glory

Kirk already the best catcher on the team. Wonder if he sees the minor leagues again.

Buntoyo better not start Villar in the playoffs.

I know Roark tomorrow is just going to f*** all this fun up, so let's enjoy tonight. Keep the runs flowing.

Jays need to win a couple of blowouts in this series. Make the Yankees accuse them of cheating again.

The backup HP ump is a worse backup than Reese McGuire.

This umpire is missing everything.

They have an outfield of Davis, Grichuk, and Hernandez, and have every single player in the wrong spot in terms of optimal placement. I guess they want to keep Grichuk and Hernandez in their routine, but the defensive alignment could be better.

Merryweather placed on the DL with right elbow tendinitis. I was holding out hope for him to start, but given his age and the fact that he has barely pitched in 3 years, just make the dude a reliever going forward.

The blame for Vlad to 1B is on Shatkins. They tried him at 3B for years, knowing that he was fat and not likely to stick there, then gave him like a week notice before the season started that he’s permanently moving to 1B. They could have tried Vlad at 1B in the minors or slowly worked him into that role. Instead they thrust him in there with no prior experience and expected it to be seamless.

The problem is you are using pythag to judge the quality of a team and I'm using their actual record over 162 games. Not sure why you think run differential trumps a team's actual record in a season long sample size. My point is, you don't see teams who win in the mid to high 80's go all the way in the current format if they happen to make a wild card spot. There's one exception, the Giants in 2014, and they had a once in a generation playoff performance from a starter they rode hard the whole way. Did you think the 2017 Twins had a real shot at a title that year? If you did, then we clearly disagree on how deep this crapshoot really is. Again, my argument is not that average teams can't win. It's that it's very unlikely to happen most years. We are more likely to see good teams (85-89 wins) beat the great teams (95-100 wins). The more good teams that make it, obviously the crapshoot increases. If you find that to be unfair, then that's fine, but that's different from thinking a 77 win team has the same chance to win the whole damn thing as the good/great teams do.

Since the 2nd WC was implemented, here are the World Series champions: Giants: 94-68 Red Sox: 97-65 Giants: 88-74 Royals: 95-67 Cubs: 103-58 Astros: 101-61 Red Sox: 108-54 Nationals: 93-69 The lowest win total for any team who made the playoffs during that stretch was 85 by the Twins in 2017, who then got disposed of easily by the Yankees in the WC game. In the year the Giants won with 88 wins, MadBum had to pitch out of his mind for that to happen. The playoffs in baseball being a crapshoot is true, but it's not "every team that makes it has an equal chance". It just means teams with the best record or most talent don't always win. It doesn't mean bad teams are going to come in, get hot, and then steamroll through everyone. I think the round with the most risk in the new format is the WC round. I think we'll see the most upsets in that round. But beyond that? Like I said, over a 10 year span you might see a miracle team win it, but I'd be very surprised if that's the norm, or even close to it.

Well this season is so short that we can't even take the records of the playoff teams that seriously. The Reds might have been better over 162 games than they've shown in 50+ games. The Marlins almost certainly would have been worse. The Mets probably would have been better. And so on. The AL is likely a fair representation of the good teams and bad teams, with the Jays firmly planted in between. The only thing to do going forward is to build a deeper rotation. That's going to be the way to "fluke" into deeper playoff contention with expanded playoffs. It will be harder to spam relievers with no off days in between games, so starters are going to be very important.

Ryu can only start 1 game in a 3 game series and 1 game in a 5 game series (unless they start him on short rest, which is asking for trouble). That means Walker and Shoemaker in games 2-3 of the WC series, and Walker-Shoemaker and two of Roark/Anderson/Ray/Stripling in games 2-5 in the ALDS. The Jays are probably facing the Rays in the WC series and if they somehow advance then the winner of the Yankees/Twins in the ALDS. The neutral location might provide some advantage/disadvantage depending on the teams, but I don't think it's enough for a team that lacks rotation depth, has bad defense, and routinely makes stupid mistakes to go through a gauntlet like that. Over a sample size of 10 years with expanded playoffs, will a mediocre team (sub-.500) win the whole thing? Maybe. I just don't think it's as likely as some are predicting, and I think most years a good team (85+ wins) will end up winning it when a great team doesn't.

I think you guys are overstating how likely it is that a bad team can win the World Series in this format, especially with the change of no off days between games. This will help a team like the Indians who are the 7th seed but have a good deep rotation so they could easily pitch their way into a long run. A team like the Jays or Marlins aren't going to have a hot streak for 3 weeks.

The rotation is lined up to be Ryu, Walker, and Shoemaker. That’s my guess for the WC rotation, though multi inning appearances from Pearson and Merryweather are probably a given, along with Ray and Stripling.

Buntoyo living up to his name.

I agree with the Manfred slander, but I don't think he has much of a choice in this case. Not only is expanded playoffs more financially beneficial for the league, but the regular season in the old format is too long with too many teams out of it for most of the season. MLB has already lost a lot of its national appeal, but they can maintain or even grow their regional base with more teams being in playoff races every year. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the 2019 format (2 WC teams, 3 division winners), but I realize decisions have to be made with younger audiences in mind. You can't sell a "marathon" and a "grind" to Gen Z's. Even the NBA is contemplating doing different things mid season (tournament) because their regular season, which is half as long as MLB's, is considered "too long". MLB's regular season is too long, their games are "too long", and the majority of the league won't be playing meaningful games in the last 2-3 months (old format). They had to make this change. Now, I think they can tweak it a bit so that the higher seeds get more of an advantage (home field in every game seems very light), but the concept itself is probably necessary. I hate to say this because I hate Manfred, but I think all the changes he's done for this season are actually a positive. Seven inning DH's, a DH in the NL, 3 batter minimum, runner on 2nd in extras, etc. I know I'm in the minority here, but 7 inning games are more efficient to watch, 3 batter minimum means a team like the Rays can't spam 80 relievers in 3 innings, I'd rather watch Dom Smith become a star than a pitcher bat, and extra inning games ending in the 10th rather than potentially going to the 20th is refreshing as well.

Man, I really thought bringing Font into a one run game would have paid off this time, even though it has failed every other time. Charlie must have had a feeling.

The starters were logging too many innings in the Yankees series. Had to tone it down a bit.

On the bright side, the team directly behind the Jays is 22-28 (Seattle). A prolonged losing streak would suck, but they'd have to lose practically every game to be knocked out of the last spot.

I'm curious how Buntoyo would have set the 1993 lineup. Cito at least had the excuse of it being 1993 and advanced stats were less prevalent. It was still very much a "back of the baseball card" time in baseball. Today, we know practically everything down to the tiniest detail about how good a hitter actually is, and Charles is batting bad hitters 3rd, his best hitters 8th, a hot hitter 7th, etc. If these decisions are being done above Montoyo, then I need to hear the logic. At least with Charlie we can chalk it up to him being in over his head, but the front office shouldn't be.

Oh, no question Roark and Anderson suck ass, but allowing a billion home runs, especially consecutively, seems a little too easy. The Yankees were accusing the Jays of cheating because they drew walks.

Yeah, something is not right. A big league team should not be hitting 100 home runs in a 3 game series off below average big league pitching, even in a cheat mode stadium like YS.

If Anderson's option is picked up, Shatkins can F off.

How much you want Trevor Bauer? $40M? No problem. Save us in 2021.