Hot Stove Thread 2014-15

Didn't we already cover the subject of lame accusations disguised as jokes? It is especially wasteful when you forget to include humor in the joke.

Truth is, you are one of the ones yanking this thing off the rails.

 

Oh look, OOP's calling me a liar without any evidence whatsoever. That's completely consistent with his standards for accusing athletes of lying. Oh wait, no it isn't. Because that's what you do, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not. You hopscotch around to different principles, whatever suits the argument you are making, in an attempt to never have to back down even one inch on anything, ever.

Tell anyone you want. You think I fabricated Little League scores. I didn't. It was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure it was because of a joke that you took seriously (or pretended to for the sake of, as always, getting into an argument). You've repeated the accusation without a shred of evidence endlessly, because you don't *really* care about evidence, you care about arguing.

 

Rick, when you claim that I don't consistently stand by my principals, that is a lie, so that would be your evidence. Quite simple, though it apparently escaped you.

You also changed your story on the Little League thing. For a long time, you denied saying any such thing. Now you are claiming that you were joking and I misunderstood. I asked you why you changed your story and you ducked the question. Why is that?

I have defended the importance of evidence with a maddening consistency on this site. You know this, yet you claim otherwise. Claiming something that you know to be false isn't lying? You also resort to fiction when assigning motivations to my posting. Please, feel free to bring this up again if you ever choose to discuss the topic with some integrity. Otherwise, perhaps you should stop spreading falsehoods and talk about baseball.

 

Was this a reaction to something in particular or just frustration with their entire offseason so far?

 

This will probably get buried in the OOP arguments, but here goes.

Has the AL Central gone from one of the worst divisions to one of the best? If not best, maybe one of the toughest to win?

Think it was Olney who wrote about it earlier in the week.

Also saw a story by Fangraphs (yea I know) that said the AL Central winner would win 86 and that the top team in the majors would win 88. Seems absurd right? There will be at least one team that wins more than 90 right?


Discuss.

 

Just seems like they are mostly stocking their minor leagues.

 

Putting aside your decision to blame me for arguments started by Rick and BDC, it does seem like an improved division on paper. Adding Rios helps the Royals, though they could still use Shields or another arm in his place.

The White Sox are clearly improved and the Indians have the pitching to contend. Getting Jason Kipnis healthy and producing again would be a big help, but he already had another injury this offseason.

I'm not sure what to think of the Tigers. Simon could help, but at best he's not much better than Porcello and it looks like Scherzer is gone. They still need more bullpen help and the biggest concern is the way Miguel Cabrera has broken down at times over the last two seasons. I read one report that he isn't even a sure thing to be ready for opening day.

 

It will be interesting to see how the Royals moves work out. Dayton Moore has a good record of picking up guys who are coming off an injury or down year and getting something close to their top-level performances. If Rios, Morales and Medlen produce like they did in 2012 and 2013, then KC got better. If they all have repeats of 2014 the Royals might struggle to stay out of last place in a tough division.

 

I would be surprised if the White Sox can win the division, but I think the Tigers will come back to Earth unless Verlander has a nice rebound year (I don't see it). I'll take the Tribe with their pitching to win the Central at this point, but I'm excited for competent, watchable baseball on the South Side this year.

 

And the NL Central is gearing for a very tough stretch is the Cubs seem to put all these pieces together to go along with the Cards and Pirates. And the Brewers and Reds could easily be in the mix, also.

I think two things are in play; the East teams are not as loaded as they used to be, and teams are realizing with the wild card that 90 wins gets you to the dance instead of 95 to 100. They were talking about this on the MLB Network that teams are now buying to a point, then walking away. In the past they were trying that extra player or two to push them to 95 wins, but how they are happy with 88, since 88 could get you to the post season and your minor league system is semi-intact.

 

I don't think I did change my story. I think you are misremembering, but I acknowledge the possibility that I'm wrong and I'm misremembering. That's what sane people do, and it's something you won't do in an argument. You have less produced less evidence that I changed my story than we had that Ryan Braun used PEDs.

 

That's how projections work. They aren't predictions. They're the median expectation for each team, and some teams will overperform that expectation (and some under) and get to more extreme results. We just don't know which ones.

It's like a list of NFL betting lines for a week. They know that it is unlikely that all the favorites will win, but they still list all the favorites as such. They aren't saying "we think every single favorite will win." They just aren't picking which games will be upsets.

Those articles were using Fangraphs projections, which only has one team at 90+ (Dodgers at 91). They aren't predicting that 91 wins leads MLB this year. They know that several of the teams in the 81-89 range (and probably one or two teams below that) will win 90+. They just aren't picking which ones will be the upsets.