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STL's bullpen is a better than Houston's.

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I just want to clear this up, once and for all. STL's bullpen is not better than Houston's. Let's take the five relievers used by the Astros in the NLDS (and the five likely to be used in the NLCS)...those five are:

Brad Lidge
Dan Wheeler
Chad Qualls
Mike Gallo
Russ Springer

Their collective regular season ERA is 2.65.

Now let's look at the five NLDS relievers in the St. Louis bullpen. Those are: Jason Isringhausen, Randy Flores, Julian Tavarez, Brad Thomson, and Cal Eldred (you've forgotten, Reyes is gone...out for playoffs, not even on the postseason roster...unless he's gotten better, I haven't heard about it, and STL adds him into the NLCS roster).

Their collective regular season ERA is 3.14.

An ERA gap of .59 is not made up for by your assertion that STL's fifth starter makes such a better reliever than Wandy Rodriguez does. Even if I go ahead and grant that he does, considering the lack of likelihood that a guy like Wandy even sees any meaningful innings with the Astros starters' ability to go deep AND the pen around him.....PLUS considering that in the late games of the series, Backe and Pettitte will be available for relief (and even Oswalt in Game 7)...I think any perceived difference in the fifth-starter-as-reliever role is pretty well diminished, and to determine the better bullpen, you just buckle down and look at ERA.

I'll take the 2.65 over the 3.14 any day of the week...especially seeing how brilliantly the 2.65 performed in the ATL series.

Anyway, just wanted to clear up any rumors of the Cardinals having a better bullpen than the Astros.

This should frame the debate. There are four major areas one must look at in determining who has a better chance in a series. Considering the players likely to play in said series, who has better
a) starting pitching
b) bullpen
c) hitting
d) fielding

I would contend that the Astros have a slight advantage in both A and B, the Cardinals have a significant advantage in C, and D is pretty much even (though I haven't done my homework on that, I just remember hearing both teams' fielding moderately praised...is one side clearly better fielding the baseball?).

Obviously, lots of other factors one could look at...hitting with men on base, baserunning, coaching, home field advantage, health/rest of players, etc.

But in those four areas, I think the slight edge in starting and bullpen pitching puts the Astros almost even with a team whose lineup is clearly better. I make the series about 52.5-47.5 in STL's favor -- therefore, I like most of the lines I've seen on the series for a bet on Houston.

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Very good job. You should definitely add speed to your 4 criteria though. HOU has more basestealers. But I think all of your assertions are very close to correct.

Like I said, and you agree with, any money on the Astros as a (decently-significant) underdog is probably the bet to take.