World Series Preview

by Jeff Sullivan on Oct 28, 2009 1:06 PM PDT in Looking Ahead

You'll notice that this is the exact same thing I posted a year ago. It's almost like there's a reason for that.

CONTEXT

The New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies will face each other in the 2009 World Series, which begins tonight. The Yankees have advanced this far by defeating the Minnesota Twins and the LAnaheim Angels. The Phillies have advanced this far by defeating the Colorado Rockies and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Both the Yankees and Phillies managed to defeat their opponents by outplaying them in a short series.

KEY PLAYERS

New York:

Roster

Philadelphia:

Roster

Both the Yankees and Phillies are filled to the brim with possible difference-makers. The 50 listed above will likely be the most important.

KEY QUESTIONS

Can the New York Yankees outscore the Philadelphia Phillies?

They can.

Can the Philadelphia Phillies outscore the New York Yankees?

They can.

Will one of the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies outscore the other four times?

Most certainly yes!

X FACTOR

The Yankees will play a maximum of four games at home, while the Phillies will play a maximum of three games at home. The home crowds may or may not help. I imagine there are also intangibles somewhere.

CONCLUSION

Both the Yankees and the Phillies are good teams. The Yankees are better. If you re-played the World Series a million times, roughly 60-65% of the time the Yankees would be crowned as champions. This World Series will be played once. One of these teams will win four games. The other probably won't. The outcome will mean everything, and nothing.

4 recs | 45 comments

Comments

One of these teams will win four games. The other probably won’t.

Um…If one of the teams will win four games, the other necessarily won’t. :P

Rachmaninoff - October 28, 2009 reply

GASP

Matthew - October 28, 2009 reply

With apologies to Aaron Sorkin

Casey: And how about a prediction?

Cutman: When it comes to the sweet science I’m not much on predictions, Casey, but I will say this: One of these teams is gonna win this series and the other will almost surely not.

Casey: How many games?

Cutman: Seven games in the series, Casey.

Casey: Yes, I meant how many of those do you think they’re actually gonna have to—how long’s the series gonna be?

Cutman: It’s gonna go the distance, Casey.

Christoph - October 28, 2009 reply

I'M NOT CALLING HIM CUTMAN

pdb - October 28, 2009 reply

Sounds like a thrilling proposition!

lailaihei - October 28, 2009 reply

Also, go Phillies!

On a side note, Indians fans here in Cleveland are rather miserable seeing their two back-to-back Cy Young winners both pitching in the World Series…and neither one wearing a Chief Wahoo logo.

Rachmaninoff - October 28, 2009 reply

Where's the story about the promising youngster?

He’s the key to the series!

pdb - October 28, 2009 reply

I think veteran leadership got these teams here, and it's going to decide the series.

marc w - October 28, 2009 reply

The Seattle Mariners helped out a bit as well..

sirbrianwilson - October 28, 2009 reply

No, they didn't.

Veteran leadership is difficult to see through ‘stats’ or ‘watching the game’ – but we know for a fact that it manifests itself in the ‘big games.’ Often a team won’t know which games are big until it’s in the middle of one, but by definition, these games must be between ‘big’ teams in an important part of the year (unless it’s a ‘big’ game that ‘sets the tone;’ this subspecies can occur in April). As the Mariners are not the natural rivals of these teams, and because the M’s never really got control of their own postseason ‘destiny,’ veteran leadership wasn’t called for in games between the Mariners and Yankees.
This is why Hideki Matsui, Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte didn’t do much against the M’s, but killed the Red Sox and… excuse me? I’m… I’ve been told that Matsui, Jeter and Pettitte annihilated the M’s this year, which makes perfect sense, because as I was saying, a TRUE veteran leader uses games that DON’T mean much to demonstrate to young players how to play the game the ‘right’ way. It’s newcomers like Swisher who can occasionally get psyched up for a big game (if you can’t, you’re out of the league in a hurry), but struggle to maintain focus throughout this marathon of a season. But hey, that’s what a true professional, a true team leader, is able to do. And it’s the leaders of these teams that will decide the series.

marc w - October 28, 2009 reply

It's times like these where we need to pull out our most valuable assett:

WhatIfSports.com!

Just simulated the game. You can find the boxscore here

Yanks win 6-1. A-Rod hits two home runs. Ouch. No need to watch now.

sirbrianwilson - October 28, 2009 reply

That means we can watch some spicy VWL action instead

Jeff Sullivan - October 28, 2009 reply

!Sabor Venezolano!

sirbrianwilson - October 28, 2009 reply

Whoa...bizarro prediction.

sirbrianwilson - October 28, 2009 reply

Huh

It appears you confused A-Rod with Chase Utley. Wacky.

urchman - October 28, 2009 reply

The Phillies made your job easier, huh?

joof - October 28, 2009 reply

By 50%!

It helps that they’re the worse team again.

Jeff Sullivan - October 28, 2009 reply

Lame

Poochie - October 28, 2009 reply

Anybody that writes anything that deviates from this significantly is spreading misinformation

Jeff Sullivan - October 28, 2009 reply

Sigh

This is the second day in a row I have had to ask for a refund. How disappointing! LL used to be a place that was on the cutting edge of baseball analysis and now it is as if it has sold out to AOL fanhouse and regurgitating old jokes. For shame.

Poochie - October 28, 2009 reply