The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

Buster is the only evidence I need for the theory that working for ESPN just warps these people's minds. He was the best beat writer in the country for the Times and wrote one of the great baseball books (Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty) this century. Now he's just a thin-skinned hawt take guy holding grudges. He'd be unrecognizable to the Buster of 20 years ago. For the love of shit, we know you love Mike Mussina, who I would bet could give two shits about number 35 being worn by a lot of meh guys unti Rutschman.

Not to mention he's wrong about the D-Backs, who just flat-out stunk but didn't tank in 2021. Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Ketel Marte and Christian Walker were all on that team and Carson Kelly, Josh Rojas & Nick Ahmed were all on the team into this season. They should have kept Goldschmidt, but trading him didn't signify a giant teardown. tl;dr go Orioles

 

Somebody’s mad:

 

Giants fans knowing that feel

 

The 89-loss Angels are sitting there saying Thank God for the White Sox, Royals and A's. It's like the old AL all over again.

 

Yeah - I mean look how awesome the Mets, Yankees and Red Sox were this year.

I think the Giants have to be one of the worst run teams in baseball. They make a ton of cash and can't get a decent FA to come there. They can't develop a decent outfielder. The last home-grown All-Star outfield was CHILI DAVIS!. And its outfield, where you have THREE chances to develop a half-decent player and they whiff, all the time. Even when they won it was mostly Bochy managing his ass off, rather than a superior roster. Yes, they had good pitching, but they never had the best staff in the league. Mariners have been down so long, it really doesn't take much to satisfy them.
One of the best things about the expanded playoffs is that it puts more pressure on teams to compete - Some years you could have started the playoffs with the standings on Memorial Day, while everyone else just tanked. Now there are only three to five teams who are truly awful. Hell there was only one team - the White Sox who won between 60-70 games - everyone else was above or below. Somewhat amazing.

 

“It’s the versatility piece. I think that to be able to be a Gold-Glove right fielder, to play Gold-Glove second base, to go from the outfield grass to the dirt, really doesn’t happen. To be able to do that, to still be able to hit 39 homers, score 100 runs, drive in 100 runs. … If it’s the Most Valuable Player on the team, Mookie Betts’ ability to play on the dirt allows for Jason Heyward to play who had a .900 OPS this year. So we’re just not the same team.” -- Dave Roberts​

 

Or the Cubs or the Astros.

 

Interesting, John Means is not on the ALDS roster for Baltimore. I assume that means Gibson will get the ball in Game 3 and Kremer in Game 4.

 

The 2015-17 Braves lost nearly 93 games a season, which allowed them to draft Riley, Harris, Elder, Shuster, Strider, Soroka and Smith-Shawver, add Acuna and Albies as international signees. Plus make smart trades and plug the holes with free agents.

Unless you're the Yankees, Dodgers or Cardinals, you're going to have seasons when you flat-out suck because your ability to replace aging pieces eventually falls short and you need to replenish the farm system. (Amazingly, the Dodgers and Cardinals haven't lost 100 or more games in a season for over 110 years now.)

Every team should have peaks and valleys, whether you want to refer to cutting your payroll during the leanest years as "tanking" or not. The worst possible outcome is to sit right around .500 year after year, where you can't draft your way into a better situation or add enough value from trades/free agency to gain ground.

Big-money teams have two major advantages: One, they can spend more to obtain elite free agents when other teams hit their self-imposed salary cap, but most importantly, two, they have the means to overcome really bad personnel decisions. Unless you're the Mets.

 

I was ready to decry that move ... and saw that he's come up with elbow soreness. Dammit.

 

If they are able to build a strong core, they are able to keep it together. More than anything, that is what the Yankees did in their most recent dynasty, though they also added big-money free agents when necessary. The last gasp of that run was a World Series championship they bought by signing Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett al in one offseason, but those guys were additions to the remnants of the core that had won championships previously.

 

No problem with Henderson trying to steal there. Made the defense make a play.

I'm not sure Brandon Hyde agreed.