Quote:
Originally Posted by mth123
This won't be popular.
The Cardinals run differential of 117 was second best in the NL. It was better than the Braves (100), the Reds (81) or the Giants (69). Only the Nationals, with a Run Differential of 137, was better than the Cardinals in the 2012 NL season and the Cards did beat them head to head in a fair series.
Maybe the Wild Card and the Cards' post season run is righting an injustice that was reflected in the regular season standings. Being 36 net runs better than the Reds suggests that they were a better team by about 3 to 4 games which is a far cry from finishing 9 games back.
In general, I've been in the camp of trying to maintain the sanctity of the 162 game regular season, but this Cards' team is hardly the best example of why the wild card is such an injus,tice. I somehow think if it were any other team, and if the Reds had not just laid an egg in their post-season appearance, that this topic would be getting barely a wimper.
|
You know what is amazing is that the 1970 Reds with 102 wins had a +11 RD.
+11? For 102 wins? With that offense?
Looks like the pitching staff injuries caused a lot of games to get out of hand late in the year.
They also played a lot of close games....as evidenced by the 60 saves they had.
So if we knew what we know now....the collapse of 1971 was written in the Pythags.