I find it funny just how many people seem to care about television ratings when it comes to baseball and the World Series.  If you haven't heard yet (ad nauseum) from either the TBS commentators, radio commentators or sports columnists, the best World Series match up in terms of ratings would clearly be the Yankees v. Dodgers in the fall classic.

Tensions rose high in game 3 last year.

Photo by MPR529, used under creative commons license.

Oh sure it might make for interesting television.  It might even prompt a few casual fans to pay attention to the Series, but as any die hard fan would tell you. It's not so much about the side stories, it's about the baseball; and what we want to see is the best baseball we can see in the Fall Classic.

Yeah for us, this isn't just the biggest stage in the big show; it's the annual goodbye before baseball takes its winter siesta and leaves us hanging until Spring Training games begin in mid March.  And given a choice, we'd rather see the best baseball, even if it isn't the baseball that will generate the biggest ratings and ad revenue.

So what would make the best baseball?  That's hard to say.  It might well be that the Yankees-Dodgers would be the best series, but it might well be that the Phillies or Angels would give us the best games.  Certainly, these are two LCS series with a lot of potential drama.

Since the Phillies-Dodgers start today, we'll start by taking a look at the rematch of last year's NLCS, which the Phillies won 4 games to 1.  The teams are fairly evenly matched except in a couple of areas. So here are the contestants and some factors which could affect the outcome of the games:

Phillies:

Strength:  Hitting, but more specifically power.  The Phils lead the NL in both runs and home runs, hitting 97 more than the Dodgers did in the regular season.  While part of that is no doubt due to ballpark factors, the Phillies boast guys who can hit home runs from almost every spot in the lineup.  More than 25% of their runs this year came via the long ball, which means that they rely a lot less on big innings and rallies then they do by hurting the opposition with a single swing.  That could be a decisive factor in this series.

Weakness: Pitching, especially in the late innings.  The Phils relief squad is questionable, especially in the late innings where closer Brad Lidge has become a favorite of batters pretty much everywhere outside of Colorado.

Keys: While the offense does have a significant advantage over the Dodgers, at least on paper, it's the starting pitching who'll set the tone for the Phillies if they are to succeed.  The late season addition of Cliff Lee, who performed well in the NLDS, could well tip the odds in the Phillies favor.

Dodgers:

Strength: Pitching, the Dodgers boasted the lowest ERA of any team in the Majors, holding the opposition to a .233 batting average and they'll have to be that good to keep the Phillies in check.  They will have a lot less room for error due to the Phillies power, but if the Dodgers offense can click as well as it did in the regular season they have a good shot of moving onto the classic.

Another Strength: Offense.  The Dodgers don't have the same kind of firepower that the Phillies do, but they have an offense that still ranked among the top four in the NL.   There is plenty of power, although it mainly is concentrated in the middle of the lineup, but it's the team average of .278 during the regular season, 20 points better than that of the Phillies which allows them to put together some big innings.

Keys: The Dodgers have seen their bats vanish at times, and that's not something they'll be able to afford in any series with the Phils.  They'll need the big bats, especially Manny Ramirez, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp and Casey Blake to produce.  Failure by any of them, but especially a failure on the part of Manny would be disastrous.

Prediction:  Phillies in 6.

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