Sammys Boombox

I made these not long ago and it was as majestic as it looks... I have seen that before. Looks amazing! My burger was so good I decided to not watch the Cubs so I had no chance of them ruining my night. Looking at the W afterwards was enough for me tonight.

I'm making this tonight except with real maple syrup.

Right, that's what frustrating. The pitching has been so good. We can't get on any sustained runs with this offense this bad.

They're 1-3 in this easy stretch that was supposed to catapult them. I get that they're young but the NL is so wide open right now it would really suck if they blow it this year. It wouldn't suck man. Where did you except them to be back in march? It wouldn't suck? Back in March I was hoping for a wildcard spot and was not ruling out the division either. The pitching has been fantastic, Coghlan has not been embarrassing, and key young players are playing very well, but key offseason acquisitions (Fowler and Montero) have sucked while Castro has regressed signifantly, again. That third of the lineup right there is why this season will suck if we miss out on the playoffs as it will largely be due to their general awfulness.* *We're still only just a little over halfway through the season. Not to mention Lester's ERA is crap despite him having a really good FIP and xFIP. So, that acquisition hasn't necessarily equated to a ton of wins to this point.

I will be really happy if Castro takes the gift walks like Ross gets because he's hitting in front of the pitcher.

I do think this year is far worse than recent years, but the 1990s were horrible.

Guys, he's just mad at himself.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-best-and-the-worst-of-the-pitcher-strike-zones-with-dallas-keuchel/ Maybe Ross as a personal catcher is worth it?

I think you meant send everyone for NL Central champs shirt/hat sizing so we can watch them go 3-and-out against the Cardinals in the NLDS.

If he's killing it you stick him in left. What if Coghlan is tearing it up?

Basically, from what I'm reading today, everyone thinks the Cubs are going to own in the second half. Buster Olney also talked on sports radio here in KC this morning about how the Cubs are about to take off and how easy their schedule is coming up.

I think there are a lot of people who thought this was likely to fail for the Padres. That article, though... If I was a Padres fan I would be so depressed. As the article stated they've been pretty boring for quite awhile now, and Preller threw away years of building for nothing. Could you imagine if all of the sudden someone came in and tore down everything that was built the last few years while we suffered through unwatchable baseball? Those years where we looked at the roster and said, "Yeah, Castro is probably the only guy on this team who will play a future playoff game for the Cubs" thrown away for nothing.

Cardinals pitchers sucking in the ASG last year was because Molina wasn't catching too.

That's what speed do!

It seems that a lot of Cubs players have been swinging at pitches out of the zone on 3-2 where earlier in the year they were walking, but I don't have any data to back that up.

Trout's first AB of ASG the last 4 years: 1B, 2B, 3B, HR. That order

Swap Santo for Sosa

I'm just guessing, but I imagine they'll prefer having more division races, not less. I hate small divisions. I don't want to see the same 3 teams 20+ times per season. And I sure don't want an 80-win team getting postseason spots while 95-win teams go home or play a 1-game play-in. That last scenario would probably be pretty common with four divisions.

I've posted similar variations before and I know a lot of people don't like it, but this is my dream scenario. Add 2 teams so there are 16 in each league. Split into 2 divisions of 8 in each league. 2 divisions champs and 4 wild cards makeup the postseason for each league. The wild card round is a best-of-three in the higher seeds' stadiums. I would end the season on a Wednesday. Thursday is tiebreaker/off day. Friday night is game 1. Saturday afternoon is game 2. If necessary game 3 is Saturday night. In one day you would eliminate 4 teams. While I won't compare this to the first day of the NCAAs, it would be the closest thing in professional sports. This creates meaningful races for 1) the division 2) a top 2 wildcard spot and 3) a wildcard spot versus going home. The schedule (I'll use the Cubs): -Play every other team in NL 6 times (6x15=90) -Play every team in AL West 6 times (6x8=48) -Play every team in AL East 3 times (3x8=24) 90+48+24=162 The next year swap AL East/AL West. You play every team every year. You host every AL team 2 out of every 3 years. You play the EXACT same schedule as your whole division. You play a very similar schedule to the other division that you are competing against for a Wild Card. The best teams get a huge advantage in the postseason (bye) - this is important because it's a marathon of a season. Again, you would have to do some 2- and 4-game series, so it wouldn't be exactly 3 home and 3 away, but I don't think that's a big deal. The fewer number of games between rivals makes those series more of a novelty and would make them more exciting. I would sacrifice Cubs/Cardinals games for getting to play a whole range of teams instead of the Reds, Pirates and Brewers.

Manfred mentioned expansion again. If they go to 32 teams I really hope they have 8-team divisions and not 4-team divisions.

This announcer is trying to channel his inner Gus Johnson. I just decided I want to hear Gus Johnson call postseason games. I don't know if he knows anything about baseball, but if he doesn't he will fit right in.

This sucks.

Seriously, the camera work with the lefties is horrible.

As I've already stated I like this format more. One possible negative: I don't think we will see as many absolute bombs.

That was very entertaining