Board 8 > MLB starts today

(+) Yeah! (+)

oh ya go my tigerz hiding all our good prospects in Toledo so we can tank another #1 pick in a short season

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How about MLB being caught covering up for the Yankees cheating scandal? I feel like we all guessed this back when the YESNET/whistling investigation only found that pointless bullpen phone violation. My guess is that it stays buried because a lot of teams (including the Red Sox, who got off incredibly light for the apple watch incident) got off easy.

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https://twitter.com/FOXSports/status/1286281346390740993?s=19

OH NO

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It's OK to hate baseball.

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ninkendo posted...

https://twitter.com/FOXSports/status/1286281346390740993?s=19

OH NO

LMFAO

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neonreaper posted...

How about MLB being caught covering up for the Yankees cheating scandal? I feel like we all guessed this back when the YESNET/whistling investigation only found that pointless bullpen phone violation. My guess is that it stays buried because a lot of teams (including the Red Sox, who got off incredibly light for the apple watch incident) got off easy.

lol

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Arti posted...

lol

no

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personally I think cheating in sports is awesome. it adds a new dynamic of play beyond just athleticism and strategy. it's sort of like an extra layer of meta strategy -- finding ways to get any extra edge that you can get in a game that is all about statistics, while competing against the refs or umpires whose job it is to "catch" you.

though to be honest it becomes a lot less fun when the cheating becomes sanctioned by the league and they have an interest in protecting certain teams. it's much better when the umpires or refs serve as a third neutral faction that both teams have to try and work around.

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also my dream of Mookie Betts playing 0 games for the Dodgers and signing with Boston are dashed on all fronts.

I don't envy that contract though.

then again it isn't worse than Chris Sale's contract so :(((((

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They'll complete the season, sure there will be plenty of COVID cases but they'll be able to isolate those players and pull up enough replacements from the farm team to continue playing.


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I think they'll push through with the season unless large swaths of pitchers get wiped out.

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neonreaper posted...

I don't envy that contract though.

the contract is fine, tbh. If he hits numbers close to what hes hit in the past in just a few years of the contract, those years become a bargain. So you overpay later for the bargain somewhere else.

Ultimately here, the contract will be judged on if it nets more than 0 World Series victories.

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MariaTaylor posted...

personally I think cheating in sports is awesome. it adds a new dynamic of play beyond just athleticism and strategy. it's sort of like an extra layer of meta strategy -- finding ways to get any extra edge that you can get in a game that is all about statistics, while competing against the refs or umpires whose job it is to "catch" you.

though to be honest it becomes a lot less fun when the cheating becomes sanctioned by the league and they have an interest in protecting certain teams. it's much better when the umpires or refs serve as a third neutral faction that both teams have to try and work around.

One Outs?

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Anyway, I think the season is played to completion but at least 1 team gets decimated by a covid outbreak.

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Jeff Passan
@JeffPassan 6m
Washington Nationals star Juan Soto has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss tonight's season opener against the New York Yankees, sources tell ESPN.

Whoops

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red13n posted...

the contract is fine, tbh. If he hits numbers close to what hes hit in the past in just a few years of the contract, those years become a bargain. So you overpay later for the bargain somewhere else.

Ultimately here, the contract will be judged on if it nets more than 0 World Series victories.

Mookie is great in pretty much every aspect. He's a super nice guy, thoughtful, plays well with others, and he's about as good on the field as it gets. If you're gonna give someone a big contract, Mookie is definitely the guy.

And yeah, 1 WS win (especially with the current team) and it's worth it, in most markets.


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Wait, they dont even know the postseason format yet?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Wait, they dont even know the postseason format yet?

no, they do. they just changed it to 16 teams

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My personal feelings on expanded playoffs

I will admit growing up I thought it was always dumb that baseball didn't have as many playoff teams as basketball or hockey so I've always been a fan of a 16 team format.

Sure it hurts the most elite teams in their odds of winning, but it ensues every team deserving of a spot ends up getting in and if a few mediocre teams get in as a result im okay with that, especially with the first round being just a best of 3

At the very least I think it's much better than what they were doing with the wildcard game

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The only thing is I don't like is it shouldn't be the top 2 teams in each division making it. I think it should just be the number one team in the division and then the 5 best records after that so that winning your division is still important

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ninkendo posted...

The only thing is I don't like is it shouldn't be the top 2 teams in each division making it. I think it should just be the number one team in the division and then the 5 best records after that so that winning your division is still important

Agreed.


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Anything is better than the 1 game Wild Card

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ninkendo posted...

Sure it hurts the most elite teams in their odds of winning, but it ensues every team deserving of a spot ends up getting in and if a few mediocre teams get in as a result im okay with that

Thats how it already was though
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I find it hilarious that all sports seem obsessed with finding the few things that make them unique compared to other sports, and utterly obliterating them in an attempt to become just like everyone else.

"Few teams make the playoffs" was one of the things that actually made baseball unique. But sure, just destroy it in your attempt to be more like the NBA or whatever. What could possibly go wrong?

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NBA is the best sport going so anything they're doing is probably a good idea

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Baseball needs to go to robot umpires to give themselves that unique advantage back

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I'm all for whatever gets us closer to Super Baseball 2020

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Leonhart4 posted...

Baseball needs to go to robot umpires to give themselves that unique advantage back

bUt ThE hUmAn ElEmEnT!

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The human element = we're okay with umps making bad calls because drama is good for business

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this charade going on this season is not "baseball". Too far removed with all these stupid rule changes and gimmicks. Hopefully they're all just for the short season, and don't propagate forward, though I know that's unlikely. But here's hoping. In the meantime, hard to take any value out of this season seriously. I'll still watch for entertainment, since I still love the Mets broadcasters and I love our players, but putting very little stock or long-term meaning into any winner or accomplishments other than whatever bit of personal satisfaction I might get from like deGrom winning another Cy Young or something. Like even if the Mets were to somehow win the WS (they won't), it would feel supremely cheap and I would not really be my excited self for it. Or if I would, definitely not even close to how I would feel if they did it "normally".

Really this whole season is just a joke for me and I'm just gonna take it at face value, and hope that next year goes normally since 2021 will probably be the final year before any of these stupid rule changes take permanent effect.

The league-wide DH, the runner on 2nd base, or the expanded playoff system implemented on a permanent basis would kill most of the passion I have for the sport. I'd still like it, but I would care significantly less (which I guess is still a lot, but not a TON, yknow?).

I also think the 3 batter minimum is stupid, but wouldn't kill my interest. Though that rule does need some serious tweeking. You can't leave a struggling reliever out to dry for 3 batters. That probably slows down the game anyway.

Anyway, I probably won't be posting here (as) much for the season, at least not as much for stuff about the season itself. But that could change, you know me. Just know that no matter what, if I'm normally at a 10000/10 for baseball fandom, this season is like a 9/10.

Also, they shouldn't be playing at all anyway. It's a bad idea for them to try to finish.

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i've talked at length about the DH , and the runner on 2nd is too obvious to discuss why I don't like it.

But I just want to say that the expanded playoff is maybe even worse than all of that. Don't ruin the sanctity and specialness of making the playoffs. It punishes the teams that actually deserve to be that way too much. Imagine winning your division only to lose in a 3 game series to a sub 500 team, which can happen easily, because its baseball. Since it's the sport where in a short series worse teams win way more often than other sports, it really doesn't lend itself t having mroe playoff teams, especially not when you're playing 162 regular season games, it makes them all pretty meaningless when half the league is a playoff team.

Obviously playoffs/WS isn't just going to be the best 2 teams, but it should have the semblance of possibility that you have two really good teams making it there through playing well all season, and not just lucking into it.

(this doesn't count as a post about this season in particular because I'm just saying why I don't want this implemented permanently)

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One last thought, I think these 3 things all deserved separate posts, so that's why this.

Bring on the goddamn sale of the Mets already. Please get the Wilpons fucking out of here, and please let it be big bucks Steve Cohen buying the team. A-Rod is better than the Wilpons I suppose, but man, would Cohen give us an ok chance to actually have a shot again. I also am not going to celebrate anything until the ink is dry, after like 3 different deals have fallen apart due to wilpon buffoonery. I'm not hopeful because I've learned not to be by now. But man would it be nice if this actually came to fruition.

Just you wait, 30 years from now, for the tell-all 30 for 30 on the crazy Wilpon corruption that went down- but no one wants to talk while they're both still alive.

Also I guess I dubbed this the official MLB topic so have at you. Good work, Shine

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I'm fine with expanded playoffs but only in a way that further harms the wild card teams.

Losing a 3 game series to a team that didn't even finish .500 or win a playoff game is going to suck.

Agree 100% about everything you said except pitchers no longer batting, which as an AL fan is kind of a fun curiosity that I'm sad to see go but there's no way I could possibly care about that as much as you. And to me, the expanded playoffs are definitely much worse than everything else for the exact reasons you stated.

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Pitchers batting is dumb now that they no longer actually practice hitting.

Yeah yeah strategy and all that but I'm fine with being rid of it

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Xuxon posted...

Agree 100% about everything you said except pitchers no longer batting, which as an AL fan is kind of a fun curiosity that I'm sad to see go but there's no way I could possibly care about that as much as you. And to me, the expanded playoffs are definitely much worse than everything else for the exact reasons you stated.

Leonhart4 posted...

Pitchers batting is dumb now that they no longer actually practice hitting.

Yeah yeah strategy and all that but I'm fine with being rid of it

Except we have a league that already uses those rules, so if you don't like the DH, you're welcome to watch the games where it doesn't have it. And if you do, same. Until now. I had no problem with it being split, because that makes baseball unique, and gives you the option to prefer the ruleset you want. Why would you want it in a league you, I'm assuming, probably don't really watch as much? Why not keep both sets of people happy, unless youre in the minority of NL Fans that like the DH (or AL fans that don't, I guess).

Also it's not about strategy for the sake of strategy for me. It's about logical sense. You have 9 guys in the lineup. They all must bat and they all must field. Having an exception simply because someone isn't good at it is a stupid reason to have a rule excepting it. The worse side of the coin to me isn't the pitcher batting or not, its the fact you're allowed to have a guy in the lineup who doesn't have to field. Why? That to me, is stupid.

I don't want to get too much into DH arguments though, we've been through this 1000 times. The main thing is there's nothing wrong with the way it was, and you can have your preference. Now that choice is gone. Interleague games were an unfortunate necessity with an odd # of teams per league, but they were probably going to expand at some point anyway, and then we wouldn't have had to worry about that anymore. In the same way you don't want to watch a pitcher hit, I don't want to have to watch a guy who is allowed to hit but he doesn't have to field because he's too bad defensively, too old, maybe sort of injured, whatever. If you were to start baseball over from scratch and decided you didn't want pitchers hitting, you wouldn't have something like a dummy position in the lineup that doesn't have to field, you would just have 8 man lineups.

The pattern in all these rule changes is they're trying to make baseball more like basketball, and that's slowly destroying all the stuff that's unique and interesting about it.

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"If you don't like it you don't have to watch it" is always such a weird take to me

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No, I agree the NL should have stayed as it was. I just meant that NL getting the DH doesn't kill the game for me, because I barely watch it anyway. Although, I do think all interleague games should have a DH, not just when the AL is the home team.

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Leonhart4 posted...

"If you don't like it you don't have to watch it" is always such a weird take to me

So what is wrong with having both choices?

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also man watching one inning of deGrom dominating still made me feel all the feels

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WiggumFan267 posted...

So what is wrong with having both choices?

it just comes across as more "I can complain and demand that things change/nothing changes but you just have to like it or leave it"

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I just meant it like, you have the option of both. That seems like a great situation to me. Plus, I think the dichotomy is neat.

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Well, I'm a Braves fan who also thinks pitchers batting is antiquated so just going to the other league isn't really an option.

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1 inning in this is going exactly as I envisioned for my Tigers.

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good 7-1 loss hopefully we can do it 59 more times


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I was asked by an Os fan friend what Cody Carroll's stat line was tonight

I successfully guessed it by just throwing out the first "no way this is right, it can't be *that* bad" bullshit that came to mind

I'm very sorry FFDragon

on the bright side, he's got the best ERA in the league.

yooooooooooooooooo

the Rangers are winning a baseball game

I repeat

The Rangers are winning a baseball game

Great start for my Cubbies! Don't really care about the role changes because the core of baseball is still a joy. Playoff expansion is actually an improvement because it makes things more interesting when more teams are competing. Hopefully it leads to a shorter season in the future.

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Poor Wigs cant even enjoy this game because they shouldnt be playing and Cespedes was a DH and deGrom didnt hit so he his a fraud player now. Sorry Wigs!

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let me say what I should've said a couple hours ago now that TEX/COL is over (And the Rangers actually fucking won a baseball game in 2020, which actually amazes me with how fucking ugly the game was. It should've in no way been a shutout even if the Rangers pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts)

I strongly disagree with bringing baseball back and starting the season. I think it's a disaster waiting to happen, and there's no way they're taking enough precautions to ensure the health of players and team staff in the middle of a global fucking pandemic.

But as long as it is happening, I'll follow it because it's something to do that's not depressing as fuck, I'll root for the Rangers as I always do, and I'll root for everybody, on every team, to stay healthy.