Frayed Knot

So it turns out that we had to go to the AL post-season series in order to see a pair of consecutive sub-3:00 games ... whoda thunk it! Josh Tomlin will be the Game 2 starter for Cleveland after Trevor Bauer cut the tip of his right pinkie finger while performing maintenance on his drone. Fucking prima donna players these days. I guarantee you that Cleveland great Bob Feller never missed a game because he cut his finger on a drone.

The official word on Ramos became public in the last 24 hours: - had his surgery (the exact date apparently still a state secret) - reconstructed his anterior cruciate ligament, repaired the medial and lateral meniscus - six to eight months rehabilitation time

Yeah, whether or not he ultimately returns and whether or not they extend the qualifying offer to him are separate questions, quite possibly with different answers. The reason guys Walker's age (turned 30 a month ago) turn down QOs (tempting as they may be) is that they don't want to delay, or possibly ruin with a bad year or an injury, what is often their first chance at hitting the FA market. Six months younger than last year's QO-offered 2nd sacker (so actually six months older at FA time since it's a year later) Walker is a switch-hitter, a better defensive player, and, prior to this past season anyway, had a slightly better offensive career going as compared to Muffy [113 OPS+ vs 109]. Would it wildly screw up their plans if he opts to accept rather than hit the FA market? Yeah probably as I think they view 2B as the spot with probably the most in-house options: (in no particular order) Flores, Reynolds, Cecchini, Reyes, TJ Rivera As mentioned they could trade him after the "signing" (the mere act of agreeing is the equivalent of signing) although it wouldn't be easy to get equal value if other teams know they have to deal him. So, yeah, I suspect they will do the offer and see how it plays.

Whether it's because it was pre-decided by contract that FOX gets priority this year (AL series is on TBS) or if it was a decision based purely on the Cubs being the TV darlings this year, the first five games of this series will be in prime time: SAT, SUN, TUE, WED, THU Game 6 (next Saturday) will be a day game but only if it conflicts with AL Game 7.

G-Fafif wrote: Maybe they should keep the rosters at 25 in September and expand them to 40 in October. Don't give them any ideas. With 40-man rosters that game might still be going.

To put the length of last night's game into a bit of perspective (yes, here I go again): - 30 years ago tomorrow there was an extra inning game you might all remember, a game that lasted 16 innings where 123 players batted - last night was a regulation 9 inning game where 80 batters came up -- for comparison purposes, an average 9-inning game has about 75 trips to the plate - the 1986 NLCS game was longer by just [u:29f8zwrm]10 minutes[/u:29f8zwrm] It's not [just] the length of the games, it's what's going on during that time -- or, more accurately, what's NOT going on during much of that time.

It had to end there otherwise there wouldn't have been anyone left to watch it. Speaking of which, the DC Metro closes at midnight (or maybe even earlier) so I wonder how a lot of the folks at the game are going to get home. I know if I'm a DC cabbie I'm hanging around that park for the rest of the night.

Zvon wrote: Kershaw is coming in to close. Not yet he isn't. Probably for Harper though. Turner - Harper - Werth - Murphy due up.

Zvon wrote: Ridiculously long. I love it. FK? Just think how much better a game it would be if Kensley Jansen would throw pitches at a rate quicker than one per minute, or if pitching changes took about half as long.

Man, how many pitchers can a team use in one inning? Apparently the answer is: All of them!

Justin Freakin' Turner ... who the hell ever saw THAT coming?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Again, I don't know that any of this applies specifically to Gumbel. I was just taken aback by the vehemence of [Crawford's] objection to even the thought of automated ball/strike calls and to his odd and repeated use of the word "integrity" when arguing that human error was part of the game and that correcting it would reduce this supposed integrity. This is pure gibbberish, isn't it? It certainly is in my eyes, although in an attempt to clarify exactly who I was talking about I confused the matter even further as that should be Gumbel's name there in brackets not Crawford's ... (so maybe it's double gibberish) Crawford's response, while sad, archaic, and, with his insistence that HP umps Never err, beyond ridiculous, was at least predictable and somewhat understandable coming from a second generation ump when talking about seeing the most prestigious part of the job possibly taken away. But it was the fervor of Gumbel's reaction which shocked me. I mean we've all heard the arguments about the 'human element' and all that, so if he was going to argue along those lines I still would have disagreed with him but would have at least understood his objections. But it was his insistence that the game is better with all the errors and that it somehow has more integrity if they're left in (presumably forever!) in the face of better options that made him seem like what Edgy speculates, that he was merely playing the part of the stereotyped stuck-in-the-past baseball fan that so many in the media think constitutes 99% of the sport's fan base. But boy it sure didn't sound like he was acting.

Final 1st round series to be decided tonight. I still maintain that, even though the Dodgers have been to the playoffs four years in a row now while so far only advancing once, the pressure here is more on the Nats who haven't won at all in this five-year span since they became a winning team and could conceivably see their window closing faster than LA who always seem to be in the midst of upheaval as they use a massive payroll to rebuild on the fly. Whoever gets past tonight will then be playing with house money against the favored Cubs, but tonight is a big game for each, just more so for the Nats IMO. Also there's the pitching matchup. Scherzer is the $30 mil/yr guy the Nats got through FA-gency as the final piece to the puzzle and he's matched against a guy, Rich Hill, who's not only pitching on three days rest but also has to have one of the stranger resumes in recent years -- and I had to look ALL of this up because (maybe it's the boring name) I was virtually unaware of this guy until very recently even though he's spent (at least part of) 12 years in the majors to date. Rich Hill - Originally drafted back in 1999 (Cincy - 36th round) and again in 2001 (Angels - 7th) he finally signed with the Cubs after being drafted by them in the 4th round in 2002. - he was in the majors by 2005 and has appeared in every season since, but in doing so has traveled from the Cubs to Baltimore, St Louis, Boston, Cleveland, Boston again, Angels, Yanquis (Aug thru Sept of 2014 ... I have no memory of this), Nationals (though stayed in the minors), Boston for a 3rd time, Oakland, and finally the Dodgers - in addition to spending at least part of every single season in the majors since first coming up, he has also spent at least part of every single year in the minors including a stint in 2015 with the Long Island team in Independent ball. Overall he has made more appearances and had more starts as a minor leaguer than he has in the majors. - he's been granted free agency eight times (including last winter), been released three other times (the Angels once released him after pitching to just four batters), and was finally traded for the first time at this year's deadline when he came as part (a throw-in?) of the Josh Reddick deal in exchange for three minor leaguers (I hope you got good ones Billy Beane) And now after all that -- in what is only his second season making 20 starts or totaling 100 ML innings (his first in each since 2007) -- it is he, not Scherzer, who is the pitcher with the better 2016 ERA & WHiP in tonight's matchup and how bad will that sit with Nats fans if they fail to advance once again, this time because their $200 million dollar man got out-pitched by a 36 y/o ML vagabond picked up at the trading deadline and starting on short rest?

Do the Nats even extend a QO at this point? They obviously would have before the injury. But while it's one thing to pay $14-15 million for a catcher for one season, it's quite another to cough up that kind of cash hoping that you'll get even a half season out of him. And they'd have to pay that on top of the plans they'd have to make to cover the catching position for the first two?, three?, four? months of the season while Ramos is still recovering.

I have to occasionally remind myself that Ramos won't turn 30 until the second half of next season as I tend to think of him as several years older than that. At the same time you tend to worry about big, heavy bodies like his (listed at 6' 1'' - [u:2ali4if5]255[/u:2ali4if5]) once they hit 30, especially one who squats for a living and now has now major knee surgery under his belt. He's also missed significant time in other seasons as well and the one other season in which he topped 400 ABs (2015) his OPS was just 616 as opposed to this year's 850 so you wonder which is real. But it's all kind of moot right now as there's no way he's ready for April and it might be several months after that. He picked a great time to have a career year but then had terrible timing on his injury, both for the Nats and for himself.

Y'know, I'm tempted to just throw all in on Plawecki & d'Arnaud again to start the season. Yeah you'll want a backup handy but you always do with catching so that's nothing new here. But absent getting a good offer for one or the other over the winter, I'd be willing to try last year's duo again this season with the idea that it's almost certain to work out better than it did.

Yeah, my first reaction here is, 'Good!', maybe now they'll stop sending all their 1st round draft picks to the Nationals: Trea Turner - 13th overall in 2014, and Joe Ross - 25th in 2011 And even worse is that those two went in the same deal (a deal which also involved Rene Rivera) with Turner going less than six months after they drafted him! It was a large three-team trade with players swapping unis all over the place but the only thing the Pads seem to have gotten out of it all was Will Myers who's a decent power hitting 1B but even there he's hitting HRs at a rate only slightly above that of Trea Turner and Turner can run, can play both CF & SS, and is some 2-1/2 years younger. The Padres and, to a lesser degree, the ChiSox showed the folly of trying to use FA-gency to go from the bottom of the heap to the top in a single season. Both tried it recently, both failed miserably.

I was going to say that all of those folks need names, or titles, or at least nicknames of some sort. I mean some already have names, Casey is Casey and Paul Schefer is easily identifiable and I'm not suggesting that we give Henry VIII or Boticelli's Venus new monikers here. But I think if these folks are going to be spokes-folks for an important CPF project then they should be known as something other than 'Octopus Fighter' or 'Girl with Flower in Hair'. So I think suggestions are in order here although our beloved Backpack Girl will forever be known as Backpack Girl and I'll fight anyone who tries to say otherwise.

MFS62 wrote: Sal Tessio is still alive? No, he asked he Tom could get him off, you know, just for old times sake. But Tom reply was; "Can't do it Sally" But of course it was only business, it wasn't personal.

Some other folks who were good enough to stop by and vote this year, even if only once each: Rick Blaine * Fred C. Dobbs * Francis Queeg * Charlie Allnut * Sal Tessio * Peter Clemenza * Frank Pentangeli * Hyman Roth * Johnny Friendly * Terry Malloy * Sugar Kane * Osgood Fielding III * Jake Gittes * Randall P. McMurphy * George Bailey * Sam Spade * John Blutarsky * Vernon Wormer * Greg Marmalard * Daniel Simpson Day * Kent Dorfman * Artie Fufkin * David St. Hubbins * Derek Smalls * Bobbi Fleckman * Nigel Tufnel * Mandy Pepperidge * Eric Stratton * Doug Neidermeyer * Hedley Lamarr * Lili Von Shtupp * Alvy Singer * Boo Radley * Atticus Finch * Bruno Tattaglia * Jack Woltz * Johnny Fontane * Luca Brasi * Tom Hagen * Norman Bates * Merkin Muffley * Rufus T. Firefly * Otis B. Driftwood * Henry Hill * Paulie Cicero * Jimmy Conway * Butch Cassidy * Lukas Jackson * Eddie Felson * Reggie Dunlop * Henry Gondorff * Johnny Hooker * Doyle Lonnegan * Bruce Pearson * Arthur Wiggins * Piney Woods * Lizbeth Salander * Apollo Creed * Frau Blucher * Charles Calthrop * Jeff Spicoli * Ratso Rizzo * Dave Stoller * Stanley Kowalski * Travis Bickle * Benjamin Franklin Pierce * Dorothy Michaels * Hannibal Lecter * Clarice Starling * Inigo Montoya * Andy Dufresne * Will Hunting * Mark Watney * Keyser Soze * Edmund Exley * Roy McEvoy * Richard Kimble * Jimmy Rabbitte * Dirk Diggler * Ned Ryerson * Gordie LaChance * Howard Beale * Popeye Doyle * Judah Ben-Hur * Jerry Lundegaard * Rupert Pupkin * Frank Serpico * Phineas Fogg * Frank Pulver * Ted Striker * Charlie Babbitt * Sally Bowles * Benjamin Braddock * Auric Goldfinger * Ernst Blofeld * Pussy Galore * Virgil Starkwell * Virgil Sollozzo * Virgil Hilts * Virgil Tibbs * Rhett Butler * Ashley Wilkes * Scarlett O’Hara * Indiana Jones * Henri Charriere * Danny Noonan * Harry Caul * John Rambo * Rocky Dennis * Joe Buck * John Yossarian * Rooster Cogburn * Harry Callahan * Tony Montana * Lloyd Dobler * John Shaft * Jeff Lebowski * Jacques Clouseau * Louis Cyphre * Nuke LaLoosh * Crash Davis * Max Bialystock * Leo Bloom * Oscar Madison * Felix Unger * Martin Blank * Marty McFly * Jeremiah Johnson * Roy Hobbs * Norman MacLean * Booby Miles * Terry Leather * Charles Foster Kane * Norma Desmond * Luke Skywalker * Mona Lisa Vito * John Book * Zachary Garber * Bull Meacham * Billy Bibbit * Frank Drebin * Juno MacGuff * Paulie Bleeker * Gary King * Bad Blake * Jack Baker * Susie Diamond * Danny Noonan * Carl Spackler * Lacey Underall * Stephen Falken * Michael Clayton * Navin R. Johnson * Nick Naylor * Jason Bourne * Billy Hayes * Ferris Bueller * John McClane * Gordon Gekko * Spearchucker Jones

Game 4, Oct 12 1986, was on Sunday night - the AL game got the afternoon start that day even though they were out on the west coast (noon start local time). http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=4013&tabno=D But this was Mike Scott's game as the Mets managed one run on just 3 singles - and even the lone run only happened due one of Mookie's patented dashes from 1st to 3rd on a groundout which set up Danny Heep's Sac Fly. Sid, Roger, and Doug Sisk combined for a 4-hitter but two of those were HRs. I hope when Wally was bunting in the 9th down by 3 runs he was trying to get on instead of Sac bunt otherwise I'm going to have to have some words with both him and Davey. btw, Games 3 & 4 combined to take 5 Hours 18 minutes. Games 1 & 2 in the ongoing LAD/WAS series combined to go 8 Hours 12 Minutes while scoring a total of 18 runs compared to these two NYM/HOU games which combined for 14 The one similarity between that year's games and this year's? Joe West was working both.

Ceetar wrote: d'Kong76 wrote: If an ump is calling pitches based on good framing or bad framing they are [not] doing their job properly. I feel compelled to point out again that it's demonstrably true that umpires are influenced by framing. This is why we need RoboUmp

- not ready to give up on TdA. Maybe that's wishful thinking but his 2015 counts as much as the 2016 and I don't want to sell low on him - also not sold on Plawecki Maybe he was rushed (although at age 24 couldn't have been that rushed) but it's not like his minor league numbers are out of sight either (esp in Vegas). Plus I'd rather have d'Arnaud defensively, at least based on what I've seen. I don't know that Plawecki has the arm for full-time behind the plate work.

I don't know that 'stars' are any more reliable at repeating the numbers on the back of their baseball card than sub-star regulars with a similar sample size careers are at repeating theirs. Like anyone else, stars are what they are right up until that moment, sometimes suddenly and without warning, where they're not at which point you find yourself gazing at the smoldering carcass of what had once been Jason Bay or Roberto Alomar and wondering where it all went wrong. Or if say the Cardinals decided -- particularly given the whole home-grown and the 'we know what we have in him' thing -- that they absolutely couldn't go forward without Albert Pujols. Well in that scenario they'd still have Prince Albert except that they really wouldn't because what they'd actually have is some paler version of him that is without nearly 250 points of OPS that he somehow misplaced since signing his big FA deal*. Does any of that apply to Cespedes? Hopefully not, but yaneverknow, and all I'm trying to say here is that you can't get sucked into the idea that the only winning paths are either to resign your own FA or, failing that, to go all out after whoever the closest facsimile is to him. Such thinking once led us to Vince Coleman and last winter could have led to trying to out-bid all other teams for the likes of Jason Heyward. In each case a 'Plan B' would have been a preferable option. Sometimes having two rooks and a bishop can make up for having lost your queen. Maybe that's a stupid analogy but it's the one I'm going with. * a 233 point gap between his OPS in his StL years and LAA in a contract that's now just half over

Missing some good games as they drag on way to long, late starts don't help ..... It'll help that LA and SF are out, all the remaining teams play in the EST and CST time zones. Hah!! The starting times are pretty much set by the networks and the location of the games has little or no affect on the start times. The real problem is when they had three or four games in the same day which means one of them is getting pushed to a late slot. Last night's game wasn't that bad - around midnight for the final pitch. Monday was ridiculous: a 9:40 first pitch AND the game was slow AND it went 13 innings, so it all didn't wrap up until something like 2:30 EDT. Of course when I'm commissioner and start tasing batters those who constantly step out of the box and also those pitchers who take forever to deliver a pitch then all these problems will go away. Back to last night, the entire city of Chicago was three outs from going into a collective panic attack. In a season where anything short of at least making it to the WS is going to be seen as a monumental failure and a sign from the heavens that this whole championship thing might have to wait another 108 years, they found themselves in the process of getting 2-hit, their 2 games to none was about to disappear, and they were looking at a do-or-die Game 5 back in Wrigley in front of a nervous city, a hostile press, and a bunch of drunk and angry fans while facing the same Johnny Cueto who had held them to one run on three hits in Game 1. Then Bochy took out his starter (understandable) and started playing the same sort of mix and match that didn't work for Maddon the previous night (six different SFG pitchers faced the final eight Cubs hitters) and suddenly the 5-2 SF lead was now 6-5 Cubs. In fairness, the Cubs weren't exactly tearing the cover off the ball but everything found a hole so Single - Walk - Double - Single - Error - Single later and that 10 straight elimination game streak the Giants had was over, or it was once Chapman, who couldn't get anyone out on Monday, bounced back and K'd the side in the bottom of the 9th.