SouthSideRyan

But don't go putting fruit on my french toast. If I'm gonna eat like a fatty, let me eat like a fatty.

Banana Bread Beer

1st row of Upper Deck Box. Wearing a Rich Hill shersey...

I got Game 3 2007. Mark DeRosa is still somewhere grounding into double plays.

I feel like circus peanuts are diarrhea flavored.

I throw them in the garbage, and would do it in front of you.

Banana Runts and Laffy Taffys should be shot into the sun

it could be worse, 4 years ago we're sitting 3 games out of the playoffs.

And Pujols or Fielder on a monster contract And probably no Arrieta or Strop. And probably very few of all those IFAs that are killing it. Why does the alternative timeline require that our smart FO make stupid moves?

Well, Starlin Castro did become awful, but yeah.

Yeah, for me it's all about the money. If they basically had no choice but to go relatively cheap, then yeah, ultimately this is a better option than trying to patch together a decent team that likely isn't going to have any kind of real sustained success. If they chose to go cheap then that's still a bit frustrating to me regardless of how things are working out right now. With a FO like this they should have been able to utilize money to improve in the short run and draft and sign smart to build for the long run, even if they're not getting the push from having draft picks like Bryant or Schwarber. That said, even though we don't have the full picture it does appear that everyone's hands were tied when it came to money, so, yeah, what other real option did they have? This was the way to go, for better or for worse. Knowing what we know now, if you were to tell me we'd have a lineup with these guys, including 3-4 substantially contributing rookies, and it's on pace for 95 wins in mid September and it took 3 years of being [expletive] (the last one of which was at least mildly entertaining, especially later) if we tank, or we can try to win in 2012 and they have a $200M budget to do it with, I think I can't pass this up. Or maybe I can't help myself and still pick spending lots and dual fronts. I just think it's turning out well enough quick enough that it's hard to argue against it. This is [expletive] great. It is, but so much of it could have still happened without tanking. Getting Fowler and Montero, trading for Russell and Arrieta; plus they already had Baez. Obviously, Schwarber and Bryant are big gamechangers, but who knows what they would have done if they had real "[expletive] you" money like we hoped? I just think that if they had had the spending we wanted we'd still be pretty damn happy right now. Probably could've found a way to get Fowler, but it almost certainly wouldn't have been for Valbuena, who wouldn't have been able to accumulate PAs we were otherwise throwing away.

Yeah, and they very well could have still ended up with Russell if that season hadn't gone well, too, or if talks with Sharks had still broken down like they did; could easily see them still not wanting to pay him what he was looking for. Could have? Sure. Would have if they were actually trying to be good? Much more doubtful. For Shark to get traded for Russell, it almost had to be the way it happened. Billy Beane isn't doing that in the offseason. You could trade Shark if you're trying to be good, but 2014 is lost. The A's have been reshaping their roster on annual basis while trying to win games.

Yeah, and they very well could have still ended up with Russell if that season hadn't gone well, too, or if talks with Sharks had still broken down like they did; could easily see them still not wanting to pay him what he was looking for. Yeah, I didn't want to go down that wormhole because people start freaking out about what was the point.

Arrieta likely could've been acquired for scraps the offseason after he was acquired.

But what exactly was fun about the end of last year? Baez and Alcantara were inescapable balls of sadness.

I don't know how the answer could be no. They set out to be terrible and accumulate prospects and the prospects thus far have hit at a great rate.

And 7 more to tie

Lou had that weird thing with Michael Wuertz though, remember that? He "disappeared" an effective (not great or dominant but effective, IIR) reliever and no one ever knew why. I thought he did the same thing to Rich Hill, but I guess he was proven right on that one.

I had several long posts on cubs.com explaining why none of that mattered. And when in doubt, "There's no way Hendry who built up this farm system over the last few years is going to hire a manger who'll destroy it."

Same. I was younger than Brandon though.

I am 99% certain there is a seeding process wherein the wild card is always below any division winner regardless of record. I assumed the same, just didn't know if they made a change with the 2 wild card system.

Wait, how different do you think baseball stats are now vs. 11 years ago? The smarter baseball fans are in tune with sabermetrics at places like Northside Baseball. Nomar was a pretty bad player in 2004 before he got traded to Chicago (-0.1 WAR lol), I guarantee you the reaction would be completely different had it happened now compared to 11 years ago. BP and BR were already around and well established at that point; it's not like it wasn't obvious he was coming back from an injury. He had also shown, just the year before, that when he wasn't injured he was one of the most valuable players in the game. I mainly remember people talking about OBP/OPS on here. Folks weren't talking much about defensive metrics or park adjusted stats, etc. A lot of that stuff existed but not on free Internet sites at the time. I'm pretty sure OPS+ was the stat du jour, and that's park and league adjusted.

I know I'm ahead of myself, but is home field advantage determined by straight up record in the NLCS? Or would a division champ always get it over the wild card? i.e. Is there value in the Dodgers and/or Mets losing games to us beyond the fact that we'll overtake the Cardinals anyway?

Illinois is in the West

2005 was a daytime start. Watched the full game prior to the Illinois basketball game. yeah wasn't that the pierre leading off with a triple and zambrano giving up a million runs game? That was '06