apete6

So with Flores off the Mets, Castro for One of their pitchers back on the table?

Man, I always enjoyed Herrera's antics, both the positive and negative. He's a lunatic and fun to watch.

If it's McKinney and Edwards/Underwood, I'll drive all of them to the airport. I'd rather keep Underwood of those 3 pitchers. But yeah, if that's the deal....why isn't it done yet? Fair. I was going to just say Edwards, but figured I'd give the Padres some credit. Underwood/Johnson are about even in my book, both have injury scares.

Wow. Manaea (sp?) going to A's in that deal along with Aaron Brooks.

Oh, he's a dick (which I don't mind at all), but he makes Starlin look like Derek Jeter when it comes to mental awareness. Apparently he's terrible in the clubhouse, too, but no one really knows if that's true except his teammates.

If it's McKinney and Edwards/Underwood, I'll drive all of them to the airport.

Yeah. Watching Soler's questionable defense the past 2 games makes me imagine how much I would hate some of Puig's truly astonishingly bad decisions. Though I would enjoy the living bejeezus out of every HR, bat flip, and SB.

/poopemoji Where the hell is the power?

Am I the only one who doesn't really give a [expletive] that Tulo was "blindsided" by the trade or "disappointed" in the way it was handled? Yeah, he's had a solid career, but also got a HUGE contract and has spent significant time on the DL 5 of the past 7 years. It's not like he's a slam dunk HOFer that is in his 15th year with the club or something and they just shipped him out and pissed on his ashes all over the press. They found a deal they liked, it happened to be during a game he was playing, and in the era of Twitter, he found out about it in an odd circumstance. Boo freaking hoo. If he was that concerned about picking his destination, then negotiate a no trade clause.

Madison going very meatball "proven closer" here.

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Good buy low from the Cards pending what they are giving up. Over/Under of consecutive scoreless innings after the trade: 25 2/3 http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/07/cardinals-steve-cishek-deal-nearing.html

Well, that's terrifyingly bad. The fact that the Front Office and Media seem fixated on a pitcher clearly haven't seen the offensive "production" from CF, 2B, and SS lately. And having a bench that's this awful offensively isn't helping.

The Padres get 5 of the 6 most valuable commodities in that trade. So, no, it's not realistic.

For [expletive]'s sake, how about a [expletive] sacrifice fly? Is there any way to track our putridity with man on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Seems like every [expletive] time it's a Castro DP, Ross/Pitcher K, or some odd thing from Rizzo.

Now he's stealing bases. What a lovable guy. He's like a giant bear.

If he can avoid being comically bad, they'll live with it if he hits at a Rizzo/Bryant level.

Costa Rica just got bent over

4 of the next 5 games, the Cubs face RHP--the only one that they don't is Saturday's game that would have been the Ross game anyway (Lester pitching). Schwarber better be starting all 4 of those games somewhere on the field. BOOM!

The Smithsonian would HAVE to get a hold of that transcript.

I thought so. You have to figure if they're going to do it, it will be this offseason so they don't have a ton of overlap in paying the pitchers' last few years while also ponying up for Bryant, Rusell, etc... But if you do sign a guy like Price, that's it, that's pretty much your team for the next 5 years. Not necessarily bad as we can assume the position players will improve as they age, but they have to make sure they're comfortable with guys like Soler, Castro, and Russell and that they can find a home for Schwarber and McKinnie because they're not going to have another $100MM to sign a guy like Heyward or whoever else if they have Lester & Price and inevitably have to pay Bryant the big $$$ and possibly give another contract to Rizzo at some point.

So, back to the "this time it counts" idea. I don't think it's THAT big of a deal who has home field in a 7 game series, but even smart people like Joe Sheehan (on his recent Twitter Q&A) have said that "the league needs to know in advance" who has home field advantage. How is that even possible? They don't even know the damn teams until like 3 days before the WS starts. So, if it's, say Tampa vs. Seattle and Mets vs. Dodgers in the LCS's, why does it benefit MLB to know if it's the NL or AL has home field advantage? There's no way to control the weather or whatever. The NBA and NHL don't know until 3 days before. I seriously don't [expletive] understand why this is an issue? Am I missing something obvious?

I'm just guessing, but I imagine they'll prefer having more division races, not less. With 2 wild cards per league, top 2 division winners avoid the 1(or probably 3) game playoffs? Maybe keep the 5 teams and go like this: Best Division Winner 1 vs. Wild Card 2 vs. Wild Card 3 Winner (3 game series) in a 7 game series 2nd Best Division Winner vs. Wild Card 1 in a 7 game series Rewards both the best record as well as the best wild card team while keeping 5 teams making the playoffs. So, overall playoff odds go down (now 10/32 instead of 10/30), but those that make the playoffs get at least 3 games AND rewards Best Record and Top Wild Card (in the event that the 2 best teams are in the same division). I think the one game play-ins are a great way to build excitement immediately and are a television hit as a guaranteed elimination game. They outranked all division series games last year. 3 game play in series for wild card (with the 1 seed taking a full week off as a result) would quickly diminish interest. Excellent point. Could they possibly do it at a neutral site (domed to eliminate weather issue though i really hate a neutral site game that screws hometown fans out of a playoff game) and include a DH the first day and then the 3rd game the next day to minimize time off? Though, admittedly, a DH also isn't ideal due to the impact on bullpens and the fact that seemingly every one ends in a split. I understand the idea of the existing 1 game playoff, but just hate the idea of a 1 game playoff in a sport where even the worst teams win almost 40% of the time.

I'm just guessing, but I imagine they'll prefer having more division races, not less. With 2 wild cards per league, top 2 division winners avoid the 1(or probably 3) game playoffs? Maybe keep the 5 teams and go like this: Best Division Winner 1 vs. Wild Card 2 vs. Wild Card 3 Winner (3 game series) in a 7 game series 2nd Best Division Winner vs. Wild Card 1 in a 7 game series Rewards both the best record as well as the best wild card team while keeping 5 teams making the playoffs. So, overall playoff odds go down (now 10/32 instead of 10/30), but those that make the playoffs get at least 3 games AND rewards Best Record and Top Wild Card (in the event that the 2 best teams are in the same division).

He's getting worked up about who is the starting pitcher for the AL. That is silly. It's my opinion that Sale is better and more fun to watch than Keuchel. The numbers are split. Don't really think I'm worked up, just stating my thoughts. Then again, Yost is far more into having a dominant bullpen, so maybe his decision makes more sense in that context. Whatever. Either way, no one cares. Go NL!