The Red Sox may just win another World Series. They are THAT good!
They ARE that good. Unfortunately, so are the Astros. I, for one, would NEVER argue baseball with Joe Posnanski.
"Posnanski: Are the 2018 Red Sox and Astros two of the best baseball teams of all time?
So I spoke to a business communications class Thursday morning — no, you don’t care, but there’s a point here — and one of the students in the class asked me about the Red Sox-Astros series and I said, “This is going to be awesome because, you know, Boston and Houston are two of the greatest teams in baseball history.”
I wish I’d had a camera to record the look on his face when I said the words “two of the greatest teams in baseball history.” It was some combination of disgust, nausea, outrage and that face you make when you’re eating one of those sour candies that are actually much sourer than you were expecting.
But it’s true, anyway: Boston and Houston are two of the greatest teams in baseball history.
And that’s why this series is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
I’m going to start off by giving you a few statistics, most uncovered by our stats guru Katie Sharp, that will tell you how absurd this series is. Then we’ll talk a little bit about the emotional part of a series like this.
Let’s start off with most combined victories in a postseason. The record is 212 combined wins; that happened in the 1998 World Series when the 114-win Yankees swept the 98-win Padres. That’s pretty impressive, but let’s be honest: The Yankees are doing most of the work there. No offense to the Padres, who were a good team, but that’s a bit like saying that the Aaron brothers have the most combined homers for siblings, with Tommie contributing 13 to Hank’s 755.
In this series, the Red Sox (108) and Astros (103) combine for 211 wins. That’s the second highest total of all time — and it’s much more evenly distributed. It’s two all-time teams, not just one.
But victories are only one way to look at this. You can also look at wins above replacement. The Astros and Red Sox combined for 114.2 WAR, tied with the 2017 Cleveland-Yankees division series for most ever. But the beauty here is not the combined total, as great as that is. It is the equilibrium. The Astros have 57.1 WAR as a team. The Red Sox also have 57.1 WAR as a team. It’s an amazing series in perfect balance.
Another way to look at quality is to look at Bill James’ Pythagorean theorem, which gives teams a win-loss percentage based on how many runs they score and how many they allow. This might offer a clearer picture of the overall quality of the teams by stripping out some of the luck. Well, this series — thank you, Baseball-Reference founder Sean Forman — will rank eighth all-time in combined Pythagorean win percentage.
Let’s look at those top eight series by Pythagorean Win-Loss percentage:
1. 1942 World Series, Cardinals vs. Yankees (combined 1.394 win-loss percentage)
These two teams had an amazing battle, but this was during World War II when quality was way down.
2. 1906 World Series, White Sox vs. Cubs (1.352)
A classic Deadball matchup.
3. 1939 World Series, Yankees vs. Reds (1.348)
The Reds were good but this is on the list mostly because the 1939 Yankees have an argument for the greatest team in baseball history.
4. 1910 World Series, Athletics vs. Cubs (1.341)
A classic Deadball matchup.
5. 1912 World Series, Reds Sox vs. Giants (1.330)
A classic Deadball matchup.
6. 1909 World Series, Pirates vs. Tigers (1.328)
A classic Deadball matchup.
7. 1953 World Series, Yankees vs. Dodgers (1.313)
Finally, we have a sort-of modern matchup, even if this was 65 years ago. The Casey Stengel Yankees vs. the Boys of Summer Dodgers; it was apparent even in the moment that this was a matchup of two all-time great teams.
8. 2018 ALCS Astros vs. Red Sox (1.310)
And there you have it. By runs scored and allowed, we haven’t had a series like this in most of our lifetimes. And it makes sense: Baseball almost never has two teams as good as the Red Sox and Astros in a single season, and it’s even less likely that they would play in the same league.
This brings up a good point: Yes, the Red Sox and Astros were absurdly successful this year. But how much of that can be attributed to the historic awfulness of the American League? The league was absurdly non-competitive. Three teams lost 100-plus games and two more lost 95-plus games. That means one-third of the league was not just bad, but truly terrible.
You could say that the Red Sox and Astros, while obviously terrific teams, simply built up their win totals on a league that is way down and on teams that were looking toward the future (and not too worried about the present). And you would be right.
That’s when you have to talk about just how good some of these players are.
Houston has two players — Justin Verlander and José Altuve — who I feel pretty confident will go to the Hall of Fame. Altuve is just 28 and has a long way to go, but he’s such a good player in so many ways — a great hitter, hits with power, runs the bases, plays terrific defense — that I think he will get there. Verlander, I think, has already earned his way, and he’s coming off one of his best seasons at age 35.
So that’s two Hall of Famers. Alex Bregman just put up an MVP-type season. It will not be an MVP season this year (we’ll get back to that in a minute), but he led the league in doubles, hit 30 homers, scored 100 runs, drove in 100 runs — that’s MVP stuff, and he’s just 24. Starter Gerrit Cole is terrific. Starter Charlie Morton is terrific. There are more terrific pitchers all over that bullpen. George Springer is terrific. Carlos Correa was hurt and he struggled all year, but he’s just 23 and one of the greatest talents in baseball. On and on and on.
You just don’t see many teams like that.
Then you go across the diamond and you see … another team like that. I mentioned that Bregman’s year was not quite MVP material this season, and that’s because Mookie Betts had an impossibly awesome year, a year so good that you could argue it was as good as Mike Trout’s, something that almost nobody has been able to say the last few years. Betts’ 10.9 Baseball-Reference WAR was the most for any player since Barry Bonds, and the most in the American League since Cal Ripken in 1991.
Betts is just 25 and has so much more to do, but if you asked me to bet, “Will he or won’t he go to the Hall of Fame?” I’m putting all my chips on “will he.”
And the same is true with starter Chris Sale, who is coming off another dominant year in a long series of dominant years.
J.D. Martinez almost won the Triple Crown. Xander Boegarts had a fantastic offensive season. Andrew Benintendi looks like he will be the next great left-field icon in Boston, a proud tradition from Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski to Jim Rice to Manny Ramirez. David Price has won a Cy Young. Rick Porcello has won a Cy Young. Craig Kimbrel is one of the most dominant closers ever. Stars everywhere you turn.
This is how you know it’s not just circumstance. These two teams are loaded with generational talents and historically great players. Baseball is played very different than it was when the Babe Ruth Yankees or the Earl Weaver Orioles or the Big Red Machine or even the last 1990s Yankees played. And these two teams play this new brand of baseball with all the strikeouts, defensive shifts, pitching changes and home-run power that you need to win. The only obvious weakness anyone can see is the Red Sox’s somewhat-shaky bullpen.
That doesn’t mean this will be a sure-fire competitive series; you never can tell when it’s best-of-seven. One team gets rolling and it could be over quickly, and without the anticipated tension and joy. But we still should stop for a moment to realize that this is not normal, not typical, not just another series. It’s an all-timer. It really does match up two of the best teams ever. And it could be a classic."
Published today in The Athletic.
