I’d love it if the Angels would straight up release Albert Pujols. They have to pay him anyway. He is an anchor around their neck and they can fill the roster spot with a more valuable player.
And oh by the way, how 'bout Mookie Betts rolling a perfect 300 game in the World Series of bowling?
Barry Bonds in 2002 in a losing cause. Troy Glaus, the same year, was almost as good and his team won.
I thought about Reggie Jackson but his best World Series followed a really terrible ALCS (2 for 16 with 2 singles and 2 walks). Daniel Murphy had a great NLDS-NLCS and then a poor World Series.
Rickey Henderson was fantastic in 1989.
The information in this LA Times article does not bode well for Adrian Gonzalez’s future with the Dodgers.
I’m trying to understand why his teammates wouldn’t have wanted him around. I find the “distraction” concept really hard to believe. I mean, Pedro Fucking Baez was in the dugout during the games, and he wasn’t on the roster. What gives?
He *was *the Tennessee state high school champ, after all.
Not if you recognize it as a synonym for “ass”.
Exactly how much of an ass can Adrian Gonzalez be? Everyone has always liked him up to now. I don’t exactly understand why the Dodgers granted him leave and then brought him back to be with the team during the World Series, but that was their call.
The real problem with Adrian Gonzalez is that the Dodgers owe him $22 million next year and he isn’t worth a roster spot. He could be the nicest guy on earth, but he’s an anchor.
Corey Kluber and Max Scherzer win the Cy Young Awards. Kluber’s second, Scherzer’s third, both by overwhelming margins.
I find it interesting that Scherzer won it so easily (27 out of 30 first place votes.) He was probably the right choice but gosh the guy has THREE Cy Young Awards. I’ve just never thought of Max Scherzer as a super dominating pitcher. He’s never had a true monster year where he put up 9.8 WAR or something and was an MVP candidate. this and last year’s Cy were earned largely because Clayton Kershaw got hurt and missed too many starts to win the award. Given that he’s 32, if Scherzer blows his arm out in the next two years or so we’ll have a situation where a man with 3 Cy Young Awards is a borderline HOF case.
I have to agree. I watched maybe 2/3 of the Nats’ games this summer. If I needed a go-to guy, I would have taken Strasburg every time.
Publicly.
Kluber was the clear winner and I’m fine with Scherzer, he appears to be fully deserving. Good point on the Cy Young candidacy.
Man, I would love to have Scherzer. ERA under 3 in 4 of the past 5 seasons. WHIP under 1 in 4 of the past 5 seasons. What’s not to love? Strasburg may have more dominant stuff, but I don’t consider him Sherzer’s peer yet.
He’s a fine pitcher, don’t get me wrong. Every team in baseball could use him.
It just feel like he’s won three Cy Youngs because he just happened to have pretty good years when no one had a great one. I am not convinced of the value of WAR in judging starting pitchers but look at his WAR for his three Cy Young years:
SCHERZER
7.3 (2017)
6.7 (2013)
6.2 (2016)
I can’t say he didn’t deserve any of those awards, but he just seemed to pick the right years when no one else was especially dominant. By contrast, Roy Halladay had FOUR years better than 7.3.
Or look at it another way; here are the WARs for every pitcher who won three or more Cy Young Awards:
CLEMENS
8.9
9.4
7.9
11.9
8.2
5.6
5.5
BIG UNIT
8.6
9.2
8.1
10.0
10.9
MADDUX
9.2
5.8
8.5
9.7
CARLTON
12.1
5.9
10.2
5.5
KOUFAX
10.7
8.1
10.3
PEDRO
9.0
9.7
11.7
PALMER
6.3
8.5
6.6
TOM TERRIFIC
7.2
10.6
7.8
KERSHAW
6.5
7.9
7.5
There are some weaker wins in there (no terrible choices, though, like all the relief pitcher Cys, or Pete Vuckovich or something like that) and, again, I am not 100% convinced WAR is as accurate for pitchers as it is for hitters, but clearly all those guys were at least a bit more impressive.
Yeah, like in the 2013 postseason. Didja know Ortiz only hit .091 in the ALCS? Everybody focuses on that grand slam against Detroit, or the .688 he hit in the World Series, but .091, c’mon. Jeez.
Ortiz was better in the postseason than he was in the regular season. Basically the same numbers, but doing that against postseason opponents is more impressive, because you are facing better pitching than you do in the regular season. So that’s a point in his favor, albeit not a huge one.
A player who was legitimately better in the clutch, though, would basically ALWAYS be better. A true skill appears almost all the time. David Ortiz was unquestionably very good at hitting home runs, and he was good at hitting home runs every year. In 14 seasons with Boston he hit a lot of home runs in 14 of them. He never had a year where suddenly he just hit 5 home runs. If all players veered from 46 homers to 6 homers to 39 homers to 2 homers, one would question whether hitting home runs was an ability or just luck. But that does not happen.
Not worth its own thread but the word from his agents is that Otani is not the correct spelling, we should be using Ohtani. Picture included in article of his name on a game jersey.
**Congrats To Giancarlo Stanton, the 2017 NL MVP winner.
**May he please stay in the NL.
Congrats to Altuve, getting 27 or 30 first place votes.
Rumor has it folks in Miami think Jeter is still too cozy with the Yankees and may trade Giancarlo Stanton to them for something less than maximum value. This is according to Stu Gotz (is that his name?) on ESPN radio this morning.
I’ll believe it when I see it. But Stu Gotz is not a great source and is mostly a blowhard.