John_Havok

Bang!

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/154097810/dodgers-chase-utley-suspended-for-slide Suspended for games 3 and 4. Felt he violated Official Baseball Rule 5.09 (a)(13)

No. All three slides were different. Just because they were all trying to break up a double play doesn't mean each slide was the same. Utley was reckelss. Donaldson was borderline in a big way. Beltre slid straight into the base after the fielder had already moved and just made a poor fundamental slide resulting in an injury.

He didn't even slide until he was at the base. That's past the point of hustle and into the realm of reckless.

Just watched the video. That's a bush league slide and there should be no place for that in baseball. Even Donaldson's slide in game 1 was pushing if as far as lateness goes, but this was stupid late, off line, cross body slide to a defender who was off balance with his back turned. Garbage.

I see what you're saying, but you can't adjust to swinging at pitches that are off the plate. That's just asking for weak contact. Gibbons should have got himself thrown out after the first few innings and lost his mind at the ump to try and get that edge back.

What's the Rangers players post season records? They're not exactly stocked full of grizzled world series veterans either.

What is not conclusive, is the shadow of the foot that obscures the view of the corner of the base. You cannot tell if the bottom of the shoe is still touching the very corner of the base because of that shadow, and a 2 dimensional view that offers no depth. Anyone who thinks this foot is definitively off of the bag without the benefit of a 3 dimensinal frame by frame is a whiny homer. But it would have been interesting to see if the call on the field was out instead of safe and see how that appeal went.

Playoffs bring out the worst in fans.

When I said it's not the resosn, I mean it's not the sole single reason they lost. It contributed as one of many.

Wasn't really as bad as GameDay made it out to be, but brooks baseball showed the calls favoured the Rangers, especially the inside to RHB. It wasn't the reason on they lost, but it was certainly a factor. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/zoneTrack.php?&game=gid_2015_10_09_texmlb_tormlb_1/&innings=yyyyyyyyy&month=10&day=09&year=2015

I've already caught some minor grammar issues and corrected them but may have missed some.

Yesterday, we gave our hypothetical ballots for the NL Cy Young award. Today we shift to the American League. John Havok - Chris Sale. I can hear your heads exploding. Keuchel will get a lot of support from the camp who values 20 wins, a very low ERA and being on a team going to the playoffs. His ground ball numbers and weak contact rate are league leaders. David Price is in that same camp about wins and playoffs with his 18-5 record leading the AL East champs, strikes out more hitters than Keuchel. That's not to say that they also don't have great reasons to vote for them other than that, because they do, but that's the argument you'll hear from all the talking heads on TV. Chris Sale probably wont even be an afterthought for many, but realistically a very compelling case can be made for him. Sale had the highest K rate, tied for second lowest walk rate and just happened to play on a garbage team to weigh his W/L record down which will eliminate him from a lot of dinosaur ballots, but that's just not right. Chris Sale struck out almost 3 batters more per 9 innings than Price, and his walk rate was better too. He was the most dominant pitcher in the American League and he gets my top vote, followed by Price and Keuchel. Spencer Estey - Chris Sale I explained my thoughts on this race here: http://www.breakingblue.ca/2015/09/2...cy-young-race/ . I believe that Chris Sale is the league's best pitcher. Nikolai Ballevski - David Price Price edged Keuchel in fWAR, K rate, ERA, and FIP. Kuechel had 2 more wins than price, a better xFIP, and 12 more innings. Both teams made the playoffs. This is a dead heat. Chris Sale had the best FIP, xFIP, and K rate in the AL. He was probably the league's best full season SP in terms of talent alone. This is a three way dead heat! I think Price's ERA crown will be significant to voters, as will the fact that he switched teams mid-season and lead a division champion team's rotation into the playoffs. I don't think Keuchel deserves any significant credit for the IP and W gap, considering part of that comes from the luxury Toronto had to skip Price's final start of the season. Unlike Spencer, I think there is some room in the Cy Young discussion for ERA and Price's gap on Sale is much larger than Arrieta or Greinke's gap on Kershaw. I think the voters will pick Price, so I'm picking Price. Andre Godin - Chris Sale These days we have so many advanced performance metrics that it seems ridiculous to use a voting process to determine the best performances so I feel like the awards really have no choice but to consider good narrative lest they become completely obsolete by merely repeating what we already know. For this reason, I was tempted to go Keuchel for his breakout season but upon further inspection that breakout is a bit of a false narrative (he was really good last year too!). Chris Sale's season on the other hand is pretty historically significant for one that's somewhat under the radar. Chris Sale's 11.8 K9 (6.52 K/BB) season would be elite coming from a reliever but Sale just did it from the rotation. That's enough to just crack the top 10 starters K/9s of all time and puts him in a leaderboard that's 60% populated by Randy Johnson's peek season. Elite company to say the least.

ty sir The first 2 are ready for a quick read/check. No, none of us have award ballots and never will, but we all have an opinion and that's what the internet is for! Over the next week we'll deliver each of our writers' picks for the top MLB awards; MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year for both the American League and National League. First, the NL Cy Young. John Havok - Clayton Kershaw Max Scherzer undoubtedly gained a few votes with his second no hitter of the season in his last start, and but his overall season just doesn't stack up to Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta and Zack Greinke as the top names for me. Looking at WAR (its not perfect, I get it. But when there's 3 guys head and shoulders above other candidates, it's pretty telling). FIP-based WAR would crown Kershaw the champ, RA9 WAR would give it to Greinke, and a 50/50 blend of the two sees Arrieta on top with Kershaw right behind. I don't think there's really a wrong choice here and each guy could have a case built for them, depending on how much weight you give to ERA, sequencing and batted ball "luck", but my vote goes to Kershaw. Purely and simply, he's a beast and the best pitcher in the game right now that every team in baseball would take if there was a dispersal draft tomorrow if cost wasn't an issue. 300 Ks don't grow on trees. Spencer Estey - Clayton Kershaw I believe that Kershaw is clearly the National League's best pitcher. He had an absolutely monstrous season. Arrieta and Greinke really only have ERA arguments over Kershaw, and I don't put a lot of stock in those arguments when it comes to determining the best pitcher. Nikolai Ballevski - Clayton Kershaw Kershaw was easily the best pitcher in the NL this year. He had a FIP under 2.00 and he K'd over 300 batters! It's a crying shame that win totals and a couple of slightly fluky ERA seasons from two other very good pitchers could actually have him 3rd in Cy Young voting behind Arrieta and Greinke. Andre Godin - Clayton Kershaw Improbably, Clayton may have set the bar even higher for himself in 2015 over his 2014 season. Kershaw put up the kind of numbers that you just don't expect pitchers not named Randy Johnson to put up.

Oh yeah, one more thing, what are KingKats and NJH's writing names... it's been so long they've slipped my old brain. I know North is SPencer... NJH is ... Nikolai?

I'll put the first one up tomorrow since it's the first day of the playoffs for the Jays and follow with another one each day. If anyone else wants to get in before it goes up or chime in on a an award or two after the first few go up, no problem just post it here and I'll get it done.

Anyone else for the awards? Would like more than 2 of us.

My AL pick is Sale, but I'm a weirdo.

K, with the regular season wrapped up, lets get something out for our award predictors. AL and NL MVP, Cy, and ROY - we'll put each award together and release as separate articles for each league.. so just do up a paragraph or two on each award and why you picked who you picked and we'll compile and get sent out. SAmple: "NL Cy Young - Max Scherzer undoubtedly gained a few votes with his second no hitter of the season in his last start, and he joins 3 other names in Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta and Zack Greinke as the top 4 names in my consideration. FIP-based WAR would crown Kershaw the champ, RA9 WAR would give it to Greinke, some blend of the two sees Arrieta on top and Scherzer right there also. I don't think there's really a wrong choice here and each guy could have a case built for them, but my vote goes to Kershaw. Purely and simply, he's a beast and the best pitcher in the game right now that every team in baseball would take if there was a dispersal draft tomorrow. My ballot goes Kershaw, Arrieta, Greinke then Scherzer. "

For me it's Zaun and it's not close

Who says he's not in the running in the terms of hype for the Cy? Most articles I read these has it between Kershaw, Greinke and Arrieta

Some decent nostalgia in that video. California Angels, Fenway without the monster seats, Buck Martinez 25 years younger with a stache... lol

4pm and 7:30 pm eastern time are the scheduled start times

Getting to the point where I think the award picks article could get underway. Once the Jays clinch the east we can do a playoff preview, etc

We should put out something about award predicting soon, as nauseating and predicatable as that might be. Each of us can write a small blurb about the big awards in each league, MVP, CY and ROY.