Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Rum
A. Agreed.
B. Yup, they do.
I should say my argument was specifically on the numbers saldana posted as a stand alone (I know that's Byrnes' numbers, of course), but that's not an actual reflection of my opinion of the DBacks' lineup. I was just playing devil's advocate, saying, okay, if this is the #3 and best hitter and we have a normal regression at the other spots in the lineup, then this is a pretty poor lineup. The reality is that where Arizona lacks in proven top hitting ability, they make up some with depth, as they have several players like Byrnes, Upton, Drew, Reynolds, Jackson, Tracy (he's still around, isn't he?) who are all solid young hitters with good upside (okay Byrnes isn't young).
All that said, they win with pitching.  And some luck (based on last year). |
Agree with Chief. An .813 OPS from your #3 hitter goes a long way in explaining how the Dbacks were outscored on the season.
Run differential is the biggest indicator in a team's overall talent level and success. The Dbacks beat their Pythag record by about 11 games. Part of it was luck, part of it was the way the team is constructed, and part of it was Melvin not overmanaging his team like a Tony LaRussa would.
If anyone thinks there's some magic formula that points to a team being able to make the playoffs after being outscored by their opponents on the season, you're sadly mistaken. There's years and years of data showing that 99% of the time you can predict a team's record within a game or two simply by looking at how many runs they scored compared to how many they gave up.