2015 MLB Season Thread with Postseason Discussion

[tp49 1,084]

Tejada has a broken leg out for the rest of the season.

[BBTV 19,336]

What a dirty ass slide by Utley.

Hard nosed =/= dirty. He was just doing his part to help the team. If a guy on the Giants did the same thing, you'd love it.

That's what I said every time he did stuff like that for the Phillies. Everybody wants a guy like chase utley on their team.

Note - I did not see this incident so if it was ridiculously egregious... I still feel the same way.

Ok I just saw it. Yeah that's almost crossing the line. If he spiked him in the face or stabbed him while sliding then I'd think he went too far.

[FiddySicks 11,031]

Yeah it was trash.

But hey, it worked, right?!?!

Like I said, the Dodgers will get theirs.

[WSU151 9,465]

Olbermann has it right:

Keith Olbermann ‏@KeithOlbermann 11m11 minutes ago

Utley was out three times: 1) willful interference 2) neighborhood play 3) never touched bag, abandoned field #FireChrisGuccione

I'm not sure Olbermann has it right. Willfill interference is not an option in that case, because Tejada didn't field the batted ball.

Completely surprised the umpires thought that it was not a neighborhood play. If baseball is going to allow "neighborhood plays", then it seems this particularly play would be the ultimate standard of all neighborhood plays.

[Kramerica Industries 1,828]

hmm...I was watching football all night, like a real 'Merk in the Deep South. Did anything out-of-line happen tonight that interfered with a game in a way that the umpires totally botched? It's the playoffs, so I reckon that would suck, huh.

[cmm 386]

Mattingly's refusal to say it was a clean slide says a lot. Still hate his guts though.

[oddball 204]

As a Dodger fan, Utley's slide is intent to injure and is dirty. As someone who played second and short, that is a dirty play plain and simple. You don't slide that late without intent to injure. I can not support a team with a dirty player like that, and here's hoping the Mets take Utley and the Dodgers out. On the neighborhood play, the throw has to be accurate for it to be a neighborhood play, and the throw was not accurate.

[WSU151 9,465]

As a Dodger fan, Utley's slide is intent to injure and is dirty. As someone who played second and short, that is a dirty play plain and simple. You don't slide that late without intent to injure. I can not support a team with a dirty player like that, and here's hoping the Mets take Utley and the Dodgers out. On the neighborhood play, the throw has to be accurate for it to be a neighborhood play, and the throw was not accurate.

The definition of an accurate throw is highly subjective. The fact that Tejada caught the ball as he stood over/next to second base could be defined as an accurate throw. The throw didn't end up being four steps away from the bag.

[FiddySicks 11,031]

As a Dodger fan, Utley's slide is intent to injure and is dirty. As someone who played second and short, that is a dirty play plain and simple. You don't slide that late without intent to injure. I can not support a team with a dirty player like that, and here's hoping the Mets take Utley and the Dodgers out. On the neighborhood play, the throw has to be accurate for it to be a neighborhood play, and the throw was not accurate.

Hmm, while I certainly appreciate the objectivity, it's still a bit strange that you're actively rooting against the Dodgers (who I think is your team, right?) because of that.

But hey, welcome to the club!

[cmm 386]

Can you imagine if that was someone like Derek Jeter instead of Ruben Tejada? Not only would Chase Utley have been called out, he would've been thrown out of baseball for good.

[Almighty 68]

Refs on the Dodger payroll ? And MLB need to get rid of slides like that, what a :censored:ing disgrace to look at, sicking

[Almighty 68]

Damn, his head did the basketball bounce off the dirt. He might just be concussed.

No loss of braincells was reported, he still have both of them.

[DarkJourney 186]

Mattingly will eventually dumb the Dodgers out the playoffs one way or another.

[BBTV 19,336]

Dirty play for sure. But having watched Chase Utley for his entire career and knowing his "style", while he's always looking for an edge and pushes the rules to their very limits, there's absolutely zero chance he was intending to injure another player. He was irresponsible, and an injury is certainly the likely result of his action, but I guarantee that in his mind at the time, he was thinking only about breaking up the DP. A 2B doesn't try to injure another 2b or ss.

[BBTV 19,336]

Off topic: I've been reading these things on ESPN.com about "fixing the playoffs" so the WC teams aren't just one-game and done.

What if, for purposes of playoffs, the regular season ended 1 week earlier. So the weekend prior to the last real weekend is when divisions are wrapped up, even though there's still games left on the schedule. Those games are more/less just exhibitions, or opportunities for the division winners to stay in a rhythm.

Then, for the WC teams, the schedule gets re-shuffled so that they can play a full best of 5 series during that final week, and then the full playoffs starts and ends at the normal time.

It would impact whatever teams were scheduled to play the WC teams during that final week, but that's relatively easy to work around.

Also, I'd count that WC series as part of the regular season, so players' stats are still for a full 162 games.

[Kramerica Industries 1,828]

Scrap the wild card games and make the division series a best of 7. It's the simplest g-ddamn solution and it's amazing to me that it hasn't been made in the now 21 years of this broken system (and especially the last four). MLB wants to punish wild card teams, but they'll make their opening round the round most subject to chaos with the best-of-5, making it relatively easier for an inferior (W-L) team to knock off a superior (W-L) team. MLB would rather institute further chaos and distill entire seasons between (usually) uneven teams down to one random game than make the division series a best-of-7. It truly amazes me.

[CubsFanBudMan 399]

The only issues I see with Utley's slide are that it was late, it was high and it was nowhere near the bag.

Any one of those have generated some complaints in the past, but all three and a broken leg to boot? Tough to defend as "hard-nosed."

[the admiral 28,178]

Slide work will injury you.

[monkeypower 2,944]

Slide work will injury you.

[TheGrimReaper 67]

Off topic: I've been reading these things on ESPN.com about "fixing the playoffs" so the WC teams aren't just one-game and done.

What if, for purposes of playoffs, the regular season ended 1 week earlier. So the weekend prior to the last real weekend is when divisions are wrapped up, even though there's still games left on the schedule. Those games are more/less just exhibitions, or opportunities for the division winners to stay in a rhythm.

Then, for the WC teams, the schedule gets re-shuffled so that they can play a full best of 5 series during that final week, and then the full playoffs starts and ends at the normal time.

It would impact whatever teams were scheduled to play the WC teams during that final week, but that's relatively easy to work around.

Also, I'd count that WC series as part of the regular season, so players' stats are still for a full 162 games.

But then they would only be able to sell 8 teams worth of postseason gear instead of 10.