What Stark fails to mention is that the Marlins won the first 3 series 2-1, 3-2, and 5-2 respectively. They can still tie the last one 2-2. Run differential does not matter. Wins do.

Our old friend also happened to chime in with a friendly reminder of his disdain for the Marlins:

 

Run Differential, Fun Differential, Sun Differential, Marlins in 3 for first round. 

I mean, it does matter, but yeah it’s a small sample which makes the year unique. I think some of us thought this before the year too.

In a 162 game season, we’d have no chance.

7 minutes ago, Erick said:

I mean, it does matter, but yeah it’s a small sample which makes the year unique. I think some of us thought this before the year too.

In a 162 game season, we’d have no chance.

I think one of the things not being discussed is where the negative RD is coming from. It's coming from a bunch of young guys (Neidert, Yamamoto, Dugger, Eibner, Shafer) who really needed some minor league conditioning. Right now, rookies are having their worst year in recent history. The Marlins burned their veteran depth during the COVID outbreak -- Venditte, Moran, Morin, Tarpley, Elieser -- all them fellas pitched much better than the young guys (even Moran, who struggled relative to his 2019 performance), but they've all since been lost to injury (save Tarpley, who's back today).

I suspect the Marlins, who were relying on exciting young pitching talent more than most teams, are disproportionately hurt by the absence of the minor leagues this year. That's just a theory, though.

Stuff happens in double headers when you have to put in an 8 man rotation

Edited September 23, 20205 yr by EricWiener
Clarity

If they watched the games they'll see how many runs were "gifted, given, granted, allowed" to the opposition once a game already got out of hand. I wish there was a way to subtract those types of runs from the run differential count because I don't think it's the same when Mattingly purposely allows a struggling reliever to stay in a game to save his bullpen. 

No rest in any profession will cause a steep decline in performance. The run differential is proof of that.  These guys will have mentally played a full season after it's all said and done.  To them it may feel like the longest season in there careers  

 

Run Diff definitely matters.  But it matters much less in 2020.  

1 hour ago, DTrain said:

Run Diff definitely matters.  But it matters much less in 2020.  

Do you think there's a difference between runs given up in a competitive setting vs those given up in a blowout where the manager purposely leaves a struggling reliever out to dry such as the 22 runs given up by the bullpen in the 29-9 loss? I know that's not how run differential is calculated but sure seems very different to me. At that point the team isn't even really trying to hold the opposition down.

3 hours ago, SilverBullet said:

Do you think there's a difference between runs given up in a competitive setting vs those given up in a blowout where the manager purposely leaves a struggling reliever out to dry such as the 22 runs given up by the bullpen in the 29-9 loss? I know that's not how run differential is calculated but sure seems very different to me. At that point the team isn't even really trying to hold the opposition down.

The longer the season goes, the more those guys have to pitch. That’s why it’s usually a good indicator.

5 minutes ago, Erick said:

The longer the season goes, the more those guys have to pitch. That’s why it’s usually a good indicator.

That's true. But in this season of just 60 games and considering how many times Mattingly left guys out to dry the Marlins run differential doesn't tell the whole story and isn't a perfect indicator.

6 hours ago, DTrain said:

Run Diff definitely matters.  But it matters much less in 2020.  

A team that has a rotation with 4 lockdown aces and a huge drop in talent with the 5th guy and a decent, but not great offense will win a lot of games on good pitching alone. They have a good chance of giving up a boatload of runs every 5th day and probably won't be blowing out the opponent too often. Therefore it wouldn't even out and there is a good chance that they could have a negative run differential despite being good enough to win 100 games.