MLB 2021 Season Thread

[GDAWG]

 

 

[The_Admiral]

WWE celebrating the old Turner team feels like grave-dancing once removed.

[Sport]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

I think the Brewers have made the same case by building mostly through trades rather than the wholesale teardown-rebuild that most teams seem to favor. 

 

I admire that about the Brewers and, ugh, the Cardinals. If you spend a little bit extra and never let yourself get too bad then you're always one sh***ead team trying to dump salary away from landing a Nolan Arenado and then -boom- you're a playoff team and you've bought yourself the 1 in 10 lottery ticket of winning it all. 

 

It's nice that some teams have enough respect for their customers to not put them through The Process^TM and choose to find less painful ways to field competitive teams. 

 

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Sometimes I feel like such a schmuck for having been into Moneyball in college. This is what being "smart" has wrought, the situation you outline where most teams are led by business majors actively making their on-field product horrible in service of maybe being good later but definitely making a profit now. What if we really were better off when baseball general managers were just crusty old baseball men who would get so drunk that they'd pass out and wet themselves? If their teams lost 105 games a year, at least it wasn't because they planned on it!

 

Moneyball was more exciting in theory than in practice. We were absolutely better off when guys made moves on gut because it was more entertaining and it led to a wider variety of types of team. Most baseball teams now are all kind of built in the same mold. 

 

I also have a take that baseball was better when the pitchers weren't as good. 

 

 

41 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

 

Yeah but this one was particularly unenthusiastic.

 

 

It was 7-0 so they had more time to think about it and emotionally deal with it than if it had been a close game. Celebrations are usually not as euphoric when the deciding game is a blowout. 

[Digby]

1 minute ago, Sport said:

Moneyball was more exciting in theory than in practice. We were absolutely better off when guys made moves on gut because it was more entertaining and it led to a wider variety of types of team. Most baseball teams now are all kind of built in the same mold. 

 

I think this is the more accurate legacy of Moneyball for me. I don't know that Bill James ever signed off on tanking as being a sabermetric method. Tanking culture feels more like a mix of what happens when everybody is Moneyballing at once, with a sort of galaxy-brain perversion of the idea of playing the numbers. I blame what we now know was the organization-wide toxic culture of the 2010s Astros for that, more than the 10s Rays or 00s Athletics approaches.

[BBTV]

It's funny that this Braves team is 1/100% as talented as the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz teams and has won the same number of World Series'.  It's not funny that the sport's reigning champion is essentially the team of the alt right and still endorses archaic traditions like the chop, even in the wake of everything that's gone on the past few years.

[DEAD!]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

WWE celebrating the old Turner team feels like grave-dancing once removed.

I was thinking this morning if the Braves would rather have the 'tbs' belt .

[ManillaToad]

5 minutes ago, BBTV said:

the sport's reigning champion is essentially the team of the alt right

 

Get a grip

[FiddySicks]

Buster Posey is retiring. I normally don’t take this stance, because dudes should be able to retire when they want to, but I don’t understand why, and I’m heartbroken by it. Most important player in San Francisco era Giants history by a WIDE margin. 

[dont care]

7 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Buster Posey is retiring. I normally don’t take this stance, because dudes should be able to retire when they want to, but I don’t understand why, and I’m heartbroken by it. Most important player in San Francisco era Giants history by a WIDE margin. 

Dudes a 34 year old catcher. His knees are shot.

[SFGiants58]

17 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Buster Posey is retiring. I normally don’t take this stance, because dudes should be able to retire when they want to, but I don’t understand why, and I’m heartbroken by it. Most important player in San Francisco era Giants history by a WIDE margin. 

He had a year off to raise his family, which probably helped his decision. That and “going out on top” from a hitting and catching POV, as well as his knees and hips being in sub-optimal condition. The man doesn’t want to have a hip or knee replacement before he’s 40. 
 

I’m feeling wistful about it. The dude, as you said, was probably the most important player of the team’s SF history (you can make strong arguments for Bonds also). It just feels so sad knowing that the three-in-five era of players is truly at an end. I know Crawford and Belt are still there, but I doubt they have much left in the tank. 
 

It was an amazing career and it really is the end of an era.

[FiddySicks]

You guys, I simply cannot be objective about this one. I mean I know why he’s retiring, but I wanna know WHY. I always knew I was goi g to be sad when he retired, but this one is surprisingly deflating. 

[Sec19Row53]

1 minute ago, FiddySicks said:

You guys, I simply cannot be objective about this one. I mean I know why he’s retiring, but I wanna know WHY. I always knew I was goi g to be sad when he retired, but this one is surprisingly deflating. 

Because he can still walk?

[FiddySicks]

He can have my legs! 

[SFGiants58]

16 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Because he can still walk?

Knee trouble runs in my family, so I have first-hand experience with the novelty of “can walk without pain.” I get it.

[Sec19Row53]

3 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Knee trouble runs in my family, so I have first-hand experience with the novelty of “can walk without pain.” I get it.

Me too. It's why I dropped 30 pounds off my frame 8 years ago. 5'10" 165 is way more sustainable at 56 years old than 5'10" 195.

[JayJaxon]

4 hours ago, BBTV said:

 the sport's reigning champion is essentially the team of the alt right

 

Are they in the room with you right now???