Vin Scully's last game at the mike. Its going to feel like everybody in SoCal lost their grandpa on the same day. God I wish he would end his final broadcast by saying: "Fuck the Giants," but Vin has too much class for that.
Vin Scully's last game at the mike. Its going to feel like everybody in SoCal lost their grandpa on the same day. God I wish he would end his final broadcast by saying: "Fuck the Giants," but Vin has too much class for that.
Last edited by Jayjami; 10-02-2016 at 06:10 AM.
Giants have scored 12 runs to Dodgers 3
Kershaw gets out dueled by some kid lefty (oh yeah, lol Dodgers vs lefties) with 9 MLB innings on his resume.
Gawd, I was staring at +173 all morning but I had already made my daily hate bet.
So Giants & Dodgers settling into each of their respective post season rhythms.
Nothing but tears
Druff won't cry. But it's the end of an era.
More important.....
Will Orioles fans cry today?
Will Blue Jays fans cry today?
Will Detroit fans cry today? Or tomorrow?
Tigers bases loaded & no outs in 6th, I think. Down 5-2 or 5-3. Miggy & Martinez up. No runs. No sacrifices - nothing. Tigers deserve to be where they are.Originally Posted by simpdog
Gotta love my man Kimbral. Sawks just flashed their hole cards. Did you see them?
Can't wait to start betting playoffs.
Nats in 4 over LA. (Could be a sweep but Nats will fuck up somewhere)
Nah I'm an Os fan ain't gonna cry but was hoping Boston would beat Jays today giving us the game in Baltimore. Instead we're screwed have to play in Toronto one game and then if we win it's off to Texas.
Last 3 games
Giants 19
Todgers 4
Who needs a calendar? Who needs a tissue?
Regular season heroes
the good news is Happ pitched Saturday and Sanchez todayNah I'm an Os fan ain't gonna cry but was hoping Boston would beat Jays today giving us the game in Baltimore. Instead we're screwed have to play in Toronto one game and then if we win it's off to Texas.
I guess we would pUT Estrada out
end of an era with Vin Scully retirement....
thanks Vin, but i am ready (have been for years) to hear full-time modern style broadcasters with actual playing knowledge of the game (Rick Monday/Kevin Kennedy) that do a great job on the radio side of sharing their understanding of the game
(long before there was a PFA i had my Grenade & Crossbones avatar at DD)
Come on man. They're not gonna trot Estrada out on 3 days rest when they have Stroman & Liriano on proper rest & both pitching pretty good as of late.the good news is Happ pitched Saturday and Sanchez today
I guess we would pUT Estrada out
(•_•) ..
∫\ \___( •_•)
_∫∫ _∫∫ɯ \ \
Kershaw 1.69
Hill 2.12
Maeda 3.28
Kershaw 1.69
Hill 2.12
Jansen 1.83 is good for 6 outs
Regular season heroes? 4 straight is no fluke, they're well built. Don't you owe Friedman and Zaidi some apologies?
Regular season's over. Cubs won best team in baseball award.
Now, let's flip some coins.
You are mostly correct, but Friedman and Zaidi don't deserve that much credit. This was not expected to be a good year, as they didn't make moves to increase this team's competitiveness, but rather just tried to tread water until some bad contracts fell off in the coming years.Kershaw 1.69
Hill 2.12
Maeda 3.28
Kershaw 1.69
Hill 2.12
Jansen 1.83 is good for 6 outs
Regular season heroes? 4 straight is no fluke, they're well built. Don't you owe Friedman and Zaidi some apologies?
Regular season's over. Cubs won best team in baseball award.
Now, let's flip some coins.
Maeda ended up doing unexpectedly well (namely in that he stayed healthy) and Hill was great when he was able to pitch.
Dodgers' success this season mostly wasn't a result of money spent or slick moves made, but rather rookie Corey Seager carrying the offense, plus continuing to get a lot out of various other inexpensive players such as Justin Turner.
Credit to Roberts for holding the team together when missing Kershaw for over 2 months. Keep in mind that they gained their ground on the Giants with no Kershaw and no Hill, but rather just Maeda and a gaggle of failpitchers.
Unfortunately the team let their foot off the gas when they clinched the NL West a week ago. It was a beautiful moment with Vin announcing his final home game, but since then the team has played like they haven't given a shit, and Roberts was fielding fail lineups to make it even worse. I realize that other managers do this (namely Maddon, who has drawn fire from his own players), but you risk going into the playoffs lacking momentum and confidence when you do this.
Dodgers unfortunately handed the hated Giants a free wildcard spot, despite the Cardinals playing well at the end (sorry Willie).
I was confident before that the Dodgers would win the Nats series like 3-1, but now I'm not so sure. The Nats are a banged up team, but who knows? I still think the Dodgers will win that one, but I'm not as confident as before.
I really would like to see a Dodgers/Cubs showdown in the NLCS.
Can't agree with this.
Vin was never a player, but he knew enough about the game to call it (especially doing it for 67 years), and he peppered each broadcast with enough entertaining stories and clever quips about the game in progress that he was far and away the best baseball broadcaster out there.
Even at nearly 89 years old, I would still rather listen to him than any other baseball broadcaster, and it's not even close.
Interesting that the two men most associated with the Dodgers for the past 40 years (Lasorda and Scully) were born 2 months apart in 1927.
I couldn't disagree more. They deserve a lot of credit.
I think those are your expectations. They were projected to have the second best record in baseball this year. As well as having the second best world series odds going into the year.
No credit for that? Shedding Olivera for Wood and Pereza (who was then flipped for Thompson and Montas (who was then flipped for Rich Hill (who makes a nice Greinke replacement for 200 million less)))
How about shedding Matt Kemp from the outfield, any credit for that? Any credit for getting a top five catcher in return?
He's doing as expected per projections, so again, who's expectations are we talking about?
He's already at surplus value on his contract in this the first year of a potential eight year contract. Who do I give the credit to?
That's who the Tigers wanted for Price last season, before Seager made the show. Friedman said no and that ended that. They took a lot of shit for that, including from our very own sanlmar. (Something about wasting Kershaw's prime or something)
You were unsure about the signing before the year. You were going to take a wait and see approach, mainly because he had no prior managerial experience. You even noted how he got the job after the front office loved him in interviews. No credit for this? No credit for shedding the old manager?
No credit for the pitching depth?
No credit for the front office? Amazing.
I submit that this isn't how the game is played. Baseball isn't football with amped up "try harder" emotion. Baseball ain't a team game.
When I am at bat I don't want to look the fool. Doesn't matter the standings or the score. These are MY numbers and this battle is personal. Same for pitchers or any other player for that matter.
Now maybe Roberts fielded the bench toward the end. I didn't follow closely. Bench matters huge too in playoffs. Depth.
Accepted:
10/2/2016 4:50:10 PM
Description:
CHICAGO CUBS at CINCINNATI REDS Moneyline CUBS
Type
Risk $100.00 To Win $240.00
DGS
I made a lot this year betting Cubs live. I prayed daily that they got in a hole early so finally I could wager decent odds. Last regular season game and I couldn't stop. Cubs down 3-0 to Reds early. I kept hammering. The above bet was only one of many.
I threw up a little in my mouth when Maddon pulled many of his "A" listers in about the 6th. Down 4-2 I think. Who the hell is Kawasaki?
Suffice to say that Cubs won 7-4.
I went out the way I came in. It was poetic. So project and make all the excuses you like. Else tip your cap to the massive Cubs depth. Cubs gave a shit when absolutely nothing mattered. Pride? I choose to think just talent.
How does this reflect on Dodgers? Regardless of your guess it's a bottom line business.
even better than Harry Carry?Can't agree with this.
Vin was never a player, but he knew enough about the game to call it (especially doing it for 67 years), and he peppered each broadcast with enough entertaining stories and clever quips about the game in progress that he was far and away the best baseball broadcaster out there.
Even at nearly 89 years old, I would still rather listen to him than any other baseball broadcaster, and it's not even close.
Interesting that the two men most associated with the Dodgers for the past 40 years (Lasorda and Scully) were born 2 months apart in 1927.
"Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."
George Steinbrenner
Credit for shedding Olivera, but that didn't improve the team.I couldn't disagree more.
No credit for that? Shedding Olivera for Wood and Pereza (who was then flipped for Thompson and Montas (who was then flipped for Rich Hill (who makes a nice Greinke replacement for 200 million less)))
Shipping Peraza out for Thompson and Montas was just plain stupid. They couldn't have foreseen that Montas alone would be a trade chip to get a #2 starter.
Peraza had a great year with the Reds, and could end up a great leadoff hitter for many years.
The trade for Reddick and Hill was good (unlike last year's disasterous moves for Wood, Latos, Jim Johnson, and various other failplayers).
However, Hill is not a Greinke replacement. He is 36 (and will be 37 before the start of next season), with a recurring blister issue and a career ERA of over 4.
He's pitching well this year, so it's nice to have him, but he's not exactly useful for the future.
Kemp had 35 HR and 108 RBI this year. Slugged .499. Still managed to bat .268.
Sure, he's not a good fielder, but I would be thrilled to have a bat like that in the lineup. The funny thing is that the Dodgers, for all their "crowded outfield" problems, could have really used him this year. They were running out Howie Kendrick there in the first half of the year, and then Reddick in the second half.
Dodgers also could have gotten him back from the Padres for next to nothing (plus money BACK), and chose not to. Instead, the Padres shipped him to rot in Atlanta, in exchange for Olivera's lolbad contract, who they then promptly released.
The problem is that the Kemp haters overstate how bad his clubhouse presence was (in reality it wasn't) and exaggerate his defense's impact on the team. When Kemp is hitting well, as he did this year, that supersedes any defensive issues he has.
I really, really wish he were in the lineup during these playoffs. Daniel Murphy showed last year how one hot bat can carry a team through the postseason.
"Unexpectedly" in that they didn't know if he would stay healthy, or if his skills would translate to MLB.He's doing as expected per projections, so again, who's expectations are we talking about?
He's already at surplus value on his contract in this the first year of a potential eight year contract. Who do I give the credit to?
He accomplished both in 2016, but you also need to realize that his "cheap" contract is only cheap if he doesn't perform. It was filled with massive performance incentives.
I'm fine with that, but he wasn't a Justin Turner type bargain.
I don't like giving credit to front offices for non-moves, unless they are moves which are championed by most people and the front office wisely resists.That's who the Tigers wanted for Price last season, before Seager made the show. Friedman said no and that ended that. They took a lot of shit for that, including from our very own sanlmar. (Something about wasting Kershaw's prime or something)
Sanlmar aside, I don't know any Dodgers fans who wanted to see Seager shipped off for Price.
I don't know what pitching depth you're talking about. The team managed to win through smoke and mirrors after Kershaw went down.You were unsure about the signing before the year. You were going to take a wait and see approach, mainly because he had no prior managerial experience. You even noted how he got the job after the front office loved him in interviews. No credit for this? No credit for shedding the old manager?
No credit for the pitching depth?
No credit for the front office? Amazing.
There were only three effective starters for the Dodgers this year: Kershaw (who missed over 2 months), Maeda, and Urias (who made 15 starts, and took awhile to learn MLB). I guess you can count Hill, but he only started 6 games, so not really.
Look at all of the other starters. They all sucked.
The team won thanks to timely hitting and (yes) a good bullpen.
Before you high-five the front office for the good bullpen, recall that last year's bullpen sucked, and was frustratingly ineffective when it counted. That is, they threw up zeroes when the team was ahead or behind by 7 runs, but blew games when close. Bullpens are hard to construct. Relievers go from good to terrible from year to year. I'm sure you know this. Much of having a good bullpen is luck.
But speaking of starting pitching, they signed Brett Anderson for $16 million this year (for ONE year), and McCarthy was given $48 mil for 3 years. Both of these pitchers were highly doubted when acquired in 2015, and both were fails as expected.
Oh, and how about the stupid Dee Gordon trade? They got a pitcher who they promptly shipped off for ... Howie Kendrick? The guy with 1 year left on his contract?
They couldn't explain it.
"Um.... it was Gordon's defense. We needed a defensive upgrade."
Except Gordon looked good on defense in 2014, and he won the Gold Glove in 2015.
Perhaps they knew about the roids. That would be the only reasonable justification for that weird trade. Otherwise it was just plain dumb.
The Braves originally wanted to sign him out of Cuba but the Dodgers grossly outbid the market. They paid the signing bonus portion of the contract and then flipped him to the Braves for Alex Wood and a top 100 prospect at the time in Peraza. A clever way to use their financial muscle to purchase controllable talent.
Alex Wood is an entirely useful starter with three years of team control remaining even after this season. The Braves were weary of his funky delivery and the impact it would have on the long-term health of his arm. But, a league average starter with three years of control is massively valuable. He's worth roughly something like $30-$40 million in value, if he were made available he would fetch a package headed by something like a top 25-50 prospect. Matt Moore is extremely comparable and we saw what he hauled in for the Rays.
That's a mischaracterization of Peraza's season (.6 WAR) and value moving forward.
His half season was fueled by a .361 BABIP, which isn't at all sustainable going forward even with his 70 grade speed because he doesn't hit the ball hard enough. He ran league average BIBIPs in the minors, but was on the receiving end of incredibly good fortune this season. His .361 BABIP came while maintaining a 22.3% hard hit percent (bottom 5% of the league). His unacceptable .087 ISO is paired with an outstandingly atrocious walk rate of 2.7%. Even if we generously assume he's a league average defender at second base (he wasn't this year) that discipline profile and power output sinks him to damn near unplayable with a normalized BABIP. Which is why projections see him as a 77 wRC+ guy next season, basically replacement level (.3 WAR). Not a viable first division regular.
Sidenote: the Reds pitching staff posted a combined negative WAR this season. The first time that has been done in league history dating back well over 100 years. The single worst pitching staff in baseball history. Yikes.
Well I meant he's the replacement for this season. Moving forward, Urias and De Leon should be the guys.
But again, that's a mischaracterization of a player's value. You're painting Hill in the worst possible light by focusing on his career stats, which are weighted heavily to his failures of a decade ago. We all know Hill's career path. How many players have their breakout at the age of 35? I'm a huge fan of Rich Hill dating all the way back to when he came up through the Cubs organization. I think his story is awesome. He found a way to make his curveball, the second most valuable curve in the game by run values (16.0, behind only Kluber) look exactly like his high fastball coming out of his hands, which is why despite his 90.8 average velocity, his four seem still carries an astonishing 12.9 run value (he throws it up in the zone more than anybody). He leads the league in whiff % on his four seem at 31%, which is incredible given his velocity. A 10.52 k/9 (top 10) and a top five batted ball profile (generates both grounders and pop-outs with the curve) makes him nothing short of a top five pitcher in all of baseball at this moment. Anything less than that description is entirely unfair.
Disagree. He is an absolutely unacceptable outfielder.
I wouldn't let Kemp be a ball boy at this point, it's really unfortunate he's not in the AL.
He was worth .8 WAR this year in 672 PA. He was worth .4 WAR last season in 648 PA. That's 1.2 WAR in his last 1300 PA.
Not that I believe in Andrew Toles moving forward, but for comparison's sake Toles was worth 1.7 WAR this year in 115 PA at 1/86th the cost of Kemp.
You left out the middle part of his triple slash, a .304 OBP due to his minuscule 5.7% walk rate. He had a 109 wRC+ this year. So his actual offense is only 9% better than league average this season. Same as Martin Prado or Yunel Escobar. Martin Prado created as many runs for his club as Kemp did for his despite having only 8 homeruns on the year. He also struck out less than half the times Kemp did (69 to 156, for 87 less non-productive outs) and drew more walks, getting on base for his team and avoiding outs. Prado's also a good defensive third baseman, where Kemp is a total shit corner outfielder. So Prado is an above average regular (3.2 WAR) where Kemp is a below average regular.
If you let a single that should have been caught fall in front of you, that is worth something like .6 runs statistically to the other team. Kemp's may have provided 6.8 runs above league average on offense, but he gave back 20.8 on defense. Which is why he played for the Padres and Braves this year, and not a real major league team. I like Matt Kemp. I just recognize him for what he is at this point in his career after unfortunately having several major knee and shoulder surgeries. I know you've expressed your thoughts in the past on outfield defense being overrated and I couldn't disagree more. It shows up in run prevention and team ERA. The Cubs had the lowest allowed BABIP in MLB history, largely because they have a plus defender at every position. (Dodgers were 6th in team defense) (Braves 23rd) (Padres 28th). It's a massive, massive part of baseball. Preventing runs is half of the equation, although admittedly the much less sexy half.
Anyways, I agree with most of the rest of your post about bullpens, Brett Anderson not being worth the QO, and maybe giving up on Dee Gordon too soon. Good luck to your team in the post-season (unless they face the Cubs).
Last edited by Henry; 10-03-2016 at 10:25 PM.
Have to disagree with you about Alex Wood.
You are using "league average pitcher under team control" too liberally.
Alex Wood has only been pitching since 2013. He only pitched in part of that year, and then had a great 2014, with a 2.78 ERA and 1.142 WHIP.
Unfortunately, he hasn't looked the same ever since. Atlanta knew this, which is why they dumped him to the Dodgers so easily. He had a 1.408 WHIP through 20 starts, and they felt that he seemed to be regressing, rather than progressing as you would hope a good young pitcher would do.
He hasn't been good with the Dodgers, even pitching 50% of his games in a pitchers' park. He was absolutely horrendous in the NLDS last year, which I know is a tiny 1-game sample size, but was a microcosm of what we've been seeing of him since 2015. You never know which Alex Wood is going to show up. The good Alex Wood can show promise, but he's liable to get bombed at any moment.
Aside from 2014, there is no indication that he can consistently win at the Major League level, and that 2014 wasn't a fluke. In general, I don't like when teams acquire a pitcher on his way down, unless they get him dirt cheap and treat him as a reclamation project. The Dodgers treated him as a key piece to their stretch run, and you saw what happened.
This isn't even taking into account his 2016 injury, and what that will do to him going forward.
Matt Moore, who you brought up, is a similar pitcher in his inconsistency and tendency to get bombed out of nowhere. He had some trade value simply because there weren't many serviceable starters available at the deadline this year. I still think he has a more favorable long term career prognosis than Wood, even putting aside Wood's injury.
Regarding Matt Kemp, I still don't agree with your argument regarding the severity of the negative value of his defense and lack of walks, This would be more relevant if Kemp was otherwise an average hitter, but having a 35-HR guy in the lineup who still hits .268 is huge, no matter which way you try to play with statistics in order to degrade his value. The presence he brings to the lineup (both the "protection" factor and the psychological factor for the opposing pitcher) is difficult to quantify, but very real. You recall when the Cards beaned Hanley Ramirez in the ribs in 2013, breaking two of them? Hanley still played and was batting fifth, despite his obvious pain and lack of ability to really play through it. (I broke my ribs a few months later, so I can attest to how awful it is!) It was clear that Hanley was more in the lineup for appearance sake. If he was absent and replaced with a light-hitting SS, it would have given the lineup a much less fierce look, and probably encouraged more pitching around the remaining stars.
Would I want a guy who hit 35 HR in my postseason lineup? You better fucking believe it. Postseason is a different animal. You stop worrying about 162-game stats and look at who can produce for you right now. You want every psychological advantage you can get. Imagine a Dodgers lineup featuring Turner, Seager, Gonzalez, Kemp, Pederson, and Grandal making up 2/3 of it. That's an intimidating lineup, and it gets even more fierce when rounded out with Puig and Kendrick/Utley.
I think we had the reverse-Kemp argument before when discussing Heyward. His supporters constantly cream themselves over his defense, but in the meantime the guy hit .230 with 7 HR in 530 AB. Pretty much a rally killer. All of the modern statistical analysis in the world wouldn't lead me to take Heyward over Kemp in my postseason OF, if given the choice this year.
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