MLB (Baseball) 2018 Season

[Groucho Valentine]

2 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

 

 

 

 

Well, almost to the 1/3 point of the season.  The Nationals have edged their way to first in the NL East, still without Eaton and Murphy.  The Mets are once again riddled with injuries, 3-7 in their last 10 games, and soaring like a rock.  Oops, I meant plummeting.  Still, more than 100 games to go, who knows how things will look in September.

With the Mets back in first with only 12 players on the active roster. Mickey Calloway is a stable genius. 

[Casualgolfer]

Go Braves!

[billchao]

https://nypost.com/2018/07/17/cubs-fans-are-mad-bryce-harper-cheated-in-home-run-derby/amp/

This made me laugh. Maybe Cubs fans are worried they might not win another derby for 100 years 🤣

[mcanadiens]

I'm just thrilled that our old C-Reds no longer seemed destined for the franchise ineptitude record. Since Riggleman took over, it's been a stunningly competent 40-38 record. People had been talking about 1982's 61-101 train wreck.

Mario Soto and the Eight Dwarfs

[Sandy Divot]

The A's don't have any starting pitchers? Manager treated playoff game like a spring training game.

[boogielicious]

44 minutes ago, Sandy Divot said:

The A's don't have any starting pitchers? Manager treated playoff game like a spring training game.

I thought that was odd too. I don't think they wanted to win. If I was an A's fan, I would be pissed.

[mcanadiens]

On 7/17/2018 at 3:30 PM, mcanadiens said:

I'm just thrilled that our old C-Reds no longer seemed destined for the franchise ineptitude record. Since Riggleman took over, it's been a stunningly competent 40-38 record. People had been talking about 1982's 61-101 train wreck.

Mario Soto and the Eight Dwarfs

Oh yeah. Beat it by six whole games. 

Maybe next year at the rate this is going.

[jamo]

49 minutes ago, Sandy Divot said:

The A's don't have any starting pitchers? Manager treated playoff game like a spring training game.

 

4 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I thought that was odd too. I don't think they wanted to win. If I was an A's fan, I would be pissed.

The opener/bullpen strategy is one a couple teams (the A's and Rays, mainly) have used very successfully this year. Pitchers are significantly better (by ERA and basically any other metric) when they only have to pitch an inning or two. They can throw harder and their stuff plays up.

My only quibble is with the pitchers the A's ended up using. Hendriks and Rodney were both significantly worse this season than what some of their starters would equate to as one- or two-inning guys.

But the main thing is that their best pitcher, Treinen, who is ostensibly their closer, gave up 3 runs. And their offense only scored twice. You're not going to win a lot of games doing that no matter who starts the game.

[billchao]

38 minutes ago, jamo said:

The opener/bullpen strategy is one a couple teams (the A's and Rays, mainly) have used very successfully this year. Pitchers are significantly better (by ERA and basically any other metric) when they only have to pitch an inning or two. They can throw harder and their stuff plays up.

Yes, this. The problem with the bullpen game strategy is when it fails, people will criticize it more than they would praise it if it was successful. Part of breaking with tradition is dealing with the backlash.

40 minutes ago, jamo said:

My only quibble is with the pitchers the A's ended up using. Hendriks and Rodney were both significantly worse this season than what some of their starters would equate to as one- or two-inning guys.

The A's best starters are hurt, right? I think the other issue is most starters aren't used to jumping in the middle of the game and they have routines that get screwed up. It can cause them to pitch poorly. An elimination game is not the time to find out if your pitcher can handle change well.

They might have been able to start with a regular starter for 2 innings but once they go to the bullpen, they need to stick with relievers, which they did.

43 minutes ago, jamo said:

But the main thing is that their best pitcher, Treinen, who is ostensibly their closer, gave up 3 runs. And their offense only scored twice. You're not going to win a lot of games doing that no matter who starts the game.

Yes, this is ultimately what happened. It was a high leverage inning.

Consider it a blown save. The game was on the line in that inning and they went to their best pitcher who didn't get the job done.

[Groucho Valentine]

This has a feel of a Brewers/Redsox World Series to me. Nobody can get out Christain Yelich out right now. Except Jacob DeGrom. Lucky for Yelich DeGrominant decided he needed some rest this postseason. 

[jamo]

3 hours ago, billchao said:

The A's best starters are hurt, right? I think the other issue is most starters aren't used to jumping in the middle of the game and they have routines that get screwed up. It can cause them to pitch poorly. An elimination game is not the time to find out if your pitcher can handle change well.

Yeah, that could be true. Manaea, Fiers, Cahill, Montas, and Anderson, and Mengden were all inactive for the game. (Though I would assume at least some of that was because they wanted to load up on relievers.) It's also true that they didn't use the opener strategy much with their top starters (which you could then criticize them for not at least testing out if they thought they might do it in the playoffs).

But teams have gotten much more aggressive about using their best pitchers out of the bullpen in recent years (the Dodgers with Kershaw, Giants with Bumgarner, Astros with basically everyone), so it wouldn't have been too outlandish for them to try.

 

[billchao]

10 minutes ago, jamo said:

Yeah, that could be true. Manaea, Fiers, Cahill, Montas, and Anderson, and Mengden were all inactive for the game. (Though I would assume at least some of that was because they wanted to load up on relievers.) It's also true that they didn't use the opener strategy much with their top starters (which you could then criticize them for not at least testing out if they thought they might do it in the playoffs).

I know at least with Fiers, they wanted to avoid using him because he's a fly ball pitcher. Works fine in Oakland, not so much in Yankee Stadium.

15 minutes ago, jamo said:

But teams have gotten much more aggressive about using their best pitchers out of the bullpen in recent years (the Dodgers with Kershaw, Giants with Bumgarner, Astros with basically everyone), so it wouldn't have been too outlandish for them to try.

I don't think the A's have an ace on staff and three of their starters were on the DL? They went to their best pitcher and he didn't get it done.

I don't think there was anything wrong with their strategy, just that one or two pitchers didn't execute. Their team strength is hitting and they didn't hit.

[saevel25]

2 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

This has a feel of a Brewers/Redsox World Series to me. Nobody can get out Christain Yelich out right now. Except Jacob DeGrom. Lucky for Yelich DeGrominant decided he needed some rest this postseason. 

I am not high on the Brewers...

If you break down their hitting, they get most of their run differential from being an extremely good defensive team. I am not sold on them having the bats or the pitching to make a playoff run.

I am going to be an Indians homer right now. Very good GM. Basically had one pitcher almost win them the WR. An experience team who has been in the playoffs the last few years. What is going to hurt CLE is their bullpen.

I think the Redsox or Houston versus the Dodgers. Really the best teams are on in the AL this year. If you rank all MLB teams by Wins above Average.

HOU, BOS, LAD, NYY, CLE, OAK, CHC

[jamo]

I quite enjoyed this season.

[jsgolfer]

I really enjoyed this season.

[boogielicious]

3 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

I really enjoyed this season.

The Dodgers looked resigned to losing after the 6-7 inning. They have some great players, but ran into a steamroller. Their pitching has to be a disappointment.

This was a really fun Red Sox team to watch this year. Everyone contributed in the playoffs too.

[jsgolfer]

21 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

The Dodgers looked resigned to losing after the 6-7 inning. They have some great players, but ran into a steamroller. Their pitching has to be a disappointment.

This was a really fun Red Sox team to watch this year. Everyone contributed in the playoffs too.

This was a great team. 

[Groucho Valentine]

Never forget.