How They Got Here
I've written more about the Kiev Comets than any other team because, well, they've been that good all season long. They finished 93-39, by far the best in the World Baseball Alliance. They scored the most runs in the European Premier League and allowed the fewest. They were the only team to put two players on the cover of
Relay Magazine. Compared to their dominance in the regular season, their playoff performance has been somewhat underwhelming: they were pushed to seven games by the Warsaw Trappers and then six games by the Paris Pride. But they come in hot, having won their last four straight over the Pride and scoring 26 runs over those four games.
The Mumbai Vipers have mostly cruised in the postseason en route to the Konami Cup. They dropped their first game to Melbourne before winning four straight, and then lost Game 1 again to Shanghai but won four of the next five. They've done it almost entirely on the back of their pitching. Taki Arakawa was the first pitcher featured on the cover of [i]Relay[i], but all four starters have been outstanding. They battled with the Canberra Rattlers for 1st place for most of the season, eventually wrapping up the division by going 10-5 in September.
The Hitting
(Mumbai top, Kiev bottom)
The Comets have a major edge on offense. Their fourth-best position player by WAR would lead the Vipers. They outscored Mumbai by 110 runs on the season, meaning they averaged 0.83 more runs per game. Gianfranco Cochetti, and Zach Paris can beat you with the long while Gusmani Galatti, Michaël Thierry, and Freyr Hellmann excel at reaching base. Paris has been a terror in the postseason, socking six home runs in the Comets' 13 games. Cochetti has been hot, too, hitting .370/.393/.630 in the playoffs. There are no easy outs in the lineup. Even center fielder Job van den Heuvel, who starts because of his glove, has an .872 OPS and three home runs in the playoffs.
Mumbai is led by Jonathan Castino from Hong Kong, though his .340 batting average is inflated by a high BABIP. The Vipers failed to make much noise with their offense during the season, ranking in the bottom half of their own division in every relevant hitting category except OBP (they ranked 3rd). That trend has carried over into the playoffs and they averaged only 2.5 runs per game in their most recent series against Shanghai.
The Pitching
(Mumbai top, Kiev bottom)
The Mumbai Vipers pitching has been nothing short of incredible in the postseason. They've recorded four shutouts in 11 games, and twice more held their opponents to a single run. If any team can quell the strong top-to-bottom lineup, it's theirs. Taki Arakawa has gotten plenty of attention all season long, but it shouldn't get lost just how good the other members of the rotation have been. Hindenosuke Kataoka has thrown 32 innings in the postseason and allowed just three runs and was named Konami Cup series MVP. Seong-Hyeon Kwan and Juichi Matsumura have been nearly as good in their own right and the bullpen led by Hisao Ota has been among the game's best. Arakawa, Kataoka, and Kwan are all on the wrong side of 30, so this rotation isn't built for the long haul. But I can already say confidently it's going to go down in history as one of the best in the WBA.
Kiev's pitching is led by the two sub-6-foot lefties, Henry Jones and Michael Reid. There's very little they left unaccomplished this season, punctuated by Jones tossing a no-hitter late in the season. They've been a little shakier in the playoffs than you might expect, though for Jones the difference is small: he got beat up in one start by Paris but has otherwise allowed four runs in 23 innings. Reid on the other hand has truly struggled, showing a 6.16 ERA in four postseason starts after a 5.59 mark in three regular-season September games. Getting him right is going to be crucial. Baron Hewlitt and Adolph Borchardt fill out the rotation. They're nice pieces but the overall strength of the rotation doesn't match up with Mumbai's. And so far they've danced around catastrophe, but the Comets bullpen is their weak point. Closer Fyodor Pavlishin has allowed 11 home runs in 54 innings. You'd feel safer with the Vipers bullpen to protect a lead late.
The Prediction
The Comets are the better overall team, but the Vipers starting rotation is the finest they'll have faced all season. The key is that they'll need their offense to do just enough. If they let Jones, Reid, and Borchardt be awesome instead of merely good, then it's the Comets who will cruise into the World Series championship. I'll go a bit against the grain though since the Vipers starting rotation appears to be 100% locked in and call my shot:
Mumbai wins in 7.