Olerud363

The AL Central was never a separate league. Obviously every year the leagues get closer and closer to being one, and next year interleague is going to expand so in 2023, with universal DH and every team playing every team it is probably really just one league now. But for anyone who cares.... 1. Before 1997 no National Team had every played an American league team. It was completely separate, separate rules, separate Umps, separate ways of doing attendance. I believe separate rules for curfews and stopping games. I want to say American league had a 1 AM curfew, but National didn't, which is why 4th of July in the early 80s there was a bonkers Mets/Braves game that went to 5 AM. If other old timers remember some of the differences between AL and NL I'd be interested to hear them. 2. Announcers and media historically mentioned the records of each league. We knew who Hack Wilson was. There was (and still is) separate batting, rbi and homerun titles. When Cecil Fielder hit 50 in 90, they mentioned he was the first to do it in the AL since Maris in 61. 3. After 1997 interleague came but at first it was minimal. Just play teams in the corresponding geographic division once a year, and maybe a 'natural' rival twice. It's expanded now to play different teams every year, and next to play every team, which will really end the idea of separate leagues. OK. That's it. There used to be separate leagues, and it was important to people. Now there's not. Or at the very least it's very diluted.

If people are seriously thinking that forfeiting games it might be time to tweak roster limits. Previously I was actually for lowering the number of pitchers in hopes that you'd get guys throwing 230 innings again, but have to pace themselves. Looks like teams would rather pitch position players, and keep starters at around the 180 level. So maybe it's time to up the 40 man roster to 44, or the active roster to 27, lower the minimum days stay in the minors by a couple of days. Maybe you have something like in the NBA where there is a 10 day contract and you don't have to put the guy on the 40 man. Maybe there is a shared pool of emergency players that teams can call on, but don't have ownership over. I don't know. Need to deal with it with something other than forfeits.

Jesus. I'm not being dramatic here. Forfeiting would alienate fans and is immoral. Why should teams care that I want to see a first round draft pick play? If you are a fan of a team that didn't make the playoffs, that is the joy of the season. Watching young players develop and older guys hit milestones. There is so much wrong about forfeiting I don't know where to begin. People plan around these games, people travel, people work at them, companies go as team building exercises. TV Contracts. You can't forfeit major league sports. It's a business and you need multiple teams to make it work. You can't just think about the needs of the playoff team having a good year.

I went to the last game of the season between 2 eliminated teams in 1998 and Watched Roy Halladay throw 8 and 2/3 no hitter and saw Shaun Green hit a homerun. Could you imagine if they'd been playing a Yankees team headed for the playoffs and the Yankees decided to forfeit. Are a few people brain dead here? What if the last game of 2019 got forfeited and you had tickets to see Vlad as a rookie? Someone is f***ing damn excited to see Rutchman and Stowers and Henderson, and you want to take away from them? f***. I'm excited to see Moreno and Lopez, and probably Vlad take a shot at 100 RBIs, and see if Kikuchi has maybe found something. Check out Mitch White again. How can people not be excited about a day of baseball and being able to see some young players on both sides? So what if position players pitch now. Some f***ing position player was throwing 85 last night with half decent control, and actually won the game. Maybe the 1st position player to win a game in a long time? I guess the next phase is these position players, since they are pitching more and more become quadruple a version of Ohtani. Like I heard Clemen's kid pitched 7 times. He's only hitting .150 so maybe he doesn't make it, but the next phase are bench players who can hit .200, with 10 homers and 10 pitching appearances. Not forfeits ever!

Last year Seattle really was bad. 92 OPS+, 105 OPS+ this year. -50 run differential last year, +60 this year.

You are detached from reality, or trolling me, and I stupidly take the bait. I never called Seattle an elite behemoth, I just said they aren't a historically bad wild card team. What I said 2 weeks ago was... "You are acting like Seattle is a historically bad playoff team, and going on and on about it, passive aggressively mentioning it in unrelated threads. They are not. They are pretty much what you'd expect from a wild card team that improved at the deadline." Every time something even a little bit negative happens to Seattle you are here, going on and on about it.

A player like Haggerty can make a big difference in a key game, if a spot comes up uniquely suited to his skillset, however his skill set isn't that unique. Jays have multiple guys that can do what he does. So Haggerty is gone, he'll be replaced by someone. Presumably someone fast and scrappy, though that person may not switch hit. Are we saying the difference between the guy Haggerty is going to be replaced by (Dyllan Moore maybe?) , and Haggerty is that significant?

Long term they may need to change roster rules a bit so teams can carry a shitballer. 28 is too low for September. 40 may have been extreme but why not 32? And maybe an extra roster spot or 2 long term during the rest of the season. Starters are all pitching 50 innings less than 15 years ago so need to adjust.

Timmy - Did the Orioles make the playoffs Daddy? Daddy - No Timmy, the Orioles did not pull off the miracle. However they have several young fun players, and I got a day off from the West Virginia coal mine I work at, and TImmy, we are going to go see Rutchman, and Henderson and Mullins, and cheer and have some candy corn. It is the only time I will see you since your Mom divorced me, but we will go to a cold September game and make memories seeing our young Orioles. TImmy - I love you Daddy. I am so excited. Mom says you are a dead beat, and Richard is my Dad now, but I told Richard we are going to the ballgame, and I love you, not him. Special announcement! the Toronto Blue Jays have forfeited the game to prepare for their playoffs, please do not come to Camden Yards!

I think we had this discussion a few weeks ago, not sure if it was with you or someone else. However you can't forfeit games. Fans pay, players are going for milestones and goals, every team is developing their players. I can see cancelling one of these games, given it's the last day of the season, but forfeiting one? If it comes to that they need to expand rosters a bit more intead. Would love to see Otto Lopen, Moreno the next couple days. You may need ABs for Espinal/Gurriel. Would love to see Vlad even pinch hit if they get runners on and try to get 100 rbis. Hell would love to see Vinnie Capra, or what about Barger? Pearson? Give Kikuchi 7 innings to work on his crap for next year. Same with Mitch White. There are plenty of things to do with baseball 'garbage time' and it should never come to forfeit, need to revamp roster rules if people are even close to thinnking forfeits are a good idea.

Interestingly Wade Boggs had an outlier season in 1987 hitting 24 homers instead of his usual 5. Steroids? The ball? Randomness? Shortly after Bill James simulated thousands of baseball seasons on a computer. This kind of thing was new at the time. Of course James could have just used conventional statistics to quantify how much of an outlier Bogg's 24 homers were, but anyway simulating seasons was fun, and in thousands of seasons, even though the simulated Boggs could hit anywhere from .260 to .400, he never came close to 24 homers.

OK. I see. You are talking about somebody else. I got confused because you were responding to the comment about Piazza, which was also confusing because Piazza was never a 50 homer guy. He had power from the beginning and his numbers fit the normal aging curve perfectly, peak at 27, decline in mid 30s.

Do you have Mike Piazza confused with somebody else? Piazza was like a 50th round 2000th overall draft pick who worked out. He hit great as a Rookie in 1993, like .320 with 35 homers, and the rest of his career made perfect sense, peaking at age 27, then slowly declining. His age 36-38 seasons were pretty unremarkable, maybe even disappointing for a player who was so great from age 24-33. Now could he have been a roider from the beginning? Like maybe picked 5000th overall and had to roid to keep up the whole time? I don't know. No way he was a late career roider only though.

His skillset is easily replaceable. I don't know the Mariners well enough to tell you who else can do his job. However on the Jays you have Merrifield, Espinal, Moreno, even Vinnie Capra who could pinch hit for lefties and pinch run. You have multiple guys (Bradley, Zimmer) who can sub for outfield defense. Aside from that, there is no magic in the playoffs that makes scrappy role players super-important. Mariners route to winning a playoff series is for their on base guys and power guys to get on base and hit for power. Did you watch the Atlanta/Mets series? The NY Mets have 2 great starting pitchers and a great shut down reliever. Did some scrappy contact guy win the series for Atlanta? No, they hit for power early in the games.

It will probably impact them very little because they are deep offensively if you use wRC+ instead of batting average. Despite the narrative that the Ms suck offensively, everyone on the team except Adam Frazier has an wRC+ 100 or greater. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=50&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=11&rost=&age=&filter=&players=&startdate=&enddate= OK Technically Carlos Santana is at 99 despite the fact he is hitting .195 or something. Still has an above average on base percentage and power. Equivalent to the Jays losing Espinal. I haven't watched enough Mariner games to get a feel for how they set their lineup. I guess if Winkler, Frazier, and Crawford are at the bottom together not having Haggerty to pinch hit could hurt a bit, but last time we played them those guys were spread out with Crawford near the top.

I know nobody follows Stoeten anymore since he doesn't have a blog with a cool name that is free (supposedly you can pay to hear his insight) but what the hell is wrong with the guy? So yesterday he tweets out that "Adley Rutchman having as good a year at the plate as three Blue Jays who are younger than him is truly miraculous." What a moron. One of the reasons Baltimore is in a PHENOMAL position is because of control. I know 85% of the posters here know what service time is. And Payroll. How could a guy who apparently gets paid for this s*** not understand it? Rutchmann is a likely a 5 WAR player or better going forward. It is like having Vlad, of Bo signed to a 6 year 25 million dollar contract (total not AAV) to age 30, with ability to release them in case of injury. HOW THE f*** CAN A GUY WHO HAS BLOGGED ABOUT BASEBALL FOR 15 YEARS NOT KNOW THIS? What a f***ing evil bastard. The guy plays the 'I'm the lefty, I vote for the NDP, I'm the cool guy. Look at my cool guy vibes' vibe to earn a living off of baseball, while he is really a mean spirited moron, and 1 million other better bloggers, including posters here, who aren't bloggers but post far better material on a daily basis, are lost to the phoniness of our cruel world. (Not political, just pointing that Stoeten probably isn't a legit NDP voter, just plays that vibe because in the Toronto Media world it is helpful if he wants to get followers and in with Toronto Star editors).

Truth is he has hit at a legend, greatest hitter ever, level at Minor league ballparks. Not because of the dimensions but because of either random chance or something mental. He's done this facing both minor league and major league pitching. Even in 2020 with no fans when he was obese bad Vlad he hit great at Sahlen Field, really bad everywhere else. In 2021 he hit like prime Babe Ruth in Dunnedin and Buffalo. In the minors he hit .400 for a few months at New Hampshire. His numbers in minor league parks are bananas at all levels facing all types of pitching. Random? Mental?

It used to be, when September Rosters were 40, that the service time did not count towards Rookie qualification. Moreno only has 60 at bats, so did not lose Rookie status because of at bats, he only had 30 days service in his first stint, and now 15 or 20 in his second stint, so he must of lost rookie status because of service time. They must have changed the rule, September service time counts now I guess. Jays system will be super-under-rated as they don't have like the classical "Baseball America loved them the moment they signed and they hit the f*** out of the ball at 21" guy, but all kinds of interesting players. For example 5 players in the upper minors who could be ready to contribute very soon, may be good, but won't be on major lists. Moreno - played 90 milb games last 2 years, and lost his rookie status because of a cup of coffee and sitting around in September. No one will know he exists anymore but was a top 5 overall 2 weeks ago. Martinez - hit .200 which may have been fluke and he's a still a .250 hitter, but everyone will drop him Gabriel Martinez - will be behind Toman in the rankings but hit great for a 19 year old Barger - Who? No one seems to care about him much for a 22 year old who had the best hitting year in the system, and plays up the middle. Otto Lopez - Maybe an Espinal clone but doing same things at younger age? Everyone will say he won't be anything, but they said the same about Espinal (and maybe Espinal in the end won't be anything, but did anyone even think he'd have 2 WAR years?).

Did you know today is the anniversary of the Don Mattingly grand slam record?

"Hey gibby Where's Britton" "I dno, lol must be hurt" "K, well I'm hurt too"

Still have AL batting titles, HR titles, RBI titles. Still AL/NL MVPs. Anyone over 35 should remember when the leagues were completely separate. No interleague, different rules. AL record means something.

Jose Bautista becoming Jose Bautista in 2010, would be like Tapia making a batting stance change and hitting .370 next year with a torrid end of season run breaking the Jays batting average record, with it only becoming apparent what was happening in late August, people would be just in shock and not know how to react.

It happened in 2010 and honestly I'm not sure anyone cared. It was bizarre and shocking actually. Jose Bautista was no one, a terrible right handed hitter who senile old Cito would play instead of Travis Snider... like the next Jacob Brumfrield. He was like a fluky all star selection, honestly not much different then Espinal. Hit .230 with 24 homers in the first half. OK. Some fluky power. Then had a better second half and all of a sudden had 54 homeruns., If Vlad beat that one year it would be fun and exciting but yeah, obviously no where near the Judge thing. I think the .400 average thing wouldn't be a big deal until the last couple of days. Could lose it at any time. Last 2 games of the season it would be a big deal.

How did Moreno lose rookie status? I thought it was 130 at bats or 45 days before September 1st? Did the September 1st part change.

Not much to really decide until Wednesday. I mean don't pitch any of the key bullpen guys 3 games in a row, but other than that normal until Wednesday. Then Wednesday is tough. Are they really going to pitch Manoah if homefield isn't clinched? If not who? Bullpen day? Do they really want to do a bullpen day just before the playoff series?