Further, Price was the first pick in the 2007 draft, not the 2008 draft, meaning the Rays had to be the worst team in 2006, also, to secure the #1 pick.

Great article. One quibble though, Tampa Bay is not a city. The team plays in St. Petersburg. Tampa Bay encompasses Tampa, St. Pete and the surrounding area.

Lou Pinella came to Chicago for a more realistic chance to win, I guess he don't know Cub history!

So what is the lethality of the people who are convinced they are stat-heads who just cherry-pick the numbers but insist their methodology is objective. Oh wait, that sounds like many a stockbroker...

Rev, stockbrokers and stat-heads who cherry-pick the numbers and insist their methodology is subjective also suffer from extreme short-term thinking.

Those who have a greater focus on the long-term are less likely to cherry-pick numbers to suit their own biases as they will use numbers as only one tool in decision-making. There's also human factors, external and internal opportunity costs and other issues that short-term thinkers speed past, blinded by their own agendas.

Wow - you're truly saying that it is just as easy to beat Lester the second time? Really? There are actually too many points that fly in the face of that ridiculous statement, but let's start with...
1. They can now gameplan as to what of Lester's pitches worked and those that didn't - Upton and Longoria were pitched 100% differently and the results showed.
2. up to that piint, Lester had not lost two games ina row in his MLB career.
3. Just as you were so quick to point out that no two pitches are exactly the same, vis a vis the Darling comment (which of course is assinine to split hairs over the point he was making - the same basic pitch is being called differently), no pitcher has the same game on a game by game basis -- wow, maybe that's why a pitcher who no-hits a team can still actually lose to them later on.

TH: Let me see if I can defend my "ridiculous" and "assinine" (sic) statements while addressing your sensible and intelligent comments.

1. OK now, Boston can "gameplan" but Tampa Bay can't. Lester can adjust to the hitters but the Rays can't adjust to him. I got it. Nice cherry picking on Upton and Longoria. I wonder what happened to the scouting report on Aybar?

2. The fact that Lester had not lost two games in a row was neither here nor there prior to Game 7. Yesterday is yesterday. Today is today. If a pitcher has never lost three in a row, does that mean he is a lock to win after losing two straight?

3. I never said that the Rays were going to beat Lester a second time because they beat him the first time. If anything, you made my point. Every game is separate and should be treated as such. The fact that TB beat Lester in Game 3 didn't make beating him easier or more difficult in Game 7. That was my point in a nutshell, and I stand by that irrespective of the outcome of Game 7.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me to see Price become a go-to guy. Look at the Twins this year. Jose Mijares went from a September callup buried in the bullpen for two weeks to being the pitcher called upon to hold onto a one-run lead in the eighth inning of a one-run game in the final week of the season to finish off a three-game sweep of the White Sox. He also pitched in the seventh and eighth innings of the 1-0 loss to the White Sox in the one-game playoff. Managers don't take long to move a reliever up in the pecking order when the rest of the bullpen is struggling. Especially when the reliever has nasty stuff.

As for Maddon's decision to go with Price (or even to stick with Garza as long as he did) I often think how much criticism Tom Kelly would have endured had Jack Morris given up a run or two in the 10th inning (or the 11th inning considering the Twins had no one warming up in the bullpen while they were scoring the winning run) in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. You're a genius if it works, you're an idiot if it doesn't. No real pressure there on those managerial decisions, huh?

Now that you opened the door to analyzing the analysts, I wish I had kept track of the number of times Buck Martinez talked about a player's "confidence." I'm guessing the "Confidence"-Counter would have been somewhere in the triple digits--and most mentions came AFTER someone did something well. Batter gets a hit? It must be confidence! Pitcher strikes him out? It must be confidence. Selecting on the dependent variable? It must be a TV baseball analyst!

For the #1 overall pick to have an impact on the playoffs the after he was drafted the team would have 2 seasons to improve from the worst record. TB selected Beckham based on last years record. Price was the result of having the worst record in '06.

I'm not sure why there were that many people who thought Maddon using Price in the 9th was "risky".

As a Red Sox fan, had Balfour come in, I would have been hopeful in the 9th. With Price out there, and all the lefties we had due up, I figured we were finished unless Price suddenly lost command of all his pitches. As it turned out, he did walk Jason Bay, but that was on a 3-2 count and only after Bay should have been called out on a check swing 2 pitches earlier. Price pumped in strikes to JD Drew. He was working with a 2-run lead and was already acclimated to the pressure having to face Drew with the Bases Loaded the inning before. Starting a 9th inning with the bases clear and a 2-run lead is a lot easier for him then asking Balfour to step in with Game 5 still haunting him.