spinowner

Not sure that makes him the right guy or not, but it would increase my fear they'd actually try to win it all, rather than build for next year. I think the time for the Twins to go all in will come, but I doubt that time will come in 2016. There are those who admire AA's bold approach to will it all this year but plain and simply his strategy failed. Fell flat on its face and died. I know that refusing to trade your best prospects is no guarantee either, but I think the Twins' current approach is generally a better strategy than what the Blue Jays did this year.

This is a great tongue-in-cheek post! (I hope.)

I'd think if they retired 28 for Blyleven they'd retire 48 for Hunter.

I'm glad you brought it up. It's a subject of interest to many and I wasn't aware of the situation with Mr. Murphy. I'd love to comment on the morality and the politics of it but that's for another time and place. It's very noteworthy is how something like baseball can be a common ground of unity for people of so many different persuasions. I have an acquaintance who is a very good baseball friend who is a diametric opposite of me politically. I haven't seen him for years but if and when we cross paths again we'll pick up right where we left off as good friends united by baseball.

If anybody who lives in Chicago wants a really scary Halloween costume he or she can dress up as Daniel Murphy.

Shouldn't that be WINNAH! ?

I'd really like to see a lefty in the rotation. I'm not going to take the time to look it up, but I'll bet very few teams have qualified for the postseason with an all-right-handed rotation.

Is that my baby sister 4 posts up?

No offense taken in any post on this thread. I appreciate the input and I'll keep that in mind the next time I start feeling particularly verbose.

The line was for 2441 wins but there are 2430 games, so under bets are slightly favored. I'll look at that next season when I make my picks. (I didn't participate this year because I was not a member until after the 2015 season was already underway.) An interesting wrinkle would be to score each ballot by wins relative to the line. For example, someone picking the over for Arizona would have scored +7.5 points and someone picking the under would have scored -7.5 points. That would reward very good picks and penalize very bad ones. Of course, to efficiently score the entries you'd probably have to know how to use one of those computer thingies, which rules me out as scorer. That's why I'm stopping short of actually suggesting that this should be incorporated into the contest.

Almost all good players are underpaid until they reach the point where they either become free agents or sign their first long term contracts, then are overpaid from that point until they retire. It would take too much work for me to research this but it would be interesting to see an analysis of the best players of the last 30 years or so, comparing career earnings and career performance. Similarly, it would be interesting to look at all MLB franchises over the last 30 years or so and look at cumulative regular season and postseason success in relation to cumulative payroll. This would give us more of a fact-based evaluation of Mauer's situation. It would also give us more of a fact-based evaluation of how the Twins compare to other franchises.

Looks like another agree to disagree situation. I doubt Gant would have wound up with both hands and both feet on the ground without Hrbek's assistance but I do think Gant's foot would have come off the bag a little. My view after looking at this many times is that Hrbek didn't start to lift until Gant's foot had already come off.

We're the up and coming team of the next 5 years so I suppose we could ask if he'll take a big discount to sign with us. That's the only way it would be worth it.

Oh, dear. There goes my A in composition.

Thanks, I think. I just wanted to share why I thought there would be no change in the schedule without advocating for either changing the schedule or leaving it as is.

As almost everyone is aware, the current MLB schedule is unbalanced. In 2015 every team played 19 games against each division opponent for a total of 76 games (except for one cancellation between Cleveland and Detroit), either 6 or 7 games against each team in the other two divisions of its league for a total of 66 games and either 3,4 or 6 games against teams from the other league for a total of 20 games. There has been some criticism of the unbalanced schedule. An unbalanced schedule means that teams competing for wild card berths in the postseason can have quite different strengths of schedule. Some feel that a lower number of intradivision games and the resulting increase in the number of games against opponents outside the division would increase fan interest. On the other hand, some feel that a higher number of intradivision games increases fan interest by promoting stronger rivalries. So how could MLB institute a completely balanced schedule? Involving all 30 teams would probably mean each team playing every other team six times for a total of 174 games, leaving time for only one postseason series. Either the top team in each league would advance to the World Series or the two teams with the best records would advance. (Instituting this schedule would probably force MLB either to adopt the DH for every game or to eliminate it.) Keeping the leagues separate would not be possible with two 15-team leagues. Barring expansion or contraction that means returning to one 14-team league and one 16-team league. In the 14-team league it would probably mean each team playing every other team 12 times for a total of 156 games, and in a 16-team league it would probably mean each team playing every other team 10 times for a total of 150 games. Taking this even further, keeping the current divisions separate would probably mean each team playing every other team 40 times for a total of 160 games. Nostalgia for the pre-1969 era notwithstanding, I think most people would agree that none of these options is satisfactory. So we’re left with the conclusion that an unbalanced schedule is inevitable. The issue, then, is how the games should be apportioned. There are many possible permutations. Working from the premise that there would be no realignment I played with the numbers a little bit to come up with one alternative to the current schedule that reduces the number of intradivision games. In this plan every team plays 14 games against each team in its division for a total of 56 games, 9 games against each team in the other two divisions of its league for a total of 90 games and 16 interleague games. For the interleague games each division would be matched against one division in the other league. There would be 3 games against each of four of the teams in that division and 4 games against one team in that division. For most teams, switching to this schedule means increasing the amount of travel across two or three time zones. (Texas and Houston are exceptions to this.) Not only is this more fatiguing for teams but TV and radio ratings drop for games aired earlier or later than during prime time. The fatigue issue is a bigger factor for teams located in the Eastern and Pacific time zones. Creative scheduling could make this more fair by requiring teams from the Central and Mountain time zones to have some road trips that incorporate traveling across three time zones. I wondered how a change in schedule would have affected the 2015 standings. To get an idea of that I took the percentage of games each team won against each other team this year and applied that to this alternative plan. 29 of the 30 teams would have finished with a different record but there would have been only two shifts in the standings. In one case Boston would have finished fourth in the AL East and Tampa Bay fifth instead of the other way around. In the other case, a more significant one, Pittsburgh would have finished first in the NL Central and St. Louis second instead of the other way around. (This is primarily because Pittsburgh was .447 vs the NL Central and .744 in the rest of its games.) The same 10 teams would have advanced to the postseason, but obviously Pittsburgh would have been the NL Central winner and St. Louis would have been the first-seeded wild card team. My interpretation of this analysis is that changing the current schedule would probably not be considered to be a significant enough improvement to warrant the making the change. The increase in cross-time-zone travel and the elimination of the so-called rivalry series in interleague play that MLB seems to love make it unlikely that MLB would consider such a change. It appears we will continue to see our current division rivals 19 times a year for the foreseeable future.

I hope/want an outfield combo of Rosario, Buxton, Hicks, Arcia and Kepler to be just as sexy in a couple years.

Look at 0:44 to 0:45 of this video and see what I thought I saw back when I looked at the tape my wife made while she and I were at the game. Gant touches the base with his left foot, then his right. Hrbek's glove then comes in contact with Gant's ankle just before Gant shifts the position of his right foot. I thought that Gant's right foot came just slightly off the base as he did that, which would mean he was out at that point. I also think Gant was losing his balance enough that he came off the base after that due to his own momentum, BEFORE Hrbek "continued maintaining contact with his tag". Part of the reason Gant lost his balance was because Hrbek's right leg was impeding Gant's ability to stay upright, but Hrbek had the right to maintain his position. So I think Gant was legally tagged out twice, although Drew Coble called him out after the second tag.

I considered the Red Sox to be my second favorite team until the evening of October 27, 2004. I didn't at all begrudge them their long-awaited world championship. But after Doug Mientkiewicz squeezed the last out of the game (and didn't give it up until under heavy duress) I decided to see them as they truly are: the Yankees with beards. I also was glad to see the White Sox win in 2005. I just can't make myself feel that way about the Cubs. Maybe it's because it's my impression that both Sox teams have a much higher percentage of followers that are real baseball fans compared to the Cubs. (Pretty judgemental and condescending, eh?)

I think it's very possible that the Twins will trade Hicks, but I don't think it will be for at least a year, maybe two. By the end of the 2016 season I want/hope to have Rosario, Buxton, Hicks and Arcia as the four outfielders on the MLB roster. I would not trade any of those four unless/until Kepler is ready. Next year at this time we should have a much better read on what we have in all five of those players (and maybe ABW will be in the mix as well). That will be the time to decide whom to trade.

We've discussed on another thread whether the Cubs got lucky in getting Arrieta. But what WAS luck was that the Rays' front office screwed up Maddon's contract and allowed him to jump to the team he wanted to manage.

For those who aren't aware of what was predicted to happen in 2015

20/20 hindsight.

I get tired of people who complain that Mauer should produce superstar numbers because of his salary. As was written above, he's a very serviceable major leaguer, still playing well enough to contibute to a good team. His salary has nothing to do with it. By the same token, his salary has nothing to do with how a manager should handle him. If it's best for the team for him to bat 6th then that's where he should bat. If it's best for the team for him to be the backup 1B and PH then that's what he should do. But as fans we should just ignore his salary. That's so six years ago.

This is a very well-thought-out post. But this does not change the fact that the Cubs had an easier schedule than every AL team.