Dumbest thing ever, we really need pitchers and catchers and get some real baseball.
‘Pick your opponent’ for the playoffs? This sounds like some college freshman’s Intro to Marketing final project.
if you live near a college BB team they start play this weekend except in some cold weather areas. The teams from cold areas will head to warm areas to play the next few weeks. For example Michigan is on the road in warm areas until their home opener March 13th.
Former MLB pitcher suing over the Astros cheating, he says it ended his career.
I feel bad for Mike Bolsinger but he has about as much of a chance of winning this lawsuit as he does of winning the Tour de France. There is no way he can prove he was cut only because of the Astros cheating, because he was already a marginal pitcher of the sort that gets cut pretty quickly anyway. If he had clearly been a major league pitcher, the Blue Jays would not have cut him for one bad game.
I’m guessing that the Dodgers have to be the faves to win it all this year. The one thing the Dodgers have missed the last few years was a guy like Betts who could consistently make contact or get on base somehow and motor around the base paths. Betts to the Dodgers is like Kevin Durant to the Warriors in NBA - he adds a new dimension.
Yanks are slightly favored over the Dodgers. Astros next. That is the two Fantasy Baseball gambling things & a Vegas one all agreeing.
Yeah, I guess they didn’t have anyone who could “consistently make contact or get on base somehow and motor around the base paths.”
Unless you count Cody Bellinger, who had both a higher batting average and a higher OBP than Betts last season. Not to mention the other guys in their batting lineup who also make contact or get on base and score runs. This is a team that scored the most runs in the NL last year and had the second-highest OBP.
What is it about baseball that causes some commentators to feel the need to overcomplicate their “analysis” and manufacture meaningless phrases like “adds a new dimension”? Why can’t you just say “Wow, the best hitting team in the National League just added another another awesome player. The Dodgers are going to be really hard to beat this season”? You’re just talking baseball here, not auditioning to take over from Stephen A. Smith.
Yeah, I’m not sure about the idea the Dodgers weren’t good at getting on base. Last year they had the second highest OBP in the NL. They were second the year before, third the year before that. That’s in a park not conducive to OBP.
I know it’s frustrating to Dodger fans to lose the World Series twice and then have a disappointing NLDS last year, but they are not missing anything. The team is awesome. Betts makes them better, but they already had an awesome team.
I’m just going based on what I’ve seen the last few years.
How many championships have the Dodgers won with their great run-scoring (swing up at the ball) lineups?
Thought so.
I don’t think the Dodgers didn’t win it all because of a lack of talent. It was mostly the playoff RNG… and some banging trash cans.
7 division championships in a row and two of the last 3 NL championships.
Seriously, I love the Dodgers and watch 100-120 games a year with close to 10 in person each season. This is crazy analysis that is close the the dodgers fans wanting to fire Roberts this off season.
expanded playoffs will happen but probably not pick your opponent. Too many baseball fans think it’s 1960 rather than 2020. change can be good.
I suspect most managers would hate the pick your opponent option though GMs will probably be fine with it.
I kind of like the pick your opponent idea. Forget the whole “Vegas thinks we’re underdogs” and “We don’t get respect” story lines, now your opponent actually chose to play you. THEY think you’re the easiest team to beat. It’s a juicy story.
I do not like expanded playoffs, though. It ends too late as it is.
I don’t like the idea of further devaluing the regular season, but at least this format doesn’t really extend the season much. It takes the wildcard round makes it 6 series of 3 games games instead of 2 elimination games. #1 seed in each league gets a bye.
[ul]
[li]So best in league gets to rest a few days. No 3 game elimination. [/li][li]The other 2 division winners pick their opponent among the bottom 3 wildcards. [/li][li]The top wildcard gets the leftover wildcard team. [/li][li]Added playoff time is 2-3 days. [/li][li]MLB new playoff system = Profit$[/li][/ul]
Mariners fans really wish we had your poor fortunes.
My God, what a stupid argument.
Just out of interest, what other criterion would you use to measure the quality of a ballclub’s offense, apart from the number of runs they score? Is there a better measure of team offensive ability than runs scored that I have somehow been unaware of all these years?
But that’s dumb. The Dodgers have won more playoff games than they’ve lost, and won more playoff games than they’ve lost. They are indisputably a good team. Not everyone can win the World Series.
Your evidence of their failing is basically that they lost Game Seven in 2017; no one would think them disappointing if that hadn’t happened. Claiming they’re a failure based on one game is just nuts. The Dodgers scored about as many runs per game in that series as they did in the regular season. Their failure was in pitching, possibly assisted by cheating.
Yeah, but dragging it out means playing chicken with the weather even more. And seriously, we’ve had 162 games to figure it out. You lose the wild card, you go home. And I never want to see a November World Series game again
The most obvious thing to get more playoff games would be to shorten the season, that will not happen though. So they’ll play all kinds of stupid games to try and make more money off the postseason. Eventually Baseball will add 2 more teams and go to 8 total divisions. I guess this playoff system helps set that up.
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Change is going to happen, this isn’t the worst idea they’ve had.