2023 MLB Season Thread

[Sec19Row53]

The streak is alive. Every team that has bounced the Brewers in the postseason has played in the World Series.

1981 Yankees lost WS

1982 Cardinals won WS

2008 Phillies won WS

2011 Cardinals won WS

2018 Dodgers lost WS

2019 Nationals won WS

2020 Dodgers won WS

2021 Braves won WS

2023 D-backs ??? WS

[SFGiants58]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

 

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR 5,000,000 POSTS IS THE EXACT SAME THING.  You bring nothing but negativity and complaints into every single thread, and frankly, we're all tired of opening a thread just to see the same ing and complaining. 
 

You're unequivicobly the least-contributive member of this forum, and we'd all appreciate it if you'd stop with the negaspam (if that's a thing.)*

 

Infrared/mods - can we just give him his own thread?  Ignore doesn't work, because someone will quote him, or you'll be tempted to peek at the car crash every now and then.  I once got 7 days for arguing for just a few hours with people that were complaining about the Patriots beating the Rams and that Matt Stafford sucks.  This is far more egregious than that, because it derails nearly every thread.

100% this - when a member is so universally disliked and they clog up threads with their spam (and it is spam), it’s time to do something.

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

100% this - when a member is so universally disliked and they clog up threads with their spam (and it is spam), it’s time to do something.

 

Being disliked is not against the rules. As I've said a few times now, I get that his contrarian takes are REALLY annoying, but he's not breaking any rules. Bad opinions are not "spam" and they are allowed here. If they weren't, pretty much every person in this community would have at least a suspension or two under their belt. No one, myself included, (maybe especially myself) is required read his posts or respond to them.

[infrared41]

3 hours ago, BBTV said:

Infrared/mods - can we just give him his own thread?  Ignore doesn't work, because someone will quote him, or you'll be tempted to peek at the car crash every now and then. 

 

He's free to start his own thread. If we gave him one, would he use it? I seriously doubt it. Temptation isn't handled by the mod squad. You all will have to handle that yourselves.

 

 

 

[BBTV]

I guess I was thinking something more like the Ugliest Bathroom, which to this day I still think was brilliant

[Alex Houston]

Got to give Unocal credit though. He has convictions and he's sticking with them. Not that I care for them much, but I just ignore him and move on. You can only belabor a point for so long in a public forum before even sympathizers and open-minded people get tired of it.

Also, I get all the Astros hate in my response the other day, but considering how often they've been in the running the last decade, it's still an impressive feat. Any fanbase would kill for those opportunities and the funny thing is, they likely didn't need to cheat to win a title or two along the way. Oh well, it is what it is.

I don't really care for Texas much, so I'll be rooting for Arizona, but the Rangers seem to be a team of destiny. Plus after a back-breaking loss in 2011 (one of the most painful losses for a title I can recall), they're due for a moment in the sun. Let the dice fall where it may.

[Digby]

18 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

So, what about the 2018 Red Sox who did the same thing? Where's the vitriol for them?

 

Either they both get punished or we have a double standard.

because the Red Sox thing was different by orders of magnitude. Calling it the “same thing” is literally wrong.

 

anyway, I think a big reason the Astros weren’t death-penaltied is because a ton of teams were all cheating like this to some extent. They were obviously taking it to a particular extreme and had lots of extra baggage with their front office full of creeps and weirdos, but yeah. 
 

my favorite of this was the Red Sox/Yankees mutually assured destruction tattletale on each other over Apple Watches in what, 2017? PitchCom is up with the pitch clock as modern innovations that are just no-brainers in 2023 that came way too late.

[BeerGuyJordan]

4 hours ago, Sport said:

Two things: 1. The Reds also blew a 9-0 lead to the :censored:ing Pirates in the penultimate series. I can think of about six more games they lost that easily should’ve been wins. That’s our fault, not the Dbacks. 
2. the Reds pitching was a mess in the last two months and like two starters were healthy. They wouldn’t have gotten out of the wildcard series. 

Salient points, but let's not pretend that the Dbacks didn't slide backwards into the post season on a four game losing streak. The battle for the final WC spot started to feel like it was coming down to a measure of how much the teams derailed in the 11th hour.

 

Arizona came into the playoffs pretty cold. I'm a fan, but my hopes were pretty low. I thought they had the pieces to get by Mikwaukee if they could find their footing, I wouldn't have been willing to put money on them getting past LA, and I never seriously considered them making the World Series. I've been happy to be wrong, and this is why we play the games. 

[Digby]

1 hour ago, infrared41 said:

 

Being disliked is not against the rules. As I've said a few times now, I get that his contrarian takes are REALLY annoying, but he's not breaking any rules. Bad opinions are not "spam" and they are allowed here. If they weren't, pretty much every person in this community would have at least a suspension or two under their belt. No one, myself included, (maybe especially myself) is required read his posts or respond to them.

 

Appreciate the mods' commitment to fairness here but like, this is not the rule of law. At the very least some de-escalation would be helpful to keep things on-topic and productive.

[infrared41]

33 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

Appreciate the mods' commitment to fairness here but like, this is not the rule of law. At the very least some de-escalation would be helpful to keep things on-topic and productive.

 

In fairness (again), if you can provide an example of the guy literally going off topic, I will be happy to moderate it. Granted, I haven't read all of his posts, but as far as I can tell, what he's saying is on topic. We may not agree with him, but he seems to be staying between the lines. The ignore feature is there for a reason.

[infrared41]

39 minutes ago, Digby said:

this is not the rule of law

 

No, but it is the rule of the forum.

[TBGKon]

As a fan of one of the little guys (ie. midsize/small market), it's nice to see new blood in the World Series.  I don't care about rating for TV broadcasts, I'm a sports fan.  

 

 

[SFGiants58]

I want the Diamondbacks, mostly because an NL West team winning a title in spite of the Dodgers’ decade-long dominance of the division (only failing to win it once) is funny to me. It’s like how the Marlins won two titles (and the Mets won a pennant) during the Braves’ division title streak.

 

Any outcome that puts more egg in the Dodgers’ faces is a good outcome.

[Cujo]

32 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

As a fan of one of the little guys (ie. midsize/small market), it's nice to see new blood in the World Series.  I don't care about rating for TV broadcasts, I'm a sports fan. 

 

The only people who cry "BuT tHe RaTiNgS" are Dodgers and YankSox fans -- and it's got nothing to do with ratings and everything about their team not being there.

[MJWalker45]

23 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

The only people who cry "BuT tHe RaTiNgS" are Dodgers and YankSox fans -- and it's got nothing to do with ratings and everything about their team not being there.

As long as the games are good, hopefully we'll see good ratings as well. I think we'll also see if the changes to speeding up the game get more people interested that tuned out previously. 

[Red Comet]

The obsessing over ratings sounds like some very insecure people obsessing over whether their team is popular or not. 
 

If someone is a TRUE and HONEST fan of a team, popularity shouldn’t be relevant.

 

EDIT: Obviously, if one’s paycheck is reliant on TV ratings, that should be a concern. As a guy sitting on the couch with pants being optional, caring about ratings makes that person a loser. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Red Comet

[infrared41]

As someone who spent his career concerned about ratings, I can tell you all that the TV ratings for this World Series will have absolutely no effect on your day to day existence. Unless, of course, you're working in the programming department at Fox Sports or you're an ad buyer for an agency. But other than that, there is no need to concern yourselves with the TV ratings. Whether anyone is watching or not, the games will still be on TV.

 

[Dynasty]

16 hours ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

The whole thing. I'm in Tucson and we hate going to Phoenix because of the heat.

 

There's a temperature difference between the two cities?

[TrueYankee26]

8 hours ago, Alex Houston said:

Got to give Unocal credit though. He has convictions and he's sticking with them. Not that I care for them much, but I just ignore him and move on. You can only belabor a point for so long in a public forum before even sympathizers and open-minded people get tired of it.

Also, I get all the Astros hate in my response the other day, but considering how often they've been in the running the last decade, it's still an impressive feat. Any fanbase would kill for those opportunities and the funny thing is, they likely didn't need to cheat to win a title or two along the way. Oh well, it is what it is.

I don't really care for Texas much, so I'll be rooting for Arizona, but the Rangers seem to be a team of destiny. Plus after a back-breaking loss in 2011 (one of the most painful losses for a title I can recall), they're due for a moment in the sun. Let the dice fall where it may.

The 2001 Yankees were also a team of destiny. How did that World Series end up?

[Gary]

50 minutes ago, Dynasty said:

 

There's a temperature difference between the two cities?

By at least 10-15 degrees, it still hits 100 but it's not as bad