Looking like a 2004 rematch, eh? Be nice to finally play that series, what with it being cancelled that year and all.
The Cardinals are and have been a great organization with a great fanbase that supports them for quite awhile now. As much as it pains me to say as a Reds fan, they have been the best team in the NL Central, if not the NL in general for years overall.
The surprising thing with them this season is how the organization overcame early injuries to key players and didn’t really miss a beat, and they hit full swing come October. I’d have thought that with the Reds poaching Walt Jocketty and the retirement of “I’m The Smartest Man In Baseball” Larussa that they would have been on the decline when you couple that with the injuries they had earlier in the year. Not so.
I hate them, but I have to respect them.
ETA: Go Cards. Go NL. Kill the DH!
Since I could only attend one post season game, I think I chose pretty well. Time for bed.
So, no underdog story in this world series. Not only are these the 2 best teams all year, but possibly the 2 best franchises of the 21st century.
The winner, by virtue of their 3rd world series title in this time frame, will be the team of the century so far.
Ugh. I honestly have no idea who’s going to win.
C’mon Cards.
And 90 minutes later, I stand obviously corrected!!! And I stand at the same height as Shaney (not same weight)!!! SEVEN post season grand slams?? Wow! I am humbled.
I still can’t believe that. I’ve rewound Sports Center 8 times (12 times?), and that was the hit, the shit, and the shineola! I will don the BoSox cap with the Phillie’s Voctorino tee on game one in reverence.
And that game had so many “almosts” for both teams. Two feet away, six inches away, too damn close to the big foul pole… Nuts.
WS Prediction: RED SOX IN FIVE! 
Oh, hell. Let’s go to that replay once more!
Leyland has over-managed for the last time, I suspect and hope.
If he hasn’t learned by now he isn’t going to. Not sure what else he could have done with his deficient bullpen that would have mattered, anyway.
This year’s Red Sox team has had that aura about it (yes, I know, “Mystique and Aura, those are a couple of dancers in a nightclub.” - Curt Schilling), where you *know *somebody is going to pull it out at the end. A lot of that is Koji suddenly becoming a shutdown closer at the tail end of a long and meh career, a lot more is the return of competent coaching, especially for the pitchers. But a worst-to-first shift with mostly the same players has to come down to mostly leadership and other intangibles.
I’ve heard enough about 2004 already - the local stations are showing Schilling’s bloody sock virtually on continuous loop this morning. But better this than the Dodger trade stories.
Wednesday and Thursday evenings are forecast to be chilly and maybe damp. Good thing the pitchers don’t have to take their armwarmers off and go pantomime hitting, like NL teams are normally forced to do.
Nope, no parody. Don’t get me wrong; I love Puig - one of the most exciting players I’ve ever seen. But for all of the excitement, there have also been a mountain of blunders, due to his lack of experience and, unfortunately, his ego. When the entire staff of umpires is telling you to reign in your outfielder’s attitude, there are issues that need to be addressed. When no matter how many times you tell him to hit the cutoff guy, he forgets in the heat of the moment, there are issues that need to be addressed. When he ends an inning by being overly aggressive on the base paths while the team is down a run, there are issues, ones that cost the team games.
As far as his numbers, if you remove June from the equation, when pitchers were still trying to figure out how to handle him, his numbers aren’t quite as impressive. In July, for example, he was hitting .220 with no home runs, three RBI and 21 strikeouts. At one point, pitchers were striking him out with ease by simply never throwing a strike.
I just don’t think the Majors are the place to learn the fundamentals, not when your blunders and attitude are pissing off your own teammates on a regular basis. He’s an amazing player, but one who still has a lot to learn about the game.
In regards to Puig, one of the commenters on HardballTalk said something that I found enlightening:
If you’re going to argue against him based on stats, you could at least get the numbers right.
According to Baseball Reference, in July Puig hit .287/.352/.436 with 3HR. There’s a pretty big difference between .220 and .287.
And in August he hit .320/.405/.515.
His worst calendar month was September, where he had an OPS of .786. You know what the OPS of Carl Crawford was for the season? .736. And Andre Ethier’s season OPS was .783.
As for strikeouts? The year Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, he had 93 strikeouts. Mickey Mantle had 100+ strikeouts ten times in his career, and he led the league in K’s five times, including years when he came 2nd and 3rd in MVP voting. The year of his MVP, Reggie Jackson struck out 111 times. An out is an out. If a high strikeout rate is accompanied by lack of on-base percentage and/or lack of power, it’s a problem. Otherwise, it’s not a big deal.
For me, the biggest concern with Puig, in terms of his hitting numbers, is that he has a BAbip of .383. There’s no way he’s going to keep that up for his whole career. He makes some stupid blunders in the field, and he’s also a bit too cavalier on the basepaths, but i’d still have him playing every day if i were the Dodgers’ manager.
I was lucky enough to be there as well, though I think I may have gotten home a little earlier than you did based on your posting time. :). Very bleary today, but happy.
My lasting image of Boston-Detroit Game 6 isn’t going to be the Grand Slam, it’s going to be Fielder falling flat on his face, five feet from third base. 
That was pretty awful.
I had no real rooting interest in this ALCS. I guess i would have preferred the Tigers to win, but only because it’s been much longer for them since their last WS victory. It was certainly an exciting series, especially for Boston fans. It’s just annoying that the crucial hit last night was recorded by that jackass Shane Victorino.
[QUOTE=mhendo]
As for strikeouts? The year Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, he had 93 strikeouts. Mickey Mantle had 100+ strikeouts ten times in his career, and he led the league in K’s five times, including years when he came 2nd and 3rd in MVP voting. The year of his MVP, Reggie Jackson struck out 111 times. An out is an out. If a high strikeout rate is accompanied by lack of on-base percentage and/or lack of power, it’s a problem. Otherwise, it’s not a big deal.
For me, the biggest concern with Puig, in terms of his hitting numbers, is that he has a BAbip of .383…
[/QUOTE]
Well, yeah, but those things all link up. The year Barry Bonds struck out 93 times he walked 177. The year Reggie won the MVP Award and struck out 111 times, he walked 76 times. Mickey Mantle struck out 100 times in a season 10 times… and he drew 100 walks in a season ten times and walked more than he struck out in his career.
Strikeouts aren’t all the same. Some players strike out a lot because they take a lot of pitches. Some guys strike out a lot because they swing and miss a lot. Yasiel Puig is the latter kind.
His K/W ratio is not so bad that there isn’t hope he could improve it; he’s not J.P. Arencibia or Will Middlebrooks, guys who are REALLY erratic at the plate. But his K/W ratio does need to improve or that BABIP absolutely is coming down.
The man is too fat to swing, too fat to run. If he ever chases you, run in circles, he’ll be dizzy by the second lap. He should drop 80 over the winter.
I should clarify: Leyland has over-managed the Tigers for the last time, I suspect and hope.
His contract is up, and I wouldn’t mind seeing some fresh coaching blood brought in. Not sure who is available now, so we may get another year out of Mumbles.
I like the guy, I just think his time here should be done. Hell, promote him to the front office or something. But I feel like his loyalty to his coaches and players gets in the way of winning too often.
We stayed in the park for an hour - got sprayed with some champagne down by the home dugout while the TV cameras rolled. Then traffic took us a while to negotiate. But it was worth it.
Yes, he is. He definitely needs to learn more patience at the plate, as well as in other areas of his game.
But it seems to me that this is precisely an area where a guy with four months of Major League experience can improve very quickly. It’s worth noting that his BB/K ratio improved as the year went on. In his first two months, it was 12/51; over the next two months it was 24/46. I’m not sure if that reflects greater control over time, or just a statistical aberration. But if it’s the former, then after an off-season of further instruction from his hitting coaches, and some more big-league experience, it should improve further.
And, at the moment, this shortcoming still probably wouldn’t stop me playing him over Carl Crawford, or even Andre Ethier, if i were choosing the Dodgers’ starting lineup.