Frayed Knot

Javy Baez, hitless for the entire post-season coming into tonight (0/20) has HR'd twice now - so maybe there's some hope for the Astros oh-fers. 3-1 Cubs (at least in my time zone it is) Rich Hill is now being yanked (NTTAWWT)

Altuve and Correa were their whole offense over the first two games but they've both disappeared since. Springer has 1 hit for the whole series as does Martin Gonzalez and they both have one more than Reddick or than their combined 550 lbs of catchers McCann & Gattis. Bregman has 2 Yuli Gurriel has been their best hitter so far but that's a bit like being the tallest midget in the circus.

Meanwhile we're seriously ignoring this series although between the later starts, the burn-out factor from the AL series, and the (so far) one-sided nature of it, it's understandable. I'm some 20 minutes behind on this one at this point (I'm purposely starting these games a half-hour late and playing catch-up with the DVR in order to take some 20-30 off the game length) but the Cubs are out-solo-HR'ing the Dodgers 2-1 thru 3 so far in their attempt to live another day. Rich Hill vs Jake Arrieta HR's: Javier Baez, Willson Contreras (a fucking BOMB!), Cody Bellinger btw, has anyone see Chase Utley lately? His hair has gone completely gray. I remember him with a couple streaks in it but now he's the Silver Fox Not that that has stopped him from getting in the way of another pitch already tonight.

A summation of Houston's "Noffense" this series: Game 1 - a one-out single in the 4th inning - a two-out single later that same inning Game 2 - a solo HR which eked over the fence by like 2 inches - Altuve's mad dash home on a double where he should have been out by 15 feet Game 3 - a garbage time bases-loaded walk w/two outs in the 9th inning while down by 8 runs Game 4 - a bases-clearing double (3) - a comical Starlin Castro 2-out error Game 5: - None So they've scored 9 runs in 5 games and deserve maybe half of them. Of their whopping 22 hits, 14 are singles, 1 a solo HR. The Yanx have committed six errors and issued 14 walks and STILL they can't score.

And the entire Houston team is being out-hit by Chase Freakin' Headley - who I think hit .036 for the season prior to this series.

Oh yeah, and virtually every MFY run this entire series has come with 2 outs - so real clutch pitching too!

Yanx have more hits w/RiSP in this game than the Astros do for the entire series. Hell, Houston only has five run-scoring hits in the entire series: 2 singles in Game 1; a solo HR plus the game-winning double in Game 2 (and that 2B was really an error), and a double in Game 4, that's it!! Their leadoff double early in this game was followed by: Weak Grounder, Weak Grounder, Weak Grounder Rumor had it this was the best scoring team in MLB this year. If that's true I have no idea where they're hiding it.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Albany is 150 miles from New York, compared to 246 for Syracuse. I guess that city might be an option. They're currently a short-season Single-A city, and I'm sure they'd love to make the jump to Triple-A. There doesn't seem to be any team in Albany these days (acc to BB-Ref) not since 2002 as an independent league team. The last time they were in an affiliated league was in the AA Eastern Lg from 1983-1994. That was the city the Yanx abandoned for Trenton and they've not had a team since. The park, which had been a depression-era WPA project, has since been demolished. I once played golf on the grounds of that park which was briefly turned into a (not very good) golf course after its baseball days were done. IIRC you teed off from the 1st hole with the skeleton of the stadium at your back. So not only do they not have the track record of Syracuse but they'd have to start from scratch with a new building.

Stengelese

The other alternative to all this is that you don't change much of anything. If and when expansion teams come up you simply place them in the division where they most logically belong until each of the current divisions gradually increased to six teams each from their current five. Now unless they intend on expanding by six teams at once (not likely or recommended) they'll have to contend with different sized divisions and the scheduling problems which would come along with that but they've been there before and the world didn't end and it's not like the scheduling is perfect now. Meanwhile, leagues would stay intact, as would current rivalries, as would the present playoff structure which I think is in a good spot right now.

MFS62 wrote: But there might not be uniform distribution based on geography. There still could be more than good one team in a division at any time, because teams can get better or worse over time. Sure, this isn't meant to say that the good team(s) won't change from year to year, only that in any given year there are only so many top squads and that there probably won't be more than one of them in a given division. More divisions with fewer teams in each simply makes that scenario more likely, and if two (or even more) top teams do happen to find themselves in the same division in the same season that almost certainly means that one or more of the other divisions won't have any and will instead be stuffed with mediocrities, one of whom is then guaranteed to be a division winner. The proposal which started this thread -- and let's do keep in mind that it's nothing more than think piece at the moment about what the future might look like if and when further expansion occurs -- at least gets points from me by going the other way by envisioning a 4x8 set-up rather than the 8x4 which seems to be the type most often suggested. I suspect fans tend to like the 8x4 because it copies the NFL, because it makes nice neat groupings when circled on a map, and because it bunches together only the closest of rivals (whether they're actual rivals or just cities which happen to be semi-close physically). The problem is I'm not sure how often they tend to consider all the ramifications of what would follow.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The fact that a guy named Tommy John would one day need Tommy John surgery is one of the great coincidences in baseball history. At least since Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease.

Let me try it this way. In any given season, in any sport, there are usually (depending on how you want to define the term) somewhere between five and maybe eight really good teams. This year you'd probably count them as the Nats, Cubs, Dodgers, and maybe the DBacks in the NL; Sawx, Yanx, seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians", Astros in the AL. That's seven/eight. Some years there might be more, in others even one or two of the division winners are barely mediocre so maybe there's only five or six. Now, if you spread those eight teams across four divisions like in the 1969-1993 era, or among six divisions like now, several divisions will [u:32541lfi]have to have[/u:32541lfi] more than one top team in it and therefore competitive races among top clubs to follow throughout the season. But sub-divide the league into eight divisions and the likelihood of having two or more in any one group goes down. It doesn't make the top teams themselves any worse or even the league as a whole (the zero-sum game thing) but it does make the odds of two of them fighting it out for the division crown a whole lot less and in some cases nonexistent. This is then exacerbated by the smaller pct of games for each team will be intra-division (unless you institute a wildly unbalanced sked). Note how NFL teams making the playoff with .500 or sub-.500 seasons increased when their realignment caused intra-division games to drop from 50% of all games to 37.5% (8-of-16 to 6/16) even though it actually reduced the number of Wild Card teams from three per conference down to two/per. btw, look at the division races this year: 21 games, 17 games, 20 games, 11 games. And there was a 6 and a 2 Not a lot of drama.

Houston, right now, looks like a team that, without the late season Verlander pickup, would be about a 75 win club.

The other Yanqui specialty: the full-swing grounder that comes off the bat far too shitty to be turned into a DP. I think that's three already in this game alone. That's their go-to move when their full-swing swinging bunts aren't working.

HahnSolo wrote: They're gonna friggin win it all aren't they? They still have to get past at least one or both of Verlander & Keuchel. But the bigger problem is that Houston has had about four good ABs in this whole series so far (one in this game). The Yanx have had more than that just in this inning and there is STILL only one out.

Houston Bullpen = Suxxxx 1.1 IP, 5 runs, 6 hits, 2 walks ... and counting.

And of course that play not made comes back to bite the 'Stros. 4-4, Yanx still batting w/1 out

Yanx/Headley getting an extra base and getting out of an out not just despite falling down but because he fell down!! This is like the missed cut-off/flip-play all over again. They once again fall up the stairs.

bmfc1 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: btw, how much would the Nationals hate this one?!? ... That's one of the problems with these things, EVERY solution is bound to piss someone off. Then you might as well piss off WSH. F them. I had a feeling you might chime in on that one. Maybe Edgy's program needs to shift the Nats in with the Maple Trees, Toronto over to the Cheeseheads (how ironic that Toronto is moved away from the Maple group?), and St Louis to the bible belt But that, while placating Washington, would horrify the mid-western contingent who'll see their Cardinals/Cubs games reduced to three/year.

Centerfield wrote: I have a bad feeling about this. Little less bad right now thx to what might have been Houston's first solid contact in about three days: Gurriel's bases-clearing double w/1 out in the 6th.

btw, how much would the Nationals hate this one?!? Edgy MD wrote: Maple Tree Division Baltimore Boston Montreal New York (A) New York (N) Philadelphia Pittsburgh Toronto=#FF0000]Bible Belt Division Atlanta Cincinnati Houston Kansas City Miami Tampa Bay Texas Washington=#00BF00]Dairyland Division Chicago (A) Chicago (N) Cleveland Denver Detroit Milwaukee Minnesota St. Louis=#FF8000]Calistoga Division Anaheim Arizona Los Angeles Oakland Portland San Diego San Francisco Seattle Five teams within a five hour drive -- Pitt (245 mi), Philly (138), NYCx2 (250), and of course Baltimore (40) -- and they're not in a division with any of them but are with such "locals" as KC, Dallas & Houston That's one of the problems with these things, EVERY solution is bound to piss someone off.

Lance McCullers Jr. vs Sonny Gray at 5:00 this afternoon. I had a bad feeling going into last night's game and unless Houston bats show up finally -- 5 runs on 15 hits thru 3 games -- I'm going to have a bad one about this whole series. Gray can be tough to hit but also wild. Problem is that I don't have a lot of faith in the aggressive Houston hitters to lay off pitches out of the zone. McCullers had a shaky and injury-interrupted second half.

MFS62 wrote: Wouldn't that depend on how many times they play each other under the new alignment? Or some other variable? Partly, though, as Edgy notes, there's only so lopsided you can make a schedule when you have just three division opponents. Haven't as many as three teams from the same (small) division made the NFL playoffs (or at least have the same w-l record as teams that did)? Sure, but how is that any better? There is always going to be only a handful of good teams in any sport in any one season and if three of them come out of one group then there are that many fewer spread among the other seven. (see also: Willets' comment). And while it's tough to compare baseball to football because of their vastly different set-ups/seasons, why is the NFL model, which in some years has seen multiple divisions clinched with 1/4 of the season still remaining and regularly produces years with .500 and sub-.500 teams in their playoffs, one MLB should want to emulate? Just because there are few teams doesn't mean several can't be good at the same time ... Who a team is aligned with doesn't mean each team can't be good ... I don't think there is a direct correlation. These are all really the same point and, as stated above, it's not that there CAN'T be two or more good team in one division but the odds of it go way down, and if it does occur it most likely means a division, or quite possibly several, with NO good teams elsewhere.

bmfc1 wrote: I prefer Wayne Randazzo's idea of 8 4-team divisions Four team division plans suck for multiple reasons, the main one being that the odds of having ANY races for 1st place go way down. Hell, only the AL East (2.0 games) and the NL Central (6.0) were under double digits this year. Not that this year alone proves the case, but when you put fewer and fewer teams in each division the odds of having any two of them be good at the same time gets smaller and smaller.