MLB Since We Last Spoke. AL East.

Boston Red Sox/New York Yankees

This year, most baseball writers in this country picked the New York Yankees to win the AL East.  I picked the Boston Red Sox.

Why did I do so?

Simple.

Brian Cashman is a snobby intellectual.

Dave Dombroswki is an Old School Dude.

In this day and age we are told “Old School Baseball is a thing of the past” and “Old School Baseball is dead!”

Take one look at the Boston Red Sox.  Their General Manager is one of the few Old School Dudes still running a MLB team.  And they won 108 games this year, one of the best seasons any MLB team has ever had.

Old School Baseball is Alive and Well.

The Intelligentsia builds teams as though they are nothing more than a collection of numbers on an Excel spreadsheet.

The Yankees looked, on paper at least, like a far superior team to the Red Sox entering this season.  Aaron Judge’s numbers were far superior to Mookie Betts’s last season.  Gary Sanchez’s numbers were far superior to Andrew Benintendi’s last season.  Didi Gregorious’s numbers were far superior to Xander Bogaerts’s last season.  Aaron Hicks’s numbers were far superior to Jackie Bradley Jr.’s last season.  Gleyber Torres was a higher ranked prospect than Rafael Devers.  And the Yankees key offseason addition, Giancarlo Stanton, was coming off a year where he hit 59 home runs.  J.D. Martinez had a great year last year, but he wasn’t on Stanton’s level.

The two teams had comparable rotations.  Luis Severino and Chris Sale were both coming off excellent seasons where both were major Cy Young candidates.  Both had established veteran starters as well – Sabathia and Tanaka for the Yankees, Price and Porcello for the Red Sox.  Sonny Gray vs. Drew Pomeranz gave the Yankees the edge, on paper at least.

The bullpen is what set the Yankees apart.

This was a Super Bullpen.  A bullpen for the ages.

Aroldis Chapman.  Dellin Betances.  David Robertson.  Tommy Kahnle.  Chad Green.

Super.

The Yankees had five closers, while the Red Sox had just one.  Old Craig Kimbrel with that weird crane thing he does.

The Intelligentsia crunched all the numbers.  They pored over the data.  And their verdict was this – “The Yankees are The Super Team.”

Wrong again!

The Red Sox won 17 of their first 19 games.  Meanwhile, the Yankees were 9-9.  The division was won in the first few weeks of the season.  The Yankees could never catch up to Old School Baseball.

They tried and tried.  They made trades for more Super Players.

Zach Britton was acquired at the trade deadline.  Yet another closer for the Super Bullpen.

It’s funny.  The Yankees bullpen had an ERA above 5.00 between August 28th and September 21st, a critical stretch in their season.

Meanwhile, while The Intelligentsia howled “the Red Sox need another reliever to keep up with the Yankees and their Super Bullpen!” Dave Dombrowski hung with Kimbrel and the journeymen and mid-level relievers that had gotten the Red Sox out to such a great start.

The Intelligentsia claims to be “sophisticated.”  Yet their predictive models rely solely on statistics.  They don’t take into account basic group dynamics and basic human psychology.

That’s “sophisticated” ???

The Yankees didn’t need Sonny Gray last year at the trade deadline.  They had just acquired Jaime Garcia, a more than capable MLB starter.  And they already had four good starting pitchers – Severino, Sabathia, Tanaka and Jordan Montgomery.

The predictive models said “Sonny Gray will do a certain thing.”

Here is what they missed.

Adding Sonny Gray to the Yankees rotation had a detrimental effect on its chemistry.

Chemistry Matters.  Second principle of SABR Skepticism.

Gray was terrible for the Yankees last year in the Postseason.

Brian Cashman learned nothing from that debacle, apparently.  He traded for Lance Lynn this year at the trade deadline when the Yankees already had five starters – Severino, Sabathia, Tanaka, Gray and J.A. Happ.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Lance Lynn was terrible for the Yankees this season and he was terrible in the Postseason as well when the Yankees lost to the Redsox in 4 games in the ALDS.

The Yankees had five closers.  The Red Sox had one closer.

The Yankees had six starters.  The Red Sox had five starters.

The Yankees had seven players at each position.  The Red Sox had one player at each position.

And the Red Sox won the AL East by 8 games.  And they beat the Yankees in the ALDS in 4 games.

Sometimes less is more.

There’s also this.

The Red Sox got a huge addition by subtraction this year with Dustin Pedroia’s injury.  That injury made the Red Sox as free of the immense Bad New England Karma as any New England team can possibly be.

Firing John Farrell also helped with the Red Sox karma this year.

Meanwhile, the Yankees had immense Bad Karma this year.

Why?

The decision to bring Alex Rodriguez back to the organization in a front office role.  As well as the decision to fire Joe Girardi.

Old School Baseball vs. The Intelligentsia.

Good Karma vs. Bad Karma.

That was the difference between the Red Sox and Yankees this season.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays had a certain degree of success this year implementing strategies from a book called “Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution” by Brian Kenny.

What strategies?

“Bullpenning” and “The Opener.”

Did the Rays succeed this year because of those strategies.  Or did they succeed this year in spite of those strategies?

The Rays were widely thought to be a rebuilding team this year.  They had just traded their star player, Evan Longoria, as well as a few role players.

They got off to a terrible start this year.  They were 4-13 through their first 17 games.

Then, they took off.  An 8 game winning streak put them right in the mix for an American League playoff spot.

They were using four starting pitchers, and one “bullpen day” at the time.  Was that the reason for the team’s success?

The Rays this year had a leader in their lineup – Wilson Ramos.

They had a leader in their rotation – Blake Snell, who had emerged as an ace.

They had a leader in their bullpen – Sergio Romo.

And they had a good manager – Kevin Cash.

Those are the four key ingredients for success in Major League Baseball.

They were 21-22 on Saturday, May 19th.  That was before they even began implementing “The Opener.”  It was before they began implementing “Bullpenning” in a major fashion.

The Rays were a .500 team when they began implementing these ideas.  And they were a .500 team two months later at the trade deadline.

This is worth noting.

The vast majority of multi-year, 8 figure contracts for mid-level relief pitchers are failing.  That is the most underreported story in Major League Baseball today.  And it is one of the most important.

The Rays had some success this year “bullpenning.”  Does that mean “bullpenning” is a viable long-term strategy for a Major League Baseball team?

Look at the relief pitchers the Rays were using this year.  Who was the highest paid man in their bullpen?

Sergio Romo.  His salary this past year?  $2.5 million.  He was on a one year deal.

The rest of the Rays relievers were journeymen on league minimum deals and AAA guys getting a shot on a rebuilding team.

In other words, they had no expectations on them.  Therefore, they were under no pressure.

With expectations comes pressure.  Pressure to live up to the hype.  Will relief pitchers be able to live up to the high expectations that front office executives and intellectuals are putting on their shoulders today?

That is something to watch in the coming years.

Not everyone can handle the pressure of high expectations.  It takes a rare type to be able to shoulder that kind of burden.

Chris Archer certainly can’t.

For years The Intelligentsia said “he is an Ace!”  “he is a Super Pitcher!”

What they missed is that Chris Archer is a weak beta male.

The Rays got a huge addition by subtraction this year when they traded him.

Their team instantly took off.

Instantly.

They were 53-53 when they traded him.  By August 28th they were 70-61.  And they didn’t slow down after that.  Not one bit.  They finished the season at 90-72.

Is that what the predictive models said would happen after the Rays traded Chris Archer?

In many ways, this year’s Rays season is an anti-analytics story.

Yes, bullpenning and the opener are Super Things.  No question about it.

But did the predictive models of The Intelligentsia say that the Rays would not only be a better team without Chris Archer, but that they would go 37-19 after trading him?

Did the predictive models of The Intelligentsia see the impact that removing Archer from the rotation and replacing him with a tall alpha male, Tyler Glasnow, would have on the team?  Did they see that while Wilson Ramos is a Legit Dude, that Tommy Pham and Austin Meadows are More Legit than he, regardless of their statistics?  Did they see that the Rays would get a visit from Uncle Mo down the stretch this year?

No.  The Intelligentsia says that there is no such thing as momentum.

Why do they say things like that?  That there is no such thing as momentum, confidence, chemistry, etc.

Brian Kenny is at the vanguard of The Revolution.  What is the purpose of The Baseball Revolution?

To place The Intellectuals above The Jocks.  They are using relief pitchers as their proxies in this scheme.

But relief pitchers will never be above starting pitchers.  Or power hitters.

Duh.

And The Intellectuals will never be above The Jocks.

That’s High School 101.

The Intelligentsia looks on the surface to be more powerful than ever.  The Rays had a great year bullpenning, whatever that is.

The Brewers are in the NLCS.  And they are bullpenning too.

And the Astros won the World Series last year.

Look closer.

The Revolution is well underway.  The Revolution never ends well for the revolutionaries.

They should just give up now.  They should just accept that they will never usurp that which is above them.