YEA!!!
Sure, I’ll say it; take away any one of those guys and they would be in the race. Even a star player changes his team’s record by only 4-6 games.
The logical extent of what you’re saying is that players on a team that wins its division by a wide margin don’t have any individual value. That simply does not make any sense. Yankee players, collectively, have MORE value than Twins players. Individually they must also have value. The fact that the Yankees are better cannot make Jeter worse. It’s completely senseless.
If we’re going to start giving MVP Awards only to players on teams that make the playoffs, but only by a really small margin, I say we do away with the award, because that’s colossally stupid. It creates a definition of “value” completely independent of logic or reason. It’s an award for individuals, and individual value is what matters.
silenus:
There must be something about “blue” teams. The Royals do that to me all the time…
although they usually leave off the “to up again” part.
Anybody from Pittsburgh around that can tell me why every Pirate is wearing a little patch on his chest that says “Bob?”
Are you sure it says Bob? I know Syd Thrift just died. He was their GM for a long time.
The Twins are a half game out of first now. They might actually win what is arguably the toughest division (at least the toughest three-way race) in baseball this year.
Plus Morneau went five for five, which doesn’t hurt his MVP chances at all.
It definitely says “Bob.”
I found a picture of it, A very Yellow BOB in caps. This does not look like a tribute.
I would suggest starting a new thread. Not too many Pirate fans are going to show up in a thread with the title: “How’s your team doing?”
Jim
Dang Hamsters:
Okay I did some more digging on the Pirates site and I found this article with this paragraph at the end.
Aha! Mystery solved. Thanks.
Yankees Quietly clinch their 9th straight AL East Title.
SUBWAY SERIES !!
and this time the Mets will win!!!
The odds definitely favor a subway series. If the teams do meet, you might not like the outcome, as long as Mo’ is healthy the Yankee are probably the better team at this point.
Meanwhile I give the Phillies and Dodgers both a decent chance of stopping the Mets. I do not see the Cards or Padres doing so.
The Twins seem to have the best chance of stopping the Yanks. Detroit matches up very poorly as does Oakland. White Sox are probably not making it, but they could be dangerous.
So far I have 1 ticket to game 1 of the World Series, {if the Yanks make it}. I also have 2 for game 5 Divisional. I am trying to get a few more.
I like this Yankee Team better than any since 2001. It is well constructed and has some heart.
Jim
My team makes me the fool every year, by being so damn mediocre unti July. Then they go nuts and usually win the division. They’ll clinch in another few days. Thank god for Frank Thomas. And if Harden comes back healthy, they’ll be formidible in the playoffs
No, thank Kenny Williams for Frank Thomas. And a special round of applause to Ozzie Guillen, for having his pitchers challenge Thomas all last weekend. “Oh, sweet irony!”
Even Marlon Anderson knows the last 9 games are gonna get ugly. Still a half-game behind the Padres, but leading for the wild card. C’mon, Big Blue!
Wow… what a game (A’s/Angels) last night. Macha physically picking up Bradley to prevent a costly suspension was hilarious.
Time to bump the baseball thread up. There’s only one real race left… the best 2 of 3 between the Phillies/Dodgers/Padres. I don’t pay too much attention to the NL, but I’d like to here from some Phils fans about how they have risen from the dead after dealing Abreu.
As an A’s fan, I’d like to face the flailing Tigers in the first round rather than two Santana starts plus the Metrodome.
I write this post to tell everyone that, surprisingly, we in Detroit are not hitting the panic button. This almost confounds me. I’d expect it to be all over the place, but it’s not, it hasn’t been, and seemingly never will be (this year).
I think some people are just “happy to be there” with “there” being “the playoffs”, but most of us don’t agree. The team has said the right things and seem to want to make a postseason advance. A Yankees-Tigers or A’s-Tigers series should be a good one, that’s for sure.
Starting pitching, and Ryan Howard, for the most part.
Since late July, when they traded Abreu, they’ve added Jamie Moyer, who’s been great, and Brett Myers and Cole Hamels have started to really dominate. In Hamels’ case, he’s been lights out for almost every start during that two month stretch. Then you have Lieber, Moyer and Wolf on the back end; Moyer and Lieber have been good to great, and Wolf’s not killing them. And, of course, all the pitching really has to do is not kill them in order for them to be OK; if they get good pitching they’re a great team.
The other side of the coin is that by trading Abreu, they were able to move Utley back into the #3 spot and put Howard at cleanup (since Charlie Manuel was apparently afraid to put Abreu somewhere other than third, you couldn’t have both Utley and Howard in the middle of the order, so Howard batted fifth and sixth all year). Howard since the All-Star Break: .359 BA, .505 OBP, .799 SLG, 30 HR and 72 RBI. Utley was pretty awful there for about 35 games, too, he’s picked it up lately and that’s when they really started winning.
Also, Aaron Rowand got hurt, and in my opinion Shane Victorino’s a better player for the way the Phillies are made up, so that’s something.
Trading Abreu and Lidle to the Yankees for, essentially, nothing (nothing useful this season, anyway) was a classic give-up move. Basically, it forced options (which were available all long with Abreu and Lidle on the roster) on Manuel when he could no longer play Abreu and Lidle, which should tell you something about the Phillies’ ineptness in appraising talent. If they thought they were going anywhere this year, they could have acquired some MLB-ready talent for Abreu and Lidle.