Well, I know that baseball is often times overlooked here, but the playoffs are upon us!
Three teams need every game in the season to determine who was going on and luckily the Braves got the wildcard on the last game of the season. I ordered my Jay-Hey jersey yesterday and I'm hoping the Braves can win a few more games for Bobby Cox. But its not looking too good right now.
What I want to happen:
Braves over Giants
Reds over Phillies
Rays over Rangers
Twins over Yankees
What I think will happen:
Giants over Braves
Phillies over Reds
Rays over Rangers
Yankees over Twins
But the MLB playoffs are really hard to predict.
If anyone cares, Roy Halladay threw a no-hitter yesterday. Only the second no-hitter in playoff history (the other was a perfect game). Dang, the Phillies are set up for the post-season.
Re: the no hitter. Wasn't there some record amount of no hitters or perfect games this year? Seemed every bit of baseball news I heard was about a no hitter or perfect game. Or, you know, that Met what kicked his baby momma's dad's ass in front of a bunch of people.
There has been an insane amount of perfect games and no hitters. I'm not sure if its a record, but it definately seems like it should be, although baseball sometimes has weird records and there was the whole "dead ball" era.
The speculation is that its because the hitting hasn't readjusted from the lack of steriods. But who knows. I'm happy though 'cuz I like 2-1 games much more than 10-8 games.
And K-Rod (Francisco Rodriguez), the closer of the Mets, not only punched out his baby momma's dad in front of people at the Mets family facilaty, but apparently he hurt his hand doing so. So instead of just being a scumbag, he became a scumbag who wasn't paid for half the season. They could get out of not paying him because his injury didn't involve baseball activities. Pretty funny, huh? Stupid Mets.
I wonder if it's the steroids thing. I mean, pitchers were taking steroids, too, so it seems like if there'd be a performance drop in hitters, it'd hit the pitchers as well. Plus 'roids do not a good hitter make. You don't lose vision and coordination when you drop the 'roids.
And that Mets dood is a mess. Hopefully they'll be able to convert the contract to unguaranteed and drop him.
I definately think the game is better now.
And I hope the Mets can't get out of his contract. But that's mainly because I hate 'em Mets and would love to see them with yet another horrible contract on their books.
My pet peeve with steriods is how baseball gets unfairly focused upon. Yes, its comical to make fun of. Whenever someone has a big year, especially in the HR category, I'll make jokes about steriods. But I hate how the other sports get a free pass.
Like in the NFL, Brian Cushing won rookie of the year and was later busted for steriods. So they had a re-vote for rookie of the year and guess who won... it was Brian Cushing.
Anyway, the Tampa Ray (who I liked) look horrible and apparently will go down 0-2 so they're pretty much done. Stupid Rays.
Never liked the Rays - unless they're playin' New York or Boston. Don't their fans hate 'em, too or is that the Marlins?
And you're probably right about baseball getting more blame because its a game of stats.
But yeah, I have no idea about their finances or their ownership.
And yeah, I think ownership is a huge problem in baseball. You have owners who seem to have no problem pocketing their earnings and keeping their teams in the dredges of the league.
I actually always argue about the NBA salary situation with my brother. He seems to think its the best while I think its pointlessly complicated while accomplishing nothing.
I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan, always have been always will be. Albert Pujols is in my opinion the best hitter to ever play the game and his defense could be argued to be one of the best making him one of the best all around player to have ever played the game.
Well, earlier in the season the Phillies decided to give Ryan Howard 100-150 million plus (though I'm not sure over how many years, I want to say 10 but I'm just not certain.) Anyway as soon as that story broke the fans in St. Louis groaned a little.
I mean, I think Pujols' contract comes up at the end of next year and it would be in the Cardinals best interest to try to get a contract before then. The problem is the ownership already spent a truckload of money to bring Matt Holiday to the Cardinals as protection for Pujols and it showed in their performance this year.
St. Louis has a pretty good farm system but they proved this year that you can't surround two player with a bunch of rookies and expect to get to the playoffs (not that some rookies didn't show some great promise like Jon Jay or Colby Rasmus {I don't want to talk about Rasmus though, if the jerk wants to be traded then trade his ass})
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is Pujols deserves a contract of around 200 million but I just don't know if the Cardinals organization can afford it and expect to compete. My fear is the Red Sox or Yankees may sieze this oportunity to snag a sure fire hall of famer. Pujols has said he wants to stay in St. Louis but loyalty to the Cardinals is only going to get you so far. It worries me that he'll pass on the Cards if enough money is thrown at him.
Anyway again, I'm hoping he's willing to give the Cardinals a discount but there is going to be a lot of money thrown his way.
Sheesh, sorry about the wall of text.
But for his contract, I think its in the best interest to lock him up before he can smell free agency. You don't want the Sox (the Yanks locked up Tex so they probably won't be in the mix) to make a run at him. And I don't know the Card's salary situation, but I assume if they can give Holliday such a massive deal, they have to have money for Pujols. But I guess the problem is if they have the money for Holliday, Pujols, and their pitchers.
And honestly, its good when players like Pujols (or Mauer) stay in their markets. If the Twins can keep Mauer, there's definately hope that the Card's can keep Pujols.
There's a reason the Cardinals are a perenial playoff team. Yeah, and the pitching too. Wainwright and Carpenter are just awesome.
And then there are the Duncan's project pitchers. Like you said though, the money is the problem. It all depends on if the Cardinals are gonna spend like a small market team or the big market team they actually are.
In fact, I would argue that the Cardinals market is bigger than the Boston and New York (individually) because it encompasses most of Missouri, some of Kansas, all of Southern Illinois, Northern Arkansas, most of Oklahoma (if not all), and portions of other states that border or are in close proximity of Missouri.
It kind of funny when people talk about big market and small market teams and people throw St. Louis in the mix when for the most part their salaries are more in line with the smaller market teams. It helps when almost every home game is sold out and in recent years they've decided to spend like big market teams, I'm hoping that trend continues.
What's the deal? The thread title says its about baseball. If you don't want to discuss it, then don't post. No need to crap all over the thread like that.
But talking about the actual playoffs, f'ing Braves and their lack of defense. They waste two excellent pitching performances (by Lowe and Hudson) with bad defense. In game 1, Infante lets a ball roll under his glove which allowed the only run of the game to score. In game 3, Conrad had 3 errors, 1 which allowed the first Giant run and one which allowed the winning Giants run.
But at the same time, its hard to destroy them since those two wouldn't even be playing if it weren't for the massive amounts of injuries. Infante is basically the backup second baseman who's playing third (because of injuries to the two third basemen ahead of him) and Conrad is a rookie playing second who would be third on the depth charts there.
Its a real shame if Bobby Cox's career ends because of defensive lapses, but at least he made the playoffs one last time. Hopefully Atlanta's management doesn't decide to cut payroll next year and the team can use this year as a learning experience. But with that said, they're still alive and hopefully Lowe can force a fifth game.