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MLB changes 2018?


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9 hours ago, the admiral said:

"Championship" without a modifier implies the big one at the end. Referring to winning the AL West twice as "two championships" is kind of a bad-faith argument, even if the accomplishment is nothing to sneeze at.

 

Yes, thank you.  That's what I was talking about.

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57 minutes ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

That makes sense but for everything that's current on there it seems weird to be so protected. Oh well. 

 

The style guide is for advertising interests, content partners, and companies which produce merchandise.  Why should it be publicly available?

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12 hours ago, Brandon9485 said:

FWIW, Major League Baseball refers to the team that finishes atop each division as the division champion. With that said, I share your opinion Gothamite, but I also think that the importance of a division championship is subjective to each franchise/fan base. I think you see that across MLB stadiums where some teams show credit to every team honor won while others stick to pennants and/or world championships only. 

 

Absolutely.  But the Mariners don't hang banners that say simply "1995/1997/2001 Champions".  That would imply more than they actually won.  They put those three achievements in context with the word "Division".

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8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

Well, I can only refer again to Buck Martinez's comments, in which he refers to the 1985 Blue Jays as a "championship team" and as "champions".

 

Still, @Brandon9485 said that the meaning of a divisional championship is subjective to each franchise and fan base.  And I agree with that.  The question in this branch of the discussion was about which Angels numbers should be retired; and let us note that the retiring of numbers is also dependent on the context of the team.  In the context of the Angels, the 1982 and 1986 divisional titles were perceived as the first championships in team history (even if both seasons ended in hopes that were raised and then dashed).  So it's reasonable to assert that the manager of these two teams is an important figure in the team's history, and one who should be honoured with a number retirement. 

 

Also, if one is to give an weight to context and to subjective factors, then the career-long heartbreak of Mauch having missed pennants on three occasions by the slightest of margins, considered alongside the horrible events of 1986, make a number retiring for Mauch the right thing to do.

You want to see that winning the division is a significant achievement?

 

Sure, I'll buy it. I'll even agree with you. Deserves a banner or something, because it is a big deal.

 

That said? It is not a significant enough acheivement that deserves a number being retired.

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Formerly known as DiePerske

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On 12/29/2017 at 4:36 PM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

What is unfortunate is when a team uses a player's election to the Hall of Fame as a criterion for retiring his number.  These should be two separate things.  A team ought to retire the number of a player or manager based solely on his importance to the club.  The opinon of the Hall of Fame electors is irrelevant to this question, because that's not what they're measuring.

The Yankees retired the number of Thurman Munson, who will never be in the Hall of Fame.  The Mets retired the number of manager Gil Hodges, who likewise will never be enshrined.  The Yankees also retired Phil Rizzuto's number almost a decade before he attained admission to the Hall of Fame.  

The Yankees have probably gone too far in retiring numbers.  Roger Maris's number retirement is questionable; and there is one other one (cough -- billymartin -- cough) that is completely unwarranted.  But the good thing is that the Yankees and the Mets are using their own criteria, and are not basing the decision on anything outside the club.  If the Phillies are taking Halliday's number "out of circulation", then the thing to do is to to just go ahead and retire it now.

 

If I recall correctly the Mets criteria for retiring numbers is also election to the hall of fame. Gil Hodges was a separate case due to his impact on New York baseball, and his sudden unexpected death as the current manager.

 

The Mets didn't retire Mike Piazza's number for years until he was elected to the Hall of Fame, they had a perfect opportunity when they elected him to the team's hall of fame in 2013 but instead waited until 2016. 

 

Many have been calling for the Mets to retire numbers like 8 for Gary Carter (My father would love for them to retire 8 twice for Yogi as well as a dig at the Yankees lol) or even 17 for Keith Hernandez but they just take the numbers out of circulation. I hope they waive this rule for David Wright. He's had an impact as the face of the franchise as equal to or greater then Piazza but unfortunately due to injuries he wont make it to the Hall. #5 in my opinion deserves to be retired officially. 

 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Well, I can only refer again to Buck Martinez's comments, in which he refers to the 1985 Blue Jays as a "championship team" and as "champions".

 

Well then Buck Martinez is wrong! This is a stupid argument, even for here.

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1 hour ago, DiePerske said:

Having your number retired should be harder to do thatn making the hall of fame.

 

No, it shouldn't.  And here's why:

 

1 hour ago, KGeeX5 said:

[David Wright has] had an impact as the face of the franchise as equal to or greater then Piazza but unfortunately due to injuries he wont make it to the Hall. #5 in my opinion deserves to be retired officially. 

 

This reflects the fact that election to the Hall of Fame is based on excellence on the field of play beyond a certain theoretical standard.  A player must have been dominant at his position.

By contrast, the importance of someone to a team can be measured in all kinds of subjective ways.  A number can be retired when the wearer dies; this happened with the obviously Hall-worthy Gehrig and Clemente, the near-Hall-calibre Munson and Hodges, and players who are not Hall candidates at all such as the Dodgers' Junior Gilliam or the Astros' Jim Umbricht and Don Wilson.

A beloved team star who is a borderline Hall candidate can be honoured in hopes of eventual Hall of Fame induction, such as Phil Rizzuto and Ron Santo; or else with the full awareness that no enshrinement in the Hall of Fame will ever occur, such as Roger Maris and Jose Cruz.

Teams can even retire a number for a player who is still active, after that player leaves the team, as happened with the White Sox' Harold Baines and the Braves' Phil Niekro.

 

The point is that there are all kinds of varying criteria for retiring a number.  The honour is by its nature fluid, and must not be made dependent on election to the Hall of Fame, or on any other iron-clad standard.

 

1 hour ago, the admiral said:
10 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Well, I can only refer again to Buck Martinez's comments, in which he refers to the 1985 Blue Jays as a "championship team" and as "champions".

 

Well then Buck Martinez is wrong! This is a stupid argument, even for here.

 

Look, this is a perverse line of reasoning.  As we covered in another thread, the whole beauty of the four-division period was that the playoffs contained only champions, no cheesy second-place teams.  What's more, no one ever doubted that these titles were actual championships -- certainly not the Cubs, who put a championship patch on their uniforms after winning the division in 1984.  (This alone should convince anyone of the magnitude of a divisional championship in that period.)  

I have to ask again that you imagine a universe in which the Orioles won no pennants between 1969 and 1979 after their six divisional titles; you cannot seriously contend that Earl Weaver wouldn't have been a huge figure in team history. Likewise, even if the Cardinals had not won pennants in 1982, 1985, and 1987, Whitey Herzog would still be a huge figure in team history just on the strength of those divisional titles.  Both of these managers would surely be honoured with number retirements by their teams (though they might not have made the Hall of Fame without the multiple pennants and the World Championships).

 

The prestige of divisional championships persisted even for a while after the realignment into three divisions per league.  Consider Johnny Oates, who won the Rangers' first three championships, the divisional titles of 1996, 1998, and 1999.  (The Rangers were in first place when play stopped in 1994; but no divisional championships are recognised from that year.)  In the context of the Rangers' franchise, this is significant, regardless of the fact that the team lost in the first round of the playoffs in each of those years.  This achievement, combined with Oates' premature death, resulted in his being honoured with a number retirement.  But you shouldn't have to die young in order to qualify; the multiple titles are enough.  This is one plank in the argument for Mauch.

 

(By the way, I just remembered that Mauch's titles for the Angels were not the team's first, as I had asserted earler in this discussion.  Jim Fregosi led the team to the 1979 divisional championship.  The team's retirement of Fregosi's number was partly in honour of his achievements as a player -- we mustn't think of Fregosi as the failed Met third baseman who was traded for Nolan Ryan and forget that he was a perennial All-Star shortstop for the Angels -- and partly an acknowledgement of this first championship in team history.)

Consider also that sometimes a number is retired by a team in recognition of someone's lifetime of service to baseball.  We see this with the retirings of numbers by the Angels for coach Jimmy Reese and by Tampa Bay for coach Don Zimmer.  This is another point in support of retiring Mauch's number.  Baseball owes him one. 

 

 

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Other than the new 2018 ST/BP caps and jerseys and Anniversary patches, it looks like the only new mlb changes for this coming season is the new Washington Nationals navy alternate jersey and the new Colorado Rockies new Alternate cap. If that's the case, this will be the first mlb season since 1996 where no team did a complete uniform overhaul, whether it's major or a minor tweak.

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9 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

[snipped - too long]

For any post that you can point to saying 'you're wrong' by pointing to another post, keep in mind that the reverse is also true.

 

Many of us feel you've missed the boat on this one.  Take it as you will.

It's where I sit.

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Throwing around words such as "titles" and "championships" without the modifier seems really odd.  Clearly a division title is nice to have...it's not nearly the same achievement as a league pennant or WS championship.  No one is going around boasting that the Yankees have 84 titles/championships (or whatever the number really is), like they're all on the same level, and no pre-2016 Cub fan ever said "Well, 1908 was our last world title, but ackshually we did win a championship in 1984, so get bent, sports fans!!"

 

And the "Whatever Buck Martinez says is true and we shouldn't disagree" comment is a pretty big fallacy.

Smart is believing half of what you hear. Genius is knowing which half.

 

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4 hours ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

That makes sense but for everything that's current on there it seems weird to be so protected. Oh well. 

 

Theres exact color codes and other specs in there that could seriously aid counterfeiters in producing accurate bootleg trash. 

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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On 1/4/2018 at 1:02 PM, The Golden One said:

the video game screen caps on uniwatch today of anniversary logos. Why is the A's slightly different than we have seen and will the jersey letters be outlined in gold as this appears?

 

24609600247_0de58e35fa_b.jpgOakland%20A's%2050th%20anniversary%20log

Ah ha!

That logo makes an appearance on an official ball and on what appears to be a current jersey. 

 

Go A's!

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35 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

Throwing around words such as "titles" and "championships" without the modifier seems really odd.  Clearly a division title is nice to have...it's not nearly the same achievement as a league pennant or WS championship.  No one is going around boasting that the Yankees have 84 titles/championships (or whatever the number really is), like they're all on the same level

 

I certainly did not claim that they are all on the same level.  Just that division titles are important achievements, and that, when they come in multiples, they make a manager worthy of having his number retired.

 

35 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

and no pre-2016 Cub fan ever said "Well, 1908 was our last world title, but ackshually we did win a championship in 1984, so get bent, sports fans!!"

 

Except the tenor of the feeling in 1984 was not very far from that.  At the time, the winning of the divisional championship was seen as having ended the drought since the pennant in 1945. 

 

 

This shows is a team and its fans celebrating a championship.  There are steps yet to climb; but this is undeniably a championship.

 

Steve Stone calls this championship "one of the great moments in Chicago sports history."  When Dallas Green and Jack Brickhouse talk about the fans having "waited a long time for this", they are referring specifically to the long wait since the pennant in 1945. Later, Brickhouse remarks to Harry Caray that he "has been waiting 39 years for this"; and there are many references to the the 39 years since 1945.

Of course, most people assumed that the Cubs would actually go on to win the 1984 pennant by beating the Padres in the NLCS, all the moreso after they went up 2-0 in games. So the loss of that series altered the feeling; and the season wound up feeling like another Cub flop rather than like a success.  But this does not change the fact that the divisional title, when it happened, was considered a triumph in its own right -- as evidenced by the championship patch on the uniforms.

 

 

35 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

And the "Whatever Buck Martinez says is true and we shouldn't disagree" comment is a pretty big fallacy.


(The second straw man in that post.  Could be a record.)

While I doubt that Buck Martinez has achieved infallibility, his comments about the 1985 Blue Jays accurately reflect the way that that team was perceived at the time, and the way it remains perceived even after the Jays won two World Championships.
 

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25 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Snipped to save space.
 

 

I think it was the wait that made it more important for the broadcasters and the fans.  When the Cubs won the East in 1989, there was no glorious Division Champions patch.

Smart is believing half of what you hear. Genius is knowing which half.

 

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1 hour ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

I have no basis for saying this but this can't be right can it? Just seems wrong to me. 


This is the last year for the Majestic deal so it really would not make sense to have a major overhaul for teams until NEXT offseason when Under Armour takes over the deal for the 2019 season.  HOWEVER, IIRC the teams that make the 2018 MLB Postseason will have Under Armour "gear" as a soft launch of merchandise.  What I don't recall is if New Era will continue to make the hats beyond this season

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8 minutes ago, tohasbo said:


This is the last year for the Majestic deal so it really would not make sense to have a major overhaul for teams until NEXT offseason when Under Armour takes over the deal for the 2019 season.  HOWEVER, IIRC the teams that make the 2018 MLB Postseason will have Under Armour "gear" as a soft launch of merchandise.  What I don't recall is if New Era will continue to make the hats beyond this season

 

I believe New Era's contract was extended to match the length of UA's contract.

Smart is believing half of what you hear. Genius is knowing which half.

 

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