Dick_Pole

Might as well add in Seattle winning all six. Hell, all 5 teams not yet eliminated could end 90-72.

I know the conversations about Ryu versus Matz that took place a couple of weeks ago and the absolute disdain for the Matz supporter(s). But man, I'd feel better with Matz on the mound tomorrow. He's a more known commodity right now. Who knows what the Jays get out of Ryu. Let's hope the rest did him well and if not, he has a very short leash. The Jays can't afford to lose tomorrow's game.

The Jays aren't in a great spot, but not so bad to lose sleep over it. Fangraphs have the Jays at a 28% probability of making the playoffs, BR 40%. I think BR's is about right. Red Sox have a win probability of 63-70% for all of their remaining games. And yet even that leads to only an 8% chance of running the table. Of course the Jays have a lower probability of going 6-0 but I honestly like the Jays chances of doing that better than Boston. Boston kind of sucks on the road. 39-36 with a +6 run differential. 5.8 runs per game at home versus 4.4 on the road. I can see them going 4-2 with the Jays needing to go 5-1. I put less hope into topping the Yankees right now, unless the Jays sweep them. I don't see the Yankees getting embarrassed by the Rays at home.

Nothing wrong with the number of playoff spots. What needs to happen is divisional realignment. Five teams per division is obviously too few. Go back to two divisions of eight per league (premised on expansion to 32 teams). Division winner and three wild cards. The bottom two face each other. Of course, the league would probably do the opposite - 8 divisions of 4 - but hey, the Jays would likely get lumped in with Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago so that should be a cakewalk most years.

Obvious reverse jinx thread is obvious. The 8-10 losses thread had a nice run but lost its lustre.

I get what you mean but we are talking about Walter Johnson, not Pud Galvin here. Johnson's career high IP for a season was 371. We had pitchers hitting that mark as recently as the 1970's. By the time he hit early 30's MLB was exiting the dead ball era and he never threw over 300 IP in a season. You stated that based on trajectory from 50 years ago that you estimated that no one threw above 75 MPH (paraphrasing, too lazy to check your exact comment) during Johnson's time. If pitcher workload didn't change much between the 1920's and 1970's, is it also fair to say that max effort and likely velocity didn't change much? I'm somewhere between your 75 MPH and Jim's 100 MPH. Doubtful he did 100 with regularity but he was almost certainly consistently above 75 along with many other pitchers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=yankees+blew+big+leads+2021&rlz=1C1VDKB_enCA932CA932&oq=yankees+blew+big+leads+2021&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i22i29i30.15870j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://nypost.com/2021/05/16/yankees-blow-big-early-lead-sweep-chance-in-loss-to-orioles/ https://www.northjersey.com/story/sports/mlb/yankees/2021/07/01/ny-yankees-waste-early-outburst-shohei-otani-loss-to-angels/7798551002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2021/09/05/snchez-2-hrs-6-rbis-but-yanks-blow-lead-fall-to-os-8-7/118576930/ https://reflectionsonbaseball.com/yankees-blow-a-7-2-lead-in-the-ninth-and-a-story-that-should-have-been/

I haven't had the pleasure to experience it myself but thank you for the visual.

Let's take away that word athletic in your last sentence and see how well your comment is received. Will some 300 pound Norwegians compete against Kenyans in long distance running? Probably not. But if the sport is power lifting my money's on the white guys. There is no such thing as "dominant athletic race". The comment would have made more sense if you talked about the exclusion of blacks (as well as international players) as a watered-down talent pool only for the fact that the best players were segregated into leagues by race and never played against each other.

Pitching is about maximizing mechanics. The human body has some maximum potential velocity before the arm falls off. IIRC something around 110 MPH. Science and nerd stuff has allowed pitchers to approach that maximum speed of their pitches over the years but the human body hasn't evolved over the last 100 years to significantly boost the potential velocity of the arm. There must be some people on this board who have managed to touch 75 MPH throwing a ball with nothing much more than little league or high school coaching. Certainly some men 100 years ago could have topped that speed with regularity, considering they did this for a living, practiced a lot and received the best possible training/coaching at the time. Humanity today consistently underestimates the achievements and abilities of previous generations. Everything from the pyramids being built by aliens to top athletes being a bunch of bumpkins off the street that Joe Blow could easily beat out in a foot race today. They should have had Lou Ferrigno play Babe Ruth instead of fat John Goodman.

The added benefit of totally cucking out on the Red Sox right now is that they keep within earshot of Tampa, which incentivizes Tampa to take the final Yankees series seriously.

And of course Fenway is the location of one of the most legendary games and one of the first memories I had of baseball that got me into the game. The 10-0 comeback game in 1989.

Interesting. While you always prefer a home game over a road game, assuming that we concede WC1 to Boston and have the Jays fight for WC2, both this year and historically, the Jays have done much better at Fenway than at home versus Boston: http://mcubed.net/mlb/tor/bos.shtml The Jays have a 43% win percentage historically at home against Boston but 46% at Fenway. What's really interesting (and irritating) is despite the 158-186 record in Fenway, the team has a positive run differential all time. 5.0 runs for versus 4.9 runs against. Much better than the home differential of 4.5-5.2. The last 2-3 years when this team has had a similar roster shows much the same. Better record at Fenway, better run differential, more runs per game. I guess it's because this team and the Jays teams that have proceeded it are built for Fenway. Right handed power hitters.

You have the most unusual posts. "I'm actually glad the team that I cheer for is failing for X esoteric reason" ...crowd capacity not to my liking, hoping the manager gets fired etc.

Kevin Kiermaier epitomizes Rays baseball the same way Derek Jeter epitomizes Yankees baseball. And that's why he should be kicked out of the MLB and the Rays franchise contracted.

I feel like those defending the "a lot went wrong stance" forgot about 2017 or 2013 or 2014. Remember when this team was routinely giving sub-replacement level players 2,000 plate appearances a year because of injuries and lack of depth? Those were fun times. The 2021 Jays BP blew a lot of games because they were leading a lot of games this year. Hard to remember a s***** bullpen performance when a game you're down 5-1 after six innings ends with a 10-1 final score.

The Jays have two of the top three pitchers in pitching wins behind Cole and two others tied for fourth place with 12 (or 1.5 if you adjust for the mid-season acquisition). I know people on this board hate pitcher wins and they don't predict anything. But what they do tell us is that the Jays have been a beacon of health, luck and consistency in their starting rotation. Reminds me a lot of the 2016 season. Three of the top four position players have played essentially every day with Hernandez missing a couple of weeks. Now compare that to the Yankees and get back to me regarding injury luck this year.

As someone who has had enough mishaps throwing a ball and has seen it happen enough times, you can completely tell he was aiming exactly where he threw it.

What in the hell are you talking about? The massive uphill battle rests with the Yankees and A's. Maybe read my message again. IF one of these teams were to tie the Jays for WC2, that would at least mean the Jays get game #163 at home. That's the minimum bar to think about right now if the team goes that reasonable 8-5.

Not sure where you think I went wrong? Tie breaker games apply to divisions but not wild card seeds.

To get to the 92-70 mark: Jays 8-5 Red Sox 6-5 Yankees 9-3 A's 10-3 Mariners 12-1 This is an easy path for Boston. It's pretty much a guarantee for them unless they s*** the bed and lose the next 5 games. The problem is they hold the tie breaker over the Jays so even if the teams tie for the two WC spots, it won't make a difference. On the bright side the teams below these two have a massive uphill battle and the Jays hold both the tie breaker against the Yankees and A's. So if the Jays can just get to their 8-5, it should be highly likely they at least get a game #163 at home. If the Jays sweep the Rays, I'm cheering for the A's over Houston because #1 in the division and in the league is still within reach. Any other outcome and the division is likely out of reach and I'd just want the A's gone.

The Yankees are in a good news/bad news proposition. The good news is they are in control of their own destiny more than any other team in the AL. The bad news is that this destiny involves actually beating good teams. As for the comments about the A's being a bigger threat, until they have a greater expected chance at the playoffs, they are not.

I'm not too worried about this. Let him start one more game against Baltimore. Blessing in disguise after that disgusting game.

I know the analysis is intentionally simplified but to imply that this team without Springer is a .500 team is just flat out wrong. Springer's time on the DL coincided with the height of the bullpen's incompetence. They could at least use run differential or runs per game since he has had minimal impact on the defensive side of the game this year.

Or maybe it's because they faced a bad team that they were expected to beat 65-70% of the time.