Dick_Pole

The less games that are played in 2020, the greater the chance that the Jays luck themselves into the playoffs. It's not such a bad situation. All Toronto teams win if the NBA and NHL regular seasons are cut and head directly into the playoffs.

This is what happens when there is no baseball and stat nerds have to find something to bicker about.

Difference between Spanish Flu and Coronavirus: About 100 years of medical technology and no WW1.

Someone already thought of it...in friggin 2001 lol. did Netflix even exist back then? https://www.whois.com/whois/nutflix.com

The NHL needs to cancel the rest of the regular season. Leafs hanging on by a thread to a playoff spot and now all four Canadian teams in the west own a playoff spot. Let's start this again in a month from now.

There may be a silver lining to this. The standings line up absolutely perfectly for the Raptors imo. Facing the Nets as the #2 seed with Boston and Philly being in the Raptors' bracket. I like that matchup because I think the 76ers can knock off the Celtics in a hard fought series and the Raptors match up well against them. Don't need another 18 games to potentially screw up that perfect order. I can envision that they cancel the rest of the regular season and start the playoffs in six weeks or so when this all dies down.

Please put a mic on Kevin Pillar.

Here's an idea to bring up some discussion assuming the worst for Sale. If you were the Jays would you offer to take Sale's contract off Boston's hands? Full contract, only scrub players switching teams. Assuming the first 1.5 years are a wash, you're essentially paying 3.5/$145M for a post-surgery 32 yo pitcher. Except that money is spread out where 2020 is kinda sort of a wash and salary can be absorbed anyways and he should be ready for a 2021 playoff run. Then you have him anchoring the rotation in 2022 for the relative bargain price of $30 million when salary constraints might get a little more tight. If there was a team that would be able to do this, it would be the Jays given the contention window and ability to absorb near-term salary.

Yeah, I was going to add a mental health aspect to my post, but I felt that was a bit tasteless even for me.

I do not commend Giles for returning his ring. What a stupid move that changes nothing. Except now he doesn't have something that he will likely never win again.

Also important that Boston lost a game they shouldn't have lost so that makes up for the Hornets loss.

Yellow weasel.

That is super lame. Some Canadian politician from a hundred years ago or whatever happens to have the same last name, a reasonably common one, and now this guy has to be called this dumb thing? That's not even a compliment. Airports are these big stupid facilities that just sit there and suck and everyone in an airport wants to be away from an airport as fast as possible. Might as well send the guy back 25 years to 1995 WWE and have him tag team with Duke The Dumpster Droese. Or here's an original idea. How about not having a nickname and calling him by his normal first and last name?

I'd like to see that honestly. Just...maybe not on the Jays if they are in contention. Hell, if Vince Carter can continue to find a job in the NBA, why shouldn't Bautista give it a go?

Jim I know that you're on the deserved receiving end of scorn a lot so this is new (and apparently fun) territory for you. But not everyone gets the same level of enjoyment. For instance, I much prefer being the contrarian. The Houston Astros and gruber92 will be baseball's heroes in 2020.

LOL the only stat I see there that is relevant is the 1,680 plate appearances. IIRC Gruber never said he was going to be a star. He said he was going to stick. And he did. How he did it is not relevant. Anyone could have seen the Jays paper thin MIF situation and surmise that Goins had a chance to stick around and suck. This forum has a moving goal post against Gruber because he's an angry lunatic most of the time and people just don't like him. But in this instance he looks correct to me. Bringing up a 4 year old grudge over a scrub player is just so lame. Can you people not just admit he's right and move on? It's not like lightning is going to hit you tonight for doing so.

They can care if they don't mind being hypocrites. That's the entire Twitter outrage mob. s*** all over someone who got caught doing something bad so they can feel better about their own immoral life. Insider traders are some of the most successful in the world. I'm talking about the Goldman Sachs types who never get caught or face any penalties. They are the MLB stars of the world. The retail schmucks like us are the ones who are the test cheaters who end up going to jail if they are caught. Some dude went to prison for 2 years because he faked an SEC filing on Fitbit in order to pump the price and make a grand total of $3,000 on his call options, lol. Meanwhile the brokers can push a stock like Phunware from $10 to $500 in weeks and back down under $1.00 with absolutely no penalty. As far as your final paragraph, this goes right back to my statement about the MLB leadership being weak. It took a whistleblower before they could no longer ignore the issue. So who is really to blame here?

It does to me. You can't force someone else to have a strong opinion about this so-called cheating. Maybe if I had bet against them in the course of 2017. LOL @ Bolsinger and double LOL @ the bookies trying to sue. Are they going to sue for losses but try to keep the winnings from people who bet against the Astros? The MLB has absolutely no moral authority over this. They turned their back on the steroids issue because it was convenient for dingers and putting asses in seats, now retroactively punish players including the BBWAA arbitrarily blacklisting some of the best players from the HOF. The Astros clanged on pots and pans like coordinated 2 year olds for months and nobody from the MLB noticed (or more likely, nobody cared) and three years later the issue is coming out and everyone pretends to be up in arms. Where were the Mariners or Rangers or A's or Angels in all this? They played in Houston 9-10 times that year and not one of the dozens of employees at the game were smart enough to notice this pattern? To me that's their own stupid-ass fault. The MLB is weak and anyone willing to bend the rules to their absolute limit in an attempt to maximize their success and payout is smart to me. I hope things like this continue coming out until the MLB gets its house in order. We know more of this type of stuff is happening.

This whole Astros thing feels like a Twitter outrage mob finally coming to real life Ushers had to be there to block the 5,000 senior citizens watching pre-season baseball in Florida from gathering around the Astros dugout and booing them? LOL hilarious. If I happen to be at a game when the Astros are playing, I will sit there quietly in a counter-protest to the protest. They cheated to win through sign stealing, something that is perfectly fine in baseball when you don't use too much technology and not at all like the Black Sox situation. I hope everyone booing them never cheated on a test in high school. Something about stones and glass houses.

If he was good, he wouldn't need to resort to a minor league deal.

I feel like the Leafs are karma payback for me making fun of the 76ers so much. They are basically the same type of clownish underachieving teams. Anyways, I'll be cheering hardest for Edmonton or Calgary this year. Those people out west deserve something good after the repeated kick to the balls this country gives them.

I really don't see what the issue is. You can still have the umpire back there for aesthetic and calls at home plate. I mean, other unionized labour has accepted technology to make their jobs EASIER. A commercial airline pilot in 2020 is not the same job as 1970 but you still need someone there in the cockpit to run everything. Imagine a manager arguing balls and strikes. The ump can give him his handheld device and tell him to yell at it. It's a win-win for everyone all around.

Also, they should say the only *legal* streaming option is Sportsnet NOW lol.

If Rogers pulling these scams helps incentivize them to put money into the team, it's worth it I guess. All this does is ensure MLB.TV growth in Canada takes a nosedive. If you care more about the strength of the Jays as a team than the overall health of the MLB, this is fine.