199 replies to this topic

[devilsrule33]

I didn't think we should start the 2010 season on page 18 of last year's thread. So a fresh start for the new season.

[nmigliore]

So I guess I'll just transfer my other 2 posts here:

With baseball season starting tomorrow, these are my division/wild card predictions:

American League
AL East: New York Yankees
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL West: Seattle Mariners

AL Wild Card: Boston Red Sox

National League
NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Colorado Rockies

NL Wild Card: Atlanta Braves

-----------------------------------

And Alex A. strikes again for the Jays: Lind signed for 4 years, $18M and 3 club options for 2014, 2015, and 2016. The guaranteed years essentially buy out all of his arbitration years for an average salary of only $4.5M per (!), and then 3 club options for his free agent years - this is an excellent deal for the Jays.

[devilsrule33]

Hard to argue with many of your picks. I'd say the Twins pick is up for debate, but I'm definitely not sold on Chicago or Detroit. The AL West is also going to be very interesting. There are certain things you can't do in sports, and one of them is you don't count out the Angels. Rangers will probably be in the mix too. I'd probably go with Seattle as well.

Any chance the Reds have a shot at the division or is that too much to ask?

Obviously, I am very happy with the Lind signing.

And as the season is about to start, I'll actually encourage everyone to read Bill Simmons new baseball column (I can't believe I said that). Simmons has been an absolute idiot when it comes to baseball for the last few years because he refused to listen to anything related to advanced baseball statistics. It's very hard to argue baseball without acknowledging them. But he has now embraced sabermetrics and did a really good job bridging the gap for baseball fans who don't understand all these weird stats and formulas, and makes them very easy to understand.

http://sports.espn.g...=simmons/100402

Edited by devilsrule33, 03 April 2010 - 06:55 PM.

[nmigliore]

Hard to argue with many of your picks. I'd say the Twins pick is up for debate, but I'm definitely not sold on Chicago or Detroit. The AL West is also going to be very interesting. There are certain things you can't do in sports, and one of them is you don't count out the Angels. Rangers will probably be in the mix too. I'd probably go with Seattle too.

The AL West was a really, really tough pick; I think it will be a pretty tight 3-team race between the M's, Angels, and Rangers. I really like the team the Rangers put together (can't forget about Justin Smoak either), but I'm a big fan of Seattle's 2 aces -- Hernandez and Lee -- and then, possibly, another ace-level starter in Bedard whenever he comes back. Their team defense is going to be outstanding again, though I don't really like the idea of Jose Lopez at 3B with Figgins at 2B.

The White Sox will probably be the Twins' biggest threat in the AL Central since their rotation looks pretty sweet, but lets see what their lineup can do. I'm not very high on Detroit in general, personally.

Any chance the Reds have a shot at the division or is that too much to ask?

Division title? I don't think so. Wild Card? I would call them a darkhorse candidate for sure, but I think Atlanta is going to really open some eyes this year and take it, if not the NL East title.

And as the season is about to start, I'll actually encourage everyone to read Bill Simmons new baseball column (I can't believe I said that). Simmons has been an absolute idiot when it comes to baseball for the last few years because he refused to listen to anything related to advanced baseball statistics. It's very hard to argue baseball without acknowledging them. But he has now embraced sabermetrics and did a really good job bridging the gap for baseball fans who don't understand all these weird stats and formulas, and makes them very easy to understand.

http://sports.espn.g...=simmons/100402

I read it the other day, definitely good to see. I would love to see ESPN in general incorporate more saber-stats instead of debating baseball based off of the triple crown stats and win-loss records.

[nmigliore]

Heyward homers in his 1st major league AB, Pujols is Pujols, Garrett Jones launches a pair of homers for the Pirates, the Rangers come back twice and walk off against Jason Frasor and the Jays, and Mark Buehrle makes an insane play that must be posted:

Ah, Opening Day... And we still got a Lincecum vs Oswalt duel as well as the Angels vs Twins on ESPN tonight.

[devilsrule33]

Pretty fun opening day. The crowd at Turner Field (they still call it that right) was electric when Heyward hit that ball.

Doc had a pretty nice debut with the Phillies against the Nats. I am sure he wasn't used to that run support.

[nmigliore]

Ubaldo Jimenez throws a no-hitter vs the Braves!

[nmigliore]

Edinson Volquez just got suspended 50 games for PED's.

Well... that sucks for the Reds.

Edited by nmigliore, 20 April 2010 - 02:04 PM.

[nmigliore]

Wow, the Phillies are nuts. They just gave Ryan Howard a 5 year/$125M extension, which averages out to $25M per. That's +7 to +7.5-win player territory, which Howard is nowhere worth. His average WAR over the past 3 seasons is +4.1, with 2006 being his career high at +6.8, and I'm quite sure he'll never reach that level again.

He's also rapidly declining against LHP....

Year: wRC+ vs LHP
2006: 133
2007: 110
2008: 91
2009: 71

[devilsrule33]

Wow, the Phillies are nuts. They just gave Ryan Howard a 5 year/$125M extension, which averages out to $25M per. That's +7 to +7.5-win player territory, which Howard is nowhere worth. His average WAR over the past 3 seasons is +4.1, with 2006 being his career high at +6.8, and I'm quite sure he'll never reach that level again.

He's also rapidly declining against LHP....

Year: wRC+ vs LHP
2006: 133
2007: 110
2008: 91
2009: 71

It's a brutal contract and a deal I didn't think we'd see in baseball anymore. But a deal like that won't really hurt Philly.

Edited by devilsrule33, 26 April 2010 - 02:36 PM.

[nmigliore]

It's a brutal contract and a deal I didn't think we'd see in baseball anymore. But a deal like that won't really hurt Philly.

I'm not sure how you figure that. Keeping valuable players like Rollins, Victorino, Hamels, and Werth (whom combined for about 14 of the team's 93 wins last year) suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. You can probably throw Utley on this list too, though he won't be a free agent until 2014 and will be in his mid-30's by then. Of course the jury is still out on whether you would want to keep some of those players (Rollins is coming off of a down year and will be 33 when his contract expires, for example), but this unnecessary/ridiculously overpaid contract sure doesn't help matters.

Heck, even if they let the majority of those players walk, just knowing you have $25M committed to Howard alone will sting. Not to mention the Phillies really dumped their farm system by trading for Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. Domonic Brown is really their only big prospect, at least for now.

Edited by nmigliore, 26 April 2010 - 03:59 PM.

[devilsrule33]

I'm not sure how you figure that. Keeping valuable players like Rollins, Victorino, Hamels, and Werth (whom combined for about 14 of the team's 93 wins last year) suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. You can probably throw Utley on this list too, though he won't be a free agent until 2014 and will be in his mid-30's by then. Of course the jury is still out on whether you would want to keep some of those players (Rollins is coming off of a down year and will be 33 when his contract expires, for example), but this unnecessary/ridiculously overpaid contract sure doesn't help matters.

Heck, even if they let the majority of those players walk, having Howard at $25M on the payroll will sting.

Perhaps, but if Philly keeps winning, which I think they will in the near future, the organization can justify higher ticket prices and will probably generate more TV revenue etc. They might be alright. Obviously this contract won't help, but a deal like this would certainly hurt 95% of the teams in the league a lot more.

[DaneykoIsGod]

Can someone please tell me why national games have the worst possible broadcasters calling them?

Buck and McCarver on FOX , Miller and Morgan on ESPN , crap and crap on crap . At least Orel Hershiser was listenable last night. But the other guys are the Four Horsemen of Suck. The only thing any of those four guys ever did that didn't blow was McCarver's cameo in BASEketball.

[nmigliore]

Hey at least they didn't repeatedly throw the Yankees under the bus throughout their broadcasts like they did (or seem to always do) with the Mets.

Jon Miller makes a bunch of mistakes (how many times did he mix up Sabathia and Santana last night?) but hes a decent PBP guy. Joe Morgan is just awful... it gets to a point where you just have to laugh at him. Orel is okay. McCarver is better off when he keeps his mouth shut. And I find it funny Joe Buck, a guy with a boring, monotone voice, is actually employed to work on TV. That's a joke.

You can throw TBS on this list too for post-season games -- Chip Caray is pretty bad at PBP, and hes in love with the word "fisted!". Fortunately, I think he left TBS (or TBS got rid of him).

Edited by nmigliore, 24 May 2010 - 01:53 PM.

[DaneykoIsGod]

Yeah I remember hearing Chip got canned after last year because of how brutal he was. But you're absolutely right, TBS needs to get their share of sh!t for having absolutely awful broadcasters as well.

I mean ... it's baseball. How hard is it really to call a baseball game? Out of the major sports, it's gotta be the easiest. Everything is so slow, all lineup changes take forever, nothing really happens on the fly, any sustained action is over within a matter of a handful of seconds. If you can read a lineup card, you should be able to do a half-decent job of calling a game.

And yet when the game is on the national stage, we get stuck with these doofuses.

Miller can be OK, but he sounds to me like a robotic Rod Roddy from The Price Is Right. Morgan is a joke. He's gotta be blackmailing someone at ESPN to still have that job. Buck needs to learn to STFU and stop trying to be an analyst. And McCarver lost his marbles years ago.

[thefiestygoat]

Whenever I have to watch a game on ESPN, FOX, or TBS I keep it on mute and just put music on.

[RSC]

I can't stand Joe Morgan. Check out this little diddy he told last year. I remember watching both of those games, too.

[devilsrule33]

Roy Halladay with the 20th perfect game in MLB history! I could not be happier right now. I think I am enjoying this more than when Brodeur got win 552. My favourite all-time athlete finally gets his time to shine. I remember vividly in 1998 in his second career start watching Roy being one out away from a no-hitter when Bobby Higginson went yard.

I am a pretty superstitious guy when it comes to no-hitters and perfect games, and I could have tuned in to the game at any point, but decided not to jinx it after he was perfect through 5. What an incredible game.

[Masked Fan]

I am a pretty superstitious guy when it comes to no-hitters and perfect games, and I could have tuned in to the game at any point, but decided not to jinx it after he was perfect through 5.

1. I tuned in to see the 9th during intermission.
2. THE person who pulled the trigger on Lee leaving / Halladay coming is one comfortable mofo right now. RH is a beaast out there!
3. GO TIGERS!!!

[thefiestygoat]

I was talking with a some friends about how weird it has been for some of us (mostly Yankee and Met fans) this year. Normally a couple of times a year a random guy will be pitching a no hitter or perfect game so everyone turns on MLB Network, goes to gameday, or calls someon to let them know. Then it seems like the guy always loses it. Yet this year Dallas Braden goes for the perfect game and we all hope he loses it, yet he gets it. Then Halladay goes for the perfect game, we all hope he loses it (no offense to him, he's a class act but he pitches for Philly), yet he gets it. I will give Halladay props though he does deserve it a lot.

Edited by thefiestygoat, 30 May 2010 - 10:39 AM.