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The 2019 Baseball Thread


Pariah

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2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Yeah, this is a sad time to be an Astros fan. The penalties weren't truly harsh enough but if you strip the World Series in '17 then you'd probably have to do the "18 one as well.  And the owners who sign Manfred's paycheck don't want him to have that much power over them.

 

This may be the best way to stop it though. No manager will put up with this happening under their watch (unless it's approved from the owner and front office😧)

 

Yeah, shouldn't really retroactively strip titles in pro sports.  And, that is even with me hating Boston.  You'd have to start analyzing the titles of the last 100 years, a big can of worms.

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Jim Rome said something very interesting on his Youtube channel today. He said he didn;t want to hear form people saying they will drop baseball or their team that was implicated -- because they won't. They never do. 

 

Come Opening Day, there will still be big crowds at Minute Maid Park and Fenway Park. I don't doubt that in the least.

 

I also disagree with Max Kellerman that baseball is now irrelevant and only when a scandal breaks out do people talk about it. He seems to measure the popularity of a sport by how much time talking heads like himself find themselves discussing it on the air. By that standard, you might well forget that hockey even exists (maybe that's because ESPN doesn't have the national TV contract for the NHL). 

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Well, hockey probably is more of a regional sport (northern half of US and Canada).  But in that area it is pretty close to the Big 3.   Probably more so than in my day, but there was just absolutely no exposure to hockey in a rural Southern town, beyond the boxscore in the local paper.  But, it should at least be a #4.   

 

Course, interestingly, you covered 2 guys I really cant stand, though finding a sports talk guy I can for more than 10 minutes is a hard job.  Baseball could very well be #3, now.  But, just because Kellerman has no interest in talking about a sport isn't a judge on its popularity.

 

I think analytics has been hurting sports interest to a large degree.  It does streamline teams into efficiency, but, it has cost team individuality, every team in every sport is building their teams near identically.  One size fits all makes for boring watching.   I enjoyed watching speed team like the Cardinals back in the 80s, fend off teams built more conventionally.  Could it work now? I don't know.  No team is even remotely going to try.  Since every team is going to build 95% identical, the trash teams will just get cheaper versions of molds, players that the rich teams cast off.  

 

(football seems to have some variety, but it is more of a 2 size and dependent mostly on your QB's abilities.  Slow old relic vs flashy new dual threat, Baseball is 3 true outcome obsessed, while basketball is drawn to all 3s all the time

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congrats to them and deserved. I am surprised more didnt get in. Its time for the writers to stop penalizing Schilling for 1 repost 5 years ago. He can be a jerk, but his numbers both regular season and especially post season deserve to be voted for. Contrarily, I find it nice to see them sticking to their guns on the known(?) steroid guys.

One guy who was on MLB Now yesterday put all the steroid guys on his ballot, claiming it wasn't up to him to police the game and that the HOF is just a museum. I and the other panelists disagreed with him vehemently regarding getting your own plaque there. Those guys exploits are in, but it is a very different thing to put the man in as a HOFer. He tried to argue that there are already bad guys in the hall so why bother.

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8 hours ago, Pariah said:

Derek Jeter and Larry Walker are in the Hall of Fame.

 

I'm still mad the Vet Committee continues to ignore Lou Whitaker.  No, diss to Ted Simmons, but Whitaker was more deserving.  Should have gone in with Trammell, either both are deserving or neither are.

 

 

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50 minutes ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

How do they compare, statistically and in terms of their impact on their teams, do guys already in Cooperstown?

 

Jeter is an all time great even if his defense was slightly overrated.(He didn't have great range but he fielded everything he got to and had a good arm. Offensively he's one of the top five shortstops of all time. No questioning of his first ballot selection is justified.

 

Walker has the numbers to back up his case Playing in Colorado put a shade on his candidacy and he lacks postseason heroics but he belongs in Cooperstown.

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I will say defensively, Jeter probably should have been a centerfielder, at least early in his career, he could go back on the popups well.  Course, Bernie Williams was out there (though, Williams would have probably been best served as a corner outfielder).

 

Lou Whitaker, is #2 in WAR among "eligible" non-HOFers if I remember them mentioning this winter (behind Bill Dahlen a SS in the 1890s-circa 1910).   And Dahlen apart from being really long time ago, is probably hurt by being one of the few players to make 1000 errors (though, with primitive gloves, and the fact he is said to have legendary type range, should be forgiven of that)  and the fact his greatest offensive seasons came in the 1890s, when the pitcher's mound had just been moved back, where offense was at its most ridiculous (by batting average if not by power, I mean the 1894 Phillies had an all-.400 outfield, and still was like only mid-tier team), not to mention Dahlen's age prime his offense was distorted by the beginning of the deadball in the early 20th century.

 

Note: I do think Tim Raines took awhile to make the Hall was because not long after he left Montreal, he practically stopped stealing any bases.  But, in his prime he was Rickey Henderson-lite.  But, he lasted too long post-prime as a role player.  

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Think about this, at one point, Jeter wasn't even the best SS on his team. When A-Rod joined them originaly, he was still in his prime and was considered a better SS.

I agree Jeter is a first ballot HOFer for everything he did, but I would say there were a lot of SS better then him. I don't count offensively so much anymore because Jeter as played through the really live ball era. But he was a clutch player and someone who had a lot of class with everyone he dealt with, fans and press.

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