Quote:
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch
No, not a little bit. Fully. MLB is easily the hardest to do it in anyway given the (1) massive payroll disparity and (2) long lead time of personnel coming they the development pipeline.
Who said it was “on the back of a bullpen”? We won 89 and 95 games in the AL (!) becasue of a bullpen? Sounds like bull-shit, bro.
The Royals 3 were dominant for several years so the whole Blake Treinen types of comparisons won’t work. They went 22-9 in those playoff runs too, so they dominated the best teams. They very easily could’ve won both WS.
If you want to talk luck here’s my advice: the 14 wild card game and 15 Alds 4
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The '14 team has a TON of luck in it. A) 89 wins ain't shit in an environment where far too many teams don't even try anymore. B) You said it yourself, the play-in game.
And surely you'll recognize how the Royals style of play could've only worked when they knew full well that the opponent wasn't scoring past the 6th. You give either of those teams merely a GOOD bullpen and they don't win a championship. The '14 team likely doesn't even make the playoffs.
The Royals could be patient and play for 1 run at a time with their low power, low OBP, high speed and high contact offense because they knew in the late innings they were shooting at a fixed target. Whatever number of runs the opponent had, that's how many they were gonna get. The stress that put on teams (who KNEW they had to start hot) and the confidence that gave the Royals (who knew they could just keep chippin' away) was unreal.
That's why the Royals kept breaking prediction models - because nobody had a good way to account for the fundamental ways that their insane bullpen changed the way those games were played. They simply went off script.
And regarding the extended duration - I agree that the Big 3 weren't a Blake Treinen situation, but they also weren't guys who anyone had pegged as studs BEFORE the 2014 season. Nobody was reasonably relying on those 3 guys to set records. Their ascension came from left field and was the central component to both of those pennants.