2016 MLB Regular-Season Thread

Is Buck Showalter over rated? Or is he commonly held to be nothing more than a pretty good manager but nothing special?

 

That's odd. The Braves don't usually choke until October.

 

Chris Sale 9 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 SO.

 

I saw this earlier, and kept waiting for Bobby Cox to show.......and he did.

 

Real men whiff 10.

 

He's turned every franchise he's managed into playoff contenders within two full seasons. Below are the records of each franchise he's managed in the year before he took over (with the exception of Arizona, which he managed in its first year) and in his second full season as manager.

NYY 1991: 71-91; 1993: 88-74
ARI: 1998: 65-97; 1999: 100-62
TEX: 2002: 72-90; 2003: 89-73
BAL: 2009: 64-98; 2012 (2nd full season): 93-69

The four franchises improved by an average of 24.5 wins in two seasons. The record pretty clearly supports that he's a damn good manager.

 

17 seasons, 4 playoff appearances 1 playoff series win. And NY, Tex and Ariz are generally regarded as well funded teams. The Orioles? Angelos is a shitstain

not a top 5 manager but 5-10?

 

The Rangers are going to get a new ballpark to replace the ballpark formerly known as the Ballpark. And with a retractable roof thrown in....Sources: Rangers, City of Arlington will announce plans for new retractable-roof stadium | SportsDay

 

About the same age as the Ted.

Why not dismantle each of them in pieces, like when they moved the London Bridge to Arizona, and take them to Tampa Bay and Oakland.

 

Probably. Off the top of my head: Francona, Bochy, Maddon, Girardi, Sciosia. Anybody else ahead of him?

The before/after results are undeniable. He has unquestionably turned around every team he has managed (not singlehandedly, of course, but in the scope of this discussion, he deserves a lot of credit). He's never won a pennant, obviously, but I'm fairly convinced he could have won the World Series with the '96 Yankees, had they not fired him (I don't think he would have sustained that success the way Torre did).

I guess the argument to be made is that he's not a "closer." He's taken shitty teams and made them contenders, but two of the four teams he helmed managed to win the World Series the year after he departed. That's a ding against him, considering they won with largely the same personnel.

That said, if my franchise was struggling, I'd take Showalter over the vast majority of managers out there right now.

 

Giants finish off Padres to complete 8-0 road trip. First perfect roadie since 1913. Next up: 3 vs Cubs at AT&T.

 

I think it was a 7-0 trip -- 4 in Phoenix and 3 in San Diego. The Padres got 3 runs and 13 hits in the three games.