On August 17, the Angels were seven games back of first place in the AL West. With just over a month to go in the regular season, that's a ton of games to make up. First-place teams don't just go on losing jags, and second-place teams don't just start winning a bunch of games. There are ebbs and flows, and ground is made up slowly, if at all. This is why data-based playoff odds, like those at CoolStandings.com, gave the Angels such poor odds -- just a 4.1% chance at winning the division as of eight days ago.
Angels/Rangers Series Preview: What Mathis Hath Wrought
But baseball doesn't like math, and it doesn't like you for using it. So now the Angels are two games back and heading into Texas for a three-game weekend series, and they're a series sweep away from really messing with the playoff odds. But a series sweep is unlikely for even a Yankees/Orioles series, which means the Angels will likely leave Texas with a deficit of one or three games. They'll still be in it. Right there in the thick of the chase. Just a couple of games out of first.
And the dream will be alive.
I don't really care about either team enough to root for one over the other because of geography, history, or some other reason. I just want good playoff baseball, and I think both teams could accomplish that if they make the postseason. But I do have a dream as a quasi-analyst, and that is that I hope the Angels lose the division by a small enough margin that we can point at Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis and say, "Yep. There you go. There's the reason."
Again, I don’t hate the Angels. This isn’t a spiteful dream. This is just the wish of a baseball fan who thinks catchers’ defense is often overrated. I’m just a greedy fool who’s looking for more ammunition for my arguments. And my hypotheses are these:
- Mike Napoli's bat more than made up for his defensive shortcomings as a catcher, whether real or perceived, and...
- Jeff Mathis just might not be a good hitter
The Angels had different ideas. Well, they were certainly aware that Mathis wasn’t a good hitter, but they believe his defense is something just short of magic. He can perform pitcher mind-melds and call games that inspire rock operas, apparently. The Angels figured a catcher/DH was expendable, then, and they traded Napoli. Right now Napoli’s fWAR for the Rangers is 3.7. Mathis’s is -0.8. If you buy into WAR, there’s the difference in the division right there.
There are other considerations, of course. Napoli’s offense would have certainly suffered if he were to catch close to every game, and Mathis is the better defender by any measure. But if the swing right now is 4.5-wins based on crude arithmetic, I feel comfortable thinking that there are at least two wins separating them.
The Angels are two games back, by the way. Not sure if I mentioned that earlier.
If the Angels take their current winning streak to insane heights and end up winning the division by five games, the dream will die. If they lose enough to fall quickly out of the race, the dream will die. The Angels need to stay riiiiiight where they are, more or less.
A narrow AL West title for the Rangers isn't not going to end the debate, of course. The reason the Angels will have been so close to begin with is that their starting pitching has been amazing. The believers in the catcher-as-indispensable-field-general philosophy will be emboldened, even. But the important thing is that I'll get to feel smug about it. Trading Napoli for prospects to ensure extra playing time for Mathis seemed like an absurd move at the time. I'd like a near-miss for the Angels to make people like Mike Scioscia and Tony Reagins wonder if it was absurd as well.
Yeah, I wrote “trading Napoli for prospects” up there. What of it?
Wait, they traded Napoli for whom?
...
Good gravy. Well, I don’t have the time to write about that. But whatever the case, it should be a good series. And even more important than one team winning because it validates an ideology, here’s hoping that all three games are one-run epics that go down to the final inning.
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