Part mismanagement but also part horrible luck. Rendon, Puig, Gomez, Longo, Stras, and to a less important extent, Teheran, have all been shells of what any reasonable person would have expected for 2015.
Nothing too crazy going on on day 1 here.
Havok really got what he needed to start off a tough matchup. 12 hits from his offence, good Monday starts from Corbin and Bauer, + Scherzer wasn't good.
I have absolutely no idea why FeatherD would hold Gallardo all year long and then bench him against the MARINERS on the first Monday of the playoffs. Just can't wrap my head around that.
No notable separation so far between Min and I or North and Dinger
So what are these playoff matchups looking like? Are they decided?
Sounds like CoreDick will be my playoff dark horse. Could be a hero, suck and play part time and bung up my roster, or just get hurt again immediately.
Pretty good, actually. It's always nice to switch things up, and let your bitch peg you or at least lube up her pinky, once in a while.
http://i.imgur.com/Qb3ONM3.png?1
I was under the impression that because of the blackout, MLB.tv just doesn't even carry playoff games. But you might be right, if we all ride our bikes to o2's house in Sveden we can probably log in and watch Kansas City sweep Toronto with lots of buntz and hitnruns.
Ubaldo:
4.34 ERA
4.07 FIP
3.71 xFIP
7.50 ERA, 5.73 FIP in 2nd half
Hutch:
4.87 ERA
3.85 FIP
4.05 xFIP
3.73 ERA, 4.18 FIP in 2nd half
Pretty good matchup. Two inconsistent guys who could either dominate or gas-can the game.
Ubaldo tanking is one of the big reasons that the O's have gone into a tailspin.
Ubaldo had 3 starts against Toronto in April/May:
19 IP, 6 ER, 23 K's, 6 BB
A player that is on the DL on Aug 31 and still on the DL at the end of the season can be replaced by any player that was in the organization on Aug 31.
Teams use this loophole every year.
Izturis and Saunders are both on the 60 and done for the year. The Jays can put anyone that was in the organization on Aug 31 on their playoff roster, if they want.
If the Blue Jays try to extend Donaldson this offseason and his camp's #1 priority is money, then it would be hard to argue that he's not worth something similar to the mega-deals given to Cano and Votto.
Votto got 10/$225M starting in his age 30 season.
Cano got 10/$240 starting in his age 31 season.
It would be a tricky proposition to try to get Donaldson to sign anything that doesn't involve Toronto tacking 7 guaranteed years after his remaining 3 arb years (which would obviously be replaced by guaranteed money).
Of course, not all players and not all negotiators are created equal. Donaldson might be in love with Toronto at this point and eager to finish his career here (or not).
You can also do creative things with options in order to redistribute risk and exposure, such as guarantee less money overall but give him an opt out, etc.
Everybody in the playoffs has a great roster, and is a gentleman (except jaysblue). The eight of us should all go for beers, and invite none of the others!
The annoying thing here is that I told Boxy to pick up Pollock out of pity, because my roster at that point was full and I felt so bad for his team. And now my likely R1 matchup has Pollock, who ballooned into what he is now.
I almost told KK to think about adding a couple of guys last week, for the sake of league parity, but then I remembered Pollock. Nevar again.
Single game playoff tickets are being withheld for the Sept 24th sale to the general public. The team has the right to "dynamically price" single game playoff tickets, but who knows what they will actually list for. They've already set a benchmark by displaying single game ticket prices at the same level as the strips cost per game.