Brief World Series Analysis

I'm a little late to the game of getting out a World Series prediction post so I will make this (relatively) brief:

Starting Pitching

The Giants made it to the post season and the World Series because of their P's - Pitching and Posey. Buste Posey is a viable and deserving MVP candidate and Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong and sometimes Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum makes a strong rotation. Considering it's one of the Giants strengths, one would assume it would be a strength in their match-up with the Tigers right? Well, probably not. Matt Cain is great and even threw a perfect game this year but Justin Verlander has two no-hitters in his career, has been the best pitcher in baseball over the last two seasons and is backing it up during the post-season with a mere two earned runs in 24.1 innings pitched thus far.

Verlander, we all know about Verlander, but the Giants have the edge in rotation depth, right? Eh not really. Madison Bumgarner is a great young pitcher, but people have conveniently forgotten how good Scherzer was this year. His 3.74 ERA might not outshine Bumgarner's 3.37 ERA but we all know it's not that simple. See, Max Scherzer pitches in the American League with a cruddy defense and had a 3.23 xFIP while striking out 29.4% of the batters he's faced. And while I could have gotten a few outs against the Yankees in that series, Scherzer has continued his strong performance in October, striking out 18 batters over 11 innings pitched while giving up just one earned run. Now, Bumgarner had a stellar xFIP (3.45) himself and it's not as if Scherzer no longer has a cruddy defense behind him, but the narrative that Bumgarner is another ace on the Giants that the Tigers can't match just simply isn't true.

After that, the Giants have Ryan Vogelsong and the Tigers have Doug Fister but with the Giants rotation all shook up after having to go seven games I'll simply stop talking about the starting pitching. Justin Verlander will be facing off against Barry Zito twice. Need I say more? Advantage Tigers.

Bullpen

With Jose Valverde struggling, the Tigers either don't have a closer or will continue to use their lone lefty, Phil Coke, as one. Any way you slice it however, the Giants have a strong edge here. The Giants lost Brian Wilson this year but Sergio Romo is at least as good and with Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez and Santiago Casilla the Giants have the flexibility to mix and match. Jose Valverde's sucktitude, which was fully realized against the Yankees but was going on all year (5.01 xFIP) probably helps them as the less he pitches in big spots the better, but overall this is advantage Giants.

Defense

Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Delmon Young are all designated hitters that will be playing the field in this series but if you want some statistical reasoning here you go:

Giants: 8.6 Team UZR

Tigers: -28.1 Team UZR

In English that means that as a team the Giants saved almost 9 runs above the average defense while the Tigers gave up almost 30 runs more than the average defense. UZR requires a large sample size, but when the difference is that large it's not hard to say advantage Giants. 

Lineup

Marco Scutaro has been excellent at the plate since coming over to the Giants but without Melky Cabrera (I really don't get why the wouldn't want to add him to the World Series roster, I mean I do, but it seems sub-optimal) the Giants lineup basically consists of Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey and what remains of Hunter Pence's bat with the occasional Brandon Belt, Angel Pagan or Gregor Blanco thrown in. Not that scary. The Tigers lineup is also top heavy but their top carries more weight both in how they can hit and how much the actually weigh (although Pablo Sandoval would beg to differ). For the season, the Tigers as a team had a 105 wRC+ and the Giants 99 wRC+, so the difference isn't insurmountable but nonetheless, advantage Tigers.

Conclusion
The Tigers have advantages in the standard way one would judge a team with a superior rotation and lineup while the Giants have an edge in all of the little things like defense, bullpen and base running. With the exception of the ALCS the 2012 postseason has been extremely close and I see no reason why that won't continue. It might be a toss-up but I'm predicting the Tigers in 7 with Verlander recording the final out pitching out of the bullpen. And then the dude gets to go home to Kate Upton.