Who do I think will win tonight? I’d give the Red Sox a 52% chance of winning.

Who would I bet on tonight? Rockies at +185.

Book it.

Just, out.

Through four innings, things don’t look good for the Rockies. A 4-1 deficit is certainly not insurmountable, but the Rockies are being obliterated right now.

Jeff Francis is on the verge of being yanked …

Oh dear, the Red Sox just scored two more thanks to a Jason Varitek single.

Not good for Rockies Nation.

Looks like the Diamondbacks (wow!) and Rockies (huh?) have reached the NLCS.

Let’s be the first to do a breakdown:

Catcher:
The Rockies’ Yorvit Torrealba is a career .250 hitter with a .313 OBP. The Diamondbacks split duties between Chris Snyder and Miguel Montero. Neither has been all that impressive this season, but both are young (26 and 23, respectively). If you lined all three up statistically it would be really hard to tell them apart. There’s very little production coming out of the NLCS backstops.
EDGE: DIAMONDBACKS. They have two relatively poor hitting catchers compared to just one for the Rockies.

First Base:
Todd Helton may not be the stud he once was, but he continues to put up acceptable enough numbers to keep manning the corner for the Rockies. The Diamondbacks have a platoon between the switch-hitting Tony Clark and the still-waiting-to-breakout Conor Jackson. Even if this were anything close to a tie, Helton is a gold glover (and a rightful one).
EDGE: ROCKIES.

Second Base:
Kazuo Matsui has been a pleasant surprise in Denver this year. His numbers don’t look that different from his days in New York, but his OPS is higher now than it ever was there. With Orlando Hudson on the shelf, the Diamondbacks have been using ex-Cub Augie Ojeda, who is really, really, bad — and not good defensively.
EDGE: ROCKIES.

Third Base:
Garret Atkins vs. Mark Reynolds. Uhhhhh…
EDGE: ROCKIES.

Short Stop:
The Diamondbacks are continuing to wait for Stephen Drew to have his breakout season, as they should. He was bad on both sides of the baseball this season. Meanwhile, Troy Tulowitzki broke out in a huge way. My pick for NL Rookie of the Year has got everything going for him. I still do think, though, that Drew is the better of these two in the long haul.
EDGE: ROCKIES. This is getting kind of redundant.

Left Field:
Potential NL MVP Matt Holliday in left for Colorado. Surprisingly terrific year from Eric Byrnes in Arizona. I’ll take the MVP.
EDGE: ROCKIES.

Center Field:
Ryan Spilborghs has put up some decent numbers in Colorado this year. Another of Arizona’s potential stars, Chris Young, is waiting on his breakout year. I mean, this could have been it with 29 homers, but a .295 OBP has me thinking probably not. Still, he’s good defensively and I love future stars.
EDGE: DIAMONDBACKS.

Right Field:
For whatever reason, the D-backs benched Carlos Quentin (another future star, maybe) in favor of Jeff Salazar and Justin Upton. With regards to this breakdown, it doesn’t really matter — Colorado’s Brad Hawpe is at the head of the class. But the D-backs might have been better off with Quentin in right for the long haul.
EDGE: ROCKIES.

Starting Pitching:
Both teams have a very similar rotation: Good No. 1 and the rest is just blah. The difference is Brandon Webb is far and away superior to Josh Fogg. In a short series that may not matter a whole lot, but the D-backs get the edge here.
EDGE: DIAMONDBACKS.

Relief Pitching:
Arizona has one of the best bullpens in the majors when it comes to protecting leads. Colorado has found success in the (cheater?) Manny Corpas, but that’s about it.
EDGE: DIAMONDBACKS.

Surely, the Diamondbacks have the better pitching, and they proved they can shut down a powerful offense as they ripped through the Cubs. But the Rockies don’t keel over like the Cubs.

ROCKIES IN 5.

Just, out.

The NL MVP race has generated a lot of discussion, both in this space and others.

It’s funny, there really is not much arguing going on about any of the AL races — MVP, CY, or RoY. Sure, there are some interesting options, but those races have pretty much been decided.

But in the NL, besides the Cy Young winner, the races are open for Rookie of the Year and MVP.

So, let’s take a look at the two candidates for this year’s NL Rookie of the Year, because each makes a very compelling argument. I’ll use, for now, the general criteria for the voters:

Player………………HR…RBI…..R……BB……SB…….BA……OBP…..SLG
Ryan Braun……………34…97….91……29……15……..324…..370…….634
Troy Tulowitzki………24…99…104…..57……7………291…..359…..480

There are two X factors at play here. Braun only had 451 at bats, making his case that much better in many ways (hurting it in others, more on that later).

The second X factor is defense. Braun committed 26 fielding errors in just 113 games. His fielding percentage is a lowly .895.

And take a look at these THT fielding stats. Braun’s RZR (Revised Zone Rating, or the number of balls hit into his zone that he successfully converted into an out) is .562, a good 40 points less than the next worst in all of the National League. (And for reference, it’s 60 points worse than the lowest RZR in the American League, held by Akinori Iwamura.

There’s certainly something to be said for being the worst fielder in the league, by far. Tulowitzki’s defense ranks him near the best in the league, something to the tune of fifth best infielder in the NL — maybe better depending on what defensive rankings you’re using.

I’m not smart enough nor do I have time enough to calculate how many runs Braun cost the Brewers, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty (being a Ben Sheets and Dave Bush fantasy owner) that he cost them (and me!) more than a couple of Ws.

Quick blog intermission: Prince Fielder plays in the same infield as Braun. You’ll see Fielder’s name just down the list from Braun if you refer to that THT fielding stats page again. The Brewers missed out on the NL Central by two games, and damn it all if that’s not the most identifiable, most fixable reason.

Anyway, with some much-needed help from James Holzhauer over at Results Disoriented, I could not find any defensive ratings that put Tulowitzki at less than +20 runs and Braun any higher than -20. In some cases, Braun was much, much lower.

Anyway, the question remains: How do we deduct from Braun’s offensive dominance to compensate for his defensive woes. Since VORP is essentially a measure of how many runs a player contributed offensively over a replacement player, we can use it to adjust for the defensive contributions, or lack thereof.

If we were to use +20 for Tulo and -20 for Braun (again, there were ranges of defensive output, but nothing worse for Tulo or better for Braun), their VORPs come out to 57 and 37, respectively. It’s funny, Braun’s VORP is 57 and Tulo’s is 37, and the 40-point swing simply reverses their position on the totem pole.

There are other equally unscientific ways to calculate this.

If I were to use a stat like THT’s win shares, Tulo comes out slightly higher, only because he played those extra 50 games. THT also created a win share percentage, which accommodates for playing time — and not surprisingly, Braun blows Tulo out of the water there. Braun did, in fact, create nearly three more runs per game than Tulo. It just wasn’t enough given the time he missed.

If Braun has anyone to blame for missing out on the Rooke of the Year, it’s Doug Melvin, who kept The Hebrew Hammer down over a month longer than he should have. But that would just be making excuses for Braun’s A-2000.

Assuming Braun gets moved to the outfield next year, he’ll be in line for some MVP nods if he continues to put up numbers like those of 2007. Which, if it’s any consolation, Tulowitzki probably won’t be able to say.

If Troy is nice, he’ll let Ryan polish his Rookie of the Year trophy on the weekends. Well, every other weekend if the judge is in one of those moods.

Editor’s Note: If you enjoyed this post, or if you didn’t enjoy it and you’re still reading for some reason, please let me plug R-D one more time. Thanks again for your help, James!

Just, out.

The wild card tiebreaker between the Padres and Rockies reminded me just why I love this game.

The best pitchers threw wildly, the best hitters put on a show, the rookies and bench warmers made big impacts, and above all, the underdog won.

The teams looked incredibly even matched and neither team was deserving of missing the playoffs. I picked the Padres to be in the World Series this year and I am a bit disappointed by that, but I’m also excited to see what the Rockies can do in the playoffs.

The shortened rotation should be a boon to the Rox, who really have few good options after Jeff Francis. No other starter went more than 166 innings on the season.

After the Yankees, though, I’m not sure there is a better offense out there, and what a rush it would be to see the Yanks and Rockies slug it out in the Fall Classic.

The Rockies are quite literally a wild card in the postseason, and I’m glad the Cubs won’t have to deal with both the Rockies and the Phillies on their way to a possible pennant.

I’ll get post-game analysis up as soon as I can after the games.

Enjoy the playoffs.

Just, out.