Hi haters, or Why the Red Sox will win the ALDS.

So, if you look at raw wins, the Angels won 5 more games than the Red Sox, and 3 more than the Rays, making them the "best team in baseball." And yes, raw wins are the only thing that counts, at least as far as getting them there. But if you look at the underlying stats that produced those wins, there are strong arguments that the Red Sox are the better team. Consider:

-According to RS v RA (Pythag), the Angels "should" have won just 88 games, while the Sox were about right with 95.9 expected wins. The Angels far outplayed their pythag in the first half (they only had a +9 differential through 81 games) and in the second half were about where you'd expect. They were certainly helped by their strong bullpen in this regard, as Shields, Arredondo, Oliver and K-Rod all pitched very well. But to the tune of 12 wins? Some of that was surely plain old luck.

-BP has some more advanced stats for evaluating expected records -- what they call second and third-order wins and losses. Second-order expected record is based on I believe EqA and OppEqA rather than RS and RA, and is supposed to account for the vagaries of situational hitting by giving the team an expected RS and RA total based on their hitting and pitching stats. According to this, the Sox were nearly 6 wins below their expected record, while the Angels outplayed their expected record by another 4 games for a total of 16 wins above what one should expect. Perhaps Scoscia had the lineup better ordered than Francona, or the team just came up big in the clutch more often. If you think there is some underlying clutch ability here, then ok, but it's tough to argue that Francona doesn't push the right buttons when the games REALLY count.

-And what are third-order W-L? Glad you asked. These are adjusted a third time based on opposing schedule. As we know, the Sox play in the toughest division BY FAR in MLB, and the Angels have pretty weak competition. According to BP, the Sox only get an extra win adjustment here, while the Angels receive no change, but I think that understates the difference in competition greatly.

-Many people point to the Angels' domination of the Sox in head-to-head games this year as a reason they will win. But two of those games were started by Buchholz, one started by the "old" Lester, and 6 of them took place when the Sox were likely a bit distracted by the whole Manny situation. We have a better defense now and hopefully won't have to use our 4th and 5th starters, giving us a big boost.

-Finally, the Angels aren't necessarily built for success in the postseason. BP showed with its "secret sauce" formula that power pitching, a strong top of the bullpen, and good team defense are the strongest corollaries to success in the postseason, while offense can kind of be ignored. It's not that it's not important, but if you make it to the postseason you probably have a good offense, and it just doesn't hold up to statistical evaluation. So look at the Angels' pitching. Only Santana and Weaver had close to 9 k/9, and Weaver won't be getting a start this round. Arredondo and Oliver were big parts of the pen, but again neither struck too many guys out. K-Rod piled up lofty save totals but walked 5 times as many guys as Papelbon -- he's far from a sure thing in the 9th. And according to team defensive efficiency, Boston is 5th in the league this year (likely understating their current level since it includes Manny and Lugo's time), while LAA is 14th.

Sox in four.