Click here to read the transcript of tonight’s live baseball chat
By Mark Polishuk | at
Click here to read the transcript of tonight’s live baseball chat
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Dodgers fan
8:16 Who do we blame. Roberts, bullpen, hitters not hitting with runners in SP
Mark P
8:17 All of the above, really, but most of the blame has to be on the Dodgers’ lineup inexplicably going ice-cold with RISP.
Mark, a keen and smart Baseball fan you are! 100%
Maybe it had something to do with that other team they were playing just being better in 3 straight games?
Obviously. Isn’t that always the case?
Mariners trade Gonzo back to StL for Edman. Gold glove, moves to 2B and leads off. Then France and Julio bat 2nd or 3rd.
Flexon and 2 others to Pitt for Reynolds.
Re-sign Haniger to a 1 year($ fair amt for both).
Sign a vet SP that has a track record of pitching well vs Hou.
ICE COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s a baseball thing. Anything can happen, or not happen, over a few games!
LordD, Couldn’t agree more.
More like good pitching
Dodgers need Mike Trout and Shohei! WooOOoOOoo!!
Yep good pitching beats good hitting.
Also, a manager that leaves his good pitching in the game longer could be a factor. Just read a good article criticizing Robert’s for not relying on SP longer. The article called it mismanagement of BP.
“Good pitching beats good hitting.” One of the best coaches I ever had told me that when I was 13. He was right.
“I could have gone another 5”
– Tyler Anderson when asked about how he was feeling when he was replaced during last night’s game.
“Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice versa.” -Bob Veale
Here is my two cents on the dodgers off-season. Hand Cody his walking papers. Let Trea walk. The dodgers need a vocal leader with the bat, they don’t have that right now. They have Kershaw who is the leader of the pitchers and JT who is the team moral police officer. Go get Carlos freaking Correa. Now a lot of dodger fans are gonna hate him for two weeks, and a lot of non dodger fans are gonna say I’m being spoiled for even suggesting they spend this money. Maybe I am but more importantly, do you put it past this ownership? At the same time bring Kersh back on the QO, offer TA 3/45-54 or so and get one of Bassit or Eovaldi (I’d prefer bassit but I assume most teams would. Go get conforto to play left/DH on a pillow deal and check in on Mitch Haniger. Get some more righty relievers off the waiver wheel but go find a serviceable lefty either via trade or Andrew Chafin. Don’t bring Craig back or go get Chapman or Diaz, one is done and the other will be too pricey IMO for a reliever no matter how good he is and I love Edwin.
This is my opinion on the ideal off season for LA. And don’t get me wrong I love Trea with all my heart but it’s time to get the shortstop that stands out about the rest with Carlos who has the regular season respect and consistency with the postseason power and success.
tstats:
So, hitting some of the high points in summation:
Sign Correa. Sign Bassit or Evovaldi. Sign Conforto or maybe Haniger. Load up on relievers, forgoing the aging, and/or expensive ones.
I’d say that’s a pretty good plan for a lot of teams.
Yeah that’s true, they don’t really need much more than Chafin for the relief core IMO if you just use DMay
it may be better to get more hits than home runs and strike outs. most losing team had a bunch of power hitters.
i think it was 2 for their final 30 w/RISP.
One more hit in game 2 and in game 3 and it could have been a sweep.
Oh well, life goes on. Have we seen Cody Bellinger’s last AB in a Dodger uni? I think so.
What is a super 2 player??
Good question. I think this explains it for the most part.
mlb.com/glossary/transactions/super-two
Dave
8:37 With 100 win teams going out quickly, any chance the playoff format gets tweaked?
Mark P
8:37 This is hardly the first year the top seeds have been upset early.
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This is also the first time the playoff format is far different, and there weren’t 3rd wildcards and ‘byes’. Manfred is ruining baseball when 40% of the league make the post season, next year’s only 2 pick-offs is also a joke.
There should be no 2nd or 3rd wildcard, and the wildcard should be one from AL/NL with a 3 game playoff, that’s all. Sides who’ve played 162 and want to continue hitting at the game level to stay in the groove are left sitting on their bums.
Live bp sessions do not cut it-fact. Byes disadvantage the sides that played hard all year to achieve getting the top spot. Astros should have lost game 1, Dodgers were ice cold, Braves did not hit well. Yankees are in a game 5.
Reduce the 162 game season and increase it to 4 wildcards then, because what’s the point of 162 anymore? Manfred is only interested in money for MLB, it’s already cheap at 40% of teams making the post season and getting a shot at something they shouldn’t..
This take is so tired. Houston won in 3. The Yankees are tied with the Guardians. There is as much evidence that the byes help as there is that the byes don’t help. The Padres and Phillies have killer lineups and good top end starters. They were built for the postseason. I’d argue that both underperformed in the regular season. The Mets and Cardinals didn’t have byes either and were easily handled by both teams. The short series is the main factor here.
You can call it what you want, but never let facts get in the way of your opinion. There is no evidence that sitting on your bum helps hitting, the contrary is the fact. Hitters have to see live pitching and play day in and day out. Houston should have lost GM1-fact, Verlander had his worst start all year….
The Mets were an outlier, where there were stats to support that they had a lot of luck with soft contact all year, but they have one of the best contact hitters in baseball in McNeil. As for the Cardinals, they were in a division with three of the poorer performing teams all year who are all in rebuilding mode, no disrespect to the Cardinals though, they’re a good team regardless.
The old system was not broken, and that is why you find my take tiring, because you believe that 3rd wildcards should be added, I don’t believe they should no matter what teams are involved. There is no point to a 162 game season if you are going to create play off positions for the sake of either raking in money, or for what you want to term as ‘making it exciting’. Manfred is ruining baseball. When 40% of the league is now getting a chance to win a World Series it’s not making the post season what it once was, and that is play-offs from the best teams for 162 games of the year.
Every single playoff team would choose the bye next year. Having homefield advantage and the ability to set up your rotation is a huge reward for winning the division. Your argument that too many teams make the playoffs is an entirely different conversation and I’m not here to argue against your opinion on that, but the idea that the bye is a disadvantage is ridiculous. The Braves and LA had a big advantage and didn’t perform.
To play devil’s advocate — if ATL didn’t win the division (and had a bye) playing in a 3-game series — Fried was going through the flu that he wasn’t 100% for in G1, Strider wouldn’t have been ready (regardless of how he pitched in G3 vs. PHI). Winning the division was key so they could have the additional time to get healthy, though Strider still had a lot of rust when he took the mound in the NLDS.
There’s no ‘advantage’ to not playing for 5 days(specifically for the hitters), it is too long to wait. Hitters can go off in 1 day let alone 3, 4 or 5, this is a fact that you continue to ignore. You may assert extra rest days(more than 5) aid pitchers getting a rest, this may be so in some cases, but not all-see Verlander as but one example where he did not look sharp. In his case excessive rest has led to some poor starts.
The Dodgers and the Braves played two sides who in my opinion should not have even been in the post season, yet they get an opportunity.
I believe that there should be two wildcards, one AL and one from the NL, but that would make it too tough like it should be to make the post season, wouldn’t it.
You assert the Braves/Dodgers had “big” advantages, what were they? Sitting on their bums resting when hand eye co-ordination sports are sports that you should play as regularly as possible to ‘keep your eye in’…It also applies to all of these sports, baseball, tennis, golf, anything to do with hitting a ball…
The entire playoff nonsense is silliness……
1. In the case of Guardians and Yankees – because Cleveland had to play a series before the Yankees – even though like the Yankees they were a division winner – their pitching rotation is screwed up so that their can’t pitch their 2 best pitchers 2 times in this series while the Yankees can. No one is discussing that.
2. This sitting of one team has always been an issue when one MLB league finishes their round of the playoffs before another. What makes 2022 unique?
3. How do you work out 6 teams from 3 divisions being in a playoff? 3 of the teams didn’t win their division and 2 of the “wild card” teams came from the same division. How do the division winners get equal preference for winning their division?
4. Baseball is the summer game. Last night Cleveland was freezing – weather forecasters cited a chance of snow. It’s the 17th of October. Even if the LCS started today, it would be a best of 5 series, followed by the WS which is a best of 7. We’re quite probably talking about playing baseball – at night – into November.
5. The greed of the players, owners, and now the fans that all are waiting breathlessly for expansion has had one result – it continuously compromises the integrity of the sport.
MLB has been selling out its integrity for so many decades that it’s a joke to older people. They just had to call Aaron Judge’s 62 HR’s: “The new AL HR record” because the NL records are held by people that were taking body enhancement medications that – unlike “greenies” that kept players awake – added muscle onto the players bodies to such a degree that their hat sizes went up. And then we have the home plate umpires ball-and-strike calls that badly need to be replaced by computerized cameras situated around the parks, but can’t seem to be debugged after years of testing in MiLB parks. There are so many things “unfair” about MLB – starting with teams having radically unequal sources of revenue to use in their payrolls each year.
So go argue over yet another thing.
We may think of baseball as a game but the fact is, it’s a business. Manfred speaks for the owners so of course he cares more about money than the purity of the game.
I believe it will take a few years to see if the first round “bye” is a benefit or disadvantage. I personally think it’s a disadvantage for teams to sit and wait that long, at least for hitters. Personally I would have liked to see the e playoffs for wildcard teams start immediately with a double header. I think a day off of play, followed by two games, followed by a travel day and another is entirely too long of a break for division winning teams.
How cool would it be to have 2 brothers face each other in the world series?
Phil Maton Houston vs Nick Maton Phillies.
Maton is out
Two brothers are facing off in the NLCS: Aaron Nola from the Phils vs. Austin Nola from the Padres. Phil Maton broke his hand punching his locker after a game in which he gave up a hit to his brother.
Division winners need to have more of an advantage in the playoffs.
Playoffs should be…
3 division winners get byes the first round.
Next 4 wildcard teams play a 1 game elimination round and the winner of that plays the number 1 seed. the 2 seed and 3 seed play each other. These are all 7 game series on out.
The 5 game series is what really messed this up.
What would really make it fun would be the wildcard at a neutral site and all games are played in 1 day. If the wildcard teams don’t like it… tough. Win your division then.
This presumes weak division winners deserve byes. I would argue that 3 WC winners were better than the winner of the ALC and NLC. People put so much importance on winning the division, but the divisions are so ridiculously unbalanced. That all changes next year with the new balanced schedule. Also each league has 3 WC teams, not 4.