$100 million for Zimmerman is a lot, but Rendon shouldn’t have anything to do with it. No way Rendon is ready by next year. Bryce Harper isn’t going to be ready on that kind of time table and Rendon is not Bryce Harper. 2015, if everything goes well, is reasonable and a lot can happen between now and 2015. Heyman is nuts.
Putting them a step below professionals is pretty much dismissing them. But then I have a pretty low opinion of sportswriters (well, except for Posnanski).
Don’t put words in my mouth, dammit!
We are, again, talking about the same Will Carroll who maintains to this day that he was right in 2003 when he said he knew there was a signed contract that reinstated Pete Rose into Major League Baseball.
Carroll has done good work in baseball research but his default position is always that MLB is wrong or lying, and he will not back down from that position no matter the facts. Unless Pete Rose is managing the Reds now and I somehow missed it, I am very skeptical of his claims.
Meanwhile Joel Zumaya hurt his arm again. He’s out for the year and facing Tommy John surgery if he wants to pitch again. It sounds like he might retire instead. Even when he was killing the Yankees in that playoff series I was in awe of how hard he was throwing and wanted to see just how hard he could go. I guess that was all the way back in 2006. It sounds like he was still throwing hard in 2009 and '10, but he’s had so many injuries and rehabs that he must be sick of the whole ordeal and unsure when he might get hurt again.
Ryan Howard has had a setback in his recovery from ACL surgery, although it sounds like it might be minor. There were some conflicting reports over the weekend and that made me think it could be pretty serious, but maybe not.
Yeah, dude just doesn’t throw right. Throws hard, but not right.
He certainly was phenomenal to watch.
Don’t worry Phillies fans - only 5 years and $115 million to go.
Jason Varitek is retiring. Even as a Yankee fan I always respected his hard-nose style of play.
For 2017, I believe the buy out is another $10 mil if the Phillies don’t pick up his option, so the countdown should be: 5 years, 125 million to go .
I don’t know if Spring Training is technically still considered “offseason,” but I started the damn thread, so screw it.
Anyone else gonna make it to Florida or Arizona this year?
Mike Stanton of the Marlins says is now going by the name Giancarlo, but at least it’s not because he was caught using forged documentation. He just wants to be called by his birth name.
It is so hard to make fun of him for this when the whole birth name thing is part of the equation.
I really want to make fun of him for this too.
Incidentally, Stanton grew up and went to High School down the street from me. I didn’t know him, he is a couple of cough8cough years younger than me, but I know that school well. He’s a Mike.
So, MLB officially approved the new playoff format with an additional WC team and a one-game playoff between the two. Thoughts?
It sucks.
Mightily.
Because it will likely lead to a better team eventually losing a one game playoff to a lesser team?
Maybe, and that will undoubtedly happen at some stage, but that’s not even my main concern.
There’s nothing broken about the system as it is, and a one-game playoff is there purely to grab the attention of people who aren’t really baseball fans at the end of the season. If they wanted to add another playoff team for each league, and add a full extra 5-game series as part of the playoffs, that would make more sense. I still wouldn’t like it very much, but at least it wouldn’t be the horribly anomalous and bolted-on scenario that the one-game playoff is.
It’s just an attempt to create more artificial excitement. As the end of last season showed, there can be plenty of end-of-season excitement under the current system, and i think it’s more exciting when those meaningful games at the end of September arise organically, rather than resulting from a decision like this.
I’m excited to never ever again have to watch two teams tied for a division lead on the last day of the season start scrubs.
They shouldn’t have decided this so late though.
Yeah, that’s been a huge problem. [/sarcasm]
As far as i can tell, from looking at end-of-season standings, that might have happened about 3 or 4 times in the last 15 years (i went back to 1996). The teams that have been much more likely start scrubs at the end of the season have been the teams with an unassailable division lead, and the new playoff system isn’t going to change that at all.
Also, under the new system, if two teams have wrapped up the two Wild Card playoff spots at the end of the season, and they know that no other team can catch them, they still might play scrubs on the last day to save their best players for the one-game playoff. All that happens is that the behavior that you dislike is shifted from one scenario to another.
I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. MLB should have been aiming to reduce the playoff field, not increase it. Instead, they are continuing to cheapen the regular season, so we will have situations like a one game playoff deciding who advances between two teams who were 10 wins apart during the regular season. Wheee!!!
I don’t like the idea either, but this seems to be the precise opposite of the idea. The idea is to grab the attention of people who ARE baseball fans, by increasing the number of teams with a chance at the postseason. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but that is the idea.
Why would this appeal to people who aren’t baseball fans?