World Series Preview
Every year. Except last one? Maybe I forgot last one. Mostly every year.
CONTEXT
The Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants will face each other in the 2014 World Series, which begins on Tuesday. The Royals have advanced this far by defeating the Oakland Athletics, the Los Angeles Angels, and the Baltimore Orioles. The Giants have advanced this far by defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Washington Nationals, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Both the Royals and Giants managed to defeat their opponents by outplaying them in a short series.
KEY PLAYERS
Kansas City:
Roster
San Francisco:
Roster
Both the Royals and Giants are filled to the brim with possible difference-makers. The 50 listed above will likely be the most important.
KEY QUESTIONS
Can the San Francisco Giants outscore the Kansas City Royals?
They can.
Can the Kansas City Royals outscore the San Francisco Giants?
They can.
Will one of the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals outscore the other four times?
Most certainly yes!
X FACTOR
The Royals will play a maximum of four games at home, while the Giants 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 Royals and Giants are good teams. The Royals are probably better by a tiny bit. If you re-played the World Series a million times, maybe 50-55% of the time the Royals 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.
This is an article that – [mostly] every year – is both timely and timeless!
Shit happens and it will
Go Royals!
Or don’t.
Baseball is ironically ironic. Go KC! (and watch that pine tar …)
If you replayed this series a million times, these guys would get really tired.
No, whatever happens, happens, and couldn’t happen any other way. ~Morpheus
You couldn’t replay the series a million times. If the average series length were 5 games, that means 5 million games. If one game were played per day, that would require more than 13,500 years to complete.
By that time, the Yellowstone Caldera will have likely erupted, and the series will have been cancelled due to ash fallout.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say there is a 100% probability that when one team wins four games, the Series will end.
Joe Maddon is no longer the manager of the Rays. He would be an amazing fit for the M’s but that most likely isn’t going to happen.
If I was a manager for a big market team I would be nervous today.
I was watching the post game interviews last night, and it annoyed me when Mike Morse was on. It wasn’t anything he said, it was just the fact that that “two time former Mariner Mike Morse” is playing in the World Series. :-\
The World Series is the opportunity to create one-week wonders, to elevate average MLB players to mythical status. A good AB, a winning RBI, and it’s Ted Williams reincarnated.
Timing is everything.
I am enjoying the World Series so far! Today I thought KC had it in the bag, yet SF eventually stomped them. It was also fun watching Jason Vargas put together pretty good at bats.
2-2!
Been loving the series even though three of the games turned into blowouts. I have always appreciated how managers must utilize the whole 25 in the NL. The biggest joy so far is watching these teams swing the bat. The both ACTUALLY put good strokes on the ball and just put the ball in play. So un-Mariner and about 25 other ML teams. Looking forward to MadBum tonight, be interesting to see if KC can do better with this second look
aaaaand Smoak is gone, hopefully taking the mirrors with him.
Nice job, Jeff! Spot on predictions!