chpettit19

I don't think those first 2 sentences are true. Is it true for some fans? Sure. But, I think, overall, most fans just want the calls to be right so the game is decided by the players, and not the refs/umps/whatever. And it's not about benefitting certain teams at the expense of others over years, or even multiple games. It's about benefitting one team over another in each individual game. "The NFL wants the Chiefs to win so they get more calls" type arguments come from a very small, but often very loud, segment of the population. Arguing against those people is pointless. There's no argument that can be made that missed calls are balanced between the teams in each game, though. That simply isn't true. 1 team always gets the benefit in each particular game. Whether from bad calls, missed calls, or a combination of both. Some of us just want to take as much of that out of the equation as possible. And often time the advantage is very small, and not even worth really discussing. You'll never find me claiming the refs/umps/whoever cost a team a game. But pretending that one team doesn't benefit more than another in any given game is ignoring reality. And when you get into the playoffs that disparity is naturally looked at more closely. Especially in a sport like football where 1 game not going your way ends your season. Or game 3/5/7 in a series where you know 1 team is going home at the end of the game. I don't think I agree with your layout of the replay timeline in sports, either. The leagues expand replay after it does work, not after it doesn't. I can't think of 1 league that implemented it, watched it fail, and said "the answer is more replay!" The NFL tried to replay certain penalty calls and stopped after it clearly didn't work. MLB started with just fair/foul replay, found success, and expanded to calls on the bases, etc. The leagues keep expanding replay because they are getting more calls right. Which seems like a pretty logical process to me.

Then all is not lost! Larnach is our "first off the bus" guy to intimidate the other team. Let's just hope they were watching the pregame and haven't looked at our roster lately.

Did Larnach look good, though?

Vazquez has a career .633 OPS in 31 postseason games over 10 series. I don't think he's "built for October." I don't think it's the end of the world if he catches a game, but it's all small sample size stuff now. This is not the time to panic over your clearly superior hitter having a couple tough games.

Jorge and Royce did their celebrations rounding 3rd after they hit homers when they were down big late in game 1. And I hope they'd do it again if down late but get something going. Pump your teammates up and get them energized whenever you can. There's no clock. The other team still has to beat you until you run out of outs. There's never a time in the postseason that you shouldn't be looking to hype up your team.

Always want to score in as many ways as possible, but HRs rule the postseason. Teams that out homer their opponent in the last 5 postseasons have won 85+% of the games. Need to mash to win playoff games.

FYI, Lewis is on the lineup at 3B and Julien is DHing. As of now at least.

It's not about lower seeds advancing, it's about smaller national brands advancing. If LAD were the wild card team and Arizona was the top seed MLB would be totally fine with the lower seed advancing. It's all about a team's ability to draw national eyes, not just regional ones.

You kind of explained the motivation for this. Commercials. I don't know that I'd agree that "most of the tv watchers aren't watching it live," though. I'd guess the vast majority of them are watching it live. Maybe not on TV through a cable provider, but they're streaming it live in some way, shape, or form. And that has commercials. Which is how fox gets paid, and what they base their bids to MLB on. It's incredibly important for the business side of MLB to stagger their playoff games and move it to primetime if they can. But it is definitely not great for fans. I think the thing they should've done was flip today's games. Put Texas/Baltimore in the afternoon slot so they know the result of that game earlier at least. But this is how it's always been, and always will be. The TV revenue is what drives almost every decision because it makes up the vast majority of the league revenue.

Love seeing Lewis back at 3B, but Kepler to the 3 hole with Lewis and Correa 4/5 feels like overthinking things.

The only lefty on the Houston roster is Valdez. That's kind of the point of this thread. They don't have a single lefty pitcher to use today so pinch hitting really shouldn't be a concern at all.

I don't know that you can totally quit pitching to Alvarez. You just have to be better at it (see: Lopez, Pablo). Kyle Tucker is no slouch. Lead the AL in RBIs. Pitching around Alvarez doesn't really solve your problems. It's the postseason. You have to get great hitters out to win. That's how it works.

I'd go: Julien Lewis Correa Polanco Kepler Kirilloff Jeffers Wallner Taylor

Where are you getting your strike zone runs data from? Just curious because Umpire Scorecards is the place I check and their numbers are way lower than that for the Astros series.

Yeah, the rules other leagues have around their contracts (NFL not guaranteeing deals for example) definitely leads to some mid-deal shenanigans. It's a lot harder to threaten to hold out on a 10 year, guaranteed deal, though!

Do you have some baseball examples of "guys who wanted to renegotiate?" I can't think of many baseball players who renegotiated in the middle of their deals, unless they had an opt out. That's not really a baseball thing. The concern is that he'll be paid accordingly by someone else if he stays healthy and lives up to the hype. Twins not exactly known for paying top dollar for stars.

I do apologize, I was just trying to be helpful! I figured you just like baseball so much you wanted an extra game.

Well good thing I didn't say anything about the Twins FO then. I said what I would do.

2B and Julien DHs. I'm not open to Buxton being a fulltime DH so there should be ABs to be had. They spread their ABs out so much anyways I just want the better player. And, to me, that's Polanco.

I had actually started typing out a paragraph about Polanco, but got distracted by something at work and quit. I'd keep Polanco over Farmer because I think he's the better player and I want all the talent I can get, but I don't think they plan to keep them both. A lot of it depends on what they could get in trade for Polanco. I think he's still one of their better hitters next year so I wouldn't be quick to trade him, but I'd certainly be listening if people called on him.

FYI, if he aggravated/reinjured himself they could replace him. He'd then be out for the rest of that series and the following one. I wouldn't carry him on any roster the rest of the postseason (assuming he's never getting back to 100% this year), but just wanted to let you know how the system works in the playoffs. You can replace injured players, but they have to sit the rest of that series and the next.

It's a 5 game series, fyi. So hopefully they're pulling it out in 5 or less!

That Farmer number is lower than I expected. That's only a $1 million raise over his salary this year (5.585 mil). If his number really is 6.6 I'd definitely be tempted to tender him and see if there's a trade to be made. Carrying him into the season wouldn't be the end of the world either, but I think he's a guy who's likely to be at the bottom of the 40-man due to his cost and lack of high playing time. 6.6 isn't a lot by any means, but the Twins have a lot of guys who can cover his positions. I don't know if he'll be on the roster on opening day 2024, but if his number really is that low I'd expect them to tender him.

It's Ober, Lopez, Gray that they announced. Not Ryan.

Yeah, we're talking about hitting baseballs and the effect altitude has on that. Hitting at altitude is different than hitting at sea level. And it takes 1 to 2 games to get used to hitting at sea level again. Not because they're breathing different air or suffering physical effects of altitude, but because baseballs react differently at different altitudes, and that changes not only what a hitter expects a thrown ball to do, but also what strategy pitchers use because the balls they throw do different things. Nothing silly about that. Just cold hard facts of physics.