APBA Tournament: Cobb Bracket Preview (Part 2)

Part 2 of the Cobb Bracket Preview

COBB BRACKET

Ichiro goes on to make one of the biggest impacts in MLB history!

2001 Seattle Mariners (3)

Vs.

1993 Philadelphia Phillies (14)

Entering 2001, no one would have ever guessed that the Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki, a Major League rookie would go on to have such a instant, remarkable season. Not only did he go on to win the A.L. Rookie-of-the-Year Award, but he would also go on to win the A.L. Most Valuable Player Award! (Becoming the 2nd player to ever do so / Fred Lynn was the first). If that wasn't remarkable enough would be the fact that he would help lead the 2001 Seattle Mariners to 116 victories (setting an A.L. record, while tying the MLB record set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs)! The Mariners were not expected to even equal their 2000 Season's success in which they went 91-71 as a wild card team, defeated Cleveland in the ALDS, and eventually lost to the Yankees in the ALCS; due to the fact that their star player Alex Rodriguez signed the mammoth record deal with the Texas Rangers in the off-season. So it was to many a safe bet, to say that 2001 would be a far cry from 2000 for Seattle, in many ways it was, just in a surprisingly, positive way (25 more victories!).

If a 25 game improvement is not enough, how about a 27 game improvement? The Philadelphia Phillies finished in 6th place in the N.L. East during the 1992 season with a 70-92 record, enter the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies. The team was a unique group of characters, gritty, dirty, with crazy mullets, dubbed "Macho Row", a play-on-words with the 27' Yankees' "Murderer's Row". The team was led by Lenny Dykstra (Runner-up to the 1993 MVP Award), John Kruk, Darren Daulton & Curt Schilling.

The Mariners dominated their opponents with a differential of 300 runs. Philadelphia, on the other hand had a flair for dramatic comebacks and the knack for many long games including a 12-hour double-header (due to rain delays, the 2nd game ending around 4:30 a.m.) and a 20-inning marathon -- The Phillies only outscored their opponents by 137 runs. The Phillies almost collapsed in very similar fashion to the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies team, losing a comfortable 10-game cushion... but to hang on by 3 games over the surging Montreal Expos (who would be a force in 1994).

The M's were also a very well-balanced offense with a .805 OPS (being one of nine franchises in the tournament with a .800 OPS or higher), a good mix of pop (169 Home Runs) and speed (leading the A.L. with 174 steals) & a .288 team batting average. The Phillies match-up well in the HR's (156), AVG (.274), and team OPS (.780), but have half of the totals in stolen bases with 91. The team is also out-matched by over 40 points in ERA when it comes to pitching, the Mariners led the A.L. with a 3.54 ERA, while only four teams in the entire tournament have higher team ERA's than Philadelphia's 3.95!

PREDICTION: Some might think at mere glance that the Phillies may push this to five games, but here is more food for thought. The Mariners have an unbelievable bullpen as well (in fact, maybe one of the very best in the tournament with 6 relievers over a B-grade, 3 of them being at least Grade A's!), the Phillies have 3, which is actually pretty good compared to some teams in the tournament. But the rotation of the Mariners is good 1-4, in where the Phillies are only equal grade-wise with their first two starting pitchers. Mariners in 4!

Speaker & Cobb -- forever linked in controversy.

1912 Boston Red Sox (6)

Vs.

1909 Detroit Tigers (11)

It's the one and only match-up in the first round that will pit one "dead-ball" era team against another "dead-ball" era team! So we will call this one -- "The Dead-Ball Series".

The series will also star two of the biggest stars to ever play the game, Boston's Tris Speaker and Detroit's Ty Cobb. If Cobb ever had a friend actually, Speaker was probably the closest thing to that -- the two would also be linked in a baseball controversy that would get them basically kicked off their respective teams in 1926 (Speaker was with Cleveland at this time), when A.L. President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Cobb (both also Managers at the time) to resign their posts, after pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one Cleveland-Detroit game. According to a columnist (shortly before the hearings were to take place) was that Leonard was on quest for "purely a matter of personal revenge", mentioning that Leonard was upset with Cobb and Speaker due to being sent to the minor leagues because of a trade. When Leonard refused to show up at the hearings to discuss the accusations, the case was thrown out by Commissioner Landis -- Both teams reinstated their players, but gave them the right to sign elsewhere, in which Cobb would sign on with the Philadelphia Athletics as only a player, while Speaker momentarily retired, then played briefly with Washington and then actually played with Cobb on the 1928 Philadelphia Athletics. Both players were part-time players at best by this time in their great careers.

The two teams had a total of 48 HR's combined (Boston with 29 of them), with Speaker leading Boston with 10, and Cobb leading Detroit with 9! Detroit played a lot of small ball and tore up the base-paths with 280 SB's (Cobb's 76 & Donie Bush's 53 led the pack), while their OPS (.667) ranked among one of the lowest among the tournament contenders. Boston is much better with a OPS of .735, while not being no slouches on the bases with 185 steals. The 1985 St. Louis Cardinals led the bunch with 314! Tigers ranked fifth in that category.

The Red Sox are anchored by one of the most dominating pitching seasons ever recorded in baseball history, "Smokey" Joe Wood's 1912 Season! Wood would go 34-5, 1 SV, 1.91 ERA & 258 K's in 344 Innings! An once-in-a-lifetime, rare APBA Grade of A&B-XYZ! Both rotations are really good, with George Mullin of the Tigers being their ace. The Tigers team ERA of 2.26 is better than the Red Sox' 2.76.

PREDICTION: I'm not quite sure why Boston is that much higher ranked after all the formulas I have computed when I was trying to come up with the rankings. I'm guessing it was because of the Red Sox' run differential from their opponents (255) that led their league, while the Tigers had a differential of 177 that did not lead it's league. Also the Red Sox had 105 wins to Detroit's 98. But with the Tigers having four players over 30 steals, plus I really like that the Tigers also have a great player in another HOF'er Sam Crawford --- I'm picking the Tigers to win in five!

Schmidt & Co. plan to power through Oakland.

1977 Philadelphia Phillies (7)

Vs.

1988 Oakland Athletics (10)

The 1988 Oakland Athletics featured the famous (for so many reasons) "Bash Brothers" of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. Tony LaRussa's Athletics would go on to three consecutive World Series, while only winning the middle 1989, earthquake series against the San Fransisco Giants. The team overall really did not do too much bashing as McGwire and Canseco, including Dave Henderson's 24 Home Runs, accumulated 98 of the team's 156 round-trippers. The 1977 Philadelphia Phillies would have more with 186.

The Phillies don't have the California glitz and glamour, they are led by their own bash brothers in Mike Schmidt (Hall of Famer) and Greg Luzinski, who hit 39 and 38 HR's respectively, but the rest of the lineup is more balanced than Oakland's when it comes to power and OPS (On Base Pct + Slugging Pct). The Phils also had 5 batters in the teens for HR totals with Rich Hebner, Bob Boone, Bake McBride, Garry Maddox, and Jay Johnstone. They have seven players over 10+ HR's compared to Oakland's four (Bench/DH - Dave Parker added 12). In OPS, Phillies have the edge .799 to .738, while both teams are even in stolen bases.

Oakland will have the edge when it comes to pitching, with a 3.44 team ERA (Phillies have a 3.71 ERA) -- and while both teams have pretty solid bullpens, the rotation of Oakland's is more consistent one through four.

I happened to have played an exhibition series at one point between the 77' Phillies and the 1980 Kansas City Royals, and even though K.C.'s pitching (for championship team standards) is nothing to write home about (plus the fact their only reliever Dan Quisenberry was the only B in the pen); I have to say I was impressed with the 77' Phillies line-up and what they are capable of doing. In that series, they raked like they were the "Big Red Machine" (75'/76' Reds) on steroids -- there was four full-time players during that four-game series that had series' OPS's of over 1.000! 

• Mike Schmidt (1.446 OPS): Batted .467, HR, 3 RBI, 3 2B's & 4 BB's.
• Jay Johnstone (1.643 OPS): Batted .429, 2 HR & 6 RBI, 2B -- plus 2 triples in the same game!
• Garry Maddox (1.412 OPS): Batted .412, 3 HRs (he only had 14 in 547 at-bats during the 77' season, while knocking in 8 RBI & scoring 6 runs! Plus 2 SB's.
• Bob Boone (1.667 OPS): Batted .583, HR, 6 RBI, 2B & 3B.

Safe to say the team swept Kansas City, while collecting 50 hits! Pretty stellar performance.

PREDICTION: The Oakland Athletics are not the 80' Royals, and will be a tough match-up against the higher-ranked Phillies. Oakland has a better rotation & slightly better bullpen, with maybe one more arm than the Phils do -- Gene Nelson had a spectacular year as the set-up for Dennis Eckersley. But to beat the Phillies, the A's will have to take it to the Phils' starting pitching early, to put Oakland's bullpen in charge. Phillies in 5!

Quad Rockets: Glavine, Smoltz, Neagle & Maddux.

1998 Atlanta Braves (2)

Vs.

1998 San Diego Padres (15)

In the only same-year first round match-up, it will be a rematch of the 1998 National League Championship Series between the Atlanta Braves' ridiculous rotation against the San Diego Padres, the same team that would upset them to go on to play the great 1998 New York Yankees (featured in part 1 of the Cobb Bracket Preview).

So do the Padres still smell blood in the water? We'll have to see, lightning usually doesn't strike twice in the same spot -- I like to think that the statistics and strengths would play out and Atlanta moves on to the second round, but that is why we are playing a tournament, to see who is actually legit and who is not!

The Braves of course, are built on their starting pitching with future Hall of Famers: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine & John Smoltz. The team's rotation also have Denny Neagle and Kevin Millwood! Overall, I wish that APBA picked the Braves' 1995 team for their Greatest Teams of the Past volumes, due to the fact that it was their lone championship in that decade of dominance. Better overall group, this group goes on to get knocked out by San Diego, who get swept by New York -- the same group goes to the World Series and gets swept by the Yankees as well! The 95' Braves defeat one of the best teams ever assembled in my opinion with the 100-44 Cleveland Indians of 1995! These observances have been documented in my post Interesting Observations (posted Dec 6th, 2012). Plus the 95' Braves had Fred McGriff, Marquis Grissom, and Steve Avery!

The Padres were led by ace Kevin Brown, a career year by Andy Ashby, HOF'er Tony Gwynn, Ken Caminiti, closer Trevor Hoffman & a monster year of 50 HR's by Greg Vaughn. There was interesting pop by former Yankee Jim Leyritz (who had 12 HR & .851 OPS in 272 at-bats!) -- remember Leyritz was a huge key (3-Run HR off closer Mark Wohlers) in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series for the Yankees, tying up a series that once was a 2-0 Atlanta series lead. He also played well in the 1998 NLDS against the 1998 Houston Astros.

Tony Gwynn hits a Home Run against the Yankees, during the 98' World Series.

Interesting fact, 1998 features the most teams represented in the tournament: The Braves, Padres, Yankees and Astros. Out of the four teams, San Diego is ranked the lowest at #58!

PREDICTION: The Atlanta Braves get their revenge by taking the series, 3-1! The Braves have a stronger bullpen and rotation through the #3 & #4 slots. Plus the Braves are better all of the major offensive categories.

***This ends the Preview for the COBB BRACKET***