseason appearances, seven Cy Young Awards, innumerable rounds of golf (including Pine Valley that morning) and one enduring friendship. What, Smoltz was asked, would he ever do without his two running mates?
"I don't even want to think about that," he said, "but I might find out soon."
Are we there yet? The end of the road could be coming for this band of brothers after 10 years. Glavine and Maddux are eligible for free agency next month, and the Braves might decide that they can't afford to re-sign both.
First, of course, is the matter of another postseason, the 11th in a row for Atlanta. But during that stupendous run the Braves have come away with just one world championship. You might think that the bullpen, which Maddux called "the best we've ever had, top to bottom," will decide whether Atlanta wins a ring this year. Think again.
Conventional wisdom gets slapped around in October more than Jay Witasick. This year will be no different, especially in a democratic field of eight playoff teams who have each won between 94 and 103 games. For instance, the Braves' bullpen tops the list of the 10 biggest myths about this postseason.
MYTH 1 A vastly improved corps of relievers will make the difference for the Braves.
The common theory that Atlanta would have won more World Series with a better bullpen, says Smoltz, "is a perception from a long time ago. If you look at the last four or five years, it hasn't been true." No, Atlanta's biggest problem has been that its vaunted starters, especially Glavine and Maddux, have been outpitched. Since Game 5 of the 1997 National League Championship Series, that pair was a combined 5-12 in 22 postseason starts entering the week. The alleged perps in the bullpen? They were 6-4 in that same span.
Atlanta does have a wicked bullpen now, with righthanded closer Smoltz (NL-record 55 saves) set up by lefthanders Mike Remlinger (7-2, 1.88) and Chris Hammond (7-2, 0.95). But as Glavine and Maddux go, so go the Braves, especially when backed by the least-productive offense among the eight playoff teams (4.4 runs per game).
MYTH 2 For the Giants to win in October, Barry Bonds has to produce.
Bonds may be great, but he's no Luis Sojo. The four-time NL MVP and the recently retired utility infielder each had roughly the same number of career postseason at bats before this year's playoffs, 97 and 101 respectively. Sojo had more hits (26-15), more doubles (6-5) and more than twice as many RBIs (15-6). And Bonds's at bats came in the days when opposing teams actually pitched to him. You know, way back in 2000, or 119 home runs and 375 walks ago.
In the NL Division Series two years ago New York Mets pitchers walked Bonds only three times in 17 plate appearances. "Ha!" Smoltz said when reminded of that statistic. "He'll be lucky if he gets three at bats against us." Smoltz was only half kidding. Says one NL scout, "He'll see nothing to hit."
The key at bats for San Francisco will fall to Benito Santiago and Reggie Sanders, who hit behind Bonds. Santiago had 49 more at bats with runners in scoring position (134) than did Bonds (85) and hit just .261 in those spots. Sanders had more such at bats (160) than even major league RBI champion Alex Rodriguez. Sanders hit .238 in those situations. The Braves will try to make Santiago and Sanders, not Bonds, beat them.
MYTH 3 Teams like the A's and the Diamondbacks are better off using their premier starting pitchers on short rest.
Managers Art Howe of the Oakland A's, Bob Brenly of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Bobby Cox of Atlanta and Mike Scioscia of the Anaheim Angels said they would use a three-man rotation in October. Tony La Russa of the St. Louis Cardinals was considering it. They should all rethink that strategy.
Since 1996 there have been 20 games in which a pitcher started a playoff game on three days' rest against an opponent that used a fully rested starter. Only once did the pitcher on short rest win -- the Padres' Sterling Hitchcock, in Game 6 of the 1998 NLCS -- while their teams went 5-15. New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, blessed with deep starting pitching (and four World Series rings in the past six years), has used a starter on short rest three times in 78 postseason games with New York, and he's 1-2 in those games. Cox, 4-6 in such situations, will use only Glavine, Maddux and Kevin Millwood this time around, rather than give rookie Damian Moss (12-6) a start. Don't be surprised if Cox regrets that decision.
MYTH 4 Off contraction's death row, the Twins are primed for an upset.
The Minnesota Twins play exceptionally good defense and can scare the bejabbers out of visiting teams in the loud, freakish Metrodome. However, the Twins match up poorly against the Athletics, their first-round draw: Minnesota lost the season series (3-6) and struggled against lefthanded starting pitchers (23-29). The A's have two of the best lefties in the game, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, who threw back-to-back shutouts against the Twins last month.
MYTH 5 The way to beat the Athletics is to get into their bullpen.
Oakland had some September concerns with setup men Jim Mecir, Chad Bradford, Ricardo Rincon and Jeff Tam. Plus, closer Billy Koch has never thrown a pitch in the postseason, and he logged 932Ú3 innings over 84 games this year, an unusually heavy load for a closer. "He loves to work," one AL general manager says. "His problem is, when he gets too macho and tries to throw harder, his ball straightens out."
The A's, however, thrive in the same way that Arizona did last year: by getting as many innings as possible from their starting pitchers. The Diamondbacks needed only one win (by Randy Johnson) and three saves (none in the World Series) from their bullpen to win three playoff series. Hudson, Mulder and Zito work so deep into games that they tend to diminish the importance of middle relief, or even Koch. Beating Oakland will require beating its starters, as New York did in all six of its postseason wins over the A's in the past two years.
MYTH 6 The Angels match up well against the Yankees.
Entering the playoffs, Anaheim was 35-34 against New York since 1996 -- but none of those games were played in October. The Angels have one player with postseason experience, righthander Kevin Appier, who lost his only playoff start to the Yankees in the 2000 Division Series. Anaheim's other starting pitchers, Jarrod Washburn, Ramon Ortiz and John Lackey, have all exceeded their previous career highs in innings pitched.
As the Angels stumbled in late September before securing the wild card, hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said, "I just see some guys tired now." Manager Mike Scioscia added, "They're going through a pennant race for the first time and trying too hard."
MYTH 7 The home field advantage is overrated.
Howe pitched Zito and La Russa started Andy Benes on the last day of the season with home field advantage still up for grabs. Neither team got what it wanted, and that could become crucial if a series goes the distance. Since 1992 the home team is 9-2 (.818) in winner-take-all games, compared with 127-123 (.508) in all other postseason games. The advantage is also significant if a decisive game is close. Since 1982 home teams are 8-0 in ultimate games that were decided by one run and 6-0 when the winning run was scored in the final inning.
MYTH 8 The Cardinals aren't good enough to get past Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.
St. Louis's starting rotation has been lightly regarded since the June death of Darryl Kile, but the Cardinals played the best baseball of any team down the stretch (20-4), with righthander Matt Morris and lefthander Chuck Finley leading the way. The matchup against Arizona doesn't faze them, nor should it. Over their careers Johnson and Schilling were a combined 11-14 against St. Louis (postseason included). The Cardinals have the best starting eight in the playoffs and a bench fortified with tough outs, such as Miguel Cairo, a giant killer who is 8 for 19 in his career against Johnson.
"St. Louis is so scary right now," says one NL scout. "They believe they have fate on their side after all they've been through. They're playing with so much confidence."
MYTH 9 The Diamondbacks' one-two pitching punch will overcome the loss of Luis Gonzalez.
No team can easily survive the loss of its best hitter, but Gonzalez's separated shoulder is more problematic because Arizona is already without infielder Craig Counsell (pinched neck nerve), the 2001 NLCS MVP, and outfielder Danny Bautista (dislocated shoulder). That trio accounted for 42% of the Diamondbacks' RBIs last postseason, which makes the burden on Johnson and Schilling even greater this time around. But the Big Two can't do much more than they did last October, when they had a 1.30 ERA in 892Ú3 innings and accounted for nine of Arizona's 11 wins.
MYTH 10 The Yankees' offense isn't built for October.
The Bronx Bombers no longer have the grit of Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius; they're too reliant on the home run; and they strike out too often -- all of which would seem to make them ill-suited to win the low-scoring, grind-it-out games that are typical of the postseason. Sounds reasonable, but it's just not true.
The Yankees won more games in which they did not hit a home run (19) than they did when they won the pennant last year (10). They won more games in which they scored three or fewer runs (16) than they did last season (15). They led the AL in runs, walks, on-base percentage and fewest shutouts, and were 19-9 against the other playoff teams. Does that sound like a vulnerable outfit? If anything, the Yankees' shaky defense (127 errors, 40 more than the Angels) will cause them more problems than their offense.
"It's probably the best offensive team they've taken into the playoffs," one NL scout says. "Every year I look for reasons to pick against them. But if I were a betting man, I'd have to put my money on the Yankees. They're still the best team."
The Yankees as the team to beat? That's the only conventional wisdom that's likely to hold true this October.
Issue date: October 7, 2002
Photographs by Brad Mangin (2), Stephen Dunn/Getty Images, V.J. Lovero, Brad Mangin, John Iacono, Ezra Shaw/Getty Images, Bob Rosato, Paul Conners, John Iacono
