The Sherman Avenue Block Party Completely Biased Baseball Playoff Preview: NLDS, Cubs vs Diamondbacks

I find it generally ridiculous when sports announcers and pundits try to use destiny or fate or other supernatural elements as reasons why teams win or lose. It is the mark of someone without anything better to say, without the ability to do any real analysis of what went on, and without the ability to admit that chance plays a bigger role in sports than most will acknowledge.

Consider the Chicago Cubs.

If they win their series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, pundits will say that they are the team of destiny, that they and their fans are finally due to get their rewards.

If they lose their series against Arizona, pundits will say things about the curse of Bartman and some billy goat.

So either way, it would have little to do with the baseball being played, and instead to do with magical forces that we cannot see or measure or truly understand.

That’s bunk.

Whatever will happen in this series will happen because of actual human agency, the free will of each player to do whatever it is they will do, in combination with the large role that chance tends to play, since the difference between success and failure in baseball has to do with fractions of an inch (in the angle of a swing, rotation of a pitch, wind speed, and many other variables.)

Considering only these factors, and the fact that I live in Chicago and have seen many, many Cubs games this year, and the fact that I can’t say for sure if I’ve seen three innings of the Diamondbacks this year, I can say with confidence that the Cubs will win this series.

The Cubs have the most solid and balanced team of any left in the National League. Their starting pitching is very strong at the top with Carlos Zambrano, and extremely solid after that with Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Rich Hill, and Sean Marshall. The bullpen has standout Carlos Marmol and Bob Howry, along with solid veterans Scott Eyre and Ryan Dempster. The top three guys in the lineup (not in the batting order) Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and Aramis Ramirez, are as good as any top three in the National League. To use the word solid again, the rest of the lineup is full of solid veterans like Cliff Floyd, Jaques Jones, Jason Kendall, and Mark DeRosa.

The point is, the Cubs are poised to do very well in these playoffs. There are no glaring weaknesses on the roster, and some very big bright spots. Not to mention a manager, Lou Pinella, who has been there before and knows what it takes to win in the postseason.

The only weakness of the team, really, is that they do not play consistently. When everyone is on at the same time – when Zambrano is pitching his best, when the top three are all hitting well – they look basically unbeatable, as they did for large parts of September. When they aren’t playing well, they rarely seem to have enough to pull out a game.

The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, are a confusing team. Their pitching is very good, but not ridiculously dominant. This isn’t like when they had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. This isn’t the 2005 White Sox. They also have no offense worth speaking of – no one on their regular roster hit over .300, no one on the team had over 85 RBI, only one guy on the team had over 25 HR (I defy you to name him. Give up? His name is Chris Young. If you knew that, I defy you to describe what he looks like, or even to tell me if he’s black or white.)

And yet they had the best record in the National League. Which to me speaks to how bad the National League was this year more than to how good a team the Diamondbacks are.

So the Cubs will win because they are the better team, because they have the ability to win with either their pitching or their hitting, or both, depending on the day.

The Cubs will win because teams like the Diamondbacks that no one ever sees or cares about don’t all of a sudden become awesome in the postseason.

The Cubs will win because they have a better home field advantage, since Chicago fans are going to be insane, while fans in Phoenix will be at least a third Chicago fans anyway.

The Cubs will win because Chicago is vastly superior to Phoenix in just about every way.

The Cubs will win despite talk of superstition and karma and curses and goats and some poor guy who just wanted to catch a foul ball.

Because I say all that is bunk.

And I am often right.

Filowitz's Friday Five

1) Is there anyone in the National League that actually wants to make the playoffs? It doesn’t seem like it. Maybe they have a point – neither the Mets nor the Cubs nor the Brewers nor the Diamondbacks nor the Rockies nor the Padres nor the Phillies look capable of beating Boston, New York, Cleveland, or Los Angeles/Anaheim. Might as well not make it instead of embarrassing yourself in front of the nation, I suppose. And you can’t have your hopes crushed if you never had hope in the first place. So maybe Mets and Cubs fans should be grateful that their teams are falling apart worse than a sandcastle built by FEMA.

2) Does anyone know how many games Tom Brady has missed since he became the starter back in 2002? None. For all the talk of geniuses and model franchises and blah blah blah, it sure does help when your best guy playing the most irreplaceable position is never injured, huh? And is that not more than a touch of luck? Let me put it this way – I doubt anyone looks like a genius if Matt Cassel is your starting QB.

3) It is generally disgusting to me that Boston sports is about to have a phenomenal year. The Red Sox win the AL East. The Patriots look like the best team since the Cowboys of the early 90s. The Celtics get KG and Ray Allen. Giving these people, these insufferably arrogant people who whine and cry all the time and talk smack constantly, who lose horribly and win even worse, to give them all this success? Ugh. It’s exactly how I felt after Bush won his second term.

4) Yes, I’m a Knicks fan. Yes, I’m following the Isiah trial. No, I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ve got other things to be depressed about, thanks.

5) I know no one cares about anyone else’s fantasy team. But in the Sherman Avenue Block Party league we have going on ESPN, my two starting RBs were Steven Jackson and Deuce McCallister, my QB was Drew Brees, and one of my WRs was Andre Johnson. I’m now left with Brian Leonard, Jerious Norwood, Braylon Edwards, and Chad Pennington. Interns in the back of Stephon Marbury’s truck aren’t fucked more than this team. If I win any more games with this team, I should be arrested for fraud.

Filowitz's Friday Five

1) I wonder what it's like to be a Mets fan right now. It must be agonizing. It must be this incredible mixture of depression and helplessness, like watching some tragedy from afar where you are rendered unable to do anything about it. It must be like, well, exactly what Martin is feeling right now.

2) Here's something to cheer up Mets fans, and Red Sox fans, too: remember the Tigers last year? They did this exact same thing. They were way ahead of the Central for most of the year. They staged a spectacular collapse, eventually losing the division to the Twins and just barely beating out the White Sox to get into the playoffs. What happened to them? They went to the World Series. Um, and lost, but still.

3) It could be worse - you could be a Cubs fan. They haven't won anything in what may as well be forever. I've never seen a fan base so unwilling to believe in their team, and a fan base with such good reason to feel that way. If they end up losing the division to Milwaukee and only have Rex Grossman to look forward to - well, you don't exactly "look forward" to Rex Grossman, do you?

4) Madlib, Beat Konducta In India (Vol. 3-4) If you don't know, remember who told ya.

5) To all the fantasy owners of Steven Jackson and any member of the Saints offense, let me get Bill Clinton over here: I feel your pain. Oh yes, I feel your pain.