Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine
Archives Division Series: Wednesday, October 1st, 2003

Boston Red Sox at Oakland Athletics, 10 PM ET (game 1)

This series is perhaps the hardest to predict because the teams seem so evenly matched. I'm predicting a 5-game series, with a re-match of tonight's pitching matchup.

Because Oakland plays in a pitcher's park, its offence is better than it looks on paper. This is the right sort of offence to attack Pedro with: a high-pitch count generator. As always with Hudson, his success depends on inducing routine ground balls.




Pedro Martinez (2002/2003)
versusABH HRTBWKHBPSBCSOBPSLGK pctW pct
right5711066 24042195973.252.273.314.069
left84018514250 452501565.272.337.278.051

Oakland's strategy will be to get into lots of deep counts and exhaust Pedro. It's unknown how effective Pedro is after 120 pitches because no regular season game has meant enough to take that kind of risk. With Pedro scheduled to make another start in this series, I don't think he'll throw more than 115 pitches.

Oakland Athletics versus Righthanded Pitchers (2002/2003)
PlayerABH2B3BHRWKSBCSHBPavgobpslg
M Ellis69218234 711691198110.263.339.380
E Durazo53213931228114112122.261.394.485
E Chavez81925157 7481021351131.306.384.569
M Tejada99429758 044561278015.299.346.490
S Hatteberg7982174442110879016.272.363.416
J Guillen4881402222925933413.287.338.518
R Hernandez62816729019561120015.266.340.403
J Dye56012727125561132011.227.279.413
C Singleton65217448 68371041833.267.309.396

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

Great decision by the A's to bat Durazo 2nd. He's the most likely Athletic to get on base and it give Chavez and Tejada a chance to drive in some runs tonight. I'm a little surprised Jermaine Dye is in the lineup instead of Terrence Long or Eric Byrnes.


Tim Hudson (2002/2003)
versusABHHRTBWKHBPSBCSOBPSLGK pctW pct
right77717710 24050147966.282.309.176.060
left100825724250 73167968.311.380.153.068

Just as the A's are well-suited to beat Pedro, the Bosox are going to give Tim Hudson problems. Boston has plenty of lefthanded batters who hit line-drives and deep flies. As I write this, one of them (Todd Walker) has gone deep. But Hudson is nothing if not a big-game pitcher. This may come down to a battle of bullpens.

Boston Red Sox versus Righthanded Pitchers (2002/2003)
PlayerABH2B3BHRWKSBCSHBPavgobpslg
J Damon881243479201051045885.276.356.418
N Garciaparra1004298721342629519413.297.327.520
T Walker8832686361878108762.304.361.412
M Ramirez789250461561301542115.317.423.591
D Ortiz6261925624288114121.307.393.604
K Millar7292085413368146338.285.353.498
B Mueller649201468158283144.310.390.475
T Nixon76122351846110145544.293.385.562
J Varitek66417440123681585410.262.362.429

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

Nomar Garciaparra is batting second. I don't think this is optimal, since his OBP against righties is far lower than lefty swingers like Mueller, Walker or Ortiz. I would definitely bat Mueller 2nd, Manny 3rd and follow with Ortiz, Walker and Nomar. Of course batting a superstar like Garciaparra 6th would create waves of controversy ... better to leave well enough alone.

Playoff Schedule
       
TuesdayMINJohan SantanaatNYYMike Mussina3-1 MIN
...FLAJosh BeckettatSFJason Schmidt2-0 SFG
...CHIKerry WoodatATLRuss Ortiz4-2 CHI
       
WednesdayFLABrad PennyatSFSidney PonsonFLA 9-5
...CHICarlos ZambranoatATLMike HamptonATL 5-3
...BOSPedro MartinezatOAKTim Hudson10:00
       
ThursdayBOSTim WakefieldatOAKBarry Zito4:00
...MINBrad RadkeatNYYAndy Pettitte8:00
       
FridaySFKirk RuerteratFLAMark Redman4:00
...ATLGreg MadduxatCHIMark Prior8:00

 

2003 Playoff Series
New York Yankees
versus
Minnesota Twins
MIN leads 1-0
...........| |...........
Atlanta Braves
versus
Chicago Cubs
CHI leads 1-0
 
ALCS
 
NLCS
 
Oakland Athletics
versus
Boston Red Sox
ALDS-WC
...........| |...........
San Francisco Giants
versus
Florida Marlins
SF leads 1-0
Posted by robertdudek on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 09:45 AM EDT.
Division Series: Wednesday, October 1st, 2003 | 32 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Mike D - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:43 AM EDT (#88855) #
What a battle between Durazo and Pedro. Pedro lost the battle, but won the war by coaxing Chavez to foul out.
[ Reply to This ]
Mike D - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:44 AM EDT (#88856) #
I know it's only one game, but Pedro and Hudson just didn't have a Halladay-esque vibe going today. When Doc is on, he's fast, confident, efficient and unflappable. If you ask me, HLH is the best in the AL right now.
[ Reply to This ]
Leigh - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 01:03 AM EDT (#88857) #
Agreed, Doc is the best in the AL right now. His quick pace, good control and penchant for the groundball cause his innings totals to rise. Pedro might pitch slightly better innings, but Doc pitches many more innings of negligably lower quality. Ever watch a Halladay start, and at some point say to yourself: "holy s***, it's the 8th already?"?
[ Reply to This ]
_Andrew Edwards - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 01:33 AM EDT (#88858) #
Durazo repays his liberation in spades. Great game, albeit not the gam e I was expecting to see.
[ Reply to This ]
_Shrike - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 02:55 AM EDT (#88859) #
A Ramon Hernandez bunt wins it in the bottom of the 12th inning, with Rich Harden picking up his first playoff win. Wow. Truly an unexpected turn of events!
[ Reply to This ]
_Cristian - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 03:01 AM EDT (#88860) #
Wow. It doesn't get much better than that. I'm sure those of you in the east will agree when you wake up, check the score, and see what happened.
[ Reply to This ]
_Cristian - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 03:05 AM EDT (#88861) #
Too bad the Sox gave up on Chad Fox. Today he gave the Marlins 2 perfect innings in relief.
[ Reply to This ]
_Jeff - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 03:18 AM EDT (#88862) #
The A's drew 10 walks and made the Bosox pitchers work. But that was some heads-up baserunning in the 12th and a GREAT bunt!

In your face, rigid adherence to Weaver-ball!
[ Reply to This ]
_snellville jone - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 06:42 AM EDT (#88863) #
"What an ending. Who would have thought that? A's win with a bunt," Macha said. "Shame on anybody who missed it."

Yeah, what a bunch of bastards we are on the east coast for not staying up until 2:30 in the morning in the middle of the week.
[ Reply to This ]
_A - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 08:44 AM EDT (#88864) #
I knew we were in for a good series but that was baseball at its best. If this were a 7-game ALCS it would have serious potential for best series ever, instead we've got these 5-game excuse me series that prove someone got lucky once.

Finally election day! We all have time off to go vote, very little excuse not to do so.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 08:53 AM EDT (#88865) #
http://economics.about.com
Finally election day! We all have time off to go vote, very little excuse not to do so.

Yeah.. if I have to go, y'all have to go as well. Although I'm somewhat right of center, I'm hoping that the Conservatives get stomped. They need a house cleaning something awful.

Does anybody have any predictions? Here's mine:

Out of 103 Ridings:

78 Liberal
15 PC
10 NDP

I have a feeling we're going to get a Liberal rout that nobody wants. Thank you, Mr. First-Past-the-Post.

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
robertdudek - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 09:02 AM EDT (#88866) #
I think the Liberals will get a slight majority, which is an okay result because they'll have to keep the backbenchers happy or risk falling into a minority government.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 09:05 AM EDT (#88867) #
http://economics.about.com
I think the Liberals will get a slight majority, which is an okay result because they'll have to keep the backbenchers happy or risk falling into a minority government.

I really hope you're right. A guy at our local Tim Hortons is running a pool of how many seats the Liberals will get. My Dad took 55 and I took 78. If my Dad is right, I'm never going to hear the end of it.

Cheers,

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
_Mark - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:03 PM EDT (#88868) #
I "only" stayed up till the end of the tenth inning (a bit before 2:00 am, I think). I had a sinking feeling the ninth inning wasn't going to be kind to Boston after the walk & HBP.

My fearless predictions: Liberals: 65, PC: 30, NDP: 8. I don't think the Liberals are quite as dominant as some are saying, but it's definitely going to be enough for an easy majority. And really, once you get 52 seats, it's all a moot point (okay, maybe 55, to give a little cushion if an MPP crosses the floor or something).

Not to turn this into a big political thread-jack, but I do wish people were voting *for* something rather than just *against* the conservatives. And, I haven't been particularly impressed with any of the leaders in this campaign.
[ Reply to This ]
_Jurgen - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#88869) #
I think Mike's right.

The Liberals might get a higher percentage of the vote, but otherwise this election smells like '90. Like Rae, McGuinty is trying to be everything to everyone, and people are going to get pretty miffed pretty quickly when he starts making those so-called "tough decisions". (At leaves the Harris-Eves Tories had the good sense to keep their traditional support happy while they pissed off everyone else.)

He'll be trounced in four years.
[ Reply to This ]
_Jurgen - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:27 PM EDT (#88870) #
That's supposed to read "At least the Harries-Eves Tories..."
[ Reply to This ]
_Jurgen - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 12:27 PM EDT (#88871) #
Dammit. "Harris-Eves"
[ Reply to This ]
_A - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 03:14 PM EDT (#88872) #
The Liberals will come away with 63 seats. NDP will get official party status thanks to some higher profile candidates in the auto manufacturing belt (and also thanks to union members' memory running down after 8+ yrs). Leaving the Tories with 28 seats.

I disagree with the notion that this election resembles the Rae government's rise to power because no one, not one person, had predicted anything to that extent. Everyone was so caught up in trying for a minority gov't that it resulted in a large NDP majority.

One thing that I may end up wrong over is the 45-55% voter turn out prediction. Until today I was unaware of the number of advance poll voters. This could signal that a lot of voters are leaving the province at a very odd time of the year but more likely, it means that we're ready for a change and willing to get off our collective asses and do something about it.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 07:26 PM EDT (#88873) #
http://economics.about.com
Only a half hour left to vote kids. You better get out there and vote.. otherwise the Liberal candidate in your riding will only win by 24,346 votes instead of 24,345 or 24,347. :)

Cheers,

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
Mike D - Thursday, October 02 2003 @ 09:52 PM EDT (#88874) #
No trouncing forthcoming for the Ontario Liberals. The economy's on the upswing, so the incumbents will take credit. Plus, they won't antagonize and consolidate their opponents; probably some rookie mistakes and/or general malaise will trim their majority next time around, possibly to minority standards. Depends on what kind of scandals arise.

I guarantee that "mid-teens" popularity and proportional representation will not happen this term.

This will be a competent, likely unremarkable, government. Above all, there won't be more publicly-funded anti-teacher advertisements, or "workfare recipients should buy the dented tuna can" presentations -- and that's a very, very good thing. Anti-intellectualism and class-baiting are finally behind us.

Finally, I'm grateful that the last-ditch anti-immigrant salvos fired by the PC's didn't lead to too many reactionary votes.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 08:34 AM EDT (#88875) #
http://economics.about.com
Wow.. so the Liberals got 3 times the number of votes as the NDP but 10 times the seats. HA HA. The NDP should have implemented PR when they had the chance. It'd be fun if the Libs wouldn't let the NDP have official party standing, but it looks like McG will do the honorable thing.

I was *really* pissed off at all the non-voter bashing that went on last night, particularly on the CBC. Did anybody see the debate? How anyone can be so irresponsible to suggest that people should vote for one of the three parties in that awful scrum is beyond me.

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
robertdudek - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 09:00 AM EDT (#88876) #
I think the Libs will hold on to the majority next time around, unless they do a lot of foolish things. The memory of the run-down infrastructure will still be too fresh in the minds of the voters to trust the PCs. The NDP will not come close to winning either.
[ Reply to This ]
_A - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 11:05 AM EDT (#88877) #
That was terribly upsetting. The number of high profile cabnet ministers returning is way too high for my likings. If Witmer, Flharety and Runcimen had lost their seats I would be on cloud 9 this morning...But it was sure a nice consolation to see the PC's dropped like a rock.

I took in the results at Rosario Marchese's party. It was obviously a hugely supportive NDP crowd but Rosario's line (I find this desperately amusing) is that he's happy we didn't see a minority gov't because then the Liberals would just digest NDP policy and spit it out as their own. He's on to something but you couldn't convince me in a million years that he'd choose this result over that. Nonetheless, a great celebration. It turned out that Marchese won with a difference of almost 7,000 votes but he was pegged at close/even with the Liberal candidate, Nellie Pedro, going in.

The Liberals won't give us anything earth shattering. They'll twist in the wind like every rookie Liberal gov't whose scared of upsetting anyone does...the only reason that we have things like same-sex marriages and pot law discussion is because Chretien isn't trying to get re-elected. Before that they were a typical Liberal government, trying to dance on both sides of the line.
[ Reply to This ]
_Mark - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 11:57 AM EDT (#88878) #
Not a huge surprise last night. A fair bit more Liberal than I predicted (65/30/8) though.

It was a lot more in the interests of the Conservatives to give official status to the NDP, like they did in '99 when they lowered the required number of seats necessary, than it will be for the Liberals to do it this time around. We'll have to see what happens.

I'm pretty much in favor of proportional representation, even though it would (currently) most benefit the NDP, the party for which I'll never vote, simply because I really don't like the idea that a government can get in with like 40% of the popular vote and have carte blanche for 5 years. There is a need to trade off getting things done and having a clear vision with seeing the interests of the people represented in the spirit of democracy. I would worry if 10 parties get seats and they spend all their time bickering and reaching weak self-serving compromises. I also worry about a polarized 2-party system where it's almost impossible to get a new party formed, and to hear new ideas and voices.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 12:04 PM EDT (#88879) #
http://economics.about.com
Not a huge surprise last night. A fair bit more Liberal than I predicted (65/30/8) though.

Well, you were closer than anyone else.

I think the main reason the Conservatives did so well (relative to my expectations) is due to the low voter turnout. Had it been closer to 60%, I think we would have seen more Liberals and NDP get elected, as low voter turnouts tend to help parties on the right.

Cheers,

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
_Mark - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 01:04 PM EDT (#88880) #

as low voter turnouts tend to help parties on the right.



Have there been any studies on this? Does mandatory voting (like say in Australia) give an advantage to more left-of-center parties? Is it that if left-wingers think their vote is going to count they are more likely to vote (but right-wingers vote regardless). I don't think it would be a matter of say, the poor not being able to get to the polls, since that is constant election-to-election.

Recent Ontario Voter Turnout
* 1990 : 64%
* 1995 : 63%
* 1999 : 58%
* 2003 : 55%

I think that the higher voter turnouts correlate better with whether or not the polls are close. If you don't know who's actually going to win, it's worth your while to have your say. If it's pretty much a foregone conclusion, practically speaking, and "responsibility as a citizen" aside, you might as well watch the baseball game.
[ Reply to This ]
robertdudek - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 01:10 PM EDT (#88881) #
The PR system I'd like to see is something like seats based on %popular vote minus 4%. Parties above the 4% threshold would be scaled up to 100% of the seats Win Shares style. E.G. Popular vote: Lib 44% PC 32% NDP 22$ = LIB 40% PC 28% NDP 18%. That's 86%, so to scale that to 100% you'd multiply by 100/86: LIB 46.5% of seats, PC 32.6%, NDP 20.9%. You'd have a coalition of LIB/NDP in that scenario. Of course northern Ontario would complain about their loss of clout.

That would allow a majority or workable minority government, while making each vote more important. If you had seats in direct proportion to pop vote, you'd very quickly see the emergence of splinter groups (no incentive to stick together to form larger groups) and an eventual Israeli style parliament.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 01:25 PM EDT (#88882) #
http://economics.about.com
Have there been any studies on this? Does mandatory voting (like say in Australia) give an advantage to more left-of-center parties? Is it that if left-wingers think their vote is going to count they are more likely to vote (but right-wingers vote regardless). I don't think it would be a matter of say, the poor not being able to get to the polls, since that is constant election-to-election.

Yeah, there's been a *ton* of studies on it. The CJPS (Canadian Journal of Political Science) seems to have 3 articles a year on it.

Voting is essentially a luxury good for those who can take the time off to vote and have the time and resources to get well educated on the issues. That implies that retired people (seniors) and the well off are more likely to vote, and those groups tend to skew right. The people who are on the margin of voting or not voting tend to be the people who have lower amounts of time and money to become educated on the issues. So when these people decide not to vote it tends to skew the results rightward.

There's also been lots of interesting studies regarding voting and demographics. A few studies have shown that after you account for income, there tends not to be a huge difference in the voting behavior of men and women. So men and women who make $85,000 tend not to differ much in their voting behavior and same with men and women who make $15,000. A lot of the gap we see between men and women tends to be explained by difference in wealth (think of wealth being like a park effect).

In the U.S. there are some differences. Blacks are more likely to vote Democrat than whites even accounting for income differentials, and Cuban-Americans are more likely to vote *Republican* than whites when you account for income differences.

I've been out of Poli. Sci. for about 5 years now, so there's probably much newer/better research out there. There's been a lot of interesting research on voting behavior, if you don't mind wading through a lot of journals to find it.

Cheers,

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
_Spicol - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 03:09 PM EDT (#88883) #
Who's off-topic discussion is better? Ours? Or Primer's?

Craig, don't feel bad...I watch Trading Spaces too.
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 03:29 PM EDT (#88884) #
http://economics.about.com
Craig, don't feel bad...I watch Trading Spaces too.

Hehehehehe.. Vern Yip.

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
_Mark - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 05:32 PM EDT (#88885) #
Only here would wealth be a "park effect" and proportional representation be implemented "Win Shares-style". I like it :) That proportional representation idea is a good idea. Haven't heard that before and it makes a lot of sense.

I'm skeptical about the "not given time off to vote" part. You are legally allowed 3 hours off to vote. Most people in urban areas surely live less than 15 minutes' walk away from their polling station. It sounds more like an excuse than an actual cause. Virtually everybody has the time and the means to vote, if they wanted to. The "educated on the issues" part I can understand, but you would think that if you weren't doing well you would want to have an influence on the outcome. I guess this is where apathy comes into play.

Thanks for the pointer to CJPS, my last exposure to politics was B.S.ing my way to an undeserved 95 in grade 13/OAC Politics (think of my high school as having a "park factor" of 110 or so).
[ Reply to This ]
Pepper Moffatt - Friday, October 03 2003 @ 06:23 PM EDT (#88886) #
http://economics.about.com
The "educated on the issues" part I can understand, but you would think that if you weren't doing well you would want to have an influence on the outcome. I guess this is where apathy comes into play.

I suppose if you're poor and you've tried your best to escape poverty will little success, you've probably resigned yourself to the fact that nothing you do will have much of an influence. I know I have days where I feel like "What's the point?" and I've got it much better than I probably deserve.

It was fortunate for me that my father and his family fought their way out of poverty before I was born so my sister and I didn't have to, so I don't really know what it's like to be poor and have no hope. But I think my description is probably pretty accurate for a lot of people.

I really like Robert's model as well. It's quite similar to a variable seat proportional representation model that I wrote a couple papers on as an undergrad.

Mike
[ Reply to This ]
Division Series: Wednesday, October 1st, 2003 | 32 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.