Tag: MLB

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Is It Baseball Season Yet?

Since there are only 19 days left until pitchers and catcher report for spring training, baseball predictions and projections are starting to appear left and right with the Baseball Prospectus one really sticking out in my mind. I will just mention a couple of quick things right now and probably a more in-depth post before the regular season starts in a couple of months.

As of today, they have the Washington Nationals finishing at .500 (81-81) something they have not done since 2005 and finish 3rd in the NL East – another feat they have only accomplished once in the past 12 years (and they were the Montreal Expos at the time). Another good thing for the Nationals franchise is that the Montreal Expos will have a second item in their name in the Baseball Hall of Fame as Andre Dawson will be the sole inductee and will go in wearing an Expos hat.

I am not really surprised to see the Blue Jays projected to finish at 73-89 after their dumping of Roy Halladay and considering how they only won 75 games last year with Doc, I think that just might be a reach but crazier things have happened, so one can only hope. I think the Jays’ offense is being severely undervalued at the projection of only 726 runs which puts them last in the AL and bottom 6 in the entire MLB.

Finally, I hope that this year the New York Mets will not try to sell to their fans a major league team with a minor league roster. A very nice addition for them in Left with Jason Bay but they still have Pagan, Castillo, Murphy and a catcher which makes for a rather weak lineup in the NL East if they want to dethrone the Phillies especially if they are not aggressively trying to upgrade their pitching rotation. Mets at 78-84 is about what everyone is expecting but an upgraded part or two can certainly make them a contender with a win total in the mid-80s.

I usually try to make a couple of Yankee games a year just to see my ‘favorite’ team lose and I even made a trip down to Philly last year to see my second ‘favorite’ team lose, so hopefully this year will be no different. If you are interested in purchasing MLB baseball tickets, try that new site or the usual ones like StubHub or if you are lucky enough to get it from the team’s site without any additional markups.

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MLB Contest: End of Round 1

Well all series have now ended with Mike DiAmore being our leader with 4 points after the League Divisional Series. I expect everyone to have their predictions for the Championship Series in well before they start Thursday night.

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. New York Yankees

Also, just a reminder: these series will now be a best-of-7 from now on – the League Championship Series and the World Series both.

Get your picks in now fools. Also if anyone wants to get in on this contest, you can do so but your score will be one less than the lowest score on the board to begin that round. It’s going to be ridiculously difficult for you to win now but that’s what you get for not participating from the start.

LDS

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MLB Contest Update

I didn’t know how comfortable everyone was with their names being posted so I have just used initials from your names for this update. Listed below are the predictions and the updated totals with the three series decided so far. Plenty of early losses in points for those who took the St. Louis Cardinals and/or the Boston Red Sox… plenty of -3’s in those columns. No one took the Cinderella team in the Minnesota Twins as they were swept out tonight (no one to blame but themselves on that one) but at least it looks like there will be on good series – Phillies / Rockies.

I’ll update the scoring table with names (if no one objects) following the end of the last series. The ALDS will start Friday in New York but the NLDS starts Thursday night, so make sure to have your picks submitted before the start of that game. If you’re late, I’ll probably allow before the first run is scored in the game but no point in risking your luck.

LDS

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Is It Baseball Season Yet?

I was gonna write this up last night but got lazy and then after hearing Mike complain on Mike’d Up and getting notified that I had more John McCain related posts than Yankees, I decided to got procrastinating. I have usually made a couple of trips to the stadium each year since 2004 with the exception of last year. Hopefully I’ll pick up at least a game this year, probably a Blue Jays or Rays game in the summer but it seems more and more likely that it might be more of an economically suitable option to go watch a Major League game at Citi Field instead.

Yankees opened up single game tickets yesterday to the public at around 10 in the morning and due to class I didn’t get around to it until the middle of the afternoon. I wasn’t going in expecting there would be many tickets (reasonably priced anyways) available and that’s exactly the case that I found. I can’t find anything available under $100 each for a pair of tickets yet tickets right behind home plate are still available at the very cheap price of $2,625 each. I have been trying to purchase those $5 ticket for specially marked games but I guess it is safe to say those are probably sold out since it keeps coming up as unavailable or marked as regular price.

As for pre-season predictions and over/under numbers, expect a post on it before the end of the month or first few days of April at the latest.

P.S. 10 days until Major League Baseball 2009 Opening Night.

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Tampa Bay Rays: This Team Is For Real

Can we all just stop expecting the Tampa Bay Rays to just disappear by the end of the season? A team that everyone was saying had to make a move at the deadline to acquire a bat to sure up their weak offense made no such move because they wanted to keep their prospects – and what do they do after the deadline? Go off and sweep the Detroit Tigers while outscoring them 20-10 in the three games.

Last time I wrote about them, New Beast In The AL East, they were in the midst of their longest winning streak of the season so far (7) which was promptly followed by their longest losing streak of the season – also at 7. If there was a good a time as any for a team to fold up and go home it was then. They had squandered a 4 game lead on the division and now were half a game behind the Red Sox. Since then, they have gone 11-5 and once again taken the lead of the division and have given themselves a 3-game cushion.

This team is here to stay and as if their pitching wasn’t solid enough, expect them to call up David Price who was a #1 overall draft pick not too long ago who is tearing up the minor leagues. He is 10-0 in the minors this year with a 1.97 ERA and has a 85/19 K/BB ratio with only 67 hits allowed in 86.2 innings pitched. That’s 8.87 strikeouts every 9 innings by the way and a WHIP of 0.99. Continue reading “Tampa Bay Rays: This Team Is For Real”