High Five Friday
World Series Edition

Today I’ll interrupt the regularly scheduled Awards column to interject a word or two on the current state of the game. The World Series is relatively important, after all, and far be it from me to shamefully neglect the most important part of the Major League Baseball season, the culmination of seven months of games and years of preparation by all of those involved. Without delay, here is the World Series special edition of High Five Friday:

1. Outside of anyone’s control, but playing an important role in the series nonetheless is the field. In a short series, we often overlook the effect that park factors have on the game. Looking at Houston’s postseason so far, though, it’s hard to overlook the importance of their park: the Ausmus HR that sent game 4 of the ALDS into extra innings would not have left many stadiums, and Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols homered into the short LF porch, the now infamous Crawford Boxes (although Pujols’ shot would have left any stadium, including Yankee Stadium before the moved the fences in).

It’s unfortunate that Enron fell apart, primarily because we lost the ability to poke fun at the Astros’ home field by calling it Homerun rather than Enron. Well, I guess it was unfortunate primarily for the other things, but this part is bad too. Truly, though, Minute Maid gave up 108 runs to a standardized 100 this year, adding offense by enhancing HR production 112-100 and more than doubling the average of triples (triples are susceptible to huge park factors due to their infrequency). The number is even better for RHB, up to 116 HR over the last three years. Chicago’s heavily right-handed lineup will certainly continue trying to get around on anything inside as their primary means of offense.

The Cell in Chicago is similar in its effects on HR hitting, and is actually substantially easier for HRs (second to only Coors at 133), but suppresses overall run scoring to the tune of three per 100 runs scored. With pitching depth on both sides, the deep ball will be a huge factor in the series.

2. Speaking of pitching, both teams have a wonderful staff, and would never have made it even to the playoffs with a league average rotation. But who has the advantage? I hate to sound brash, but it’s Houston, and it is not close. Six of the seven potential WS games would be thrown by the top three starters, and Chicago’s top three combines for a very respectable 16.7 SNLVAR (Contreras, Buehrle, Garland), while Houston’s historic troika put up an outstanding 25.7 SNLVAR (Clemens, Pettite, Oswalt). Yes, Garcia was better than Bakce, almost twice as productive. Yes, Clemens struggled down the stretch. Yes, Chicago’s staff has been dominant in the playoffs. I don’t care; Houston has a remarkable rotation, one of the best ever, and there’s really no comparison.

3. I’ll make a bold prediction: the bench for either team will not decide the series. Chicago has basically completely neglected its bench in the playoffs, while Houston had to go deep in the marathon against Atlanta, but otherwise have avoided that dreg as best they can. Jeff Bagwell’s plenty famous, but he’s not what he was, even at the start of the season, so there’s no use expecting greatness from him. It’s almost scary to think what would happen if one of Chicago’s regulars went down early in the series. We might be sentenced to a week of Geoff Blum’s .152 EqA, or we might get lucky and get to watch Willie Harris continue his career-long replacement level impersonation. Here’s hoping the walls are padded, the infields soft and the Gatorade jugs well stocked.

4. Last year, the baseball world was abuzz with Phil Garner after he turned around the good ship Stro and brought them within a game of their first World Series. This year, Ozzie Guillen has received similar praise for his flippant style and substantial success. Both men have followed comparable playbooks for teams with strong starting pitching and defense and not enough ability to get on base. Their strengths run parallel in many ways: good pitcher usage to keep the starters healthy, wisely abandoning the one inning relief ace mantra and going with the hot arm as long as it will ride, and knowing when to say no to the likes of Jose Vizcaino and Timo Perez. On the other hand, they’re both fans of throwing away lots of outs and putting low-OBP speedsters ahead of their boppers. Teddy Atlas likes to say that styles make fights, and this fight will be more like Chris Byrd vs. Fres Oquendo than Gatti vs. Ward. That is to say that the style of play will cater to purists and enthusiasts, but not to the casual fan. I say screw the casual fan; the casual fan is responsible for Tim McCarver, the scoreboard shell game and 10 Yankees-Red Sox stories a week.

5. The Andrew LP has scratched, as I feel like I need to reiterate the similarity of these two teams. Morgan Ensberg, meet Paul Konerko. Willy Taveras, meet Scott Podsednik. Brad Lidge and Bobby Jenks; Jon Garland and Roy Oswalt; Aaron Rowand and Jason Lane. It might seem difficult to pick one team over the other, but in pretty much every head-to-head matchup, the Astros seem a little deeper and a little better. I’m sticking with my mid-season prediction and taking Houston in 6, but if there’s something to emotion, Chicago could stay on their tremendous roll.