Playoff Preview

AL: 1939 Yankees vs. 1995 Indians:
A chance for long-suffering Cleveland fans to beat the establishment. The Indians had a 6-2 edge over the Yanks during the regular season, as mentioned below. New York led in most of those games, though "Fireman" Johnny Murphy saw to it that those leads didn't last-- he was 0-2 with a blown save and an ERA of 11.25 against Cleveland. Surprisingly, though the Yankees outhit the Indians .277-.226 and matched them with 6 HR, they were outscored by the Indians 34-30. Of the pitchers slated to start in the series, all did reasonably well against the other team, Red Ruffing throwing a shutout for New York. Game 1 features Bump Hadley (14-8, 2.69 in the regular season) vs. Dennis Martinez (17-11, 3.10). I'm managing both teams, so presumably there's no edge there. I'm picking the Yankees in 7, but wouldn't be surprised to see Cleveland pull it out, maybe even in 5...

NL: 1902 Pirates vs. 1906 Cubs:
I'm not particularly familiar with either team, since I haven't managed either one before. They played each other to a draw during the season, splitting their 8 games. Mostly, said games were sloppy-- averaging more than 4 errors between the teams per game, including as many as 5 by the Cubs alone in one game. The Pirates outhit the Cubs .255 to .238, though 17 of the Cubs' hits came in a single game, without which they hit .203.

And I think that's the Cubs' biggest problem. The starting pitchers did OK vs. the other teams, the ones who got rocked against the Pirates probably won't play a big role, and the large number of unearned runs make it a bit hard to evaluate. But the Pirates can actually hit (Ginger Beaumont won the league batting title at .339, and Fred Clarke was near .320), and the Cubs apparently can't. I've found that hitting will often trump pitching in this game, as the Beaneaters showed against this very Cubs team last season. Pirates in 6.