Otto von Ballpark

They're mutually exclusive. It's like if you had to pay a $120 speeding ticket, then later entered and won a police-sponsored raffle. They both involve money and law enforcement, but would you say "how do you like them apples" as you collect your raffle prize? The taunt makes no sense as the target literally doesn't care -- the speeding ticket has no bearing on your ability to enter (or likelihood of winning) the raffle. Your punishment was the fine and you paid it. You still have $120 less than you would if you hadn't been speeding. It's not like moving the all-star game was remotely any kind of judgment of the team's baseball moves or abilities, or put them on double-secret probation for the postseason or something.

The roster is at 42 right now (including the 60 day IL guys). Pending free agents Simmons and Pineda will be automatically removed at the same time that the 60-day IL guys are reinstated, so they're basically at 40 already. (Declining Colomé's option would further drop it to 39.) The next date to watch is Friday November 19th -- that's the deadline this year for adding minor leaguers or leaving them exposed to the Rule 5 draft in December.

Is it the added quality of strategy, or quantity? There is no position or lineup spot that is as predictably awful as the pitcher's spot. Not even close. And at the end of the day, forcing teams to play predictably awful players just to see how they deal with the awfulness is the most artificial way to see "strategy." I don't even know that managers or teams are distinguishing themselves in this strategy, or if they are all just doing the same stuff to survive it (note that there is no rule that pitchers have to bat last, but they pretty much all do, either in the starting lineup or after double-switches). There may be fewer substitutions in a DH league, but I think there is a net gain in the quality of substitutions and strategy. Managers actually have to choose between comparable options rather than go on auto-pilot -- they choose the DH's lineup spot, they can platoon players at DH, they can also give one of their regular fielders a turn at the spot, with potential consequences during the game. And of course during the game, DHs actually reach base in important spots at a decent rate, so they can potentially be lifted for pinch runners (with subsequent pinch hitters to follow). If you still want to encourage a greater quantity of bench substitutions, then adding 2 bench spots to every roster in a DH league is a far better approach than making pitchers hit. Also, modifying the DH rule to encourage two-way players like Ohtani would be good too.

Pitcher win scoring update: Last night, Ian Anderson was the pitcher when the Braves took the lead, but he was the starting pitcher and failed to complete 5 innings, so he was not eligible to get the win. So the official scorer had some discretion, and they used it — they didn’t award the win to Minter, who threw 2 scoreless innings immediately following Anderson, but rather they awarded it to Matzek, who struck out the side to strand the tying inherited runners in the 7th and followed with a second scoreless inning of his own in the 8th. Matzek didn’t pitch in game 5, but has otherwise appeared in every single game for Atlanta this postseason and has been incredible. Can he keep it up through the World Series?

Not to get lost in the shuffle, but former Twin Ehire Adrianza preceded Rosario’s HR with a two-out, pinch-hit double.

I mean, they are completely unrelated things, so...?

I'm not sure it's wins specifically, but there are definite timeline issues around Johan. Can't really compare him to Koufax, for example. But at the same time, Halladay is an almost exact contemporary and managed to get to 66 WAR (and "deserved" 4 Cy Youngs). More almost exact contemporaries are Sabathia at 62 WAR and Hudson at 56 WAR. Still active and still racking up some big numbers during Johan's career were Clemens, Johnson, Schilling, and Pedro too. Then, just after Johan came Verlander (72 WAR, 3 times "deserving" a Cy Young), Kershaw (69 WAR, 3 times deserving a Cy), Greinke (68 WAR, 2 deserved Cy's), and Scherzer (66 WAR, 2 deserved Cy's). Career Leaders for WAR for Pitchers So while starting pitchers are throwing less than ever, these guys all managed to clear career value thresholds that Johan couldn't. FWIW, Hamels and Felix came up a little later and still reached 58 and 50 WAR, respectively -- with his peak, Johan is probably between this group and the above guys. Not sure where the hall line with fall for this era, though.

The other problem with the "3 Cy Youngs" criteria is that it while it usually indicates a pretty darn good pitcher, we know it's not the only criteria for HOF induction. Just looking over 21st century inductees, Mussina and Schilling didn't win a single Cy Young between them, and using "led their league in pitching WAR" as a proxy for deserving a Cy Young, they only did it once combined (Mussina 2001). So which is more important, Cy Young awards or their 80+ career WAR? Similarly, Smoltz won only 1 Cy Young, never led his league in pitcher WAR -- so which was more important to his HOF induction, the award or his 66 career WAR? FWIW, Santana is at 51.1 WAR. Is leading his league 3 times in pitching WAR enough to overcome the career WAR difference?

Put another way, your criteria isn't winning the Cy Young 3 times, but rather deserving to win it 3 times. I think you'd have to do more research to see how that relates to Hall of Fame induction -- is every pitcher who deserved to win it 3 times in the Hall of Fame? What about other guys snubbed like Santana? How many 3 time actual winners were snubbed from winning a 4th (and thus separating themselves from Santana a bit)? For example, Halladay won 2 Cy Youngs. But we can't say Santana was his equal or better because he should have won 3 -- Halladay actually led his league in pitching WAR 4 times, so by your "deserving" criteria, he arguably deserved 4 Cy Youngs. (Plus 66 career WAR to Santana's 51.) It's a fun topic, thanks for bringing it up!

Maybe you were looking at WAA instead? That's at 32.8. Using the Wayback Machine, Santana's WAR has been over 50 at B-Ref since 2013, when they adjusted their replacement level in coordination with Fangraphs.

Saturday night's NLCS Game 6 was supposed to be Max Scherzer starting for the Dodgers, but now he's been scratched and Walker Buehler will take his place on short rest again. Scherzer may still be available for a game 7, if necessary. Ian Anderson is on regular rest (actually one extra day) for Atlanta, although his Game 2 start was a little shaky and saw a quick hook.

Chris Taylor's trade value hasn't been cheap since 2016, when the Dodgers got him from Seattle. Although if you mean the Twins should have acquired him at that time, I agree. It doesn't take hindsight to say the Dodgers made a good swap -- Taylor was a middle infielder who lacked HR power but had good AVG/OBP/K%/speed in the upper minors before scuffling a bit for Seattle. I'd rather take a chance on that guy than the pitcher the Dodgers gave up, a low-K minor league RH SP (albeit a former top 100 prospect / 1st round pick).

Being the pitcher who finished the 5th inning only matters (for the win) if you are the starting pitcher. Evan Phillips was the pitcher when the Dodgers took the lead for good. (And he wasn't a starter who failed to go 5 innings -- that was Joe Kelly.) The only way that Phillips couldn't get the win is if the official scorer deemed his appearance "brief and ineffective." But Phillips retired all 4 batters he faced, 3 by K, with no inherited runners scored either. In a discussion at Twins Daily last year, official scorer Stew Thornley said: "A guideline for brief and ineffective is less than an inning and allowing two earned runs, including inherited runners, to score." Graterol was arguably a little bit better than Phillips (6 up, 6 down, 2 K), but Phillips wasn't "brief and ineffective" so it doesn't matter. Relief Wins explained at MLB.com

I like the idea of looking at merchandise sales to gauge popularity, but there are a few major issues with this attempt: 1. I think it's only showing jerseys that are in stock (or made-to-order custom jerseys). So if something was truly popular and currently sold out, it wouldn't appear in the top seller list. 2. Following that, there actually isn't a Buxton jersey (non-"collectable") listed at all in the MLB shop right. So maybe whatever Buxton jersey stock they had is already sold out? Also we don't know the supply side of the equation -- maybe they need to produce more Buxton jerseys to meet demand? Maybe they produced too many for Polanco etc. prior to the pandemic? 3. Looking for Buxton apparel under all categories yields very little, which seems to support the idea that common Buxton apparel might be selling well and out of stock. There are a few very expensive autographed jerseys under "collectables", a best seller under kid's t-shirts, and then this thing:

We all have concerns about the sport, but "baseball's decline" just doesn't seem particularly germane to the specific comparison of a monthly combined Twins/Wolves/Wild plan, vs separate annual plans for each sport, that's all. We all agree that baseball needs in-market streaming, but there's more than one valid approach to it without the discussion devolving to "any approach other than this one represents baseball's decline." Many people already do watch the equivalent of a baseball game or two a week -- but it's generally the local team. That's what happens when every team plays 6 times a week. Football is just radically different. I mentioned upthread that one could watch every single snap for a team in just 51 hours for a season; one could also watch every nationally televised NFL snap for a season in just 270 hours! A single baseball team's broadcast season is about 500 hours, and relatively little of that competition time involves its star players doing exciting things. A Minnesotan tuning into a random Braves/Padres game will see less than 1% of both of their seasons; most of the PAs and IP in those games will be from their versions of Max Kepler or Tyler Duffey. It's okay if the people most interested in that are the local people following the team. This is why baseball has evolved with a different regional-national balance and broadcast distribution than the NFL has, much more than the decisions of its leaders. That's not to say baseball is perfect, hence the existence of this thread! Just that they don't have to chase unicorns to get better. In-market streaming, in any number of different approaches, would likely be a big win, if they can pull it off. No need to reject reasonable in-market streaming ideas just because they don't somehow emulate the NFL enough.

I think it's just economics. Un-bundling is obviously great when you are talking about cable or big pay TV packages, but the law of diminishing returns applies once you get down to the $10-20 price point or lower. I appreciate that you are talking about what you want to see, but I'm speaking more in real-world examples. You need a monthly option for something like this, for accessibility (a lot of consumers won't drop $100+ on a service at one time) and to use as a baseline for selling annual plans at a discount. I see nothing to suggest that Netflix and ESPN+ are in dire need of further un-bundling; I suspect Sportsnet Now and TSN Direct in Canada aren't either. Monthly options and the calendar naturally provide consumers with the ability to un-bundle things by season if they so choose.

Atlanta lefty reliever Tyler Matzek has appeared in all 8 of their games so far this postseason, and he's only allowed runs (or inherited runs) in 1 of them. 8 G, 8.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 13 K, 3 inherited runners, all stranded He had similar success across 8 postseason appearances last year, after spending most of 2018-2019 in indy league ball.

It was just last October (2020) that Atlanta squandered a 3-1 NLCS lead vs the Dodgers. Although that was neutral site, with no off days. 2020 NLCS Game 5 actually saw both sides throw bullpen games, and the Dodgers prevailed to start their series comeback.

Dodgers SP update: Urías threw 92 pitches last night through 5 innings, before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the 5th, down 5-0. Final line 5 IP, 5 R, 8 H, 2 BB (1 intentional), 3 K, 3 HR. The pinch-hitter actually singled home 2 runs to cut the deficit to 5-2, but those would prove to be the only Dodgers runs of the game. Tonight, facing elimination, the Dodgers turn to a bullpen game again, as they did back in game 1.

Keep in mind, the NBA and NHL postseasons are pretty much in the same situation, in terms of broadcasts. I don't think it's a fault of the leagues as much as a reality of the series formats -- there are simply a lot more games, and quite a few of them aren't "deciding" games either. Audiences (and thus broadcasters) just don't flock to each game of the MLB/NBA/NHL playoffs like they do for the NFL playoffs. Even March Madness and the college football playoffs involve pay TV. Edit to add: if the Red Sox can win Friday night, Saturday's ALCS Game 7 would be on broadcast FOX too.

I imagine doing national TV interviews in your first deep postseason run is a new kind of pressure. Rosario did do a full postgame interview on his own in English just a few days ago, which concluded with this:

Will be interesting to see what kind of contract Eddie Rosario gets this winter. Could it be reminiscent of Daniel Murphy circa 2015? In terms of overall production by OPS+ and bWAR (plus left-handedness), Rosario today is a pretty close comp to Murphy through the 2015 season. Then Murphy had a great NLDS, an even better NLCS (was MVP), before coming back to earth in the WS. Murphy went from getting $8 mil in his final arb season before that postseason, to getting a 3/37.5 mil FA deal immediately after it.

While the target date of 2023 here is somewhat disappointing, part of this is undoubtedly trying to pressure Bally/Sinclair into action much sooner than that. Remember, it was Bally/Sinclair that floated the idea of a direct streaming product earlier this year, with a target date of 2022. But apparently they were trying to get those streaming rights from MLB (and NBA? NHL?) on the cheap to salvage their own poor decisions (their too-high bid for the networks in the first place, plus pulling themselves off of most streaming TV providers). So aside from a new service in 2023, possible outcomes here include Bally networks returning to more streaming platforms in 2022, or a Bally direct service coming to fruition soon, both potentially under a new owner instead of Sinclair.

I think Rosario could have walked to the dugout after touching 2nd on his home run trot — he’d be called out at that point, but credited with a double.

Broadcast said that Rosario is the first player ever with two 4-hit games in a single LCS.