2010 MLB Season Thread

[infrared41]

And with the White Sox losing tonight, the first of eight playoffs spots have been filled. Twins clinch the AL Central. October is right around the corner, folks.

You can give another one of those slots to the Phillies. No way Atlanta is catching them. You heard it here first, the Phillies are going to win it all.

While we're at it, anyone remember how a lot of people thought the Twins were doomed when Joe Nathan went down? Back then there was some guy saying it wasn't as big a deal as people were making it out to be. Gee if only we could go back in time and see what that guy was thinking....

I'm not saying that losing Nathan doesn't matter, I just don't believe it was the death blow to The Twins that a lot of people thought it would be. Right now it looks like The Twins have settled on Jon Rauch as their closer and so far he's gotten the job done. How long it lasts remains to be seen. All I know is that teams have made the playoffs and World Series without a "lights out" closer.

The Twins bullpen gets the job done tonight against The Angels. Jon Rauch gets the save. That's one "replacement save" and one game where they didn't need Joe Nathan. They only need to do that 39 more times and losing Nathan will be a wash.

Seriously though, I am curious to see how this plays out for The Twins. I don't think losing Nathan is going to hurt The Twins nearly as badly as the "experts" say it will. We'll see.

Sorry guys. I couldn't resist.

[Jigga]

And with the White Sox losing tonight, the first of eight playoffs spots have been filled. Twins clinch the AL Central. October is right around the corner, folks.

You can give another one of those slots to the Phillies. No way Atlanta is catching them. You heard it here first, the Phillies are going to win it all.

While we're at it, anyone remember how a lot of people thought the Twins were doomed when Joe Nathan went down? Back then there was some guy saying it wasn't as big a deal as people were making it out to be. Gee if only we could go back in time and see what that guy was thinking....

I'm not saying that losing Nathan doesn't matter, I just don't believe it was the death blow to The Twins that a lot of people thought it would be. Right now it looks like The Twins have settled on Jon Rauch as their closer and so far he's gotten the job done. How long it lasts remains to be seen. All I know is that teams have made the playoffs and World Series without a "lights out" closer.

The Twins bullpen gets the job done tonight against The Angels. Jon Rauch gets the save. That's one "replacement save" and one game where they didn't need Joe Nathan. They only need to do that 39 more times and losing Nathan will be a wash.

Seriously though, I am curious to see how this plays out for The Twins. I don't think losing Nathan is going to hurt The Twins nearly as badly as the "experts" say it will. We'll see.

Sorry guys. I couldn't resist.

Even an old, broken down clock is right twice a day.

[Gary]

congratualations to the Diamondbacks for breaking the alltime team record for Strikeouts

[Gary]

Kevin Towers New Dbacks GM

The Diamondbacks have called a 12:30(MST) press conference to announce they have hired Kevin Towers former Padres GM to be their new General Manager.

[Punch]

Today's Post-Clinch Hangover Twins Starting Lineup

Denard Span - CF

Alexi Casilla - SS

Jason Kubel - DH

Danny Valencia - 3B (1st time in clean-up spot)

Jose Morales - 1B (1st career MLB game at first base)

Matt Tolbert - 2B

Ben Revere - LF (normally in CF, but barely played there as well)

Jason Repko - RF

Drew Butera - C

That's at least 6 back-up players/utility men in today's lineup. Also, about 4-5 players are not batting in their normal batting position.

Regular Players Not in Lineup

-Joe Mauer

-Michael Cuddyer

-Delmon Young

-Orlando Hudson

-JJ Hardy

-Jim Thome (depends if you consider him a regular player)

I don't think Gardy is trying to get homefield advantage with this lineup.

[HedleyLamarr]

And with the White Sox losing tonight, the first of eight playoffs spots have been filled. Twins clinch the AL Central. October is right around the corner, folks.

You can give another one of those slots to the Phillies. No way Atlanta is catching them. You heard it here first, the Phillies are going to win it all.

I don't know about winning the World Series, but I'll be really suprised if the Phillies aren't the NL's representative in the World Series. I think they've gone 21-4 in their last 25 games. Wow.

The games have been competitive, but it would be nice if the Braves had someone else pitching this series instead of Mike Minor and some guy named Beachy.

[TFoA]

Well, they intended to have Jurrjens pitch the first game, but he got hurt out of the blue, & Beachy was one of the better guys in the Minors so he had to come up. But yeah, the fact that the Phillies were able to have their best 3 go at the Braves & Atlanta had to bring 2 guys who were in the minors for most of this season is a damn shame. Ain't gonna win a series against Halladay/Hamels/Oswalt with that combo. It's honestly a miracle that the Braves have been able to make it competitive in both games so far.

[Sport]

Jim Edmonds career might be over. He hit a home run last night and began to limp on his home run trot while jogging between second and third base. They're saying that it might be a torn achilles. If he is done, then what a way to go. Hopefully he sticks around the clubhouse throughout the postseason. His experience is useful.

[Lights Out]

Well, if any of you are regular Deadspin readers, you'll know that today, Fire Joe Morgan did another batch of reunion posts today. What does this have to do with baseball, you ask?

Well, this post right here breaks down the Hernandez/Sabathia "debate" for AL Cy Young:

[H]ere are the categories in which Felix Hernandez leads CC Sabathia as of September 20:

ERA

ERA+

WHIP

H/9

K/9

IP

K

CG

SHO

K/BB

Adj. Pitching Runs

Adj. Pitching Wins

RE24

WPA

WPA/LI

Base-Out Wins Saved

I've been firmly on the Felix for Cy Young bandwagon for a while now, but this certainly proves that despite his win/loss record (which the blame for firmly rests on the Mariners' offense - or lack thereof), Felix Hernandez is the best pitcher in the American League.

[Mings]

I absolutely love the Pirates right now.

[NJTank]

Call me old fashioned but if a 12-11 pitcher wins the Cy Young it will be the biggest disgrace of all-time. CC Sabathia pitched in bigger games, pitched in pressure situations and was a key reason the Yankees who had a lot of injuries this year are going back to the playoffs. The award belongs to CC.

[TFoA]

The Phillies basically hemmed up their 4th straight NL East title. Braves might as well start to focus on the Wild Card, because the division is pretty much out of reach.

Then again, this is what I expected so I'm not really too disappointed.

[Lights Out]

Basing the decision of who's the best pitcher off wins is an extremely flawed technique because offensive support determines a pitcher's win/loss record. CC is clutch, that's for sure, but he also gets a ton of help from his highest-payroll-in-the-league offense. Sure, there were some injuries to the offense, but for the most part, the offensive firepower's been there for him in New York.

Felix, on the other hand, has been saddled with a pathetic rotting albatross of an offense and still clearly beats CC in just about every relevant statistic for pitchers. Felix is statistically proven to be a more impressive pitcher than CC this year, and it is very easy to argue that he'd have just as good of a win/loss record on a good team.

[NJTank]

Basing the decision of who's the best pitcher off wins is an extremely flawed technique because offensive support determines a pitcher's win/loss record. CC is clutch, that's for sure, but he also gets a ton of help from his highest-payroll-in-the-league offense. Sure, there were some injuries to the offense, but for the most part, the offensive firepower's been there for him in New York.

Felix, on the other hand, has been saddled with a pathetic rotting albatross of an offense and still clearly beats CC in just about every relevant statistic for pitchers. Felix is statistically proven to be a more impressive pitcher than CC this year, and it is very easy to argue that he'd have just as good of a win/loss record on a good team.

But 12-11 is mediocre at best. I would but the Felix argument if his record was 15-7, but he won't win 15 games, and he won't finish five games better than .500. For a starting pitcher to win the Cy Young without at least meeting those two standards is just spitting in the face of the award.

[Lights Out]

But you're missing the main point here: Felix is only 12-11 because the Mariners' offense this year is the worst ever in the modern era of baseball. Put him on the Rays and he wins 20 games easily.

[NJTank]

I know Felix has been unlucky, but CC has been good too and when weighing everything I rather see the award go to a 20 game winner who pitched in pressure games and also had very good number through out than someone who is barely .500.

[Sport]

I wish wins and losses were never applied towards pitchers. People place way too much stock in this particular stat in judging the effectiveness of starting pitchers. It's a stat that is reliant on the starting pitcher's team's offense. It's a team statistic where the Cy Young is an individual award. Tank, forget wins and losses because Hernandez would probably be around 20 wins on another team. Forget about it and only look at strikeouts, earned runs, opponent batting average, walks.

[BBTV]

Tank has a good point though - while actual wins and losses don't matter much, pressure pitching does. I don't think you can discount having to pitch in high-pressure playoff like conditions, in front of 50k fans. I'm not going to say that anyone can have a great season when it doesn't matter, and it sucks that we'll never know how good he would have been in big situations, but that's just how it is. You'd have to pull a 1972 Steve Carlton and win 27 games for a 52 win team to get a cy young on a team that bad. I haven't looked it up, but have there been cy young winners with non-impressive records, or from horrible teams (and not had overwhelming numbers like Carlton?)

[rams80]

I absolutely love the Pirates right now.

And I hate Tony LaRussa. Thanks Tony for throwing a season away so you could play your head games.

Call me old fashioned but if a 12-11 pitcher wins the Cy Young it will be the biggest disgrace of all-time. CC Sabathia pitched in bigger games, pitched in pressure situations and was a key reason the Yankees who had a lot of injuries this year are going back to the playoffs. The award belongs to CC.

You might have a point if in his losses the Mariners had cumulatively scored more runs that I have digits. (I think that's the case anyway.) He can't even swing a bloody bat to (try to) help his cause because of the DH rule.

[rams80]

Tank has a good point though - while actual wins and losses don't matter much, pressure pitching does. I don't think you can discount having to pitch in high-pressure playoff like conditions, in front of 50k fans. I'm not going to say that anyone can have a great season when it doesn't matter, and it sucks that we'll never know how good he would have been in big situations, but that's just how it is. You'd have to pull a 1972 Steve Carlton and win 27 games for a 52 win team to get a cy young on a team that bad. I haven't looked it up, but have there been cy young winners with non-impressive records, or from horrible teams (and not had overwhelming numbers like Carlton?)

Last year with Zack Greinke for the Royals probably counts.