Bucs out of the cellar
Today is a day to stretch out and enjoy the dizzying heights of fifth place. The Pirates suffer from chronic incompetence, but our rivals the Cubs this year are showing what acute incompetence looks like. It's fitting that the winning run came on a wild pitch last night; so many of these games have not so much been won by the Pirates as they have been surrendered by the Cubs.
Remember one-run losses in the first half? The Pirates were 9-25 in one-run games before the All-Star break and are 12-2 in such games since, for a record of 21-27 overall. If you accept as a premise that luck is a greater factor in determining the outcome of one-run games than it is in other games, then what we're seeing has something to do with the tendency of luck to even out over time, as small-sample anomalies disappear. Following that premise, it's possible to believe that the Pirates were not as bad a team as they appeared to be in the first half of the season. However, they are also not as good as they appear to be now. 21-27 is closer to their true abilities than 9-25 or 12-2. Charlie at Bucs Dugout gets it right--the thin air of fifth place should not intoxicate us into thinking that this team is close to contending. It isn't.
That is exactly what the Pirates public-relations machine will assert in the off-season, though. Tracy beats the drum to the press every day, but his relentless optimism doesn't really bother me; as a leader, conveying optimism is central to his job. Littlefield, on the other hand, is a shameless and cynical purveyor of untruths for the purpose of distracting the public and his bosses from his record of incompetence. He is the worst general manager in baseball at building a team and at judging, acquiring, and retaining talent, but when it comes to self-promotion through subterfuge and guile, he is a master without peer.
Remember one-run losses in the first half? The Pirates were 9-25 in one-run games before the All-Star break and are 12-2 in such games since, for a record of 21-27 overall. If you accept as a premise that luck is a greater factor in determining the outcome of one-run games than it is in other games, then what we're seeing has something to do with the tendency of luck to even out over time, as small-sample anomalies disappear. Following that premise, it's possible to believe that the Pirates were not as bad a team as they appeared to be in the first half of the season. However, they are also not as good as they appear to be now. 21-27 is closer to their true abilities than 9-25 or 12-2. Charlie at Bucs Dugout gets it right--the thin air of fifth place should not intoxicate us into thinking that this team is close to contending. It isn't.
That is exactly what the Pirates public-relations machine will assert in the off-season, though. Tracy beats the drum to the press every day, but his relentless optimism doesn't really bother me; as a leader, conveying optimism is central to his job. Littlefield, on the other hand, is a shameless and cynical purveyor of untruths for the purpose of distracting the public and his bosses from his record of incompetence. He is the worst general manager in baseball at building a team and at judging, acquiring, and retaining talent, but when it comes to self-promotion through subterfuge and guile, he is a master without peer.
posted by Billy at 6:34 AM
5 Comments:
The Cubs sure look bad now, especially Dempster, but a lot of their problems this year have had to do with injuries to Lee and the usual suspects (Wood, Prior) more than incompetence. If the Pirates had lost J-Bay for most of the year and not had, oh, Snell and Duke for all of it, they'd still be on the bottom, looking way up. They've really not had a very significant injury this year (I didn't like Casey and Wells much, so they don't count). The Pirates are bad on merit.
That's an excellent point, bucdaddy. Another point to factor into assessments of this year and predictions about next year is that the Pirates have been relatively free of injuries this season compared to many other teams.
Thanks, Billy, but now I'm forced to take it all back. That might have been the ugliest inning of alleged major-league baseball I've ever seen (funniest, too, in a "can't anybody here play this game?" kinda way). The only conclusion now, is BOTH these teams are awful on merit.
I lost track. How man blown bunt coverages were there?
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Quelle est la taille de la source de ces grandes données? google Quelle quantité de données puis-je obtenir, car je soupçonne กูเกิล que ce contenu substantiel a été supprimé de la base de données?
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