2016 Major League Baseball thread

I disagree completely. Everybody who plays should bat. If we are going to favor specialization, why not go with three DH positions? Nobody thinks a good catcher or center fielder has to be a great hitter either. Their value add lies elsewhere, so why continue the farcial idea that they should hit? There are actually some very good hitting pitchers. It is only an indulgence that says they shouldn't have to work at a fundamental aspect of the game.

It's simple not true that people think that catchers and center-fielders, or even shortstops, don't have to be good hitters, and comparing them to pitchers is ridiculous. There's a reason everyone knows Rey Ordonez not to have been an MLB quality player. MLB players at various positions other than pitcher don't have to bat equally well, but they're all elite at batting, among the top couple of thousand people on the planet for any player thought to be any good. Your typical MLB pitcher isn't even close to being among the top million batters on the planet. Watching an MLB pitcher bat is a perverse novelty, like watching Michael Jordan bat, or watching a car accident unfold.

At the pre-collegiate level pitchers should bat, but that's largely because at the pre-collegiate level pitchers are whoever happens to be the best athlete on the team. At that level pitchers aren't specialized--they play shortstop on their non-pitching days--and at that level the game isn't about fans. Having MLB pitchers bat is, on the other hand, at best an anachronistic tradition that should be discarded, like having a quarterback be your regular punter or having the electoral college.

Agreed with previous posters re: interleague play!

MLB was unique in not having any of that, until ~a score ago.

yes

yes AGAIN!

I miss when MLB was truly the most unique pro-sport in every way.

ONE of those ways was no interleague play!

More rule changes afoot? The competition committee has proposed automatic intentional walks and adjusting the bottom of the strike zone to above rather than bellow the knees.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/1...-agrees-changes-strike-zone-intentional-walks

My first thought is I hate the walks proposal, I'm fairly neutral on the strike zone. It might mean more walks, but more likely it will mean fewer longer battles with a pitcher, as the hitter fouls off borderline strikes repeatedly. Make the zone more hittable, and there is likely less need to protect the plate. On the one hand, an ability to do just that is part of what makes somebody an elite hitter. On the other hand, it might be better to just get the ball in play more quickly.

/discuss!

I don't give a shit about the automatic walk and see no major loss in the idea that a manager can just say "pass" and put him on and move on with the game

As for the zone, as long as those assholes don't call it consistently it doesn't matter where it is. Robot umps FTW baby!

In non MLB baseball news, the team I coach had a really bad ump yesterday. Not only did he not have a clue where the strike zone should be, he also couldn't tell where the ball was. So we'd have a chest high pitch called a ball, followed by a pitch over the kid's head called a strike. I mean, what the hell? I can't even tell you how many times a ball that bounced in front of the plate was called a strike. Just terrible.

It's a developmental league, so the regular season is, in my opinion, best used for teaching the players. Yes, you want to win, but losing on runs isn't necessarily a bad day if you can give a kid a chance to work through his pitching difficulties, or help a base runner to see why following the coaches signs matter, etc. But when the kids can't trust the strike zone, they have no idea whether or not to swing, and the pitcher has no idea whether he needs to make an adjustment. So the game was a complete waste of time, because the ump ruined most of the opportunity to learn something.

A game is meant to offer learning opportunities difficult to reproduce in a practice. And the hope is that by the end of the 14 game season, you have the team at a point where they can then play their best in the post season tournament. This is the second time we've had this ump. If we have him again, it will be a real test to see whether I can avoid kicking his ass.

There may already be a juicer or two in the hall. It wouldn't surprise me.

I think it's the difference of suspicion vs. "proof". What will be interesting is how Ortiz does in five years. Personally, I say let them all in, and as Chuck posits, there surely must be a few juicers already there.

Ortiz isn't a Hall-of-Fame caliber player, and it's not particularly a close call. Defense matters, and Ortiz is a much better defender at DH than he ever was at first base, by far. Once you account for defense he's about a wash with Mark Teixeira or Fred McGriff for his career. He's a very good player who had some memorable post seasons but was never really great or as good as his reputation. He's Jack Morris. It would be a travesty if Ortiz gets significant early HoF support after the treatment of Edgar Martinez and Jeff Bagwell by the HoF voters.

I agree that on merit, Bagwell is well ahead of Ortiz and would argue both McGriff and Delgado are at least equal....BUT I do think he'll get in in relatively short order (first 5-7 years)

Meanwhile, if Raines doesn't make it in next year they should just bulldoze the place and be done with it.

The argument for Ortiz is fairly simple. He is going to have about 550 homeruns when he retires. The only players with more than that who are not in the HOF are either still active, not yet eligible, or more directly tainted by PED concerns (Ramirez, Sosa, McGwire, Bonds). Everybody bellow him on the 500 club is already in the Hall with the exception of Sheffield. No, 500 club is not enough, but it gets a player in to the conversation. Then you can add a high career batting average, and ridiculously high OPS, the fact that he is one of only three to hit over 500 homeruns and over 600 doubles (Aaron and Bonds are the other two). When he's done, he'll be in the top 10 for doubles and probably number 17 for homeruns. Mark Texeira isn't a remotely worthy comparison.

I do agree about Tex. I'd probably vote for Ortiz, but I'd have voted for the other guys I mentioned too.

(I'm kinda "big hall" but at the same time, I'd toss out a bunch of the guys already in there if I had absolute power - for example, I'll give you Ortiz in a nanosecond if Jim Rice gets tossed - the former is far more worthy IMO)

Wow, this thread needs more activity! Let's look at our early predictions and how things compare with just three weeks left in the season. Here's what I said back in February:

Looks like I probably only got two of these right -- NL Central and AL East. The latter is far from settled, but I think we can all agree the Cubs are winning the NL Central. It's almost certain that two of my five picks from each league will make the post season, but otherwise, I whiffed on a lot of these. I am completely dumbfounded by the AL East. I had no idea it would be such a tight race involving so many teams, and I definitely didn't expect it to have four of the best records in the league.

Anybody have bold predictions for October? I'm going to make one, which is that the Cubs are not going to win the NL pennant. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm thinking about Seattle in 2001 (and the 1906 Cubs for that matter). Teams that compile such incredible regular season records only do so due to circumstances not entirely related to the team's actual ability. The Cubs' record overstates their quality, and also leads to hubris. Not generally a good combination when the competition stiffens.

WOW

If the Cubs were to ACTUALLY make it to the World Series, it'll be their FIRST since October 1945!!

Which they LOST!

The LAST TIME the Cubs WON the World Series was 108 years ago, beating the Tigers 4 games to 1.

Concerning both teams, it's good that both are STILL in their respective cities today.

@Nova, @Chuck, @Sjsharksfan39, time to step up with your own review. How did your predictions go?

Not that bold a prediction. Even as overwhelming NL favorites they're still no better than 40-45% to get to the World Series. I'd like to see another Kershaw start or two before making any NL predictions anyway.

That's certainly an argument that can be made. But I think there is more to it. What's going on with the teams they play? Would such a team be similarly dominant in any division, or does the schedule matter? That's just one example. I do think the best team will win the most games in their division. They won't necessarily win the most games in the league.

That's part of why I'm really surprised by the AL East. Obviously they all get to play a lot of games against the Rays, but the other four teams also have to play each other. And yet they occupy the third through sixth spots for best records. How does that happen? Are they beating up on the other divisions? I really don't like schedule inconsistency. I'd like it much more if all the teams faced the same 162 games.

Toronto - 95-100 wins <---- Slower than expected start cost them a bit here, still make them at ~92,93 wins, recent slump CAN'T last
Boston - 85-90 wins <---- couple of kids came together faster than expected, still figure them 90,92 wins, which is close
TB - 85-90 <--- was too generous here, results kinda below talent level
NY - 80-85 <--- was right most of season, kid explosion was unexpected
Balt - 70-75 <--- still can't figure how they survived +.500 with that rotation

KC - 85-90 <--- had to respect the recent success, which I didn't believe in before
Clev - 85-90 <--- better offense than I expected
Det - 80-85 <--- second half record is making this look low, Fulmer is insane and Verlander is back
Min - 80-85 <--- not sure what I was thinking
CWS - 70-75 <--- thought the LaRoche thing would tear them up, but without hot start this would be accurate.

Houst - 90-95 <---- another slow-start story
Tex - 90-95 <---Edit! I changed this (3/4) because I had them too low for...reasons. <-- pretty close
Sea - 80-85 <--- not too far off
LA - 80-85 <--- too generous
Oak - 75-80 <--- even worse than I thought

Clev over Boston
Houston over Clev
Toronto over KC then over Houston <--- basically central turned into Clev/Det race instead of Clev/KC race, and Houston stayed behind Tex...of course, Boston COULD still win the division since they are, ya know, leading right now, so this comment is just me standing by my original idea that the Jays edge out the Red Sox.



NY - 90-95 <--- somewhat overestimated, based on the rotation
Wash - 90-95 <--- close enough
Miami - 70-75 <---better than I thought
Atl - 60-65
Phil - 60-65
Cubs - 95-100 <--- hot start inflated record
Pitt - 90-95 <--- disappointed
StL - 85-90 <--- right general neighborhood
Milw - 70-75
Cinn - 70-75

SF - 90-95 <--- second half has not been kind
LA - 90-95 <--- props to doing so well with Kershaw out
Arz - 80-85 <--- I was too kind
SD - 70-75
Col - 70-75

Pitt over LA
Pitt over NY
Chicago over SF then over Pitt

Toronto over Chicago Cubs <--- I still like the Cubs in the NL, I'm a bit worried about getting past Texas in the AL which would suck to an insane degree given the Odor bullshit.

I'll further admit that given our their offense has preformed, and how Toronto's has under-preformed their talent level in terms of run production and "moving the line" the Red Sox may well be a better team at this point in a short series. If they figure out how to get great results out of Price in the post season they could win it all, but I'm inclined to think that the Jays having a veteran team that's well aware that everything changes next year might have another charge left in them.

They would be in command right now, contending for the best record in the AL, if they hadn't gone cold in September, but everything that had been working for 3.5 months (From May 18 to August 31 no team in baseball had a better wining percentage) suddenly stopped working. In September the starting pitching as a whole has been awful, run production, pretty much every measure they are last in the AL r close to it - Hell Donaldson was closing in on 0-for-30 before his hit tonight, despite hitting the shit out of most everything. If this insanity lasts another week or so all is lost, but logically they CAN'T play THIS bad for long so I'm holding onto some confidence.

Overall, though, I think I had a pretty fair handle on how things would go.

In the division, TBJ, BRS, and BO are all just a few games over .500, the NYY have until recently suck in division play and are still just 28-31, but they have pounded both of the other divisions, the other three have been pretty similar against other AL teams as against the East, though their are quirks. All three did well in inter league games too.

Indians and Rangers both seriously dominated their division rivals

Sure, that may motivate some of those guys, but I think you under estimate the Big Papi factor. The rest of the team really wants to give him a great October and are going to play each game as if everything is on the line. I'm so excited to watch the young core continue to develop, but in some ways they have the same issue as the Blue Jay's - - this is their last season to get it done before the new era truly begins. Sure, we'll still have Pedroia, but this is all about the send-off for Ortiz before turning the keys over to the kids (and the kids are amazing).