Playoff Preview: The Brewers and Diamondbacks

The playoffs are here and it took the most exciting night in recent baseball history to get here. So what I am going to do in my playoff previews is reveal my biases (say who I would pick before looking at the numbers), then use the same numbers I use in other articles to grade players to predict a winner. To be clear, without the numbers, I predict a Rangers/Phillies World Series, with the Phillies winning in 5 games. In this series, I think the Brewers pitching is better, and cancels out similar lineups, so I have the Brewers. But here we go:

I expect the Brewers to use Gallardo (.08 WAR a start, -1.85 PE), Grienke (-3.21 PE, .056 WAR per start), Marcum (-.11 PE, .1 WAR a start), and Wolf (1.78 PE, .1 WAR a star) as the starting pitchers. Their bullpen will probably include Saito (.2 WAR, -2.23 PE), Rodriquez (-3.48 PE, 1.4 WAR), Axford (-5.22 PE, 1.8 WAR), Loe (-.62 PE, 1.2 WAR), Hawkins (1.17 PE, .7 WAR) De La Cruz (.1 WAR, -.23 PE), Narveson (1.5 WAR, 1.36 PE), and Dillard (-1.01 PE, .3 WAR). Their lineup will look something like this: (in no order) Morgan (.018 WAR per game, 2.9 PAPP, .97 PPG), Braun (2.07 PAPP, .05 WAR per game, 1.9 PPG), Hart (2.52 PAPP, .03 WAR per game, 1.33 PPG), Lucroy (.003 WAR per game, 3.066 PAPP, .84 PPG), Fielder (1.52 PPG, .03 WAR per game, 2.24 PAPP), Weeks (.025 War per game, 2.6 PAPP, 1.3 PPG), Betancourt (.007 WAR per game, .91 PPG, 3.43 PAPP), and McGehee (3.38 PAPP, negative war, .82 PPG).

The Diamondbacks will probably use Kennedy (.167 WAR per start, -1.84 PE), Saunders (2.83 PE, .079 WAR per start), Hudson (.35 PE, .076 WAR per start) , and Collmenter (.1 WAR per start, .95 PE) as starters. Their lineup will look something like this (in no particular order): Upton (.027 WAR per game, 1.55 PPG, 2.46 PAPP), Young (.032 WAR per game, 1.3 PPG, 2.66 PAPP), Parra (2.52 PAPP, .013 WAR per game, .88 PPG), Goldschmidt (.002 WAR per game, 1.38 PPG, 2.47 PAPP) , Hill (2.67 PAPP, 1.41 PPG, .053 WAR per game), Bloomquist (2.95 PAPP, .97 PPG, Negative WAR), Roberts (3.1 PAPP, 1.32 PPG, .024 WAR per game), and Montero (.033 WAR per game, 1.21 PPG, 2.71 PAPP). Their bullpen will include Zeigler (1.2 WAR, -.98 PE), Putz (-4.48 PE, 1.7 WAR), Hernandez (-3.59 PE, 1.3 WAR), Paterson (-1.1 PE, .3 WAR), Owings (.89 PE, .1 WAR), Miley (2.88 PE, .2 WAR) and Shaw (.2 WAR, -1.01 PE).

As far as starting pitchers go, the Diamondbacks have a better WAR, while the Brewers have the better Pitching Efficiency. The Brewers have the better bullpen in both Pitching efficiency and WAR. The Diamondbacks actually have the better lineup in all 3 categories used above. Perhaps this is disappointing because the statistics don't seem to pick a winner in this series. However, the stats clearly show that it is the Diamondbacks, not the Brewers that have the better lineup, and that makes me pick the Diamondbacks post-numbers.