As the 1972 playoffs began, the bloom was off the League Championship Series. Born in ’69, the first six tilts had produced five sweeps and a 3-1 rout, and those who had opposed the newfangled divisions were feeling vindicated. But the ’72 affairs at last would show the concept’s up side: Both were full-length thrillers with momentum shifts, late rallies, daring moves, hard feelings and controversy, with 5 of 10 games settled by one run.

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Eye-opening play at the plate to limit Oakland’s damage in the 3rd: Rookie RF Avisail Garcia needed a perfect throw to nab Coco Crisp, and that’s just what he unleashed. It’s nice to hear Jim Kaat in the booth again, describing it as a “good baseball play” by all concerned — the decision to send Crisp, the way Garcia charged and delivered a one-hop throw that sat up nicely for Gerald Laird, and Crisp’s back-door slide that almost escaped the tag. Doug Fister backed it up with another called third strike to end what might have been a big inning.

Now let’s get that run back, Miggy!

I just wanted to give a little info on why I haven’t posted much lately. I am working behind-the-scenes on a colossal High Heat Stats project. Ever since Sky Kalkman and Marc Normandin put out The Hall of Nearly Great, I have been carefully considering how best to leverage the collective talents of our community here to create a product that would be greatly satisfying to a wide baseball audience and also generate a small chunk of revenue we can use to further upgrade this blog. (My idea of upgrading includes paying our writers, making the server even faster, and adding more features.)

Anyway, after the better part of a year of laying out ideas, scrapping them, and reforming them, I’ve finally come upon a winning formula. Adam deserves a lot of thanks for that by enduring many open-ended questions and posits from me and playing a key role in developing the framework.

So, the big idea is….well, you’re going to have to wait for that. (Sorry!) I’ll release more information around Thanksgiving. For now I’ll just say this much:

– A lot of baseball talent is going to be involved in this project, including numerous folks who have never contributed to HHS before (although many of our existing writers will be involved too and just don’t know it yet)

– Everybody involved with HHS, including our readers (even lurkers) will have an opportunity to get involved early and contribute to the shaping of this big project.

If things go as planned, HHS is going to new places. I look forward to seeing you all along for the ride!

More to come late next month…

First-ever postseason meeting between these “original-eight” clubs. The Reds copped the season series, 4-3, with consecutive CGs in June from Mike Leake and Mat Latos, who sports a 2.19 ERA in 11 starts against SF. But tonight, it’s the aces, Johnny Cueto (1.93 in 4 starts vs. SFG) and Matt Cain (3.54 in 10 starts vs. CIN).

No postseason shutout for Verlander this time, either.

Home-field advantage? What home-field advantage?

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I see that Wash is sticking with Michael Young….

I’m creating a page for each WC game so we can keep the talk somewhat organized. Here’s video of the controversial infield fly call. (Link works now — sorry, MLB changed it on the fly.)

I tried to be clever with the title of the Angels all-time team post, but I’m not even going to attempt that here.

How would that go? The All-Time Brooklyn/Los Angeles Atlantics/Grays/Grooms/Bridegrooms/Superbas/Robins/Dodgers Team?

Anyway, I want to make the point that this, and every other post in this series, is an all-time team considering the entire history of the franchise. In this case, that dates all the way back to the 1884 Brooklyn Atlantics.

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Perhaps the most fascinating of this year’s award debates is the National League Cy Young race. Johnny Cueto, RA Dickey, Gio Gonzalez, and Clayton Kershaw all have compelling cases, and if voters are looking for dominance over accumulated value, Ar

oldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, Kris Medlen, and Stephen Strasburg are worth discussing as well.

A quick look at fangraphs’ pitching WAR leaderboard suggests that Cliff Lee may have a place in this conversation as well. Lee ranks third in fWAR, just .6 wins behind Kershaw and .5 behind Gonzalez. Baseball-reference ranks Lee eighth, bunched up with five other pitchers behind Kershaw, Cueto, and Dickey at the top. After the jump, I’ll examine 12 candidates based on some key numbers.

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