The First Ever BAP-Based Predictions, and ECF and pointspreads, too.

Rock'n Roll Band
Everybody's Playing
Gettin Crazy
Anticipatin
Gloves
And Hitting
Play, Play, Play!
- loosely translated from the Boston (the band) hit that they played right after the National Anthem on Sunday.


If you tuned in before last night's Sox-A's game, you got to see this prediction:

"Pedro is dominant, Zito pitches out of jams for five innings before getting walloped, Timlin pitches a perfect ninth, and the Sox win 5-1."

Well, it wasn't perfect, but not half bad, if I do say so myself. Pedro wasn't dominant but he was very good, Zito didn't pitch out of jams but did get clobbered in the sixth inning, and Timlin MAY have pitched a perfect ninth, if Grady had only had the good sense to leave him in.

Now, to the Marlins-Cubs matchup. The Cubs are currently minus 220, the Marlins plus 180. This isn't that surprising, seeing that everybody and their brother wants the Cubs in the series, and also considering that the Prior/Wood combo has received so much hype. But what does BAP have to say about this?

This might be a good time to list the BAP link for those newcomers out there: BAP For Beginners
It's only one series, but both teams were playing in their most important and current games of the season against a team that had won 100 games and had home-field advantage. Because of the similarities, I thought the BAP averages for each series might be revealing. So I ran all the numbers, and this is what I came up with:

Cubs
Offensive BAP - .339
Defensive BAP - .309

Marlins
Offensive BAP - .402
Defensive BAP -.372

Yeah, that's right. The exact same point differential between offense and defense. But then, look at this:

Cubs EBs/game - 3.00 for, 4.25 against
Marlins EBs/game - 10.5 for, 7.5 against

The Cubs are a fairly passive baserunning team, and not an especially powerful one. They hit only 15 more homers than the Marlins this year, and that's playing in Wrigley. In the Atlanta series, the Cubs had the advantage of playing another station to station team, but that won't happen this time. The Marlins gained 30 more EBs in the NLDS than the Cubs, playing in one fewer game, and gained more bases in one game than the Cubs did in their entire series - twice. How will the Cub pitchers and fielders deal with an opponent who constantly has runners on the move? How will they deal with a team that isn't swinging for the fences?

I wanted to pick the Marlins over the Giants but didn't have the guts to do it, and someone has to go the other way. Marlins in 6.


OK, college football fans. Home ECF teams against the spread, the team that covered is in bold:

Texas Tech -5 Texas A&M
Texas -6.5 KSUCincinnati -8 SMiss
Memphis -9.5 UABGeorgia -12 Bama
Purdue -13.5 Illinois
Mich St -16.5 Indiana
N Illinois -21.5 OhioNebraska -27 Troy St
Bowling Green -28.5 C Mich
Wash St -29.5 ArizonaTCU -30.5 Army
Ok St -34 La-Lafayette

That's 6-7 against the spread, which doesn't tell us anything. If you take out the pretenders though, the numbers look a little better.

Look for all of the NLDS BAP scores later this week, and the Sox-Yankees BAP preview tomorrow.

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