deebs1976

Top tier FA SPs: Cole, Strasburg Second-tier FA SPs: Bumgarner, Ryu, Wheeler Third-tier FA SPs: Odorizzi, Keuchel, Hamels, Pineda Fourth-tier FA SPs: Bailey, Smyly, Wainwright, Miley, Roark, Vargas, Teheran, Wood, Chacin Trade candidate SPs: Syndegaard, Ray, Minor, Boyd, Urena, Samardzija, Scherzer (probably wishful thinking) Get 1-2 guys from tiers 1-3. Trade a Rosario package for another SP. Sign 1-2 more SPs from the fourth tier or scrap heap to fill out the rotation. Give Smeltzer/Thorpe/Graterol a shot to win a rotation job. Be ready to trade for a rental SP at the deadline if things look shaky. Their failure to pick up a starter at the deadline this year was a huge part of their downfall.

I’m not some idiot boomer. I said in my original reply I use streaming. The issue is not lack of familiarity with technology. It’s hunting around for the right channels to watch any particular game. Fox just pulled all their sports networks off Sling a few days ago. My in-laws have DirectTV and they don’t get FS1 or MLBN, despite having 200 channels. The Comcast/MLB Network thing was covered a ton today, obviously. Hulu has FS1 but not MLBN. Yes, YouTube TV has both channels, which I figured out yesterday after checking out several streaming options. My point, which none of the various replies has addressed, is that MLB is not doing fans any favors by spreading the games across five different networks, which are all very unlikely to be included in the same cable/streaming package. But I guess you just have to be a very smart millennial who knows YouTube TV has all the channels needed.

This sport needs to get its act together with how games are broadcast/streamed. As a Minnesotan who wants to watch the Minnesota Twins play in the postseason, I can't watch on the official MLB app because it's blacked out. I don't subscribe to a cable package because I don't need it. I can sign up for Sling, Hulu with Live TV, or some similar service to stream games, but I still don't even know what channel the game is going to be on, FS1 or MLB Network, so I don't know which service/package to get. Fans shouldn't have to work this hard to figure out how to watch a game. The postseason is a great chance for teams to hook casual fans and turn them into devoted fans -- that's how I got into the Twins in 1987 as a kid. But how is a casual fan supposed to turn on the game when the postseason is spread across 5 different channels, some of which are not carried by certain cable/dish/streaming providers? Honestly the league is just asking for people to watch the games illegally by showing so little regard for the fan experience.

Also, Puckett is in the hall because of his two rings and his 1991 Game 6. Hands down. Take those away and he'd be sitting with Tony Oliva in the hall of very good players with short careers. Santana has no such postseason heroics (through no fault of his own -- he pitched well in the postseason when given the chance).

Puckett's career ended because of glaucoma, not because he was hit by a pitch in the face. The glaucoma had nothing to do with the HBP.