Pundit Advantage: Cardinals

Pending a comment from David Pinto at Baseball Musings, the punditocracy weighs in for the Cardinals, at 18 - 12. No-one who picked the Braves has come aboard, and there are quite a few defectors.

As littlevisigoth had previously noted, Phil Rogers over at ESPN got all four games right , picked three of the series lengths on the money, and is now going with St. Louis.

The staff over at Cool Standings seem to know what they're doing, as well. Their machine, algorithm, whatever, nailed all four series, and picked half the lengths right.

And of course, they're going with the Cardinals, also.

It was a relief, however, to find that in one of their models, an Astro victory of one length or the other were the second and third most likely outcomes.

At any rate, if I had thought that the Astros were the fashionable pick against Atlanta, that certainly seems not to be the case now. A lot of people seem to have a hard time seeing how the Cardinals can be beat.

And I can understand their reasoning. There's a large difference between the lineups, Rolen or no Rolen, and the natural Astro advantage in pitching is somewhat compressed, as, after all, it was the Cardinals who led the league in ERA.

Wish I could remember the schmuck who wrote that Izzy had the edge of Lidge in the closer department, though. A 1:30 AM search winds up fruitless, but maybe I'll remember tomorrow. I'm pissed off at myself for not making a note of who it was who said something so indefensible.

We're also gonna hear a lot in the coming days about how the Great Brain over there in St. Louis has the advantage over Garner, and given the wizardly moves Phil has made since May, I'm in no mood to hear that claptrap at all.

Astros in Seven, MVP Ensberg.