2018 MLB Thread

[gunnar hendershow]

Mike Trout has now been runner up 4 times. He's won 2 MVPs. He's been in the league for 8 seasons.

I think that's a pretty good track record.

[Meacon Keaton]

27 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

Mike Trout has now been runner up 4 times. He's won 2 MVPs. He's been in the league for 8 seasons.

I think that's a pretty good track record.

If only there was an award for "Best Player". He'd be a solid 6 or 7 time winner. 

[GhostMachine]

12 hours ago, Buschie Van Wagenen said:

I've also got one of my friends who is a Red Sox fan kvetching about Alex Cora not winning Manager of the Year (Bob Melvin and Brian Snitker won).  "How can he not be Manager of the Year when he won 108 games in his rookie year?"

I don't understand the beef other than blatant homerism.  It didn't take an Einstein to run that team.  The award usually always goes based on whatever team exceeded expectations.  Not saying Cora isn't a good manager but that team was so stacked I'm fairly sure anybody in this thread could've gotten them to the playoffs.

I'm a Red Sox fan, and I don't have a problem with Cora not winning it.  Bob Melvin absolutely deserved it.

[gunnar hendershow]

1 hour ago, Meacon said:

If only there was an award for "Best Player". He'd be a solid 6 or 7 time winner. 

Depending on the year voters treat MVP like that. 

37 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

I'm a Red Sox fan, and I don't have a problem with Cora not winning it.  Bob Melvin absolutely deserved it.

Wow did you lose a bet and have to spend the offseason saying you like Boston?

[Your Mom]

Total thievery! Don't throw stats at me Yelich is a bum!  

[ThrillhouseMAX]

Following up on the Marlins: new jerseys look almost the same as the old one except there are blue ones now.

https://twitter.com/Marlins/status/1063431843733635073?s=20

[Meacon Keaton]

No joke on nothing, I like ‘em.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Me too. I think I'd like the blue one more if it had Marlins written across the shirt but it's still fine. 

[GhostMachine]

Definite improvement.

[Maxx]

19 hours ago, damsher hatfield said:

It's an upgrade. But another team wearing red and blue is boring. They had teal, why can't they go back to teal?

Yeah but this red is caliente 

[Meacon Keaton]

Muy muy

[The Buscher]

The award of "First Major League Signing of the Offseason" goes to Jeff Mathis who signs a two-year pact with the Rangers.

If you want a testament to how good Mathis is defensively, look no further than the fact that he got a multi-year deal at 35 despite hitting .198 over 2400 career at-bats.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, average be damned when you throw out more than 40% of base stealers against you.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Orioles finally have a GM and it's a great hire!

I know we jumped into the awful timeline when the Cubs won the World Series, but if that's the timeline required for the Orioles to make sound baseball moves I could get used to it.

[Gabriel]

The Jays made their first move of the off-season, sending Aledmys Diaz to Houston for their 24th ranked prospect, who is a starting pitcher. So they address the log-jam in the infield and add another arm to the minors.

It's not a bad swap. We need depth with pitching right now, and Diaz wasn't going to earn himself any time at 2nd or Short with the defensive numbers that he posted this season. We might miss his bat in the lineup, but I'm sure that we'll all forget about his 18 home runs and fairly impressive batting average as soon as Vlad Jr walks onto the field for his first regular season game. Plus, we still have too many major league level/bubble infielders to head into the season, so there will probably be more moves coming.

Moving Diaz also opens up some salary space. Diaz made $2 million last season, and Trent Thornton, the prospect obtained from Houston, will be added to the 40 man roster for the first time, so his salary will be considerably less.

Ownership said that the Salary will be considerably lower than last season, but if they can keep moving out excess pieces for smaller contracts with prospects, there might still be money there to lure JA Happ back and maybe fill another need or two with solid free agents. Obviously not top level guys, but if there's someone around who would still be productive during our anticipated window of opportunity, I don't see why they wouldn't at least have those discussions. It's important not to just throw this year away because they don't think that the team is good enough yet. It's also important though, not to spend big money on guys who won't be productive in 2 to 3 years when Vlad Jr, Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Sean Reid-Foley, Danny Jansen, Rowdy Tellez and company are all considered to be prime pieces.

[Meacon Keaton]

5 hours ago, damsher hatfield said:

The Orioles finally have a GM and it's a great hire!

I know we jumped into the awful timeline when the Cubs won the World Series, but if that's the timeline required for the Orioles to make sound baseball moves I could get used to it.

Yeah, I have to admit that was a great move. I feel like Peter Angelos must’ve been out of town and they hired Elias before he could get back.

[gunnar hendershow]

On 17/11/2018 at 18:29, Meacon said:

Yeah, I have to admit that was a great move. I feel like Peter Angelos must’ve been out of town and they hired Elias before he could get back.

His kids are mostly running the show now, so there was a lot of assumption that they'd go with Brady Anderson since he's an ass-kisser and hangs out with John Angelos as if they were friends.

That didn't happen. Sure sounds like Brady actually wound up with a demotion of some kind from where he was a season ago.

[The Buscher]

I think there will be at least three inductees this year.

Mo should be unanimous (although he likely won't be), but he's of course going straight in with 95% or something.  Edgar Martinez is in his final year on the ballot and his vote totals have been trending in the right direction for him to get over the hump.  I always expected Halladay to get in but wondered if it would take two or three tries - with his tragic passing last year though I think that he's heading in on year one, and it's so sad that he's not here to see it.

My ballot if I had a vote:  Bonds, Clemens, Halladay, Martinez, Mussina, Rivera, Rolen, Sheffield, Wagner, Walker

All four of last years inductees were on my hypothetical 2018 ballot, so I've kept my six holdovers and given the other spots to Rivera, Halladay, Mussina, and (I think) Sheffield.  That last one was tough, you could've talked me into Kent over Sheffield but both of them are sadly way far away from enshrinement.  So is Wagner who I will keep supporting as I still firmly believe he was way better than Trevor Hoffman.

[Meacon Keaton]

My votes to go in:

Barry Bonds
Rogers Clemens
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff
Mariano Rivera
Gary Sheffield
Larry Walker

My "Ask Me Later" Guys
Todd Helton
Andruw Jones
Mike Mussina
Andy Pettite
Scott Rolen
Manny Ramirez
Sammy Sosa

Billy Wagner

 

The top seven are guys that should have been put in already and that belong in there now. The bottom eight are guys that I kind of flip-flop on. Bonds would have hit 500 home runs, PED's or no. I can't necessarily say the same about Ramirez or Sosa. It's also why I'm hesitant to put Pettite in there. While I think Todd Helton was a great hitter, he just doesn't have the numbers to back up him getting in. Andruw Jones, I'm assuming, played clean or at least cleaner than most, so that makes it hard to look past his 450 homers. Mussina pitched in an era where guys were winning 300 games, so him coming up short does hurt his chances a little. 

[The Buscher]

To me, Sosa is a case where he's just so far behind in the balloting...like, I think he only managed to stay on this year by a few votes, that he's just realistically not getting in and with only ten spots available I'd rather throw support behind someone who might have a shot.

While I don't know if Manny would've had over 500 home runs, I still think he would've been a brilliant hitter and PEDs don't have an impact on your timing.  He had the PED rumors swirling around him in the early 2000s but much like Bonds or Clemens, I wasn't going to penalize him absent a positive test in an era where there was an actual policy on it.  Him getting popped in 2009 (and again in 2011) was enough for me to disqualify him from consideration especially given how stacked the ballots were.