165 replies to this topic

[thefiestygoat]

How big was Atlanta's lead on the wild card?

Also it figures that now Proctor is finding a way to pitch scoreless innings. At some point his arm is going to fall off...just give up a damn run and get back to NY already!!!

[nmigliore]

How big was Atlanta's lead on the wild card?

Also it figures that now Proctor is finding a way to pitch scoreless innings. At some point his arm is going to fall off...just give up a damn run and get back to NY already!!!

I think this stat (via Twitter) sums it up well:

"On August 25, the Braves had 99.2% playoff odds and led the Giants by 9½ games and the Cardinals by 10½ games in the Wild Card."

I think they mentioned it on the broadcast too... I think 8 or 8.5 game lead in early September.

Brutal, brutal collapse. There are no words to describe as a fan; I've been through it. It's just an awkward feeling of shock and disbelief.

Edited by nmigliore, 28 September 2011 - 10:58 PM.

[thefiestygoat]

Baltimore was down to their last out and just tied it! Insane drama tonight! Screw Boston!

[thefiestygoat]

Carl Crawford!!! Haha what a way to potentially end his miserable year!!!

[thefiestygoat]

Rays walk off, Boston is done! I hate the Rays but truly, truly despise Boston. Just hope that Jesus made out ok with his tests. Onto the playoffs.

[SMantzas]

anyone else think the yanks tossed the game lol? Who cares. LETS GO O's. Way to beat Boston aahaha

[Satans Hockey]

fvck Boston and fvck all of New England! hahahaha this is beautiful!

[NJDevs4978]

Damn, this night of baseball was better than any two one-game playoffs.

If we're stuck dealing with Yankees-Philly in the Series again, at least Atlanta and Boston went down in flames epically.

[RSC]

fvcking Braves. Ugh.

[devilsrule33]

I have seen a lot in sports but tonight might be as crazy if not the craziest thing I have ever seen. That was fvcking ridiculous. The Rays really were the team of destiny. The Sox pitching was a joke down the stretch. And of course leave it to the biggest bust Crawford missing a very catchable ball and then floating a ball wide at the plate. He was an awful fielder all year.

Loved the Orioles celebrating like they won the whole damn thing. Just an insane night.

[ghdi]

fvck the Red Sox. Best Yankee loss ever.

[Onddeck]

WOWWWWW!

What a fvcking night. Every baseball fans dream. What a finish. Boston just proved the perfect example of a choke

[Bulletproof]

Did anyone else last night watch the ESPN documentary on the Steve Bartman incident? It was EXCELLENT!

After last night's wild finish, I was scrolling through this thread and came across this comment. Glad that doc was good as I had tickets to see that during the Tribeca Film Festival but couldn't go due to a scheduling conflict. Really crazy story and Gibney is an excellent documentary director, probably one of my favorites. Definately check out his other work if you enoyed Catching Hell.

[95Crash]

After last night's wild finish, I was scrolling through this thread and came across this comment. Glad that doc was good as I had tickets to see that during the Tribeca Film Festival but couldn't go due to a scheduling conflict. Really crazy story and Gibney is an excellent documentary director, probably one of my favorites. Definately check out his other work if you enoyed Catching Hell.

I guess I might have to check out Gibney's other films because this one was superb. He did a heckuva job going over the craziness that went down at Wrigley Field that night.

I have no idea why ESPN chose this week to show it. With all of the big MLB games going on, it got lost in the mix.

[nmigliore]

Do we need a playoffs thread or will this thread suffice?

Edit: I'll just make one, nevermind.

Edited by nmigliore, 29 September 2011 - 02:21 PM.

[devilsrule33]

I was a little disappointed in the documentary actually. There was fantastic stuff in there. All the camera angles, home footage, and audio they got from the game was special. But like many have said they dropped the ball talking about game 7. Everyone has forgot about game 7. I had totally forgot about game 7, and when they showed the Marlins up 3-0, I just assumed it was a blowout. But then to see Kerry Wood tie the game with a 3-run homer, and then the Cubs take the lead...wow. Just like people forgot (or never knew) the Sox were up 3-0 in game 7 in 1986, and I don't think that was mentioned

But Gibney glossed over it like every Cubs fan, die hard fan of baseball or casual sports fan has in the last 8 years. It should have been up to him to point out how good and feared the Prior-Wood combo was. He should have talked about how late Prior was kept in for. Big mistake.

I also wished he talked to more players on the Cubs team besides Karros, who didn't really say much at all. Shame Baker, Gonzalez, Prior or Woods wouldn't speak.

I didn't get the syncing up the audio that Bartman heard and the action on the field. What was the point? It had nothing to do with confusion. Like most people, Bartman saw a ball come his way and like 98% of people in the situation, forgot about the score and the importance and went for the ball. Listening to the game had nothing to do with anything.

Overall, I enjoyed it for all the extra stuff on Bartman, the fans around him, the security guard etc. I liked the Buckner stuff. It showed that winning does change a lot for the fans and the goat. And as a non-Red Sox fan, I never really knew about how big of a collapse that was before the error. Like Bartman, Buckner took the hit, even though there was so much more to it, a lot that Gibney didn't even discuss. But again, Gibney missed the opportunity to talk about how much more there was. People might leave the doc feeling bad for Bartman for everything he has been through and taking the heat, but won't totally understand how ridiculous it was for him to take the heat in the first place.

[thefiestygoat]

EDIT: Wrong thread

Edited by thefiestygoat, 30 September 2011 - 12:33 PM.

[thefiestygoat]

If you're a baseball fan interested in the draft then you might find this research interesting. Rany Jazayerli at Baseball Prospectus takes a look into the value of youth in the draft and makes a case that young hitters are a massive market inefficiency. Part 1 and Part 2.

[nmigliore]

Sorry I didn't notice this earlier. As someone who loves the draft, that's a pretty incredible study, thanks for posting that. While I figured there was at least SOME kind of gap between, say, 17 and 18 year old hitters, I would have never imagined it to be that big.

Edited by nmigliore, 29 October 2011 - 12:22 PM.

[nmigliore]

I was looking at some of Keith Law's AFL blog posts and he mentioned Anthony Gose, the centerfielder the Jays acquired for Brett Wallace.

I searched the boards because I was curious of what I thought of the move at the time and this was my reaction (and apparently Keith Law's as well):

..And Houston just flipped Gose to Toronto for Brett Wallace. I guess Toronto opted to shoot for more upside by taking the guy with the higher ceiling [Gose]. Wallace has the much higher floor though. Wallace has some questions about him (he hasn't walked much in AAA, his power and position are question marks), but I'd still personally take him over Gose.

Heh I just read Keith Law's perspective of the trades... he basically feels the Oswalt trade was a 'no-brainer' for Philly and the Gose-for-Wallace swap makes no sense from Toronto's perspective.

http://www.njdevs.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=60490&st=80&p=914245&hl=gose&fromsearch=1&#entry914245

That's pretty funny. Especially Keith Law's take of it making zero sense for the Jays. Well... since the deal, Wallace has posted a .248/.323/.354 batting line in 538 career ML plate appearances and looks more and more like a bust by the day. Gose, meanwhile? He's coming off of a breakout year as a 20 year old in AA, hitting a very solid .253/.349/.415 with 16 HR and 70 stolen bases (!), and according to Law, is flashing star potential:

Toronto Blue Jays centerfielder Anthony Gose took a major step forward this year with his performance in AA at age 20, showing patience and a little more pop, with a strong .254/.358/.444 line against right-handed pitchers. He does need to improve against southpaws, and his line was boosted by a good home park (especially for left-handed hitters), but given his athleticism and other tools, the hitting line and the improvements in his swing that caused it are really promising.

...

Gose is a 70 runner with a 70 arm (although the one game throw I saw was more of a 60, if you want to nit-pick) who should have plenty of range for centerfield, so the offensive baseline for him to be an average everyday player in the majors is pretty low. He still has a lot of improvements ahead of him to become a star but I am very optimistic about him reaching that. When the Jays traded Brett Wallace to Houston for Gose two summers ago, I didn't understand the deal, as Wallace was a polished, disciplined hitter while Gose was all tools but didn't have great performances or advanced mechanics. Wallace, it turns out, had a fatal flaw that was exposed in AAA and now in the majors -- he cannot turn on inside pitches, so he tries to go to the opposite field instead; with minimal defensive value and no apparent way to fix that flaw, he was expendable for the Jays. Gose, meanwhile, is no longer a tools goof but the kind of high-upside prospect Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos has said all along that he wants in the organization. Gose still needs work in some areas, including developing a viable two-strike approach, but the risk the Blue Jays took in acquiring him appears to be paying off in a huge way.

Amazing how such a trade can work. More than a year ago when it was consummated, it really wasn't that significant, and most figured Toronto was on the low-end of the deal, if anything. But now, 15 months later, the Jays have an exciting CF prospect on their hands while the Astros have... well, Brett Wallace. I think it really speaks to how valuable good scouting can be; when that trade was made, Gose was one of those bag-full-of-tools prospects that you had to see with your own eyes to actually want him; there was pretty much nothing in the numbers to suggest there was anything there. The Jays' scouts must have really liked him, because they also supposedly coveted him in the Halladay deal, and now the Jays organization as a whole looks pretty smart for pulling the trigger on a prospect-for-prospect swap that once didn't seem like much.

Also what's funny is how the Halladay kind of set it all up. They acquired outfield prospect Michael Taylor along with Kyle Drabek and Travis D'Arnaud. They then shipped Taylor to Oakland for Wallace immediately afterward. Wallace was then used to acquire Gose from Houston when they acquired him from Philadelphia in the Oswalt deal at the 2010 trade deadline.

Edited by nmigliore, 31 October 2011 - 12:37 AM.