2016 MLB Regular-Season Thread

Jake Arrieta would have a ton of complete games if this were Little League.

 

Best thing Theo did was get Lackey. He still brings the goods.

 

You can't spot who isn't there.

Francisco Cervelli, of course.

 

Bold move reuniting him with Jon Lester. Theo doesn't seem the least bit concerned they will hurt the team by eating fried chicken, drinking beer and playing video games in the clubhouse.

 

Well, the offense has certainly fallen apart without that .666 OPS from its catcher.

But hey, he did apparently have great pitch framing statistics last year, so maybe it was all him.

 

Or maybe the Cubs are just that good. Take out 7 games against the Cubs (6 of them losses in which they allowed 6 or more runs), and the Pirates are 32-28, which is an 86-win pace.

Assuming McCutchen turns it around, Pittsburgh will be in the wildcard race in September.

 

You can't just "take out" the games against better opponents!

 

No shit, but the point is the Pirates are a perfectly good team that would contend in just about any other season. It's just they share their division this year with an historically good one.

 

When you just don't give a damn what people think.

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/vin-scully-has-strong-feelings-about-socialism-1782196988

 

BuckWeaver is going to have to enlist a therapist to help him work through this.

 

As DW said, the games against the good teams count, too. The Cubs were damn good last year, too, and the Cardinals were stronger last season and the Pirates fared better than they are so far in 2016.

The pitching is dramatically worse than it was in 2015 and it wasn't hard to predict that decline based on what they did this past offseason. They suffered serious losses in the starting rotation and the bullpen through retirement, free agency and trades and didn't do nearly enough to replace those pitchers.

 

So far, so good for the Angels' new pitcher: Lincecum gives up four hits and a run over six innings in 7-1 win over A's.