Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
Bottom line is that your team won fewer than 89 games, and ALMOST won the World Series thanks to an improbable late season hot streak. Too bad ALMOST doesn't count.
First, Cueto IS a 3 month rental. Royals are going for the title. Winning the World Series is the goal right? Well played. Hang on to your prospects and swap stories with Braves fans in coming years.
Annually, we wrestle with Druff's failure to accept the concept that there are two seasons in baseball - regular season & playoffs. Perhaps this might actually be a general Dodger misunderstanding of reality - both fans & coaches. Perhaps Druff just parrots what he hears locally.
Example of regular season pitching approach as opposed to playoffs. In the
regular season it is better for a starter to go 7 innings and give up 3 runs than go 5 innings and give up none. In the
playoffs it is the opposite. Relievers are no longer being saved for a rainy day.
Now this difference is huge for many reasons. Once the concept is brought to your attention anyone can noodle out why and how to construct your staff and coach your starters for the playoff tourny.
What I love about this example is that coaching this aspect of playoff baseball was not within Donnie Baseballs range. In 2013 Mattingly had Kershaw pitch 124 in a comfortable 6-1 win against Atlanta in game one. At home Ryu fucked around throwing 91 mph fastballs to conserve energy instead of letting it go and throwing 95 until he was tired. gave up 4 runs in 3 innings. Yeah, they went on to win because of big offense but this was bad playoff baseball (ok for Druff's regular season).
Kershaw later had to pitch on short rest after 124 pitches in game one. He still hadn't inked his contract for hundreds of millions and threatened to hurt himself. How they fucked with this kids arm and head was what contributed to the unraveling. Is Kershaw not clutch or does he play for idiots. Maybe I am getting off track but the stupidity of the Dodger playoff coaching makes me feel self satisfied and I won't be denied.
That .800 reg season run masked Mattingly's coaching flaws. Also credit the dopey GM and his bullpen.
The Royals are just continuing the beautiful team play from 2014. Improbable run? 2013 Red Sox perhaps. 2014/2015 Royals are erasing this variance nonsense.