BASEBALL 2018---BRING IT ON!

[catfish1957]

Astros Win!! Astros Win!!  Astros Win AGAIN!!!

Channeling your inner Loel Passe? Or was that Milo? 

[EasyAce]

(1) Yankee's bullpen?  You don't think the Astros bullpen is 100% better?  Last year we didn't hardly have a bull pen at all, as evidence AJ's use of starters in relief.  This year the pen is rock solid and now have a reliable closer in Osuna, vs. last year's head case Giles.

(2) Not much change in Houston?  We added a No. 2 pitcher who might be No. 1 in 2/3 of the rest of the League (Cole).  I'll venture we have the best 1-2 starting punch in baseball (Verlander / Cole) . Our No. 3 is a recent Cy Young winner too btw.  The ALDS was prime example of that level of dominance.

In any case, you underestimated us last year, so I don't mind if you do it again.   

Like you quoted....  "You never know" We'll know soon.

@EasyAce

Except for Gerrit Cole this team is pretty much the same as last year's World Series winner, and Verlander/Cole are a terrific 1-2 punch. But, yes, the Yankee pen is better this season:
the ERAs for the five main Yankee pitchers was 2.80 next to those of the Astros being 2.88, but the Yankee pen had a better walks/hits per inning pitched rate than the Astros pen and the Yankee pen's fielding-independent pitching rate---basically, that's your ERA without your defense factored in---was 2.68, with the Astros' pen showing a 3.08 FIP. Both pens surrendered a comparatively few home runs this season: 29 for the Yankees' five main men; 30 for the Astros'. Where the Yankee pen might be vulnerable is if they have to go to other than their five main guys, but that's their only vulnerability, and it's possible the Yankees may leave a couple of those guys off the ALCS roster if they get there. Both these bullpens are awfully close to each other, but I'd have to say the Yankees have the slight edge there especially if they have to come into a game early. The Astros pen is good if they have to get into a game early, but the Yankee pen is just a little bit better. They don't look so good today with the Red Sox battering the Yankees 10-1 in the fifth as I write, but overall they're just a little more solid.

If the Astros get the Red Sox in the ALCS, it'll be little contest---the Red Sox bullpen is a band aids-and-string mess comparatively. The key for the Astros against the Red Sox, I repeat---get their starters out of the way early and get into the Red Sox bullpen early, and often. If they do that it'll be a short ALCS; the Red Sox's bats won't be kept too quiet even against the Astros' best pitchers, but the Astros can win against the Red Sox if the Sox have to go to the bullpen too early.

[Elderberry]

Boston Wins, barely.

[EasyAce]

Boston Wins, barely.

@Elderberry
A blowout is well and good but there's nothing like a little hair-raiser to keep a team honest.

Now we'll see if the Red Sox's bats can overcome their half-shaky bullpen (the two guys who relieved earlier tonight were sharp, maybe the best pen men the Sox have, but the rest of the pen is rickety enough, and I'm pretty sure the Red Sox won't think about sending too many other starting pitchers to the pen ;) ) and find ways past the Astros' effective starters. Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole are no pushovers. During the season the Red Sox lost the series with the Astros three games to four, and the scoring difference between them was only three runs, advantage Astros. But you never know what might happen when a League Championship Series comes into play.

[DCPatriot]

Since I was eight years old, I've grown to HATE the Yankees.

Growing up in Buffalo, NY we cheered for the Brooklyn Dodgers....the perennial underdogs.

GD Yankees seemed to always be willing to break the bank in salaries in an effort to gain the advantage.

It tickles me to this day to see Yankees going home early in the ALDS.

Payback for that little kid Jeffry Meier, who grabbed that fly ball at the wall in right field.   Bastards.

[Bigun]

Except for Gerrit Cole this team is pretty much the same as last year's World Series winner, and Verlander/Cole are a terrific 1-2 punch. But, yes, the Yankee pen is better this season:
the ERAs for the five main Yankee pitchers was 2.80 next to those of the Astros being 2.88, but the Yankee pen had a better walks/hits per inning pitched rate than the Astros pen and the Yankee pen's fielding-independent pitching rate---basically, that's your ERA without your defense factored in---was 2.68, with the Astros' pen showing a 3.08 FIP. Both pens surrendered a comparatively few home runs this season: 29 for the Yankees' five main men; 30 for the Astros'. Where the Yankee pen might be vulnerable is if they have to go to other than their five main guys, but that's their only vulnerability, and it's possible the Yankees may leave a couple of those guys off the ALCS roster if they get there. Both these bullpens are awfully close to each other, but I'd have to say the Yankees have the slight edge there especially if they have to come into a game early. The Astros pen is good if they have to get into a game early, but the Yankee pen is just a little bit better. They don't look so good today with the Red Sox battering the Yankees 10-1 in the fifth as I write, but overall they're just a little more solid.

If the Astros get the Red Sox in the ALCS, it'll be little contest---the Red Sox bullpen is a band aids-and-string mess comparatively. The key for the Astros against the Red Sox, I repeat---get their starters out of the way early and get into the Red Sox bullpen early, and often. If they do that it'll be a short ALCS; the Red Sox's bats won't be kept too quiet even against the Astros' best pitchers, but the Astros can win against the Red Sox if the Sox have to go to the bullpen too early.

I think the Astros bullpen is leaps and bounds better this year than it was last year.  But that's just me I guess.

[catfish1957]

I think the Astros bullpen is leaps and bounds better this year than it was last year.  But that's just me I guess.

Dang straight.  Last year AJ had to pull out secondary starters as relievers to win the WS. 

Thankfully Ken Giles is at least a 1000 miles from anywhere we play.

[Bigun]

Dang straight.  Last year AJ had to pull out secondary starters as relievers to win the WS. 
Thankfully Ken Giles is at least a 1000 miles from anywhere we play.

   and  again!

[musiclady]

I think the Astros bullpen is leaps and bounds better this year than it was last year.  But that's just me I guess.

They sure did a number on the Indians.

[GrouchoTex]

Channeling your inner Loel Passe? Or was that Milo? 

With all of the apostrophes, I'm thinking Milo....

[EasyAce]

Game One---two passed balls, two errors. Game Two---Bats with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the seventh . . . and dials Area Code 4-6-3. I'm beginning to think that having Yasmani Grandal on your National League Championship Series team is a lot like having Bonnie and Clyde run your police department.

[catfish1957]

ALCS Game 1-  Houston 7 Boston 2. Houston leads series 1-0.

  :

[Bigun]

ALCS Game 1-  Houston 7 Boston 2. Houston leads series 1-0.

  :

  

[GrouchoTex]

1-1 Series now.
Coming back to Houston for 3 games..

[catfish1957]

1-1 Series now.
Coming back to Houston for 3 games..

Last night was painful.  Not one of A.J.'s best moments.

[TomSea]

A day late but on December 10th, 1951, Joe Dimaggio retired from baseball. He started playing for the Yankees in 1936,

https://babalublog.com/2018/12/10/my-father-used-to-tell-me-about-the-day-that-joe-dimaggio-retired/

It's a baseball mad country even still, Cuba that is. I listened to some Cuban shortwave this summer and they'd report the scores. I'm pretty sure this was "Radio Marti" which is NOT the Cuban government or in Cuba but an outreach originating from the USA to Cuba.

[EasyAce]

A's OF Piscotty wins Tony Conigliaro Award

Stephen Piscotty became an Athletic in the first place when the Cardinals, knowing his mother was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, elected to send him closer to home so he could be near her. When he returned to the A's after her death this past May, Piscotty was in the lineup against the Red Sox in Boston and, in his first plate appearance after bereavement leave for his mother's death, hit one over the Green Monster. Piscotty ended the season with career highs in home runs (27) and runs batted in (88). (It was also the first time Piscotty ever played in Fenway Park.)


That was Piscotty tapping his heart for his mother, as he rounded third after he hit that home run. He said the heart tap was his mother's way to say "I love you" after the disease compromised her speech.

And this was the home run . . .


Sorry...

To hit a home run in his first at-bat [back] like that, there was something in the air. Probably Gretchen.---A's manager Bob Melvin.


Piscotty with his mother when he was a kid rooting for the A's. The story is that when she was pregnant with him, she would hold a music box against her stomach---it played "Amazing Grace." Piscotty himself says that's his favourite song; he would play it for his mother frequently during the last months of her life.

[EasyAce]

Found a classic clip, from 1966:

Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry (then with the Giants) pitching to Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente (Pirates) and making Clemente think he's getting his grease . . . (provoking then-Pirates manager Harry [the Hat] Walker to arguing and getting tossed by the umps) . . .


Sorry...

[skeeter]

THIS is the proper way to be ejected.


Sorry...

[EasyAce]

THIS is the proper way to be ejected.


Sorry...

@skeeter
That was puppy chow!


Sorry...

[skeeter]

Hilarious. Extra style points for sure!

[Polly Ticks]

The double-handed kiss at the end was quite lovely.

[Slip18]

Channeling your inner Loel Passe? Or was that Milo? 

Oops!  I am late. 

I lost five buckaroonies thinking the Dodgers would beat the Astros!  Last year I won a buck, but I was never paid.

Go figure...

And now Goldy is with the Cardinals.  Jake Lamb takes over at first plate.  I will be rooting for the Cardinals only because of Goldy.  He deserves a ring.  Miggy Montero got his when he joined the Cubbies.

Ahhhh, baseball.  Hopefully, this move of ours @Cyber Liberty will be finished by Spring Training.  LOL!

Baseball rules!

 

[catfish1957]

And now Goldy is with the Cardinals.  Jake Lamb takes over at first plate.  I will be rooting for the Cardinals only because of Goldy.  He deserves a ring.  Miggy Montero got his when he joined the Cubbies.

I was really hoping the Astros would have signed Goldschmidt.  It would have given them maybe the greatest MLB infield of all time.

1B- Goldschmidt
2B- Altuve
SS- Correa
3B- Bregman

Alas...not so lucky.

[Cyber Liberty]

Oops!  I am late. 

I lost five buckaroonies thinking the Dodgers would beat the Astros!  Last year I won a buck, but I was never paid.

Go figure...

And now Goldy is with the Cardinals.  Jake Lamb takes over at first plate.  I will be rooting for the Cardinals only because of Goldy.  He deserves a ring.  Miggy Montero got his when he joined the Cubbies.

Ahhhh, baseball.  Hopefully, this move of ours @Cyber Liberty will be finished by Spring Training.  LOL!

Baseball rules!

 

We'll be done, and we will have moved away from where the Spring Training is played.   

[Slip18]

I was really hoping the Astros would have signed Goldschmidt.  It would have given them maybe the greatest MLB infield of all time.

1B- Goldschmidt
2B- Altuve
SS- Correa
3B- Bregman

Alas...not so lucky.

How many times in history has a single team won the World Series three times in a row?  Perhaps the "old" Yankees or Dodgers, but none comes to my brain right now.

My brain is kind of in a muddle.  But that is okay.  It could be in a puddle, which would not be very good at all.

 

[Slip18]

Messed up again!  Back to being a newbie!

 

[EasyAce]

How many times in history has a single team won the World Series three times in a row?  Perhaps the "old" Yankees or Dodgers, but none comes to my brain right now.

@Slip18
Not only three, but five times in a row: the Yankees, under Casey Stengel, from 1949-53.

[Slip18]

@Slip18
Not only three, but five times in a row: the Yankees, under Casey Stengel, from 1949-53.

Thank you, Easy!

It just figures the Yankees.  Such a great team back then.  Dang! 

Casey Stengel.  I have not heard his name in a long time!

[EasyAce]

Thank you, Easy!

It just figures the Yankees.  Such a great team back then.  Dang! 

Casey Stengel.  I have not heard his name in a long time!

@Slip18
@Cyber Liberty

Required reading for anyone who wants to see debunked once and for all the canard that those Yankees could have won with just a uniformed mannequin installed as manager:



A favourite Stengel story: When Mickey Mantle was a rookie, the Yankees broke spring training camp and went to Ebbets Field to play an exhibition with the Dodgers. Before the game, Stengel took Mantle towards right center field to show him the once-infamous Ebbets right field wall, the concrete wall bisected by a wall-height main scoreboard, which had a break across its middle with the lower section angling toward the field itself. (The angle and outward incline were a challenge for outfielders: Dodger right fielder Carl Furillo once said, "Where's the ball gonna hit? If it hits below the break you run like hell to the infield because it's gonna come shooting out. If it hits above the break, you run like hell to the wall because it's gonna drop dead.")

Stengel said to Mantle, "Now, when I played here . . . " (Which he had, in his playing career, as a Dodger.)

Mantle busted his gut laughing. "You played here?" he managed to ask through his laughing.

A sportswriter happened to overhear the exchange, and Stengel tried to explain while holding his own laughter. "The boy never saw concrete before," the Ol' Perfesser said. "He thinks I was born sixty and started managin' right away."

But it might shock some of today's fans who complain about some of today's game trends to realise Stengel was using those very things to win with the Yankees, including platoon splitting and even Moneyball-style baseball: Stengel was a big believer in and talker about on-base percentage decades before Billy Beane made a team-building science out of it; he thought nothing of going to his bullpen earlier than normal if he thought the situation called for it; he even paid attention to reverse platoon splits. (One of his most famous moves was based on just that: the purists screamed bloody murder when he brought in a non-descript righthander named Bob Kuzava to set down a rally in the final game of the 1952 World Series despite a group of lefthanded hitters due up for the Dodgers, but Stengel knew something the purists didn't: Kuzava at the time was better against lefthanded pitchers. And Kuzava saved the game and the Series, the fourth of the five straight Series Stengel won with the Yankees.) His basic managing philosophy: when you have an opening, shove with your shoulder.

Stengel was a sabermetric kind of manager decades before anyone even thought of the term sabermetrics. And when he had the kind of players who could execute (his own favourite word) his kind of baseball, he won.

[catfish1957]

Thank you, Easy!



Casey Stengel.  I have not heard his name in a long time!

Talk about a mixture of assignments......

The Late '40's, early '50's Yankees    and......

The infamous 1962 Mets.

[EasyAce]

Talk about a mixture of assignments......

The Late '40's, early '50's Yankees    and......

The infamous 1962 Mets.

He also managed the sad-sack Brooklyn Dodgers of the mid-1930s and the Boston Braves crossing into the early 40s. Where on both teams he could count on half a hand how many genuinely good players he had with those teams.

He also had a rookie on the '42 Braves named Warren Spahn, who was still green enough that, when he refused to knock Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese down in a retaliation move, Stengel sent Spahn back to the minors.

I said 'no guts' to a kid who went on to become a war hero and one of the greatest pitchers you ever say. You can't say I don't miss 'em when I miss 'em.---Stengel, remembering Spahn after Spahn became one of the National League's top pitchers. When the Braves beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series, Stengel made a point of telling Spahn and Lew Burdette (originally a Yankee but dealt to the Braves after Stengel just couldn't decide on Burdette's makeup) he'd been wrong about both pitcher. (Burdette beat the Yankees thrice in that Series; Spahn won the other game.)

Stengel had one more round with Spahn, when the Mets acquired him from the Braves after the 1964 season. It gave Spahn one kind of bragging right: I played for Casey before and after he was a genius.

[EasyAce]

Baseball news---Free-agent Indians relief pitcher Andrew Miller is said to be close to a new deal with the Cardinals. It's a good thing Anheuser Busch doesn't own the Cardinals anymore. They'd have one hell of a promotional headache on their hands with Cardinals fans holding up signs and wearing T-shirts saying "Now . . . it's Miller Time" . . .

[Machiavelli]

@EasyAce What do you think of the Dodgers-Reds deal?

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce What do you think of the Dodgers-Reds deal?

@Machiavelli
I think it means the Dodgers a) break an outfield logjam; b) relieve themselves about $15 million worth of luxury tax possibility; and, therefore, c) have room to make a serious play for Bryce Harper. Though you have to admit Los Angeles is going to miss its Puig-in-the-box and about ten surprises a week. On the other hand, the Wild Horse is going to love hitting in that yummier hitter's park in Cincinnati. Maybe even enough that the Reds decide to fasten him aboard on a long-term extension. Kemp might continue his renaissance there, too. (They both become free agents after the 2019 season.)

[EasyAce]

Meanwhile, there are other teams trying other routes for 2019 . . .

[GrouchoTex]

@Machiavelli
I think it means the Dodgers a) break an outfield logjam; b) relieve themselves about $15 million worth of luxury tax possibility; and, therefore, c) have room to make a serious play for Bryce Harper. Though you have to admit Los Angeles is going to miss its Puig-in-the-box and about ten surprises a week. On the other hand, the Wild Horse is going to love hitting in that yummier hitter's park in Cincinnati. Maybe even enough that the Reds decide to fasten him aboard on a long-term extension. Kemp might continue his renaissance there, too. (They both become free agents after the 2019 season.)

@EasyAce
I'm at work and the company internet blocks sports pages.
Who did the trolley Dodgers get in return?

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce
I'm at work and the company internet blocks sports pages.
Who did the trolley Dodgers get in return?

@GrouchoTex
They got pitcher Homer Bailey (really a kind of reclamation project) and a pair of prospects, infielder Jeter Downs and pitcher Josiah Gray.

[EasyAce]

In the 1930s, the Phillies weren't exactly barn burners, and while playing in old Baker Bowl an angry fan painted some graffiti on the large right field wall sign on which the team endorsed a certain deodorant soap. I tried to imagine here how that graffiti might have looked, since no photograph of it is known to have survived . . .



That was even funnier than the disgruntled Dodger fan of the same decade who painted the Ebbets Field occupancy law sign to read, "Occupancy by more than 35,000 unlawful and unlikely."