Some high scoring games today for a day when the number one starters are suppose to be pitching. Well unless you are the Rangers, haha.
It’s funny, I ripped on the Giants for signing Zito all those years, now I’m getting my up and comin’s wit RA Dicksucker
So what’re you guys thoughts on the replay challenge? Yay or nay?
[quote]therajraj wrote:
So what’re you guys thoughts on the replay challenge? Yay or nay?[/quote]
I hate it. It doesn’t work all that well in football and it’s even worse in baseball. It has and will continue to fail on so many levels. The only remedies are to either massively expand the system or get rid of it entirely. I side with the latter option.
First of all, the umps don’t get the calls right sometimes anyways, which completely defeats the purpose. Secondly, baseball is such a game that the close calls that are challenged are often times impossible to distinguish between right and wrong. Half these close plays you can’t tell whether the guy gets tagged or hits the base or whatever anyways. It’s also changed the way umps call plays in which an outfielder transfers the ball from his glove to his throwing hand after making a catch. Any drop in the exchange and the batter is now safe.
From what I understand, the time limit on looking at a play under review is one minute. But I’ve seen two challenges already that took more than three minutes to clear up. And in both cases the incorrect call was upheld because there wasn’t clear, incontrovertible proof otherwise. If there is clear, incontrovertible proof otherwise, the umps get the call right 99% of the time anyways. So in that respect, replay is superfluous anyways.
On top of all that, I have always contended and will continue to contend that blown calls DO NOT COST TEAMS GAMES. Teams cost themselves, ESPECIALLY in baseball, by not capitalizing on opportunities earlier in the game. The team that puts themselves in position to have a tenuous lead or tie undone by a bad call is the team that doesn’t deserve to win anyways. Good teams make their own luck, and by extension they also create their opponent’s bad luck. That play at the plate isn’t so close if the pitcher doesn’t put the guy on to begin with. That guy who reached on a bad call? The pitcher has plenty of opportunities to strand him there. I could go on and on. Bad calls really don’t determine the outcome of important games all that much, if at all. Each pitch in baseball is a play. Each pickoff attempt is another play. If you factor in foul balls, pickoffs, and all other pitches thrown, there are literally more than 300 plays per game. At 300 plays per game and 162 games per year, that’s 48,600 plays per season for each team. That doesn’t include the handful of extra-inning games each team plays as well.
So to argue that an entire season can come down to one blown call is absolutely ludicrous. To make that argument is to cast aside the importance of the 48,599 other plays throughout the year.
I’m also not really a fan of it either.
I don’t particularly like how they’re allotted one per game, meaning there’s never any cost for using them so they will be used more often than not as a result.
And yeah, 2-5 blown calls over the course of an 162 game season is not impactful enough. If your team misses the playoffs on the very last day and a blown call made the difference… well you should reflect on your play during the previous 161.
I have a question for you DB, not sure if you want to answer it but I want to ask.
Did you ever use PEDs trying to get to the Bigs?
So thoughts on the season thus far?
Isn’t it interesting the Jays and the Giants who were expected to finish near the bottom are both at the top of the respective divisions?
WIll it hold up? As for the Jays, I kinda doubt it, their starting pitching is shaky and right now their bats are on fire (it won’t last, it never does). But no one else in the division looks particularly impressive. Red Sox and Rays are both below .500, Yankees look mediocre and I guess Baltimore looks alright.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
The Phillies will be terrible, that’s about all I know at this point.
Both of their “big” signings in Burnett and Byrd will underwhelm, Howard under produces and cements his spot as one of the league’s top 10 worst contracts (probably top 5), Rollins gets benched several times throughout the season and by the end of the year everyone hates Ryne Sandberg. [/quote]
This is pretty accurate so far. Rollins hasn’t been benched yet, but that’s about the only thing that isn’t accurate…yet.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
If no one’s favourite team does well this season, this thread won’t make it past the 2nd page.[/quote]
This also appears to be accurate.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
If no one’s favourite team does well this season, this thread won’t make it past the 2nd page.[/quote]
This also appears to be accurate. [/quote]
haha nope!
Jays and Giants are both in first place in their respective divisions.
This thread died due to a lack of interest out on T-Nation. I haven’t been watching as much baseball this summer either.
As much as I love baseball, I end up regretting the amount of time I spend in front of the tube during the short period of time I’m exposed to hot weather.
After the Jays tanked last year, I stopped watching in June and ended up going out a lot more and overall enjoying the warm months more.
Nowadays I catch 1 game/week, don’t dedicate time calculating stats or reading Blue Jays blogs.
Though I can see this changing if they’re playing meaningful baseball going into September… the first time since 1993.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I have a question for you DB, not sure if you want to answer it but I want to ask.
Did you ever use PEDs trying to get to the Bigs? [/quote]
No. I was on a scholarship at a very expensive school and subject to random drug tests if the school so chose. It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take, and there also simply wasn’t the same sort of info available about PED’s that there is now. Back then, what little whispers and rumors that I did hear about always revolved around hitters using them, not pitchers.
I was just naive back then, but so were most baseball players. Back then, most people still thought of steroids strictly as muscle-builders, so they presumably wouldn’t have had much use for a pitcher. It wasn’t until about ten years ago that baseball in general finally moved past the idea that putting on muscle weight was inherently bad for pitchers. Now, the prevailing fallacy is that pitchers should run long distances to develop the stamina required to pitch 9 innings.
WRONG. In fact, pitchers should avoid long distance running entirely in favor of a variety of sprints. Rather than run a couple miles a day, they should be performing very short, explosive sprints and long sprints for stamina. And by long, I mean 100 yards at the absolute most. To build stamina, simply shorten the rest time between sprints, as well as add an extra sprint or two each week.
So, in short, steroids simply weren’t on my radar back then as far as using them myself goes.
That being said, if I were playing college ball now, I would DEFINITELY be using some sort of testosterone cream or something else along those lines.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
So thoughts on the season thus far?
Isn’t it interesting the Jays and the Giants who were expected to finish near the bottom are both at the top of the respective divisions?
WIll it hold up? As for the Jays, I kinda doubt it, their starting pitching is shaky and right now their bats are on fire (it won’t last, it never does). But no one else in the division looks particularly impressive. Red Sox and Rays are both below .500, Yankees look mediocre and I guess Baltimore looks alright.
[/quote]
Who expected the Giants to finish near the bottom this year? Most people picked them to finish 2nd, mostly because they thought the Dodgers were really good and not necessarily because they didn’t feel the Giants were a division-winning-caliber team.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
If no one’s favourite team does well this season, this thread won’t make it past the 2nd page.[/quote]
This also appears to be accurate. [/quote]
haha nope!
Jays and Giants are both in first place in their respective divisions.
This thread died due to a lack of interest out on T-Nation. I haven’t been watching as much baseball this summer either.
As much as I love baseball, I end up regretting the amount of time I spend in front of the tube during the short period of time I’m exposed to hot weather.
After the Jays tanked last year, I stopped watching in June and ended up going out a lot more and overall enjoying the warm months more.
Nowadays I catch 1 game/week, don’t dedicate time calculating stats or reading Blue Jays blogs.
Though I can see this changing if they’re playing meaningful baseball going into September… the first time since 1993.
[/quote]
If the Jays played in a real stadium instead of that shithole they play in now, you could enjoy some sunlight AND watch the Jays play.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
So thoughts on the season thus far?
Isn’t it interesting the Jays and the Giants who were expected to finish near the bottom are both at the top of the respective divisions?
WIll it hold up? As for the Jays, I kinda doubt it, their starting pitching is shaky and right now their bats are on fire (it won’t last, it never does). But no one else in the division looks particularly impressive. Red Sox and Rays are both below .500, Yankees look mediocre and I guess Baltimore looks alright.
[/quote]
Who expected the Giants to finish near the bottom this year? Most people picked them to finish 2nd, mostly because they thought the Dodgers were really good and not necessarily because they didn’t feel the Giants were a division-winning-caliber team.[/quote]
Whatever.
I can’t imagine the outlook was all too bright given they finished 10 games below .500 last year
Is this really all the MLB conversation could muster up, two pages? Such a shame because it was a fun season to watch.
Playoff predictions:
AL:
Wildcard game:
Royals beat A’s. I’m going to assume the pitching match up will be Shields vs. Lester. I like big game James to step up.
Divisional round:
Angels over the Royals in 4 games.
Tigers over the Orioles in 5 games.
ALCS:
Angels over Tigers in 7 games.
NL:
Wildcard:
Giants over Pirates. I know the Pirates are hot I just think Bumgarner will pull it through for the Giants.
Divisional Round:
Nationals over the Giants in 4 games.
Dodgers over the Cardinals in 5 games. I really wish this series was 7 games.
NLCS:
Dodgers over Nationals in 6 games.
World Series:
Angels over Dodgers in 7 games. Honestly I don’t want to the Dodgers to win at all.
Wow…Royals…damn! I’ve been waiting my whole life for them to not break my heart.
Cards are killing me! I’d love to see them up against kc.
That was pretty nuts. You figured the Dodgers were up 6-1 with Kershaw pitching and it was over. Is Kershaw just not that good under pressure or do the Cards just have his number since they lit him up last year in the playoffs?
My predictions are going to shit. Peavy outdules Strasburg and the Giants win.
The Royals just keep winning in extras.
The Orioles are out slugging the Tigers.
San Francisco Giants: Making fools of sabermetricians since 2010.
Drew Storen sucking it up in the playoffs again. I even thought before the Giants tied it up that it was a bad idea pulling Zimmermann after he walked Panik. The dude was in the zone and deserved to face Posey. Bochy is going to out coach Williams.