~2022 MLB Thread~

[longhorn320]

I'm so enthused that you feel vindicated by that. 
smh

nope dont feel vindicated cause I feel no need to prove anything

it is what it is and neither of us can do anything to change it

[ELA]

I remember when the Tigers chose Michael Fulmer over Zack Wheeler as the return pitcher in the Cespedes trade.  Seemed super smart 6 years ago when Fulmer looked like a future ace.

[MarqHusker]

Nice to see Hader perform tonight.

[longhorn320]

Nice to see Hader perform tonight.

He looked good

[slugsrbad]

At least the Phils did not disappoint me.  Let's go! 

[Hawkinole]

Cleveland Guardians have been as hot in September and October as Farrah Fawcett throughout the late 1960s and 1970s for over a month now. I don't think they will be able to keep going like that for the next 12 years, but maybe for the next two weeks.

[CatsbyAZ]

The Dodgers are the Packers. A great regular season team beating up on their division all season before collapsing in the playoffs most every year. Both also have very sizeable, devoted fan bases. And how did the Dodgers impress their fans before the inevitable fall? By winning 111 games, a team record. They beat their opponents by wide margins. The Dodgers scored more runs than any team in baseball, by far. They also had the best pitching in all of baseball, also by far.

And yet it's the San Diego Padres who didn't blink in the face of the Dodgers decade of dominance. Especially the Padres bullpen whose anchoring of the series is a fitting contrast to how bad (and badly managed once again by Dave Roberts) the Dodgers bullpen was.

See last night's game coming down to the 7th inning. Nursing a 3-0 lead, Roberts burned through 3 relievers as the Padres scored 5 runs on hit after hit. As far as having the best starting pitching in baseball, it's evidently come at the cost of burning out the starters who pitched worn out against San Diego.

Anyway, downtown San Diego was party central last night:

[longhorn320]

The Dodgers are the Packers. A great regular season team beating up on their division all season before collapsing in the playoffs most every year. Both also have very sizeable, devoted fan bases. And how did the Dodgers impress their fans before the inevitable fall? By winning 111 games, a team record. They beat their opponents by wide margins. The Dodgers scored more runs than any team in baseball, by far. They also had the best pitching in all of baseball, also by far.

And yet it's the San Diego Padres who didn't blink in the face of the Dodgers decade of dominance. Especially the Padres bullpen whose anchoring of the series is a fitting contrast to how bad (and badly managed once again by Dave Roberts) the Dodgers bullpen was.

See last night's game coming down to the 7th inning. Nursing a 3-0 lead, Roberts burned through 3 relievers as the Padres scored 5 runs on hit after hit. As far as having the best starting pitching in baseball, it's evidently come at the cost of burning out the starters who pitched worn out against San Diego.

Anyway, downtown San Diego was party central last night:

And that is exactly what I said in several past posts

The team with the better bullpen has a huge advantage in a multi game series

No better example of this then the Dodger/SD series

[FearlessF]

Dodgers aren't built for the post season

[Brutus Buckeye]

2001 or so, Seattle had a similar season, iirc. 115 wins, or some such and then an early exit in the playoffs.

[ELA]

Dodgers aren't built for the post season

Dodgers now have a full decade of postseason underperformances.  If that isn't a large enough sample size, then every college football national championship is a farce

[medinabuckeye1]

Cleveland Guardians have been as hot in September and October as Farrah Fawcett throughout the late 1960s and 1970s for over a month now. I don't think they will be able to keep going like that for the next 12 years, but maybe for the next two weeks.

Who are these Guardians of whom you speak?

[MarqHusker]

I'm pulling the Naps.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Every good team beats up on its own division (if you bother to look it up).  LA played .663 ball vs non-NL West teams, which is a better win% than any team's overall record. 
.
People who want to make this about LA doing something wrong or having some sort of character flaw are living in a place with unicorns and fairies.  I'm not sure why people insist on this, but it's genuinely bizarre. 
.
If a team scores the most runs and allows the fewest runs, they've perfected what they set out to do.  To fail to see that LA's failure to win the WS is solely due to the method in which MLB determines it's champion is to have your eyes shielded from what's plainly obvious. 
.
Team A finishes with the 5th-best record in its league.  They finish 22 games behind the division winner.  They played that division winner 19 times and only won 5.  5-14 in those games.
They are allowed into the postseason, despite falling 22 games back of their goal when the season began.  They play a team they faced 6 times in the regular season, going 4-2.  They beat them. 
They then get a 2nd chance to play the team they went 5-14 against IN A BEST OF 5 SERIES.  So while the regular season's 19 games, which was enough to show the difference in quality between the 2 teams, is now basically ignored in favor of a short series. 
.
LA had the 2nd-best bullpen ERA in baseball.  SD's was almost exactly average.  So the after-the-fact horse shit about bullpen narratives are imagined.  Roberts' moves are called into question because they happened not to work. 
.
How all of you (the genuine ones, anyway) choose to not see all of this, I'll never know.  Maybe it's decades of being force-fed horse shit narratives based on fuck-all.  That's probably it, but I know EVERYONE has their own mind about these things and would never allow tired, comfortable tropes influence their opinions.  Especially not this crowd!!!
.
So now we'll get either the 5th or 6th-best NL team in the World Series.
Fun. 
Great way to crown a champ.
Can't wait for an 11-seed to win the national championship in college football.