Joe's Blog

Nice college hoops reference there. I hate major conference teams that try to pad their schedules to skate into the field of 65, so by all means, call 'em out whenever you get the chance, in whatever forum!

Would love to see a historical view of this (paging Mr. Goldman), since the dynasty Yankee teams, for example, had the rep of fattening up on the league's dross.

Seems like an easily researchable question. I'm going to presume the 'Secret Sauce' guys looked at it, and apparently found no relationship to postseason success.

One reason for this is that the Cardinals have actively tried to "set their rotation for big series". They've juggled around to the point of giving Suppan starts against weak competition just so they can put their big 3 against the Reds. In fact, during that 5-1 stretch against Cincinnati, the Reds faced Carp twice, Wainwright twice, and Garcia twice.

Of course in doing this, the weaker teams get to feast on the likes of Lohse, Suppan, and Westbrook.

isn't this the type of thing the hit list number is supposed to account for? Reds still better there

This article is the kind of stuff I look forward to reading as part of my subscription. Please feel free to continue with your ad hoc submissions.

Well NO ONE on this website liked the Reds chances at the start of the season - and you all had well crafted statistics to back your choice of the Cardinals over everyone else. I wouldn't expect anyone here to back the Reds now, and I'm hoping your precognition is just as accurate.

I do find it interesting that we have a tendency to want to give the Cardinals credit for their success against good teams while minimizing how pathetic it is to have lost against the bad teams.

Splits can be deceiving. They allow us to tell stories that are interesting and then to extrapolate based on those revealed characteristics. But the question is, do we really have reason to believe that the Cardinals will continue to beat up good teams? Maybe you say yes. But why? If they are truly that good, why do they struggle against bad teams? Or put another way, if the Cards are really a team who will continue to beat the rest of the good teams more often than not (call them a .600 team), what are the odds they'd play so poorly against the bad ones?

They aren't one or the other, they're both. At least at that level of analysis, we can't say much of anything -- particularly not that the Cardinals are a better team than the Reds.

That said, I think Clonod has the key point. The Cards are an extremely top heavy team and LaRussa has been very careful at making sure his best players, pitchers in particular, are on the field against the good teams. The Reds have faced Carp 5x, Wainright 4x, Garcia 3x, Penny 3x, Lohse 1x, Walters 1x.

The Reds by contrast are a very flat team, particularly on the pitcher staff. There's essentially no way for them to manipulate the rotation to put them at an advantage.

60% of the time, the Cardinals are a little better than the Reds. 40% of the time, they're much worse. It's sort of unfortunate (though part of the fun) that baseball "teams" change so drastically from day to day. From the perspective of a Reds fan, it's quite frustrating that the playoffs are structured to put top heavy teams at a massive advantage.

With baseball structured such that the full team is very rarely used in single game, the best change MLB could make to the playoffs in my mind is to run them like long series instead of compilations of single games. The playoffs should be there to let the best teams battle it out. The current system would be like playing 4v4 basketball or 8v8 football in the playoffs. It's silly on the face of it to so drastically alter the game for those sports. But baseball has no problems changing things up such that teams only have to use half their roster.

I can't imagine the Reds making it out of round one. They have no ace; just a bunch of number three starters.

Well, in your defense Joe, you weren't part of the article that raised my ire in the first place (or, at that time, even part of BP) : http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=10451. Not one person could step out on a limb (even as a lark) and pick against the pack (Forget the Reds… no one picked the Cubs?)

And RedsManRick is better at writing critique than I. He gets a “Well said” out of me for what he said here and a major thumbs up for what you wrote after Perrotto preseason write up of the Reds included the Reds won’t win “because they never win anymore” (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=10085 )

I guess the problem is mine - I'm a fan first. I love the stats and even enjoy trying to keep up when the site disguises itself as an advanced stats class. But I guess I’m getting burned out of years of this site giving me a myriad of mathematical reasons why my favorite team wasn’t good, isn’t good, and won’t be good. Now the Reds finally put a season together, and your blog post immediately sets up the “Why the Reds won’t win the playoffs” articles.

I get that BP is NOT supposed to be a fan-zine and it’s not your job to blow sunshine up my team’s ___. It’s a blog post not an article – so you’re just passing a thought along – and it’s a valid thought at that. . The Cards own the Reds and I’ve no answers about the sweeps in Philly (july) or Denver (sep). But calling us the V Tech of baseball – like we were ducking teams or sneaking in is a little harsh.

11 of the 32 losses you refer to were by one run (8 of those were on the road). They are 3-4 against the West leading Giants – including some ridiculous slugfests in San Fran as the Giants stated to make their push. They had a fluke loss after a near perfect game v the Phillies and are one of the few teams to at least *taste* success against Halladay (a win and a ND in the aforementioned Travis Wood game). They’ve yet to finish against the struggling Padres. AND - thanks to doing their work against the poorer teams – won’t have to worry about any possible match up with the Cardinals.

Am I betting the mortgage on another Reds title – no. But I don’t fear the playoff contenders despite the regular season results. Cueto/Wood/Arroyo gives us a rotation to keep us in it. And having one of the leagues best offenses, led by the league MVP, gives us better than a punchers chance. That’s not sneaking in.

P.S. – Like Perrotto fine, but his NL Central preview wasn’t his best.

P.P.S. – having said all this I am completely TERRIFIED I’ve jinxed my team.

If TLR has lined up his best pitchers for the good teams, wouldn't he have also seen to it that his best position players also made those games? While then resting then some against the Astros of the world? Just wonderin'.

The Reds are 0-10 at Colorado, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. That includes 7 one run losses, 4 extra inning losses, and two blown 6 run leads in the ninth.

Any serious rating system already takes into account quality of opposition. Various studies in other sports have shown that trying to underweight performances against poor teams (thus emphasizing performances against good teams) reduces the accuracy of forecasted team strength. I.e., teams, on average, don't have a special skill to perform well/poorly against good/bad teams.