Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 02:09:51 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Sports / Fantasy Sports  |  Topic: MLB 2011 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 25 Go Down Print
Author Topic: MLB 2011  (Read 141485 times)
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


on: November 16, 2010, 03:17:02 PM

That's right, I am starting this thread already. Never too soon to talk about baseball IMO! Hot stove season nom nom nom.

So anyway, on the heels of their defensive miscues in the playoffs, the Braves turn around and trade for perhaps the worst-fielding regular second baseman in the major leagues:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5814146

There's no doubt that he's a great hitter, particularly for a middle infielder, and the Braves really needed some help there, but this really causes issues for them defensively. Prado will probably move to the OF, and unless he turns out to be a surprise there defensively it puts more stress on the CF - and of course they traded one of their better defensive options in the middle infield to get Uggla in the first place. Should be interesting.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #1 on: November 16, 2010, 03:52:37 PM

Braves don't care about defense right now. We need somebody who's a threat to hit the long ball and drive in runs behind Heyward, Prado, and McCann.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


Reply #2 on: November 16, 2010, 04:09:58 PM

Yeah, no doubt. I feel like the Marlins probably got back less value than they could have on a deal for Uggla, but you never know how Dunn will pan out, dude has a high ceiling.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286

Truckasaurus Hands


Reply #3 on: November 16, 2010, 04:56:52 PM

Do I have to participate in this conversation due to my newfound appreciation for baseball? If so, does making fun of you for caring this early count?

God Save the Horn Players
Muffled
Terracotta Army
Posts: 257


Reply #4 on: November 16, 2010, 07:01:13 PM

Baseball is damn near a year round sport.  The season is so long that the offseason deals and speculation can start almost immediately after the WS.
ghost
The Dentist
Posts: 10619


Reply #5 on: November 16, 2010, 08:29:02 PM

Hell, I'm already ready for the 2011 season to be over. 
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #6 on: November 16, 2010, 08:39:44 PM

Hell, I'm already ready for the 2011 season to be over. 

Orioles fan?

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
ghost
The Dentist
Posts: 10619


Reply #7 on: November 16, 2010, 09:17:39 PM

Ha.  No, I grew up a Reds and Indians fan.  I just hate the regular season.  MLB is all about the playoffs for me.  They need to shave off about 80 games to make the regular season interesting.
stu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1891


Reply #8 on: November 16, 2010, 10:29:15 PM

I don't know if anyone else here uses www.mlbtraderumors.com but I find it to be a nifty compilation of each day's news from various sources.

Dear Diary,
Jackpot!
Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286

Truckasaurus Hands


Reply #9 on: November 17, 2010, 03:57:59 AM

Ha.  No, I grew up a Reds and Indians fan.  I just hate the regular season.  MLB is all about the playoffs for me.  They need to shave off about 80 games to make the regular season interesting.

YES.

That is seriously the thing I find most daunting about the season coming up. I don't think I can give a shit about a season THAT long with THAT many games.

God Save the Horn Players
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #10 on: November 17, 2010, 06:23:52 AM

Yall are crazy. The regular season is perfect. Baseball is meant to be played every day, and the individual games aren't supposed to mean as much as the 3 game series. Winning the series gets you to the playoffs, and mentally staying strong through the day-to-day is everything.

Plus, I like having something on every single day in baseball season!

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
ghost
The Dentist
Posts: 10619


Reply #11 on: November 17, 2010, 08:05:28 AM

There is just too much baseball right now.  Empty ballparks speak volumes.  They need to contract a couple of teams and go to an NBA type season length.  It won't happen, but that would certainly make things better.
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #12 on: November 17, 2010, 08:21:59 AM

No, no, they are instead of contraction, talking about adding one more wild-card team to the playoffs. Have 10 teams in the playoffs total, with the first series being either 1-game playoff between the two wild cards or a 3-game series between them. I am so not in favor of this it ain't even funny. The goddamn playoffs extend way too long already, now they want to add two more scrub teams? Would this season's playoffs been helped at all by the Red Sox or Padres being added to the mix? No, unless you are talking about TV dollars which is really what this is all about. How about instead of adding two more mediocre teams to the playoffs, you fix the fucking steroid issue, remove the idiotic "All-Star game determines home field in the World Series" shit, and put in a real goddamn salary cap to keep assgoblins like the Yankees from buying their way into the playoffs every year.

Also, find a good 1st baseman and right fielder for the Cubs, kthxbai.

Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #13 on: November 17, 2010, 08:26:43 AM

There is just too much baseball right now.  Empty ballparks speak volumes.  They need to contract a couple of teams and go to an NBA type season length.  It won't happen, but that would certainly make things better.

Uh. No. Baseball is completely stable in attendence and has been for a decade. Attendence has hovered between 72-75M people overall every year since 2001. The outlier was 2007 when the economy was riding high and we got near the 80M mark. Still, that's an abberation. Some teams don't do well, but most of that is because the fans got burned or understand that their squad is completely uncompetitive.

Florida has no future. They should just move.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10510

https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png


Reply #14 on: November 17, 2010, 08:29:23 AM

I'm with Paelos, things are fine the way they are.  The endurance required to play a season is an important part of the game, from an athletic stand point and a strategic stand point.  Plus, the season has basically been this long since the beginning (they were still laying 154 games a season in 1904).  It's a part of the sport.

I'm not sure how shortening it would make things much interesting as well.  I don't give a shit about individual NBA games either (though that could also do more with the fact that they let half the damn teams into the playoffs).  Unless your playing once a week like football, with a very small amount of games in a season, your just not going to care that  intensely about individual games.

"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants.  He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."
-Stephen Colbert
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #15 on: November 17, 2010, 08:40:50 AM

I don't mind if baseball adds two more teams to the wildcard. Purists flip out over it, but it's one of the best things to ever happen to baseball. Unless you really suck, your team has a chance until July. In the old days, half the teams could be bricks in late May.

I think you look at the NFL and ask yourself why they do so well.

1 - They get 6 teams from each conference involved, and they reward people for playing well in the regular season with byes.
2 - They adapt quickly to technology and rule changes.
3 - They have a commissioner who has no problem coming down hard on discipline issues
4 - They have parity provided by salary caps.

I think the NFL system is the absolute benchmark for how to run a professional sport. I think if baseball could get over itself a little and take those 4 things away from what the NFL does, they would be wildly successful.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2010, 08:42:29 AM by Paelos »

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #16 on: November 17, 2010, 08:54:49 AM

The only thing I would disagree with you on is the extra wildcard teams. I actually think the NFL playoffs may have one too many teams as well. It's not as bad as hockey or the NBA, but it's still getting pretty bad from a viewer standpoint. But the TV money is too big to pass up.

Adding extra teams to the baseball playoffs doesn't bother me on purist grounds. It bothers me because there are some crappy teams that really don't need to be in the playoffs.

Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #17 on: November 17, 2010, 08:57:31 AM

The only thing I would disagree with you on is the extra wildcard teams. I actually think the NFL playoffs may have one too many teams as well. It's not as bad as hockey or the NBA, but it's still getting pretty bad from a viewer standpoint. But the TV money is too big to pass up.

Adding extra teams to the baseball playoffs doesn't bother me on purist grounds. It bothers me because there are some crappy teams that really don't need to be in the playoffs.

Last year we would have added San Diego, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, and Boston.

I don't think anyone would have complained.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #18 on: November 17, 2010, 09:21:53 AM

The Cubs and Padres were not good enough to deserve playoff spots last year.

Musashi
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1692


Reply #19 on: November 17, 2010, 09:52:12 AM

Uh.  The Cubs, maybe.  But the Padres were really, really good.  The Padres lost the closest race in the last week of the season.  And they kicked the shit out of the Giants, who went on to win, all year long.  Being a Giants fan, and watching or listening to every game this season, I'd go as far as saying that the Padres were one of the best teams in baseball this year.  I pooped my pants every time we played them.

So yea.  I don't think they should add another wildcard team either.  But teams being undeserving isn't the reason.

AKA Gyoza
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


Reply #20 on: November 17, 2010, 11:22:01 AM

I like the wild-card "play-in" simply because it makes the pennant races more interesting. If there's a big advantage to winning the division vs. being the wild card, "races" like the Rays and Yankees this year would have been significantly more interesting, and it wouldn't have hurt the Braves/Padres/Giants clusterfuck much because they were already playing to avoid a play-in essentially. Not having to do a 1 or 3 game play-in series would be huge. Home field advantage simply isn't important enough in baseball to be the only driver on that stuff. The other plus is it gives teams like the Blue Jays and Orioles who are stuck in a division with two big spenders a reason to try.

I think that is as far as I would want to push it though.

Also I don't know what Paelos is on, but he somehow added 3 teams from the NL and one from the AL. The plan is to only add *two* teams more than what we have now, not four. It would have been the Padres and the Red Sox. I don't know where he came up with the Cubs, they were 75-87. Presumably he meant the White Sox, who would have been the top AL team to not make the playoffs in this scenario.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Muffled
Terracotta Army
Posts: 257


Reply #21 on: November 17, 2010, 11:24:47 AM

Musashi - What is your reason for not adding another wild card spot, since you left us hanging?

I am also against adding more teams to the playoffs.  I like the balance of regular season to playoff play as it is now, see no compelling reason to shift it around, and I dislike change for the sake of change.

I also am strongly against there being any way for a division to send three teams to the playoffs, and no I do not care if those three teams were stronger than the rest of baseball in the regular season.
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #22 on: November 17, 2010, 11:42:04 AM

The other plus is it gives teams like the Blue Jays and Orioles who are stuck in a division with two big spenders a reason to try.

Which could actually be fixed with a well-executed salary cap, cutting the balls off of the Red Sox and the Yankees overspending. The luxury tax is just a shitty way to backdoor some kind of salary cap, but rather than help the little teams compete, it has ended up being a cash cow for some of the teams (like the Rays before the new ownership or the Marlins every time they get close to winning) to gain money without bothering to field a competitive team with that money.

ghost
The Dentist
Posts: 10619


Reply #23 on: November 17, 2010, 11:46:39 AM

They can add all the shitty teams they want to the playoffs.  It will be just like having more regular season to ignore. 
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #24 on: November 17, 2010, 11:54:57 AM

Also I don't know what Paelos is on, but he somehow added 3 teams from the NL and one from the AL. The plan is to only add *two* teams more than what we have now, not four. It would have been the Padres and the Red Sox. I don't know where he came up with the Cubs, they were 75-87. Presumably he meant the White Sox, who would have been the top AL team to not make the playoffs in this scenario.

Fuck, I meant the White Sox.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286

Truckasaurus Hands


Reply #25 on: November 17, 2010, 01:33:21 PM

remove the idiotic "All-Star game determines home field in the World Series" shit

Nooooo, I fucking love that! It's adorable!

God Save the Horn Players
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #26 on: November 17, 2010, 01:37:41 PM

Nooooo, I fucking love that! It's adorable!

You are banned from this thread.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


Reply #27 on: November 17, 2010, 01:44:23 PM

I don't think it really hurts anything. Home field advantage is not terribly important. Once you account for the fact that the team with home field is usually the better team the impact is very low.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
caladein
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3174


WWW
Reply #28 on: November 17, 2010, 01:56:10 PM

I think it's a bit silly, but when you don't use a neutral site or large amount of interleague play, I don't see a fairer way aside from alternating years to decide home field during the WS.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #29 on: November 17, 2010, 02:00:12 PM

I think it's a bit silly, but when you don't use a neutral site or large amount of interleague play, I don't see a fairer way aside from alternating years to decide home field during the WS.

Best record of the two teams involved? Total Interleague record? League with the best team with the best record?

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
caladein
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3174


WWW
Reply #30 on: November 17, 2010, 02:27:00 PM

Total interleague record is quite good actually.  I hadn't thought of that.  That has been a very AL-leaning stat lately, but for reasons I'm comfortable with.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Musashi
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1692


Reply #31 on: November 17, 2010, 02:39:40 PM

I think they shouldn't add another two teams because there's no point.  There are enough teams in it, and the baseball season is long enough as it is.  The root of the problem is the retarded salary cap.  But the Yankees and Red Sox make the league a shitload of money because of the east coast media bias.  I'm talking to you ESPN.  Yea.  It's called the West Coast, assholes.  If you'd ever shut the fuck up about the god damn Yanks and Sox, then maybe there's be some room for excitement to build in other parts of the country.  Besides, we're better than you in every possible way.  You should visit sometime.  But don't stay that long.  Dicks.  At any rate, the balance of power in the isn't likely to change no matter how many playoff teams you add, as first round exits are just about as exciting as last place finishes for teams like the Pirates, or the Blue Jays.  They should have never traded McGriff.  Dumb fucks.

As far as the All-Star game deciding home field advantage.  Well, my friends that's just a joke.  It's a joke brought to you by the same retard commissioner who thought so much of the All-Star game that he called it due to rain.  Nothing that man does is good.  I'm convinced he is Grand Moff Tarkin of Wisconsin.  Reinstate Pete Rose you gutless turd.  We fucking forgave him when he fessed up like five years ago.  God damn.  The problem with the All-Star game is that it just isn't a very good representation of what teams are deserving in a team sport.  The All-Star 'team' is only a 'team' for like three hours.  It's just a hodge podge popularity contest with the only thing more retarded than the slam dunk contest - the home run derby.  Back, back, back, fuck you.  Why not have the home run derby decide it.  Or what about flip a dog gone coin.  Or just go back to who's got the best record, like it was.  Fuck.

AKA Gyoza
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #32 on: November 17, 2010, 03:24:32 PM

Speaking as an East Coaster, if you put more of your games on at 4PM, we'd watch them.

Otherwise, we're not staying up until 1AM our time. Not happening.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Musashi
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1692


Reply #33 on: November 17, 2010, 03:46:47 PM

Pfft.  Who cares if you watch them.  I don't watch the Yankees ever.  But I god damn sure good and well know about their prospects if I watch ESPN for more than ten straight minutes - even during the off-season.

AKA Gyoza
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #34 on: November 17, 2010, 04:01:26 PM

So you're saying if the ESPN HQ was in Oakland instead of Bristol, I'd somehow hear less about the Yankees and more about the Angels?

Somehow I doubt it.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 25 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Sports / Fantasy Sports  |  Topic: MLB 2011  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC