John_Havok

Really hope Houston wins so all the wankers who bitch and moan about cheating from 5 years ago cry for a month.

Sort of. There was a zone that had baby seals in it and PETA staged an in game fight to prevent those seals from being killed in order to protest real world seal hunting

What’s arbitrary about it? That would imply there’s no data to support why they remove the starters earlier than they used to, which is not the case. It’s never arbitrary

Dunno. Any of the basic scouting reports from 2016 IFA sheets says pretty much the same thing.. he was a MIF who is transitioning to catcher, has a great arm and athletic build. They never really went into why he was moving positions.

I don't see the need really. How would losing the DH after the SP is pulled incentivize finding starters than can go longer? There's already clear evidence that virtually EVERY pitcher gets worse the more times through the order they go. I'd be willing to bet decent amounts of money that even the best aces in baseball have a statistically significant dropoff in results the 3rd time through the order. Pitchers won't just suddenly be able to go deeper in games because the DH spot goes missing when they're pulled. Look at the NL who doesn't even have a DH, SP get yanked all the time in prime scoring opportunities mid-game for a pinch hitter because scoring at that time is more important that the pitcher coming back out for the 6th inning to get 3 more outs that he might labour through.

Didn't realize there was a problem. If only there was some way to prove that the longer you leave a pitcher in the game, the worse his results get. It's unfortunate this kind of information isn't readily available to the masses because if it was it may lead to a better understanding of the game.

f*** I love Donaldson…

Fan bases all over the world have chants or actions that others view as dumb but the home fans love. That's what makes sports teams home stadiums, rinks, etc unique and memorable.

Some professional hockey writer guy says they should trade Marner for Matthew Tkachuk + stuff. Genius level writing

They don't have a home rink yet, so their schedule is a bit of a clusterf***.

"He may have been moved from the INF to C due to strong arm and build, before his bat exploded." Or he was moved because he couldn't catch a grounder and his range was ass. Hard to say really but even when he was signed at 16 he was already being converted to catcher.

Start calling it the "PETA Sucks Pen"

Where does the term bullpen in baseball come from? Latecomers to ball games in the late 19th century were cordoned off into standing-room areas in foul territory. Because the fans were herded like cattle, this area became known as the "bullpen", a designation which was later transferred over to the relief pitchers who warmed up there. And now you know.

But just to add to the casual fan head explosion experience when they do both leave… Semien and Ray just won a couple of Players Choice awards, Semien won the Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award given to a player who inspires others to higher levels of achievement (beating Andrew Miller and Max Scherzer) and Ray won the AL Outstanding Pitcher over Lance Lynn and Gerrit Cole.

Interesting. Bob Melvin is going to the Padres to be their manager, even though Oakland had picked up his 2022 team option. Padres then signed him to a 3 year deal, and no compensation going back to the Athletics. Weird that Oakland would allow the Padres to interview, and then hire him in a lateral move and not get compensation when he’s under contract isn’t it?

91 was the real season results. Run differential and many other systems would show the Jays should have won 99ish games. Improper pen usage, some bad bounces, inexperienced kids in tight games …whatever narratives people want to spin to explain the 91 wins vs the 99…. One could say losing Semien (6.6 fWar) and Ray (4 fWar) would drop the Jays to being around 88 wins assuming all other contributions remain similar. So you don’t need to add 13-14 wins to get to 91, not even sure where you got the idea those guys were responsible for 14 wins. There’s tons of room to recreate those guys in the aggregate. Couple of solid pen arms, Montoyo not being a brain dead idiot, Jansen hitting like he can see the ball again rather than waving at butterflies, Ryu remembering the goal of his job is to miss bats, Manoah starting a full season, Pearson doing something for more than 10 games….add a decent starter, grab a decent bat, some defensive depth and the Jays would be in the 95ish win projections and could easily surpass 100 wins. Losing Semien and Ray is not some deathblow to the team that puts them in the mid 70s win expectations. Give your head a shake.

Agree with everything here, and right now the catching situation is the Jays position of depth. I can easily see them dangling Kirk or Jansen as trade bait, running with the other guy as the main with (insert random backup here) until Moreno is ready. It's probably not at the point where they need to do something imminently, but if Moreno keeps going the way he is going... unless a position change happens with him, one of them will have to go.

This is gonna be a good meme for a while.

Cromulent? Damn. Did you get a “word of the day” case of tall boys recently?

Very different scenarios there, Bautista was a free agent coming off a monster year out of relative obscurity. What interesting to me about the whole Bautista thing... when pittsburgh put him on waivers and the Jays got the claim, the deal almost fell apart because the Pirates wanted Brian Jeroloman, and the Jays said no. Luckily the Jays had Robinson Diaz as a backup offer the Pirates took.

Nice to see. Game was a real pitcher's duel too, ending up 16-15.

It's beyond disgusting how he got those guys to sign for such amazingly team friendly deals. The best part for the Braves is that as time goes on, the deals get even better due to salary inflations. Can't even really apply the "if he get's injured" caveat, that's how gross these deals are for the players and how amazing they are for the team.

The CBA negotiations will be far more impacting than this sideshow.

I know... it's so hard not to let loose on such low hanging fruit.

Sad that it always gets to that point before they can agree on things isn't it?