What team is best suited to win the World Series?
I believe the best suited team is the Astros.Let's look at the teams that are looking like playoff contenders this year.ALRed Sox: 50–39 and 3.5 games past the Yankees and the Rays.Indians: 47–40 and 2.5 games past the Twins.Astros: A crazy 60–29 and 16.5 games past the Angels and Rangers.Yankees: 45–41, looking like a wild card.Rays: 47–43, also likely wild card.NLNationals: 52–36 and 9.5 games past the BravesBrewers: 50–41 and 5.5 games past the Cubs and Cardinals.Dodgers: 61–29 and 7.5 games past the Diamondbacks.Diamondbacks: 53–36, most likely making the playoffs, everything else is under .500, other than RockiesRockies: 52–39, see above.The reason I am picking the Astros is that there is far less competition in the AL than the NL. The Yankees or Red Sox might give them a run for their money, but I think that the Astros coil at least get there pretty easily. In the NL, however, if you are looking at the top seed Dodgers, don't get hopes too high. They have to get through a division team first, then either the talented Nationals or Brewers. Both of those teams have a significant chance of beating them. There is too much competition.My pick is the Astros.
Are the Phillies going to run down the Cards and Dodgers and make the playoffs?
I surely hope so!Statistically, they are three games back with seventeen games left in the season. There's only two wild card spots, with three teams in front of them and one tied [the Pirates].The odds are not looking great, from a purely statistical perspective. Yes, the Phillies had a seven game winning streak -- but I think they realistically need to go 12-5 over the balance with pretty spectacular explosions by both Atlanta and St. Louis. The Phillies cannot get to the postseason by just winning -- they need at least two other teams to play worse than .500 ball over the next three weeks.I've got a lot of hope and will be rooting the Phillies on. They've certainly made the postseason exciting; they are nonetheless up against a wall here.
What teams won the World Series against all odds?
The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, who beat the New York Yankees in 7 games despite being outscored 55–27. It was Pittsburgh’s first World Series appearance since 1927, while the Yankees were playing for the 11th time in 14 years.The three Yankee wins were all double-digit blowouts; the Pirates’ four wins were all by 3 runs or less. In Game 7, the Yankees led 7–4 after 7 1/2, but the Pirates scored 5 in the bottom of the 8th to take the lead. New York scored 2 in the top of the 9th to tie, but Bill Mazeroski led off the bottom of the inning with the first game 7 walkoff homer in Series history.
If the Yankees don’t win the World Series will their season be a disappointment?
Yes, that is the case every year for the Yankees, as well as a few other historically successful franchises.Case in point: both the Yankees and Red Sox made the postseason last year but ultimately fired their skippers. Joe Girardi, in fact, got them within one win of making the World Series last year and still got fired. Despite Joe having won a WS as manager in 2009 in his second season and having a 55% winning record as a manager, an eight-year drought without a title is about as long as the Yankees will go without a championship.The Red Sox really dropped a deuce and stunk up the joint in the playoffs last year versus the eventual champions, Houston Astros, and subsequently fired John Farrell. Farrell had won a WS title in Boston even more recently than Girardi in NY, winning in 2013.So, those super-high, even unrealistic, expectations at times are a top-down mentality from the ownership willing to spend money, to the GM making bold or daring moves to build a good farm system, to the manager and coaching staff getting the most out of the players while still allowing them to have fun. When this type of culture is fostered and success is achieved, the fans come to expect it every year.
Who will win the 2018 World Series?
I don’t think anybody can predict the outcome, because if any one team gets on a roll, like the 2011 Cardinals, the impossible can happen. But we can make observations.I follow the NL more than the AL, so my views will be biased that way. If you just look at records the favourites would be the Red Sox or the Astros, both of which are fine teams with all the necessary tools. I’d have to pick the Astros from those two, as they have the best starting pitching, especially with Sale coming back from injury.However, the AL has only 5 teams with a realistic chance to secure the 5 playoff positions, plus Seattle or Tampa Bay as a very long shot for the second wild card. The AL has been dominated by these 5–7 teams. The AL Central is horrible. So, by the time the playoffs are played, the AL teams will have coasted into postseason. The question is: Are these teams that great, or is the league that bad? I’m saying it is a little bit of both. It is way out of balance this year.The NL, on the other hand, has been very balanced top to bottom, except for the Marlins. Most of the games played are competitive, at this point, and are meaningful games. Each division has at least three teams competing for the division title, although Atlanta is starting to run away with the East. Even the weaker teams are knocking off the top teams and keeping the standings close. Reds beat the Dodgers 6 of 7 this year.Cubs and Brewers have the top two records in the NL. I think the Brewers, because of their starting and relief pitching have a real shot at winning the World Series. They are also peaking at the right time. I would like to favour the Cubs, but they have had key injuries at unfortunate times and that is hurting their relief pitching and outfield play. So, if they can recover, I like the experience of the Cubs and could see them taking it all.It is not a given that the WS champ will come from the AL, just because the records are better. If that were the case the Seattle Mariners would have been WS champs in 2001, but they lost in the first round, even with all that talent.Here’s my top picks for WS champs, in order:BrewersAstrosCubsRed SoxIt is entirely possible that none of the four will reach their League Championship series, but I’d be shocked if one or two didn’t make it that far.
Were you happy the Red Sox won the World Series?
As a Red Sox fan since I was was about 7 years old, hell yeah, I'm excited! This 2018 Red Sox team was by far and away their best ever in the past hundred years, if not more. The Sox have won four since the drought ended in the 2004 season, four in 15 years. That may be the most of any team this century, but they are nowhere near as overwhelmingly and obnoxiously repetitive as the historically high rolling yanks. They haven't been winning the WS with such rapid repetition as the yanks had been in the last century when they would five in a row, or three in a row twice in one decade.2004 may be the most memorable season for ending that 86 year drought, and in the fashion in which that season came to an end*, but this latest version was a formidable beast that ranks right up there with the all time best teams, including the 1998 Yankees.Where do the 2018 Red Sox rank among the greatest teams ever?Little Separates 2018 Red Sox And 1998 YankeesRed Sox World Series: Boston's 2018 title team will go down as one of the greatest in MLB historyPoll: Are the 2018 Red Sox the best baseball team ever?https://www.washingtonpost.com/s...The 2004 Sox, which does rank in the top 50 MLB teams ever was no slouch with one one of the most feared R-L #3 and #4 batter combinations in Manny Ramirez David Ortiz, and a pitching staff led by Pedro Martinez. They entered the playoffs via the wild card spot and faced the Yankees in the ALCS. They fell behind 0 games to 2, which included a 19-6 drubbing at home. They fell behind in game #4 and were one inning away from being swept out of the playoffs. Kevin Millar said in his snarky voice the night before, “Don't let us win game four. Don't let us win game four.” In the bottom of the ninth, Millar got on with a single, Dave Roberts (current LA manager,) stole second, and Bill Mueller knocked him in to tie the game. They won that game in extra innings, and the next three to become the first team ever to come back from a 0-3 postseason series deficit and win the next four games. They went on to sweep the Cardinals in the WS to finish their season with eight straight wins.
Were there any World Series predictions that you had made that came true in the last five or more years?
For me, there was just one in the past six years: that “my” Kansas City Royals would make it to the World Series in 2015. The explanation for that….In 2011, I could see that the Royals, after years of futility, were building a good team. My prediction then was that, by the 2014 season, they’d make the postseason but not the World Series (they made liars out of me by going to the Fall Classic LOL) and that, in 2015, they’d play in the World Series. They won the title in 2015. BTW: it seems that the Dodgers are going through a similar “arc” as the Royals did. When the Royals made the postseason in 2014, it was the first time they’d been in the postseason in 29 years; same goes for their World Series appearance. Like the Dodgers this year, the Royals had home-field advantage but lost game five on the road (to San Francisco), won game six at home and then lost game seven. If the Dodgers win the World Series next year, they will have pretty much traveled the same postseason arc that the Royals did in 2014–2015.Before that, the only World Series prediction that I had made was that, if the 2004 Boston Red Sox came back from 3–0 down in the ALCS to beat the Yankees, that the World Series would be “anti-climactic” and that Boston would become the champions, which they did: they swept the Cardinals four straight in that year’s Fall Classic after “reversing the Curse” (of The Babe) by beating the Yankees four straight in the ALCS.
What baseball series are you interested in right now, besides your favorite team?
I'm interested in the Giants and Angels series, because the Angels are in our division and we're in last, so we need to start catching up to the Angels and Rangers