That's all, folks

[Chad ochoseis]

With fewer than 30 games to play, the Orioles and Pirates are more than 30 games behind in both their wild card and division races, and are now mathematically out of the running for post-season play.

[metirish]

I read a comment a week or so ago about how Showalter may have cost the O's the top draft pick because they played " a little to good" when he came on board.

When you're a fan of those teams are you rooting for that pick?

[seawolf17]

Argh. My least favorite thread of the year.

[DocTee]

Every year I root for the Pirates to return to contention. Every year they disappoint.

[metirish]

DocTee wrote: Every year I root for the Pirates to return to contention. Every year they disappoint.

We talk about them every year don't we?, not sure what year of the five year plan they are on now. How do you track progress with a team like this?

[Guest Edgy DC]

metirish wrote: I read a comment a week or so ago about how Showalter may have cost the O's the top draft pick because they played " a little to good" when he came on board. When you're a fan of those teams are you rooting for that pick?

If you're a loser.

[Guest attgig]

reports say that this coming year's draft is going to be deep. so, no, I don't root for that. I root for all my free agents become A elligibile and play really awesome so that other teams sign them after offering arbi, and I get a lot more 1st/2nd/sandwich picks.

if there was a harper or strasburg to look forward to, then yes...i root for being bad. i wonder if gm's think about that when deciding to fire manager during the season.

[Chad ochoseis]

It's a really difficult call. Too difficult for me to want to call people who root against their favorite teams "losers" in that situation.

If a non-contender trades a quality veteran for solid prospects, they're effectively sacrificing some short-term low-value wins for potentially higher value long-term wins, and that's considered a good thing. If a non-contender loses a late season game and improves its chances of a higher draft pick, they're effectively sacrificing a short term low-value win for potentially higher value long-term wins, but that's considered a bad thing.

I know the two aren't quite the same. I'm just saying that the difference isn't huge.

I root against a system that rewards losing. A lottery would be an improvement. A system that gives the top pick to the team with the most wins per dollar of salary would be even better, but would create all sorts of spending disincentives that would never fly.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sorry I was harsh. It's unbecoming. But I didn't mean it morally or anything. I meant it sort of literally, if tinged with some degee of irony. What we're talking about is rooting for and supporting losses, right?

But, in the long run, can you imagine what the difference between your average overall number one pick is and your average overall number two? When you take it on a dollar-for-value basis, I wouldn't be surprised if teams with number-two picks historically have done better. Above, the Strassburg case is mentioned as an extreme situation in which one would advocate throwing games (and that's what we're really talking about, but we don't call it that because it's the sort of gentle laying down that doesn't involve players not trying, but management not trying). But what is Strassburg right now but a megatalent and a prayer that he comes out of surgery intact, over a season of the best years of his life lost forever to the vagueries of injury? Is that worth selling out 100,000s of thousands of ticket buyers (countless more scoring at home), for many of whom it's their first game, for many of whom it's their last, and many of whom won't be on the planet three-four-five years down the road when the Mr. Number One Overall suits up instead of Mr. Number Two.

How terrible is that? Bill Cosby used to joke about his college football days that his team's strategy was to let the other guys score faster, becaus that way they get the ball back sooner. Is this all that different a scenario? If your GM can't find a better strategy to improve his team than to keep substandard personnel on the job so they lose more and bring the team a marginally higher pick, do your really trust him with that pick at all?

OE: Perhaps I'm a little over-conscious of mortality.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Is that worth selling out 100,000s of thousands of ticket buyers .....

I don't know what it's worth. But what I do know is that ownership's interests aren't perfectly aligned with my interests as a fan. So while I measure the Mets success by placing great emphasis on their on the field success, the Wilpons primary concern might be the bottom line on the team's profit and loss statement. There might be a considerable amount of overlap in our interests, but there are also irreconcilable conflicts. I know that the proper thing to say, the politically correct stance to take, openly, is to declare that the team plays to win each and every game as if the World Series crown were at stake. But secretly, I don't see what's so wrong about working the system to your own advantage. That's also competing. And if my team were to decide that it would be competitively advantageous to tank a few games to draft the next A-Rod, or Griffey, Jr. or the black version of Ted Williams, I wouldn't complain.

[Guest Number 6]

Strictly from this fan's perspective, a majority portion of my love for the Mets is emotional. While there are a number of conceivable rational reasons for hoping for Met losses, my emotional side wants none of it.

To be fair, I probably do have my price, though. If the Mets were playing the Giants on the last day of the season and a Giants win would secure a playoff berth for them over the Phillies or Braves, I'd be torn, but probably secretly hope for a loss. In an alternate universe, if a Mets loss would keep the Yanks out, I'd cheer openly for it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If you have such little faith in your organization that when confronted with selecting the second-best unsigned player in the United States and Canada for your very own exclusive rights, you can't conceive of any way to get full value out of that except to lay down in order to upgrade to the top pick, you're already quite haplessly lost.

[G-Fafif]

If you're putting together a gallery of teams that are still mathematically alive, take the 55-82 Cleveland Indians off it.

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: I read a comment a week or so ago about how Showalter may have cost the O's the top draft pick because they played " a little to good" when he came on board. When you're a fan of those teams are you rooting for that pick?

The advantage of doing that in baseball is questionable at best because the results from the draft are generally too tough to project and too far away. It's something NFL fans talk about all the time and both the NBA & NHL instituted their lottery systems specifically to combat teams tanking late in the season.

Rather than trying to finagle the top pick, the most tangible benefit for teams out of the running might be to finish just inside the top 15 picks (bottom 15 records) rather than just outside. You won't make the playoffs either way and being 14 or 15th in the picking queue will keep your 1st round draft pick 'protected' the next year where picking 16th and up means a 'Type A' FA signing is likely to cost you that 1st round pick.

Anthony Rendon (3B - Rice U.) is the early line favorite in the 2011 draft sweepstakes. Many touts said during the run up to this year's draft that, if Rendon were available, they would have taken him over Bryce Harper, although that may have as much to do with their relative ages/advancement. Harper has just turned 17 and had one year of JuCo vs Rendon who will be 21-ish by next June with three seasons of major college ball under his belt.

[metirish]

Cheers FK , you generally make sense of this stuff.

Harper is only 17?....jwow

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: Harper is only 17?....jwow

Yeah, you gotta remember that he left HS after his sophomore year, got hisself a GED and enrolled in a local JuCo all for the purpose of entering the draft a year earlier than he normally would have. So he was the age of someone who just finished his junior year of HS at the time of the draft and would just be starting his Sr year now.
There are numerous Int'l players who are that young when they sign but rarely if ever for his kind of money and I'm sure he's the youngest ever #1 overall pick. Strasburg, by comparison, and Rendon if he remains the choice next June, were/will be college Jrs at the time of their selections and therefore a full four years older.

[G-Fafif]

You know what street definitely won't be the site of postseason baseball in 2010?



57-81 Kansas City Royals Ave., to be exact.

[G-Fafif]

The Arizona Diamondbacks seem to be giving us the OK sign coming and going here:



But it's not OK in the desert, where the D'Backs' 57-83 record and the existence of seven yet-to-be-played Padre-Giant head-to-head matchups (games somebody's gonna have to win) have conspired to eliminate them from any possibility of postseason play.

Edited September 8, 2010 by Guest

[G-Fafif]

Plumbing the depths of elimination for sure are the 55-86 Seattle Mariners.



Being a little more coy about it, because if you look at the standings with a naked eye, they still seem in it are the 60-81 Washington Nationals...but with too many teams that would have to lose having to also play one another, we can leave them here.



The 61-80 Chicago Cubs are just about in the same capsized boat.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

This thread will be alot less fun and much more depressing in a week or so.

[G-Fafif]

Many also-rans have been hanging onto the slightest apparent mathematical hope these last few days (unless you start tearing apart the schedules of all the teams that would need to lose to keep them alive). But one team has decided to just get it over with and leave no doubt: Your 74-74 Detroit Tigers, who can neither win the A.L. Central nor the A.L. Wild Card.



Farewell pussycats.

[G-Fafif]

The 75-74 Blue Jays picked the wrong year and division to hang in above .500.



Out of the blue and into the black.

[G-Fafif]

Your Milwaukee Brewers: 69 wins, 79 losses and no travel plans beyond the end of the season.



They can drink all they want. They're not going anywhere.

[Guest attgig]

I thought this was an interesting article:
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-yorkmets/post/_/id/10597/why-magic-numbers-are-imprecise

Talks about how the magic number isn't really magical. for example, if you (let's say the mets) have 30 games left, and you're out by 31, you can say that if you win all of your games, and the 1st place team (let's say the nationals) loses all 30 games, then, you can still get 1st place. But, if the second place team is one back of the leader, and the second place team (let's say the marlins) has 6 games with the 1st place team, then, even if the mets win 30, and the nats lose 30, the marlins would still end up ahead of the mets.

I think there are more teams eliminated if you really play through all the scenarios.

[TransMonk]

attgig wrote: I think there are more teams eliminated if you really play through all the scenarios.

http://riot.ieor.berkeley.edu/~baseball/

[G-Fafif]

74-77 and appropriately draped in black.

[G-Fafif]

The star is open on one side so all hope can flow out for the 73-78 Astros.

[G-Fafif]

The 73-78 Dodgers join the Mets in something other than having provided a cap of some sort for Rod Barajas in 2010.



However you color it, the Dodgers is dead.

[G-Fafif]

There go the 79-72 men in black. No galaxy left to defend on the South Side of Chicago or in the American League Central.



Congratulations Twinkies. Don't lose to the MFYs. Again.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

G-Fafif wrote: 74-77 and appropriately draped in black.

I see all the Mets draped in their summer clothes,
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.

I see a starting pitcher and he is dressed in black,
No Santana anymore, he's laid out on his back.

(tbc- have a plane to catch)