EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND PAY ATTENTION.

I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE.

wait for it…

wait for it…

KEN ROSENTHAL IS PICKING THE DODGERS!

I know! I can’t believe it either! And he’s actually got facts! Like:

But remember, the Dodgers had the best regular-season record in the National League and the best run differential in the majors.

It’s true! They do! So let’s all celebrate a national writer finally choosing the Dodgers to win an NLDS that is so obviously going to be swept by the Cardinals (in just two games, no less) that they shouldn’t even throw the first pitch. Thank you, Ken, for your confidence.

Oh. What’s that? Ahhh… crap. He’s basing his choice on flawed ideas. This is a new one for me – I don’t usually try to pick apart arguments about how the Dodgers are good – but, hell, if i’m going to do it to negative articles I should do it to positive ones too, right?

Rather than go through every line, let’s just point out the main reasons why Rosenthal thinks the Dodgers could win:

At that point, the Dodgers’ bullpen advantage will become even more significant, particularly if their starters can last at least six innings.

The Dodger pen is without question excellent… but you’ll notice I didn’t mention any bullpen advantage in my post about reasons to be happy to be facing St. Louis. That’d be because, even though the Dodger bullpen is great, so is St. Louis’. In fact, Baseball Prospectus believes that the Cardinal pen might actually be better. What they’ve done is ignore the overall seasonal stats, because each team had a ton of guys contribute over the last 6 months who are either no longer with the team or won’t be on the playoff roster. They’ve taken just the top 4 relievers (in LA’s case, Broxton, Troncoso, Sherrill, and Kuo) and also, for guys like Sherrill who were in-season acquisitions, extrapolated their worth over the full year to make it fair. What do we get?      

So, strange as this might seem, it’s the Twins–if they make it–and the Cardinals who are sitting pretty with the best pens in their respective leagues. Just as the Cards boast the best quartet for starting their games, they also have the best foursome to take on the lion’s share of their key late-game frames. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers have nothing to be ashamed of, the Rockies are hoping their late-season reinforcements can make the difference, the Angels and Tigers aren’t in a good way, and the Phillies are a complete wild card.

By this measure, the Dodgers pen isn’t better than the Cardinals’, and in fact might not even be as good. I tend to think it’s largely irrelevant because they each have excellent relievers, but the take-home point here is that you can’t blindly assume the Dodgers have a huge advantage.

Back to Rosenthal:

Ramon Troncoso, Ron Belisario, Hong-Chi Kuo, George Sherrill and Jonathan Broxton — the Dodgers’ bullpen features one power arm after another.

Yes. Definitely.

The Cardinals?

Their bullpen statistics, for the most part, are outstanding. But their relievers remain relatively inexperienced in their respective roles.

Right-handers Jason Motte and Blake Hawksworth are rookies. Righty Kyle McClellan, the principal setup man, is in his second season. Ryan Franklin, a first-time closer at age 36, had a 7.56 ERA in September.

And here’s where the comparison starts to falter. You can’t complain that Motte, Hawksworth, and McClellan are inexperienced, and not point out that the career innings by Troncoso and Belisario entering the season were just 38, all by Troncoso. If it bothers you that Franklin had a lousy September, then it should bother you that Troncoso’s been giving up nearly an .800 OPS in the second half.

Moving on:

Carpenter and Wainwright pitch deep enough into games to limit the bullpen’s exposure. But Joel Pineiro, the team’s Game 3 starter, has a 4.98 ERA in his last seven starts. And John Smoltz and Kyle Lohse, the leading choices for Game 4, are five- or six-inning pitchers.

Boy, this sounds familiar.. let’s think about this another way.

Wolf and Kershaw pitch deep enough into games to limit the bullpen’s exposure. But Chad Billingsley, the team’s Game 3 starter, has a 5.45 ERA in his last seven games. And Vicente Padilla and Jon Garland, the leading choices for Game 4, were cheap late-season additions.

So all of a sudden the Dodger starting pitching isn’t a problem? Again, I do realize how absolutely insane it sounds that I’m getting on Rosenthal for not getting on the Dodgers. It’s crazy. I know this. I’m just saying, that if he’s going to pick the Dodgers to win, do it for the right reasons!