2015 MLB Season Thread with Postseason Discussion

[The Six]

Well since my team is essentially out I have to find another team to latch onto to stay interested in the postseason. I like seeing the Blue Jays doing well for themselves this time of year. It's good that Toronto has something legitimate to root for after putting up with trash like the Maple Leaves and Drake for so long. Hopefully we'll get an all-bird World Series this year.

[Kramerica Industries]

Not that facts should ever get in the way of good, if really overdone, shtick, but the whole "Leafs" thing comes from the hockey team being named after the Maple Leaf regiment from WWI, and like all proper nouns, it isn't subject to the rules of singularity/plurality.

Anyway, as you were...

[sportstar1212]

Well since my team is essentially out I have to find another team to latch onto to stay interested in the postseason. I like seeing the Blue Jays doing well for themselves this time of year. It's good that Toronto has something legitimate to root for after putting up with trash like the Maple Leaves and Drake for so long. Hopefully we'll get an all-bird World Series this year.

Your name is fitting

[HedleyLamarr]

How awfully unlucky a year has Shelby Miller had? He currently leads the National League in shutouts and losses. (And it's a bit depressing that two shutouts with roughly 150 games played leads a league....)

Miller has a 5-16 record with probably two starts left. Has a 3.00 ERA (and that's gone up the last couple weeks, it was hovering around 2.50-2.80 most of the year). He was once 5-1...lost his last 15 decisions and hasn't won a game in his last 23 starts. There was a stretch where the Braves offense went 40+ scoreless innings when Miller was pitching.

Miller's last win was that game where he was one out away from throwing a no-hitter....the Sunday after Mother's Day.

[Magnus]

It's good that Toronto has something legitimate to root for after putting up with trash like the Maple Leaves and Drake for so long.

Ahem

Just saying. It's not all bad on the Toronto sports scene the last few years.

[The Six]

Argonauts started from the bottom now they there

[CubsFanBudMan]

So I was watching Cubs - Pirates last night and a hunch jumped out of the TV and hit me right in my head. I think this Cubs team is going to win the World Series this year. I'm not basing it on anything I saw in the game last night. It's just a gut feeling. Figured I'd better to post this so I'd have proof that I predicted it.

I have had a similar feeling too and I think maybe it's because the best team doesn't win the World Series anymore. I've always thought that when the Cubs finally win it all it'll be with a team that nobody saw coming.

Exactly.

As much as I hope you guys are right... the 2003 team came out of nowhere and didn't win 90 games. They got close to getting there, but up 3-1 in the NLCS with Zambrano, Prior and Wood wasn't enough.

The 2007 team was similar... a sub-90-win team with some hype about the new manager from Tampa Bay. But got swept out of the playoffs.

In 2008 they were the best team in the National League with the best record for a Cubs team since the 1984 team that broke the postseason drought ... and got swept out of the NLDS.

So Cubs fans have seen it all and rationalized that "this is the year" because "this" or "that" ... and every year it falls flat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the ride, with Arrieta's 20th win tonight a cherry on top of the earlier no-hitter. But some of us have learned to just enjoy the highs of success rather than expectations, because the lows don't feel quite as low when they inevitably arrive.

And just making it for the first time since 1945 would be an accomplishment. It's something I'd take if offered right now... a World Series *loss.* But again, I really hope you're right.

[zpqmaowl]

I was reading through The Six and his woes

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

I was reading through The Six and his woes

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

Don't reason with that guy, he's too irrational, woah

[Still MIGHTY]

I was reading through The Six and his woes

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

I was reading through The Six and his woes

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

You know how those posts go

Don't reason with that guy, he's too irrational, woah

POTD

[Unocal]

Suddenly, the Giants have closed to within 6 games of the Dodgers. 4 losses in a row for LA, SF can seemingly can do no wrong against the Padres (after scuffling against the D-Backs, Rockies, and Reds recently).

Bochy's boys are not going to relinquish their title easily.

[ninersdd]

RIP Yogi

[tp49]

Several sources are reporting that Yogi Berra has died at the age of 90.

[Cujo]

Did y'all hear Yogi died?

[Still MIGHTY]

"It ain't over until it's over."

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

"It's like déjà vu all over again."

"I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."

"Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical."

"If you don't know where you're going, you might end up some place else."

RIP Yogi Berra. What a legend. The world will miss your character.

[pmoehrin]

"It ain't over until it's over."

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

"It's like déjà vu all over again."

"I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."

"Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical."

"If you don't know where you're going, you might end up some place else."

RIP Yogi Berra. What a legend. The world will miss your character.

He also said "I didn't say everything I said" which I think is the most reveling of all the Berra quotes and really in-depth if you think about it. If he was dumb as a lot of people think he was, there's no way he would have been able to manage seven years in the majors.

You'll never see another player even remotely close to Yogi Berra. Neither the game or society will allow for it. Yogi played in a far more innocent and simplistic time. The Civil Rights movement was still in its infancy and most every sports fan around the country was still buying into the hokey idea that ballplayers are these wholesome family men who go out, give it their all every game, sign some autographs after the game, go home to the wife and kids, go to bed and get up and do it all over again the next day.

Its a funny because about a year ago I was having a conversation with a pretty influential baseball researcher. I won't mention his name, but I will say if you have seen the Ken Burns film you've heard of this guy and the topic of Rube Waddell came up, who's my personal favorite character in history and much like Yogi a lot of the stories about Waddell just simply aren't true. The researcher basically said I know that's the case and I could raise hell about it and over time probably get his image changed, but why would I? There's no way the real Rube Waddell is going to be more interesting then what his image already is and I think that's exactly the case with Yogi.

I know my view of Yogi is far more complex and complicated then most everyone who's heard of him, but if people want to have the classical view of this quirky bumbling great ballplayer, I'm not going to stop them. I wish I could view Yogi the same way I did when I was 12. But as I mentioned before, you'll never see another Yogi Berra, so why not simply believe that the legend of Yogi Berra is the real Yogi Berra and just leave it at that? I still love telling people who are unaware of Waddell's existence how he could be distracted mid game by opposing fans holding up puppies, or jingling keys or how his teammate had to put in his contract that he wasn't allowed to eat crackers in bed. Nearly all of it is total BS. It's true that he was a drunk with a learning disability, but there's no real evidence to suggest that he was baseball's version of Lennie Small. But most everyone I've told got a kick of out it and that's good enough for me.

Sometimes its not the worst thing in the world to not let the facts get in the way of a good story. We do it with Santa and nobody seems scarred for life after they find out that he's not real. To me that's Yogi Berra in a nutshell. Don't ruin the legacy with reality.

Others have encapsulated Yogi's career in a far more eloquent and well spoken manner then I ever could. I would definitely check out Bruce Weber's NY Times article on Yogi who's link I've posted the link below, although I'm sure there's others that are outstanding as well. Regardless of how true a lot of the stories with him are, there's no denying that he was a great ballplayer, a War veteran, one of the greatest characters the game has ever seen and the game of baseball was much better off for having a player like Yogi Berra involved in the sport, then not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/sports/baseball/yogi-berra-dies-at-90-yankees-baseball-catcher.html?_r=0

[FGM13]

Well that's a crappy way to start my day.

R.I.P. Yogi Berra.

[ICTknight]

Thank god the Royals finally won the division for the first time in my life! I know i shouldnt have been but I was nervous up until the last out.

[Breakwood]

Argonauts started from the bottom now they there

The Argos; a team so many people care about, that they moved into a MLS team's stadium.

[wdm1219inpenna]

For the first time since the ink on my high school diploma was still wet, for the first time since I was a college freshman in my first semester, for the first time since Ronald Wilson Reagan was in the first year of his second term of his Presidency...

(as the late, great Harry Caray)

ROYALS WIN THA DAVISION!!!!!!!!!

ROYALS WIN THA DAVISION!!!!!!!!!

ROYALS WIN THA DAVISION!!!!!!!!!

Now if Toronto can fend off the Yankees, the Blue Jays will win their first AL East Division title since 1993, and they will punch their ticket to the post-season, becoming the last of the 30 current MLB clubs to have done so since the advent of the Wild Card which began 20 seasons ago in 1995. Yes, it started in 1994, but the season ended so there were no playoffs then.

It's nice to see some new blood in. The Royals and Pirates are still reasonably new to the post-season after having decade long droughts, nice to see the Cubs will get in for the wild card game probably, nice to see the Mets winning the NL East for a change. The Twins may not make it, but they have been a nice surprise this year. And the long-suffering Houston Astros may very well punch their ticket to post-season play before long, making it to the American League playoffs for the first time ever.

When Milwaukee moved to the NL, I had no problem with it since the Braves were in Milwaukee and Milwaukee had a National League feel to it anyway. I however continue to struggle seeing the Houston Astros in the AL West. It's a real shame the Diamondbacks didn't move to the AL West instead, oh well...

[BigBubba]

I've been a Jays fan ever since I was little, and now I'm on the verge of watching them make the playoffs for the first time in my life. Unfortunately, I've been balancing heavy schoolwork with absurd working hours, and I've missed out on all the fun. I've attended only two games this and watched only a few more all the way through (when was the last time I even posted in this thread?). I've done my best to keep up with the scores, stats, transactions, etc., but damn, it just sucks. Anyways, we can clinch a playoff spot tonight, so that's one game I'll be sure to catch. In any event,

Let's Go Blue Jays!