Bruce Dickinson
Footballguy
It is an impressive top of the rotation. Greinke should win the Cy Young and is a decent MVP candidate, yet if he isn't be LAD's Game 1 starter no one will kill Mattingly for setting the rotation that way.Fangraphs still giving SD a .8% of winning the division, given that LA and SF have dropped so many games. Still in it!
Most cotenders/league leaders around 8-10%: KC, NYY, TOR, STL, PIT, NYM. Except LAD, who Fangraphs' projection system loves, seemingly because of the top of their rotation.
Here are fangraphs' odds: http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx?type=2&lg=div&date=current
Here are the odds if every playoff matchup is treated like a coinflip: http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx?type=0&lg=div&date=current
The other factor in LAD's favor is how strong the WC teams will be coming out of the NL Central. The Dodgers will draw the East winner in the NLDS, a weaker team overall than whomever wins the NL WC game. If the NL seeded the playoffs by straight W/L record, the Dodgers would be the road team in the Wild Card game right now against the Mets.
IMO the biggest threat to LAD not going to the Series is how close they are to missing the playoffs completely. They're only 1.5 games ahead of the Giants. Makes me hate the Dodgers even more with the way they are making me root for the Giants to get hot in September.
Regardless, the key to knocking LAD out of the playoffs this year will be the same it was last year; hope the game is competitive after 5-6 innings and try to win it before Jensen comes in. In the NLDS last year, the Cardinals scored 13 runs in the 7th innings, and 5 runs in all the other innings combined. A lot of that was a miracle comeback against Kershaw in Game 1, but Game 3 was a rally against the bullpen, and Game 4 was all about Mattingly leaving a tired starter in too long because he didn't have any middle relievers, a weakness the team still has.
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GM, but who have run into any number of problems. Hatcher's strand rate is almost 0% (it's actually like 53%). Baez has run into a bit of the same thing. They're also going to have Alex Wood or Mat Latos that they can throw back there, too. They have so much depth and so many options, but clearly Donnie's not the best guy to try and conduct that orchestra.
#MEDIOCRETOBAD