Getting ready for the new year I was looking over stats from last year for the Tigers and was surprised to see the Victor Martinez had the Worst WAR in the league for qualified(or nearly qualified,in his case) players. I knew it wasn’t a good hitting year for him,especially compared to his MVP consideration level 2014. And there is no defense obviously, but I didn’t remember it being quite that disastrous.
The Phillies are retiring the Phanatic. Let your outrage flow like a waterfall!
Or maybe it’s a PR stunt?
Or maybe the date of the article is relevant.
I’m actually an Angels fan (secondary to the Cubs, in honor of my late grandma), but they are completely wasting Trout’s prime years. It’s just frustrating.
Side note: Rancho Cucamonga is my favorite town name! I thought it was a funny name my Dad made up until an embarassingly late age.
Baseballbaseballbaseball
Glad the Jays and Pirates won!
And the RBI goes to…
…
…
… the Pitcher!
Let’s hear it for Real Baseball™!
They missed the playoffs last year by what, a game or two?
Trading the greatest player in baseball rarely works out well.
GO Phanatic!!!
And take all of the other mascots with you!
Next time I go to Chicago to catch a Cub game, I know where I’m staying.
Let it be known that a Giants fan and a Dodgers fan agreed on something on Opening Day. 
Anyone know why the Tigers & Marlins are playing their opener tomorrow and not today?
Title defense off to a nice start…Go Royals! Three-peat!
With apologies to Andy Williams:
*It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the grass finished growing
And pitchers all throwing, hey it’s out of here!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
It’s the hap-happiest season of all
With the fans in their seats and the pitcher’s mound meetings
Now throw the fastball
It’s the hap-happiest season of all
There’ll be plenty of boasting
Peanuts will be roasting
Now life has returned to The Show
There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of the
World Series long, long ago
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!*
Play Ball!
David Ortiz has become one of my favorites of all time so I want to soak up his final season. David Price has looked very solid in preseason ball but other than that the Red Sox aren’t giving me a lot to get excited about. They need some young players to surprise if they want to compete for the East.
Six of the Seven “experts” at Sports Illustrated picked the Red Sox to make the playoffs, with two predicting that they win the East. I think the Jays will take the division again, but the Sox look formidable.
All of this! Every single word! It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
It’s fun to look back at last year’s predictions and see just how well–or not well–people did.
Speaking of SI, in 2015 looks like they had six experts pick the five AL playoff teams.
Three of the experts picked the Blue Jays as one of the teams, along with four other teams that, well, missed the playoffs altogether.
The other three experts picked five teams each, and they all missed the playoffs. So out of thirty predictions, only three were correct. No one picked Kansas City, Houston, the Rangers, or the Yankees…too busy showing their bona fides for Oakland, Boston, Cleveland, and Seattle…
Yeah Boston was a popular pick last year to make the playoffs. I think Toronto will be right back there. Stroman looked good in his first start. I like that kid. Lots of energy.
A buddy and I are doing something called the Blue Jays MVP Project and I invite you all to participate. Here’s how it works.
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Pick your favourite team. Most of you have probably done this already.
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Every time your team wins a game, select three stars, like a hockey game. The most valuable player of the game is the first star, then second star, then third star. For instance, for last night’s Blue Jays game I picked
First Star: Marcus Stroman (8 IP, 5K, 3 ER)
Second Star: Troy Tulowitzki (Home run, seven plays at SS)
Third Star: Edwin Encarnacion (2 RBI, run scored)
2a. No ties. No fourth stars, no saying there’s one first star and two second stars. First, second, third. If the decision is hard, it’s hard. Suck it up.
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Every time your team LOSES a game, you just pick a third star. No first or second star.
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Players are then awarded 5 points for every 1st star, 3 points for every 2nd star, and 1 point for every third star. Note that this means eight points are awarded for every win and just one for every loss. If a guy does all his production in games his team loses, too bad!
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Your choices for 1st-2nd-3rd start should generally be oriented around who most helped the team win that game but how you determine that is up to you. Maybe you disagree with me giving EE my third star. I don’t care. Want to give some rookie a third star for getting his first MLB hit? Go nuts.
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At the end of the year the person with the most points is the team MVP. If in the very unlikely event of a tie, the tiebreaker is whichever guy you think should win it.
It’s pretty easy to set this up in Excel to make keeping points easy. And if you want, get friends to submit their stars to you (I’ve already roped my buddy into this) and add up more picks.
Let’s see how this works.
That’s some serious commitment. I’m in for the Tigers.
Will your buddy’s points and yours go into a collective pool, with one MVP chosen at the end? Or will each of you have an MVP by the end of the year?
I know it wouldn’t work out well, I’m just bitter because they could have actually tried to build a decent team around him, but instead they decided they didn’t want to overspend the luxury tax.
Pujols will still hit home runs and Simmons will be fun to watch on defense, so it won’t be a complete waste of time other than Trout. But it could have been so much better.
For the next few days, of course, I’m not too upset since I am more interested in the Cubs doing well!