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W're working on a few things over here including:

• a revised Game Score formula that sort of feels more right, with IFFB data
• our look at 1973 awards
• Mark Prior
• Sandy Alderson's next move

Quick, think of the best pitching performances you've ever seen or heard of.  What comes to mind?  Roy Halladay tonight?  Roy Halladay's perfect game?  Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series?  Koufax in '65?  Jack Morris in Game 7 of the World Series in '91?  Mike Scott in the '86 NLCS - winning the NLCS MVP award as a starting pitcher on the losing team!?

I tried to see if someone else recently conducted a similar investigation and found this post by Jeff Sullivan of sbnation.com.  He only looked at post season performance, so that didn't really answer my question about best performances we've seen:

"Game score is based on a number of things, from strikeouts to runs allowed. Halladay's no-hitter racked up a game score of 94. Where does that place when you look at all other starts throughout playoff baseball history?

Turns out it places pretty high. Here's the list, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:

98. Roger Clemens, 10/14/2000

97. Dave McNally, 10/5/1969

97. Babe Ruth, 10/9/1916

94. Roy Halladay, 10/6/2010

94. Don Larsen, 10/8/1956

94. Ed Walsh, 10/11/1906

93. Josh Beckett, 10/12/2003

93. Ken Holtzman, 10/9/1973

93. Bob Gibson, 10/2/1968

92. Kevin Brown, 9/29/1998"

Well, that's interesting, except I never heard of some of those performances.  I decided to look at some all time great regular season games, like El Presidente's perfecto in 1991, as well as the 20-strikeout games of Kerry Wood, Roger Clemens (twice), and Randy Johnson.

Here are the performances I thought to look into off the top of my head:

Kerry Wood ~ Reg Sea 1998 ~ 105 GSc
Roy Halladay ~ Reg Sea 2010 ~ 98 GSc
Roger Clemens ~ 2000 ALCS gm 4 ~ 98 GSc
Roger Clemens ~ Reg Sea 1996 ~ 97 GSc
Randy Johnson ~ Reg Sea 2001 ~ 95 GSc
Roger Clemens ~ Reg Sea 1986 ~ 95 GSc
Roy Halladay ~ 2010 DS gm 1 ~ 94 GSc
Don Larsen ~ 1956 WS gm 5 ~ 94 GSc
Josh Beckett ~ 2003 NLCS gm 5 ~ 93 GSc
Kevin Brown ~ 1998 NLDS gm 1 ~ 92 GSc
Dennis Martinez ~ 1991 Reg Sea ~ 92 GSc
Randy Johnson ~ 2001 WS gm 2 ~ 91 GSc
Mike Scott ~ 1986 NLCS gm 1 ~ 90 GSc
Sandy Koufax ~ 1965 WS gm 5 ~ 88 GSc
Orel Hershiser ~ 1988 WS gm 2 ~ 87 GSc
Josh Beckett ~ 2003 WS gm 6 ~ 84 GSc
Jack Morris ~ 1991 WS gm 7 ~ 84 GSc
Cliff Lee ~ 2009 WS gm 1 ~ 83 GSc
Mark Prior ~ 2003 NLDS gm 3 ~ 80 GSc
Freddy Garcia ~ 2005 WS gm 4 ~ 73 GSc

I think Game Score may grant too much credit for strikeouts and not enough demerits for walks or HBP.  But, I'm not about to argue with Bill James.

Yesterday was his 61st birthday, and right now, I'd rather see if the Twins can come back against the Yankees bullpen.  They have Kerry Wood, Joba, and Mariano ready to rock and roll and no Joe Buck to ruin everything.  Have a great night!

As loyal readers of this space know, we spent a lot of time calculating comparisons of expected outcomes for the postseason teams.  The rewards of that exercise are hard to quantify, which is a euphemistic was of saying that the exercise was a big waste of time.  After seeing this post, I figured that's how you're supposed to succinctly post postseason predictions.

This morning on our Facebook fan page, we announced that we were rooting for the Reds, Giants, Twins, and Rangers in the first round of the playoffs.  A World Series with the Reds and Rangers seems like it would be a lot of fun.  Anyway, below are our expectations of what will transpire this October:

League Division Series
 vs.  Phillies 3-2
 vs.  Giants 3-1
 vs.  Yankees 3-1
 vs.  Rays 3-2

League Championship Series


World Series

We're going a different route with this than we did with the AL Playoff Preview, which took parts one, two, and three.  That took us three weeks to complete, this going to be quick.  Readers, please take it for what it's worth and remember: everyone has an opinion.

We utilized our biased rankings and opinions, and combined them in our makeshift formula with statistics from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference to come up with a power ranking of the four NL playoff teams.  More details on the manner in which this was done can be found in the AL Playoff links above.

Here are the results.  The lower the number, the better we expect the team to do in the postseason.

Philadelphia Phillies: 6.11
Cincinnati Reds: 7.65
San Francisco Giants: 8.01
Atlanta Braves: 9.14

It looks to us like the two best teams in the NL are meeting in the first round between the Phillies and the Reds.  While the playoffs are a crapshoot, we may expect a Phillies/Giants NLCS.  Additional analysis and details are available upon request.  Enjoy the games.  There is a triple-header in store for today, and the first game between the Rangers and Rays should be a delight with David Price and Cliff Lee taking the hill.

Everyone else is doing it, so here are our predictions.  These are not predictions of who will win, but rather whom we believe should win.
American League Most Valuable Player
Josh Hamilton, Rangers
In my heart of hearts, I was decided that this award would go to Miguel Cabrera.  We may be wrong, but we consider Miguel Cabrera the best hitter in the American League.  There are stats, like Wins Above Replacement and RC/27 that show Hamilton is the more valuable player.  We wanted to argue that his WAR is unfairly higher because of the innings he's logged in while playing Centerfield.  In other words, replacement center fielders are vastly inferior to replacement level first basemen.  I could make that argument, and with the few number of people reading this space, I'd probably get away with it.  Unfortunately, for my MiggyCab for MVP race, Hamilton rates higher in too many comparisons.  As we mentioned, Hamilton has a higher WAR and RC/27.  He hit half as many infield flyballs per plate appearance, had higher wOBA, wRAA, OPS, RAR, OWw%, and was better in all defensive statistics at a more valuable defensive position.


American League MVP Ballot:
1. Josh Hamilton, Rangers
2. Miguel Cabrera, Tigers
3. Robinson Cano, Yankees
4. Adrian Beltre, Red Sox
5. Evan Longoria, Rays
6. Jose Bautista, Blue Jays
7. Carl Crawford, Rays
8. Felix Hernandez, Mariners
9. Joe Mauer, Twins
10. Paul Konerko, White Sox

National League Most Valuable Player
Joey Votto, Reds
Positional biases do not factor into the National League race because the two finalists for this award play the same position.  Albert Pujols is in the prime of his career and in MVP discussions year in and year out, but he was just edged out this season.  Focusing on Pujols, for a moment, look at where finished in MVP voting since his rookies season in 2001.

Albert Pujols MVP voting finishes
2001: 4th
2002: 2nd (Bonds)
2003: 2nd (Bonds)
2004: 3rd
2005: MVP
2006: 2nd (Howard)
2007: 9th*
2008: MVP
2009: MVP
2010: tbd

By MVP voting, 2007 was the worst season in Albert Pujols's career.  What did his number look like that season?  .327/.429/.568, 71 XBH, 32 HR, 99 BB, 58 K, 157 OPS+.  Unbelievable, that was his "worst" season.  The eight people who had more MVP votes than Albert Pujols in 2007 were, in order, Jimmy Rollins, Matt Holliday, Prince Fielder, David Wright, Ryan Howard, Chipper Jones, Jake Peavy, and Chase Utley.

This year, Joey Votto lead the league with a 175 OPS+ (Pujols 174).  Votto also lead the league in OBP (.460), SLG (.600), and RC/27 (9.9).  Pujols had a slightly higher WAR than Votto in 2010, but that could have been due to slightly better rated defense and an extra 52 plate appearances.  Since Votto playing in 9 fewer games didn't stop the Reds from finishing ahead of the Cardinals, I'll choose to embrace other statistics.  That's really all this is.  Choose the stats you want to believe in, and use them to support your opinions.  Even when you have an open mind and you just want to look at the stats to find out what your opinion will be, there are always stats to support the other side of the argument.  What else makes Votto shine above Pujols?  How about looking at linear weights?  You know, Win Probability Added and RE24.  Here are more statistics where Votto surpassed Pujols, and the rest of the league: WPA (7.03 to 5.39), RE24 (70.3 to 55.75), OWn% (.804 to .763), wRAA (61.3 to 55.4), and wOBA (.439 to .420).

There really do not need to be lengthy discussions about the MVP awards this season.  It's Hamilton or Cabrera and Votto or Pujols.  That's it.  That's the list.  (Sorry Robinson Cano fans!)  In fact, the most compelling NL MVP argument is how do you organize numbers 3 through 10 on the ballot...


American League Cy Young
Felix Hernandez, Mariners
Felix Hernandez has a 13-12 record.  People who haven't gotten past the 7th inning Ken Burns' "Baseball" believe that someone who has so few wins couldn't possibly be the best pitcher in the league.  They're wrong. I don't know everything, or much of anything, but I do know that Felix Hernandez was the best pitcher in the American League this year.  If he had been traded before the offseason to the Yankees for CC Sabathia, he would have 21+ wins and potentially a unanimous award winner.  As it stands, we look to the enlightened views of national writers like Joe Posnanski, Keith Law, Tom Tango's crew at The Book, and the elusive Ken Tremendous to hopefully continue the movement to properly appreciate player performance.

American League Cy Young Ballot:
1. Felix Hernandez, Mariners
2. Francisco Liriano, Twins
3. Cliff Lee, Rangers
4. David Price, Rays
5. Justin Verlander, Tigers

The AL ballot was difficult to fill out.  With only five spaces, voters are forced to neglect one of the pitchers above or others from a group of outstanding performances including: Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, CC Sabathia, and Jered Weaver.  There were just so many great performances by starters in the AL this year. If you're interested and have the time, check out how well each of these guys did, as well as a couple of kids in Oakland named Trevor Cahill and Gio Gonzalez.

Here's a quick look at a few relatively expensive players rumored to be available via trade, with the trading team likely to eat a bit of the players upcoming salary.

Kosuke Fukudome, Cubs
Before the world changed around the 2008 season, Jim Hendry signed Japanese import Kosuke Fukudome to a four year, 48 million dollar, contract.  Fukudome joined the Cubs with high expectations to be a patient hitter with some power and good defense in Right Field.  The aspirations of team management and the fans seemed warranted initially.  His first game with the team, March 31, 2008, he went 3 for 3 with a walk and a homerun.  Then, he triple slashed .305/.416/.421 for the month of April.  His May and June OBPs were .388 and .387, respectively.  Everything looked good; he made the All Star team and everything.  Unfortunately, his entire second half detriorated with a triple slash line of .217/.314/.326 after the All Star Break.

"Where is interpreter?"

2009 was an improvement, with a .375 OBP for the season, but Fukudome failed to deliver the homerun power fans expected.  He hit 38 doubles in 2009, but only 11 homeruns.

This season past season (2010) was not a train wreck, but it was again a disappointment.

The Cubs have paid him $33,500,000 for his three seasons with the team.  Fangraphs has valued his performance these past three years at $25,000,000 and 5.7 WAR.  Baseball-Reference does not show dollar values, but they score Fukudome's three seasons at 6.0 WAR.  So, again, he hasn't been a total bust.

Fukudome is due $13,500,000 in 2011.  The Cubs are rumored to be shopping him and admitting that they'll eat some of his contract.  We think they'll have to absorb between 5mm and 8mm dollars.  Hoepfully, they'll get someone better than Carlos Silva.  To get someone worse, I'm afraid they'll have to target Ryan Rowland-Smith.

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Red Sox
Late last night, Gordon Edes tweeted:

"Yes, Daisuke has a no-trade clause, but I think if he can end up on the West Coast, he'd be willing to accept a deal. That's what I'm told"

Daisuke, you look great.  No, really.

That means Daisuke would probably accept a trade to one of the following clubs:

Seattle Mariners
San Francisco Giants
Oakland A's
LA Angels of A
LA Dodgers
San Diego Padres
Arizona Diamondbacks?
Colorado Rockies?

Those last two teams are inland, but some people* consider Phoenix to be on the West Coast.

*Personally, I think that is a bad call.  These are usually the same people who think Las Vegas is "West Coast".  I disagree with that, as well.  Still, these people are nowhere nearly as bad as the people from Oklahoma who think Oklahoma is in the Midwest.  People, Missouri is barely in the Midwest and you are in the Great Plains.  If you don't like that, then you're in Texas Adjacent.  You're no anywhere near the Midwest.  You have accents similar to Texas, for crying out loud.

Of the teams listed above, who is capable/willing to take Fukudome for the next two years?  He's due to make 10 million dollars in 2011 and 2012, but we can assume the Red Sox will absorb some of that to get a better player in return.

Chavez Ravine can be just what Matsuzaka needs.

The Dodgers pending ownership divorce makes it seem they won't be making any moves, unless they are low cost.  Maybe there is a fit there, if it  is truly a salary dump.  Dodger Stadium is pitcher friendly, and facing the NL West (in their ballparks) is much better than facing the AL East (in theirs).

Non of the other teams should really be interesting.  The Mariners, Giants, A's, and Padres are all starting pitching heavy.  The Angels already have six major league ready starters under team control for next season with Weaver, Haren, Santana, Kazmir, and Piniero penciled into the Starting 5 and Trevor Bell waiting in the wings.  I don't see Daisuke going anywhere this offseason, unless he allows the Red Sox to sell him back to a Japanese team, or he expands his possibilities beyond the "West Coast".

Francisco Rodriguez, Mets

$37,000,000 gets Krod to help out in the kitchen.

The Mets are going to see major changes this offseason, with a new front office, field manager, and coaches expected to come after Jerry Manuel is dismissed and Omar Minaya is reassigned.  There are multiple reasons for the the new General Manager to want to move Francisco Rodriguez.  He's had a checkered past in New York that the team would like to put behind them, and he makes a ton of money.  He's owed $11.5 million in 2011 and has a $3.5 million buyout for 2012.  That's $15 million just for the 2011 season.  His 2012 option vests to the tune of a $17.5 million salary if he finishes 55 games.  That is not a lofty number.  Before he beat up his common law father in law this summer, he had finished more than 55 games every season since 2004.  So, he's either making $15 million for 2011 or $29 million for 2011 and '12.  It'll be interesting to see what the new regime does with K-Rod, but there is likely to be an eight figure sunnk cost somewhere.

We can't be the only ones who are beyond excited about the prospects of Logan Morrison's future.  Can we?  Sure, his friends and family are thrilled for him.  There are probably about eleven thousand hard core Marlins fans who are psyched about him.  For what it's worth, he has more than 8,000 Twitter followers @LoMoMarlins.

It seems, to me, the national media is letting LoMo fly too far under the radar.*  Nevertheless, just looking at his own team, his rookie teammates, Mike Stanton and Gaby Sanchez, have gotten the most media attention.  Forgetting American League rookies for a moment, the National League alone has seen an incredible number of outstanding rookies this season.  Here's a list of rookies who've grabbed more headlines than Logan Morrison this season:

*Of course he's under the radar.  He's played just 61 games.

Buster P (media darling)

Jason Heyward
Stephen Strasburg
Buster Posey
Aroldis Chapman
Mike Leake
Jaime Garcia
Starlin Castro
Tyler Colvin
Pedro Alvarez
Ian Desmond
Mike Stanton
Gaby Sanchez

That is just in the National League.  It also doesn't include fellas who very well may have also received more pub like Ike Davis, Madison Bumgarner, and Daniel Hudson.

I wanted to take a closer look at just how good Logan Morrison's debut has been, with the last game of the season in South Florida this afternoon.  Let's try to keep this exercise to less than the three weeks it took to us to anticlimactically confirm that the ALCS should be Yankees/Rays. (or, yeah maybe the Rangers!)

Grace took 'fan friendly' to another level in the 1990's.

Well then, what did I do?  I looked at Logan Morrison's stats page on BR.  He hasn't been around to have comparable players on BR.  Recognizing that Logan Morrison has a patient batting eye, a command of the strikezone rarely seen in young players with power, I decided to compare him to another such player: Mark Grace.  That got me going on a tangent to Keith Hernandez, some other comparables that may have a bit more power like John Olerud, Paul O'Neill, and so on and so forth.  According to BR, this is LoMo's 22-age season.  He turned 23 at the end of August.  By comparison, here are what some other notable first basemen started their careers:

Logan Morrison
Age 22: 61 games, .396 OBP, 29 XBH, 2 HR, 40 BB, 51 K, 125 OPS+

Mark Grace
Age 22: playing in A ball
Age 23: Double-A
Age 24: 134 g, .371 OBP, 34 XBH, 7 HR, 60 BB, 43 K, 119 OPS+

Keith Hernandez
Age 20: 14 games, small sample size, 7 BB, 8 K
Age 21: 64 g, .309 OBP, 13 XBH, 3 HR, 17 BB, 26 K, 83 OPS+
Age 22: 129 g, .376 OBP, 33 XBH, 7 HR, 49 BB, 53 K, 127 OPS+
Batting Champion and League MVP in Age 25 season

John Olerud
Age 20: 6 games, 3 singles in 8 AB, 0 BB, 1 K
Age 21: 111 g, .364 OBP, 30 XBH, 14 HR, 57 BB, 75 K, 117 OPS+
Age 22: 139 g, .353 OBP, 48 XBH, 17 HR, 68 BB, 84, K, 115 OPS+
3rd in AL MVP voting in Age 24 season

Enos Slaughter
Age 22: 112 g, .330 OBP, 38 XBH, 8 HR, 32 BB, 38 K, 105 OPS+
Played 19 seasons, Hall of Famer

Will Clark
Age 22: 111 g, .343 OBP, 40 XBH, 11 HR, 34 BB, 76 K, 121 OPS+

Paul O'Neill
Age 22: 5 games played
Age 23: 3 games played
Age 24: 84 g, .331 OBP, 22 XBH, 7 HR, 18 BB, 29 K, 111 OPS+

Bobby Abreu
Age 22: 15 games played
Age 23: 59 g, .329 OBP, 15 XBH, 3 HR, 21 BB, 48 K, 87 OPS+

Don Mattingly
Age 21: 7 games played
Age 22: 91 g, .333 OBP, 23 XBH, 4 HR, 21 BB, 30 K, 107 OPS+

Topps cards really have that background color?

Impressively, Logan Morrison compares better than or equal to every single player we checked out.  Of course, this isn't scientific, and we aren't comparing him to the Frank Thomas and Albert Pujols types.  We are, however, looking at players who mostly had multiple All Star seasons, some MVP caliber seasons, and long, healthy careers.  They are all good at getting on base, yet LoMo has the highest OBP listed, 20 points higher than Keith Hernandez's .376 at the same Age 22 season.  Morrison's XBH (extra base hit) per game is by far the highest we've seen.  His K/BB ratio is outstanding.  And, his 125 OPS+ is second highest, again to Hernandez who scored a 127 OPS+.

Patience from a young hitter is probably the best attribute to find as a scouting director.  Raw Power, like teammate Mike Stanton's, will often grab the headlines, but not making outs while putting the ball in play with some extra base power helps win games more often than a 500 foot homer surrounded by strikeouts and fly balls.  Not only that, it's been said that hitters can learn to hit.  They can practice, and get better, more comfortable, at hitting major league pitching.  However, it's tough to turn an aggressive hitter into a patient one.  These guys have had great success as young players.  They became professional ball players, Major Leaguers, by learning to be aggressive and hitting the snot out of the ball.  They're not about to become what little leaguers call "a looker" just because some hitting coach tells them so.  You don't walk off the island, and you usually don't walk into a scholarship or high school signing bonus.

Logan Morrison is not as good of a defender as Keith Hernandez or Mark Grace, but he's bigger and should develop more power.  He does not strike out as much as Bobby Abreu, while showing similar patience.  A Will Clark type of career would be stupendous, and yet I'm thinking those are somewhat realistic expectations.  That is great news for Marlins fans, errrrr I mean fans of the team that get Logan Morrison after he becomes too expensive for the Marlins.  At another time, we can explore just what the new ballpark in downtown Miami means for the Marlins chances to keep more of their emerging stars.

Anticlimactic (an-ti-cli-mac-tic) adj: of, relating to, or marked by an outcome that is strikingly less important than expected.

Ouch.

We have been hoping that dabbling with baseball statistics for the Yankees, Rays, Twins, and Rangers for the past two weeks would give us an insightful look into who would win the American League pennant.  It's fun, for some fans, to check out statistics and learn something new or see if their assumptions can be verified.  Over the past fifteen days, we have created an insane formula that really has no basis in advanced mathematics.  I'll try to share it tonight, but it's mostly a biased picture of what I consider the most important factors for postseason success.

Stats we used from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference include:

Team Runs Scored
Team Runs Allowed
Team Pythagorian Records
Team wOBA
Team RE24 by position
Team wOBA by position
Team avWAR
Individual avWAR
Individual RE/24boLI
Individual tERA for Starting Pitchers
Team UZR

In addition, we devised comparative rankings for the following roster components and positions:

Playoff Rotations
#1 Starter
Bullpen
Closer
LHPH
RHPH
C, 1b, 2b, SS, 3b, LF, CF, RF, DH, Util

Justim Morneau hasn't played since July 7 and is out for ALDS

The raw data was then thrown into a recipe assigning weighted value to each team statistic or comparative rankings of statistics by individual positions and team groupings above.  There was room for my own biased observations and rankings.  These intangible biases icluded demerits for injuries (that really hurt the Twins, losing Morneau's full influence on rankings) and additional credit for past postseason success (hi CC, Jeter, and Mariano!).  When it was possible, we included averages for the past 3 years where each year's statistic had less value than the more recent season.

Boring (bohr-ing) adj: causing or marked by the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.

Double Ough.  Ok, we get it.  Boooooooring.  This could be the reason we have taken so long to publish this post.  It's boring.  It's anticlimactic.

Here is what the formula we devised currently shows for statistics of raw data: (The best score is the lowest number)

1. Yankees 2.41
2. Rays 6.48
3. Rangers 10.66
4. Twins 10.73

I'm not sure we can have an interesting discussion given these results.  It doesn't say much.  I guess the Yanks should be expected to win the pennant, and we would be surprised if the ALCS included the Rangers or Twins.

The Rangers have a chance with Lee, Wilson, and Lewis.

Another issue with our expectations is that the Playoffs are a crapshoot.  We've seen outstanding teams bow to the dominance of starting pitchers throwing strikes.  The Rangers and Twins have more than a puncher's chance with Cliff Lee and Francisco Liriano capable of shutting down the fiercest lineups.

Perhaps we can add some value to the post by breaking down the positions in an old school fashion, taking about intangibles, feelings, who's better, who's best, and maybe throwing a stat in here and there to make us look like we're on the right track.

Playoff Rotations
The Rangers may have the best 1-2-3 with Cliff Lee, CJ Wilson, and Colby Lewis.  Since we are comparing Aces independantly, this category forcuses more on the the #2 & #3 starters.  Wilson and Lewis have the best tERA's.  Observe:

CJ Wilson, Rangers 3.78 tERA
Brian Duensing, Twins 3.99 tERA
Carl Pavano, Twins 4.00 tERA
Phil Hughes, Yankees 4.02 tERA
Andy Pettitte, Yankees 4.04 tERA
Kevin Slowey, Twins 4.08 tERA
Scott Baker, Twins 4.15 tERA
James Shields, Rays 4.45 tERA
Jeff Niemann, Rays 4.51 tERA
Wade Davis, Rays 4.61 tERA
Matt Garza, Rays 4.67 tERA
AJ Burnett, Yankees 4.77 tERA

Slowey and Baker have been hurt for the Twins.  So, it's difficult to know whom they can count on besides Liriano and Carl Pavano.  Pavano has become a new person outside of New York.  Or is he back to his old self?  No matter, he has become a team leader for the Twins.

Number One Starters
Here is how we assigned our rankings to the Aces for each team.  Again, the lower the number, the better.

"Feed Me!"

CC Sabathia 2.2
David Price 2.4
Cliff Lee 2.6
Francisco Liriano 2.8

You may have other ways of ranking them, from 1, 2, 3, 4.  We felt the four of them are so good, that they have to be grouped more closely together.  Again, to be clear, if we thought they were all exactly the same, they would each have 2.5 points.  This is almost a dead heat, but we are giving much credit to Sabathia's track record and David Price's fastball when giving them slight nods over Lee and Liriano.

If there is a demand for it, we may get into the other positions, bullpen, closer, team stats, etc.  For tonight, we will spare you the details.  Starting pitching wins championships anyway, right?

While everyone is enjoying NFL week 4 tomorrow, don't forget to check into the Padres/Giants game and the Braves' game to see who's going to the senior circuit's postseason.  Oh yeah, and Go Bears!