jersey cubs fan

Yeah, it's not 'getting boned' when Dusty predictably refused to adjust his lineup for the fact that he was facing a dude who eats lefthanded batters for lunch. Because baseball is meant to be a "best team over a long season or series, not whoever happens to have a great matchup in 1 game" type of sport. Yeah, Dusty is an idiot, but there shouldn't be anything besides a tiebreaker that is 1 game. I love rewarding the division winner, but with so much randomness in baseball, 1 game is just dumb. wrong

There is no need for any of this nonsense. 1 game works great. If you don't want to risk the 1 game loss, win your division.

I feel like lots of people ignore this part. It's understood he'll never be a good fielder and may not even be able to play a position. And his SLG was 450 this year. He hit 19 HR. If he was a decent athlete who could be counted on to play 1B at an average or better level, I'd be more excited. But he has a long ways to go and has to show more than he has at the upper levels.

You complain about 1 game series but want double headers in the playoffs?

You can't with the 15/15 set-up, considering you need interleague matchups being played everyday.

I think a good compromise is to keep the wild card as a 1-game playoff, but if the wild card team happens to have a top 2 record, they get to host a playoff series. I know baseball always uses the excuse for the world series that home sites need to be determined in advance for accommodations, but I've always considered it bs. What if the division winner with the worse record actually played in a division with 4 tough opponents while the 2nd place team with a better record got there by beating up on 3 creampuffs? I don't see the point or need to even consider this. You play the regular season to win your division. The wild card is for the teams that didn't win their divisions.

Boring people like to be bored. Or baseball is a game based on a pitching STAFF, so some people would like more than one game. I understand why people like the one game. I understand why people like the three game series. I understand why people don't even want the second wild card. There is no correct way of doing it just differing opinions. Baseball is not a game based on a pitching staff. You're joking, right? I'm not discounting that some people think non-decisive games are boring. What percentage of them do? I don't know. Not every stance you take has to be debated so that you win the argument. When you try to win every debate instead of discussing them you say things like, "Baseball is not a game based on a pitching staff." I am not joking. Baseball is not a game based on a pitching STAFF. You just made that up. Baseball is a game based on 9 innings, during which each team has 3 outs to try and score runs. The success of any major league baseball team over the course of a full season is largely dependent on its pitching staff, but not entirely. And the importance of that staff is diminished significantly in any short series. You count on your pitching staff, and your entire roster, to get you into position to compete in the playoffs. If you are good enough, you win your division. If you aren't good enough to win your division, you hope for an opportunity with the wild card. This system opens up that opportunity to more teams, which means more fan bases have more reason to pay attention late in the season and care. And it rewards both winning your division, and being the 1 seed.

Boring people like to be bored. Or baseball is a game based on a pitching STAFF, so some people would like more than one game. I understand why people like the one game. I understand why people like the three game series. I understand why people don't even want the second wild card. There is no correct way of doing it just differing opinions. Baseball is not a game based on a pitching staff. And it's not like you win the World Series with one game. A 3 game series is just as random and "meaningless". If you don't like it , win your division. Pit still has to go into round 1 without Liriano until late. This is not the easy road. It is fun and enjoyable and entertaining. Baseball needs that more than it needs more non-deciding 4 hour games.

Good stuff Pittsburgh

Boring people like to be bored.

Well, he should be on a different time but it's too late for that.

cool

OK, that's weird, albeit not exactly a committal response either way. Others have picked up the quote as, "I wouldn't comment on that". That would make more sense. I have another TV feed audio and may have missed it.

On a side note, these ridiculous media members call him "Cash" when asking him a question.

OK, that's weird, albeit not exactly a committal response either way. Reading between the lines I am guessing, completely guessing, they are prepared to move on and let Joe go after some conversations with everybody tomorrow. They are about to start a new era. On Cano: We'd love to have Robby back. He'll have something significant to consider.

will the cubs ask permission to talk to Joe? "I wouldn't count on it." It's hard for me to answer that, it will depend on my conversations with Joe (and a bunch of NYY front office names). That will pick up tomorrow, I will talk to his representative tomorrow. It will pick up steam then.

and now he's on to challenges of roster makeup.

Thumbs up he did a great job. (when asked if he is going to return) I think he likes it here. I can't speak for other opportunities. We are going to give him a lot of reason to stay. We hired a good one. We benefited from having him, would like to keep him, you will have to stay tuned in to see how it turns out. Most important thing is he knows we want him to stay. He'll have decisions about what's best for him and his family. I can't predict.

Cashman is on YES Network right now. He sounds like he's talking about Girardi right now, talking about how well he has done since Day one. "The talent that he had to work with this year was significantly less than other years but he stayed the same."

So then ownership tells management to put more emphasis on winning at the major league level. They don't say, hey, go hire that guy to manage the team. They give them the resources to get better sooner, and the mandate to win games.

What the hell does synergy have to do with anything? What is the decision that goes hand in hand? In what way shape or form is it helpful to have ownership influence the decision to hire a manager?

It's weird. There's a synergy between the business and baseball sides that has to be there and more revenue = more winning. Decisions like this can go hand and hand that way. No, not at all. A winning team drives interest in the team and revenues. A big name manager accomplishes nothing. The only people with input should be the baseball people. Hey, thanks for including the rest of my post that acknowledges and agrees with that. You can't have it both ways. You insinuate there is nothing wrong with business people having input into the decision about who should manage the team, then state the complete opposite. I was specifically addressing your point that these decisions go hand in hand and there is some sort of synergy involved here. There is not.

It's weird. There's a synergy between the business and baseball sides that has to be there and more revenue = more winning. Decisions like this can go hand and hand that way. No, not at all. A winning team drives interest in the team and revenues. A big name manager accomplishes nothing. The only people with input should be the baseball people.

How would you have preferred the two way tie for the final WC spot to be resolved? Exactly how it was, but the Wild Card series should be a minimum 3-game series. Winning 1 game to qualify to play another 1 game is just dumb. 1-game tiebreakers are just fine, but 1-game playoff series aren't. 1-game WC matchups are awesome. Having them play three games while everybody else sits around and waits would be dumb.

You think a selling point for Girardi on the Nats job is that DC is only a few hours drive from NY?