MLB 2012

[yo soy el mejor]

i got way into it when the rangers were in the world series, though. they messed it up both times. THEY CHOKED!

[Netphorian Gadabout]

The Tigers look as good as advertised. Wow.

[sppunk]

Horrible defense will be their kryptonite.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by sppunk

Horrible defense will be their kryptonite.

I'm more worried about Fister being hurt. Verlander can't pitch every game. Hopefully Scherzer gets it together. The Tigs can out-hit just about every other team in the bigs, which will be enough as long as their pitching doesn't blow it for them.

[sppunk]

Their offense will help hide bad pitching, but a few extra outs/game isn't a recipe for a title. They should win the Central by 10 games, though.

Never made a predictions post, but here's what I see:

AL East:
TB
NY (WC)
Boston
Toronto
Baltimore

AL Central:
Detroit
Cleveland
Chicago
Minnesota
Kansas City

AL West:
Anaheim
Texas (WC)
Oakland
Seattle

NL East:
Philadelphia
Atlanta (WC)
Florida
Washington
New York

NL Central:
Cincinnati
St Louis
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Houston

NL West:
Arizona
SF (WC)
LA
Colorado
San Diego

[I Ate My Hamster]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

what this board really needs is more half-assed gay jokes.

That's what I'm here for. You don't need to respond.

[Graveflower]

P. gay the marlins firing Ozzie cause he's not sfraid to speak his mind
Hamsteps not afraid to speak his mind and we too are crucifying him...

[I Ate My Hamster]

Originally Posted by Graveflower

P. gay the marlins firing Ozzie cause he's not sfraid to speak his mind
Hamsteps not afraid to speak his mind and we too are crucifying him...

Ozzie was being serious.

I come here and make a few jokes and netphoria acts like cynicism and sarcasm hasn't been invented yet. Very defensive.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by I Ate My Hamster

I come here and make a few jokes and netphoria acts like cynicism and sarcasm hasn't been invented yet.

uhhhh

[Graveflower]

Originally Posted by I Ate My Hamster

Ozzie was being serious.

I come here and make a few jokes and netphoria acts like cynicism and sarcasm hasn't been invented yet. Very defensive.

Big ups to Lenny Bruce here
Keep Fighting.....

[I Ate My Hamster]

Originally Posted by Graveflower

Big ups to Lenny Bruce here
Keep Fighting.....

You spend too much time worrying about me.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by sppunk

Their offense will help hide bad pitching, but a few extra outs/game isn't a recipe for a title. They should win the Central by 10 games, though.

Never made a predictions post, but here's what I see:

AL East:
TB
NY (WC)
Boston
Toronto
Baltimore

AL Central:
Detroit
Cleveland
Chicago
Minnesota
Kansas City

AL West:
Anaheim
Texas (WC)
Oakland
Seattle

NL East:
Philadelphia
Atlanta (WC)
Florida
Washington
New York

NL Central:
Cincinnati
St Louis
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Houston

NL West:
Arizona
SF (WC)
LA
Colorado
San Diego

uh there's only one wild card per league and i don't even really like baseball

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by I Ate My Hamster

Ozzie was being serious.

I come here and make a few jokes and netphoria acts like cynicism and sarcasm hasn't been invented yet. Very defensive.

the argument generally goes that the jokes aren't really jokes, and when you repeat them it encourages others to be regressive in their views. In fact, just thinking that homosexuality is something that can be attributed to inanimate objects worthy of derision is a homophobic mentality, even if you are just "kidding" about it.

also i'm sure you call guys pussies and bitches when they suck at sports without even thinking about it

basically what i'm saying, per Kanye: "It's not funny anymore, try different jokes. Hug and kiss my ass X and O."

[vbshlofbvgos]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

uh there's only one wild card per league and i don't even really like baseball

actually there are two starting this year. the two wild cards face each other in a one game playoff to see who advances to the next round.

[Trotskilicious]

oh well color me stupid

that's a fuckin dumb idea tho

i mean i guess it gives more incentive for teams to not completely ditch on the season, which is a serious problem in baseball moreso than other sports

baseball does have the largest number of teams that aren't even trying at all. basketball has its fair share of horrible teams but they can get better with a draft pick or two, baseball has teams that just exist yearly as farm teams for major market clubs: pittsburgh, kansas city, oakland for the most part. etc.

[vbshlofbvgos]

i guess its fine if the hunt for the wild card goes down to the last day of the season like it did last year. but if wc team 1 has a 5 game lead over wc team 2 its not really fair that they have to play one game to decide the entire season. but whatever

[I Ate My Hamster]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

i mean i guess it gives more incentive for teams to not completely ditch on the season, which is a serious problem in baseball moreso than other sports
.

I hope nobody agrees with this because it's ridiculous. NBA and NFL are the biggest abusers of this. MLB draft is the biggest crap-shoot when it comes to having a successful top 5 pick. Every year teams are accused of tanking nba and nfl season to get the number 1 pick that might be able to contribute to the team in the next season, and sell tickets. In MLB, you are extremely lucky to have a top pick that pans out, and usually doesn't contribute on the big league level for at least two years and more times than none, till their mid twenties. Stephen Strasburg is the only draft pick in recent history that has attracted the attention of teams enough that they would even slightly consider tanking the second half of a season. The second wild card is a great idea. Why should a team be considered to be part of the post season when they didn't even finish with the best record in their division? It gives more meaning to the regular season. If you don't like baseball, that's fine. If you are going to argue this, you should at least be educated.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by I Ate My Hamster

I hope nobody agrees with this because it's ridiculous. NBA and NFL are the biggest abusers of this. MLB draft is the biggest crap-shoot when it comes to having a successful top 5 pick. .

actually i'm not arguing against this, i think it's wise for nba teams to explode their teams and quit and be shitty so they can get picks but seriously man what other major american sport has teams like the Oakland Athletics, Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates; teams that aren't trying any year to get better, ever? That's what I'm specifically talking about, there are baseball teams that have been bad for decades and aren't even attempting to be better. You can't really say that about any team in the NFL or NBA, even the Clippers traded for Chris Paul. I can't imagine there's ever going to be a time when the Kansas City Royals decide "oh hey look at all this talent lets get some Free Agents and make some trades so we can be contenders" no they're going to trade all the talent away, slash payroll, and still turn a profit that's all they care about. How does Josh Grenke NOT PLAY FOR THEM STILL??? It's fucking embarrassing. The Pittsburgh Pirates are even up front about the fact that they are making money and don't give a shit if the team wins or not.

No other sport has had a team like the old Montreal Expos the ten or so years before they moved, their payroll is slashed and they just primarily exist as a Major League tryout for farm talent on their way elsewhere. I'm not even sure Washington is any different.

[Trotskilicious]

i mean the cleveland cavaliers suck very bad, but it's not like they're going to trade Kyrie Irving to the Lakers so they can get 6 d-league players

I don't think there are any teams in the NFL that are straight up not even trying to win, the Dolphins are poorly managed sure but I don't think their blueprint is to sell all their talent to the highest bidder.

I can't even think that there's anyone in the Kansas City Royals front office that ever thinks "hey maybe we should try to win the division."

[I Ate My Hamster]

The difference between the leagues you mentioned and the MLB is the salary cap, plus most of the money that the NFL teams receive is from extremely lucrative tv deals that is spread out amongst all the teams. Baseball basically every franchise is on it's on to bring in revenue. Teams with a payroll of 40 mil trying to compete with teams in the 200 mil range. There have been some very successful teams with low payrolls. Look at Oakland 10 years ago, and the Rays of the past 4 years. You have to make up for lack of money with a smart front office. Pirates have made many bad decisions over the last 20 years. Oakland and Tampa Bay had great talent evaluators that made great draft picks, and when they had to sell their soon to be expensive talent, got several great young prospects back that panned out. Kansas City is getting better though I think, as are the Pirates.

Washington is very different now. But I don't think they are spending wisely. Jayson Werth is not worth what they paid. A lot of good young talent they have though.

[vbshlofbvgos]

Oakland is just cashing in on the the Yankees and Red Sox money until they can move to San Jose. I believe that Pittsburgh and Kansas City are now trying to put winning teams on the field but this was not always the case. Its a flawed system but they are doing the best that they can.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by I Ate My Hamster

A lot of good young talent they have though.

[Trotskilicious]

so i'm on sb nation today and i see bartolo colon threw 38 straight strikes

and the first thing i thought was bartolo colon is still alive???

[Graveflower]

Washingtons doing better caused they tanked to get strasburg probably

[killtrocity]

they play 162 fucking games, there is no reason that two more teams out of 30 can't make it to the playoffs. What's stupid is having a best of 5 playoff series.

[Trotskilicious]

i kind of appreciate the difficulty to get in the postseason of baseball

i think 5 game series should be for the first round of basketball since most of the time those 1-8, 2-7 matchups go on too long for the exact result you expect. maybe they could do a hybrid where the 1-8 and 2-7 are five game series and then the 3-6 and 4-5s are seven.

[Scarecrow]

'Supposedly, an MLB advisory committee told Bud Selig that some owners thought it was unfair for the wild-card team to enter the postseason on an equal basis with the division champs, who were not receiving a big enough advantage for winning a title -- even though some of them had worse records than the wild-card teams.'

Now each of the two wild card teams have to go through a one game showdown for the rights to compete in the post season. What this does is marginalize the end of the season, which sometimes was exciting like the end of a horse race. This move effectively ends the sprint to the finish of a 162 game season.

For example lets say this scenario happens at the end of the season in the NL East.

Philadelphia is on a losing streak , can't even buy a game, and is in danger of losing the division lead to Atlanta. The Braves use their hot streak to over take the Phillies with two games remaining. The Giants are the wild card team this year and have a record better than both the Phils and Braves. Now the Phillies should normally be feeling the pressure to win their division or tie with the Braves to face a one game playoff but...

The stats indicate that Roy Halladay owns the Giants, and due to the new rules the Phils currently own the 2nd wild card spot with no other teams in contention. So instead of fighting for the NL East title, the Phils can hold off their Ace for when it really matters. A one game play off between the wildcards, Giants and Phils with the matchup being Lincecum vs Hallaaday for the chance to enter the post season.

The one game wildcard playoff might even be more thrilling than the post season because its basically a game 7 scenario ever year, win or go home. I think the team that wins this one game death match will have the emotional momentum in their next matchup but the cost will be they used up their ace so the division leader has a better chance of advancing.

So in conclusion change is good!

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

I can't imagine there's ever going to be a time when the Kansas City Royals decide "oh hey look at all this talent lets get some Free Agents and make some trades so we can be contenders" no they're going to trade all the talent away, slash payroll, and still turn a profit that's all they care about. How does Josh Grenke NOT PLAY FOR THEM STILL??? It's fucking embarrassing.

Small market teams do have the slightest window of opportunity to exploit, when their home grown talent has turned into MLB stars. Like even when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were winning, fans never filled the place up, so they went out to get a big name free agent, Manny Rameriz and that turned into a disaster.

Teams win because of team chemistry on defense, and playing small ball like using the Moneyball concept to get cheap players that reach on base the most often. The Yanks attempt to buy a champion every year but they cant stock pile all the young up and coming pitching.

Btw, I googled Josh Grenke, and it showed me this thread, I think you were referring to Zack Greinke, who now plays for the Brewers.

Baseball is fun because winning is about fulfilling the natural laws of supply and demand. You of all people should know about this since you run your baseball tycoon simulator, correct?

[PkPhuoko]

Texas looks very very good

[sppunk]

The 100th birthday gig for Fenway was very well done.