jaysblue

Best Buy sells Christmas trees? Haha.

Leafs suck.

I'm starting to see Rachel ads for women's pantyhose and tights now. This site is crazy.

I think Atkins does make a big move or two this offseason. Lineup will be the priority. I could see the Jays being aggressive in any Juan Soto discussions. They will also sign a bat with some pop like Teo, Pederson, Soler or Hoskins.

Yeah would be a great PR move signing him, but from a baseball perspective Jays should probably aim higher especially early in the offseason. From looking at his last two years, tough giving him 300-400 ABs on a team planning to contend for a World Series, so I take that back from what I said earlier. Still wouldn't mind him as a bench bat if the Jays needed to fill up a bench spot later in the offseason and if he came cheap.

Bet the Bruins that game and definitely was happy with the results. Leafs are going to be a frustrating team again this season. Lucky if they make it to R2 again.

Yeah I might not renew my MLB TV subscription next season. Postseason should be included FFS.

Yeah that's the issue - he seems like an a-hole.

Yeah obviously if Belt would cost the same as Votto. It's possible Votto has some magic left in the bat and would be a nice feel good story if he was able to win a World Series in his hometown. From a business perspective, he would be a really nice fit with the Jays as a part-time 1B/DH/lefty bat. Jays definitely could market him and would sell a lot of jerseys. I still think he ends back with the Reds or he retires.

How would Tim Anderson look at 2B? Would kind of remind me as when the Jays signed Semien to a one-year deal for the 2021 season. Has a chance to be a bounce back candidate.

Does Votto retire now? I don't think he's a starter anymore. Reds would be smart to bring him back as a part-time 1B/DH who gets around 300 or so ABs. Would love the Blue Jays to sign Votto to kind of fill the same role as Brandon Belt did in 2023. Would be awesome if he won a World Series in Toronto.

So all the games tonight are part of this in-season tournament?

Blue Jays should sign reliever Will Smith. He became the 1st player in MLB history to win 3 straight World Series rings with 3 different teams. Let's make it a 4th in 2024 haha.

Todd is back haha

Yeah exactly. As well, most of the WC teams are different teams from the beginning of the season depending on if they've added at the trade deadline. Blue Jays during the JPR years had no chance of contending for the Postseason. If there was an expanded WC format, who knows if one of those Jays teams like in 2003 or 2006 make a push at the trade deadline to upgrade their roster, get into the Postseason and go on a run.

Last year in the NHL and NBA Playoffs, we saw two teams make it all the way to the Finals in each league respectively that probably shouldn't have gone that far. Both the Florida Panthers and Miami Heat were like the 7th/8th place team in their conferences. Both teams lost to the superior teams in the Finals (Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Denver Nuggets). You are starting to see more parity across all sports since more teams do make the Playoffs and you are seeing lower playoff seeded teams going on runs for a couple of rounds knocking out the top seeded teams. Owners and the Leagues want more teams to make the Playoffs because that means more money. It happens in any sport, whether it's hockey, basketball and even soccer like at a World Cup. Only sport where you don't see that too often is in the NFL Playoffs. Since 2000 in baseball, World Series winners who were the WC teams were the Anaheim Angels (2002), Florida Marlins (2003), Boston Red Sox (2004), St. Louis Cardinals (2011), San Francisco Giants (2014), Washington Nationals (2019) and the Texas Rangers (2023). 7 in 23 years. Those earlier WC teams were the 4th best teams in their leagues, so definitely a lot closer to the elite division winners. Even when the one game WC was announced in 2012, only the Giants and Nats were the two teams to go all the way. The difference now in baseball is that more teams are allowed in, so you will have weaker borderline WC teams sometimes in the World Series. You likely will have a team like the D'Backs every so often go on a run, knock out a couple top teams and make it to the World Series. Same happens in the NHL and NBA with 8 teams making it. That's what happens when you allow more teams in to compete in the Postseason.

The game definitely did ruin a bunch of parlay's and most money in Vegas was probably put down on the Bucks last night. I'm sure some of it was fixed. I did bet the under 224.5 and also bet the Bucks point spread by 4 since I thought it was good value. After the Bucks were down like 10 or 15 in the first, bet a small amount on them Money Line because basketball games could swing quickly. They were coming within striking distance, but were never able to fully stop the Raptors. Overall, didn't lose a whole bunch of money but happy the Raptors won to end their 3 game losing streak. Playing in Philly tonight will be tough though.

Raps killing the Bucks so far. I hate betting against or for Toronto teams FFS!

Arizona definitely catching a break.

Some NFL games could be really boring and low scoring. Games could be decided by flags and yeah a lot of commercials. I find some people love just watching the NFL because it's an excuse to gamble, enter pools etc. Sometimes CFL games could be more entertaining than NFL games. Basketball games are fast paced and a lot is always happening. Games go by really quickly, like in almost 2 hours. Glad that MLB made changes to speed up the games. So far they have been really effective IMO.

Good chance the Raps start the season 1-5 since they play the Bucks on Wednesday and then the 76ers in Philly on Thursday.

Barnes should continue to improve and it's looking like he could average more than 20 PPG this season which would be nice. If he eventually becomes a 25 PPG/10 REB/7-8 APG guy with that solid D, that would be awesome. Siakam has been terrible. As well OG and Trent haven't been anything special in the early going. Hope they start giving more minutes to Dick. Love his shot and we saw him drop 16 points in 28 minutes against Philly on Saturday. If you decide to go to some games this season, just purchase tickets an hour or two before tip-off. Did that last night and managed to get seats in Sec 323, Row 1 for $30 each (including taxes and fees).

Yeah Philly is a big market and likely gains more national interest especially from places on the East coast. Plus like you said, the ability to market players like Bryce Harper in the World Series would have been big. A lot of stuff in sports is happening now as well. NFL is in full swing, college football on Saturday's, and both the NHL and NBA started up. Plus it was Halloween weekend where a lot of adults all went out to costume parties or bars on both Friday and Saturday night haha. As well like mentioned in this thread, places like Texas and Arizona are states that are more into high school and college football and the NFL than baseball.

There aren't really many players like Soto available via free agency. Other than Ohtani and Bellinger. Probably 27 or 28 teams are already out of the bidding for Ohtani anyways, which leaves Bellinger as the only elite bat available but even he comes with some question marks. You either can pay huge dollars and years to Belly or could sign guys to 1-2 year deals like Teo, LGJ, Pederson, Pham, Brantley etc. Padres still should get a strong package for one year of Soto. If they wait until the trade deadline, likely not.

Yeah this FO really needs to take advantage of their windows in 2024 and 2025 when you have guys like Bo still under contract and have guys in the rotation like Gausman in top form. I've been saying this for the longest time. They need to find another elite player and can't go into 2024 relying on Vlad to be that guy. Hopefully Atkins does make some noise this offseason. Soto would be a perfect fit for this lineup and team overall.