Topic: The Major League Baseball Thread: Did SI Swipe The 2025 Sports Almanac?

[Ian Sane]

The Blue Jays have had another typical uneventful off-season while the Yankees and Red Sox added to their already playoff-caliber teams.  Those few years in the playoffs were fun but now I fear we're back into old AL East routine of Boston and New York fighting for first place with Toronto spinning their wheels in third while Baltimore and Tampa Bay "fight" for draft positions.  Now last year was a bad one for injuries so maybe the Jays are actually better than they appeared last year.  Bautista (who was TERRIBLE last year) and Encarnacion are gone but other than that it's pretty much the same lineup as the 2016 team who made the ALCS.  So maybe this lineup can still do it but it has lost key players and management hasn't made a good effort to replace them.  The goal seems more to have someone eating up the games in the position rather than replacing the departing player's production.

Alex Anthopoulos was the prior GM and was the architect of the recent playoff teams.  One thing I liked about him was that if the team wasn't going anywhere he tried to shake things up.  In 2013 he made some big trades that got the fanbase excited for the first time in at least ten years.  It did not work out but then he did a big shake up again in 2015 and it did work out and the Jays finally returned to the post-season.  I like that approach.  You're not going to get anywhere spinning your wheels as an okay-but-not-good-enough team so if you have some solid players to build around, you build around them.  Then if that is clearly not working after a few seasons you try something else.  That comes across like an attempt to contend for the World Series as opposed to just letting seasons pass by uneventfully where it's all fine as long as ownership still makes a profit.  The current GM has pretty much just sat on his butt since he arrived.  Now staying the course still allowed for a post-season appearance in 2016.  Is the approach here that the current core is a playoff team so you don't need to do anything with it or is it just spinning your wheels?  If this season isn't going anywhere by the all-star break there should be some sort of tweaking or rebuilding starting.  I want to see an actual plan in place to return to contention, not just filling up roster spots with warm bodies and trotting out a few stars for jersey sales.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Blue Jays' current GM, Mark Shapiro, used to be with the Indians, and while he got a lot of credit for turning them into a contender the truth is the Indians didn't really start rolling until Shapiro moved up to team president and focused on the business side of things and renovating the stadium while Chris Antonetti took over the baseball side of things.

[Ian Sane]

Actually Shapiro is the president.  Ross Atkins is the GM.  So if Shapiro is a better president than GM then I guess the Jays are doing it right.  But Atkins is Shapiro's guy and as I mentioned the prior GM that I liked effectively got squeezed out despite doing a great job.

Deep down I really just don't trust the ownership of the Jays.  They play in the third largest MLB city and have a fanbase covering an entire country of 35 million people but act like they're some poor small market team.

[NWR_insanolord]

The 2018 MLB postseason kicked off tonight, and I'm not sure any game the rest of the way will be able to live up to this one. The Rockies knock off the Cubs 2-1 in a 13 inning pitchers duel of a Wild Card game that had a little bit of everything. The Cubs, who finished the regular season tied for the best  record in the National League, lose knockout games in their own building on back to back nights to become the first team eliminated. Just wow.

[Khushrenada]

Yeah, it's a bit of a shame. I was hoping the Cubs would be around a bit longer.

I'm a bit conflicted about tomorrow's Wild Card actually. Ever since Moneyball, I've become a fan of Oakland as the perpetual underdog team. Yet, I think it would be a big event if the Yankees and Red Sox could meet up again in the playoffs and American League Championship series. (Provided Red Sox win it.) It's been awhile since that rivalry was played with those kinds of stakes again.

Basically, it's just the Red Sox I care about in the East and they've had a heck of year so I'm hoping they can pull off the World Series win in 2018 just like they did in 1918.

With the Cubs out in the NL, I'm mainly rooting for the Dodgers and the Brewers.

[NWR_insanolord]

If the Yankees win they'll face Boston in the Division Series since as the Wild Card winner they'd face the #1 seed. The other ALDS matchup would be really interesting even if I weren't an Indians fan, as between them and Houston it's the two best pitching staffs in baseball facing off.

[Khushrenada]

Oh yeah. Huh. For some reason, I thought the Yankees had more wins than Houston even though I knew the Yankees were playing the Wild Card game. Shows how much I care about the Astros.

[Khushrenada]

Welp. They won it in 1918 and, 100 years later, the Red Sox are Champions in 2018 as well. They maintain a perfect year ending in 18 record.

[Shaymin]

Hopefully this starts another one of those 86-year streaks.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Necromancy: Thread Resurrection - RISE thread RISE from your grave!!!

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[NWR_insanolord]

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[Khushrenada]

Who's excited for baseball playoffs? It's been awhile since I've been really hyped up for the MLB playoffs as it's usually just one or two teams I care to watch but this year there's a lot of teams in that have me excited for the MLB playoffs than I have been in past years (although I did quite enjoy the Dodgers / Yankees championship series last year.)

Still, I can't help but think of Insanolord whenever keeping track of this season winding down with the Guardians now overtaking the Detriot Tigers in the division. I've got to think he's getting excited also for MLB playoffs. Still, I don't want the Tigers to collapse too much more so that they can prevent the Astros from making the playoffs.

After leading in their division for most of the year, it's a bit of a bummer to see the Yankee surging a bit near the end to possibly take away the number one spot from the Blue Jays. Schedule has been a bit more on the easier side for the Yankees at the end here but if Jays can just sweep this last season series with the Rays than it's all good.

Meanwhile, Mets are just hovering in that last wildcard spot and it would be kind of funny to see them miss out on the playoffs after the Juan Soto signing. Have to wonder if Juan might be regretting that decision to sign with the Mets after getting to the Championship with the Yankees last year and seeing the Yankees and Jays both fighting for first in the AL after turning down both those teams trying to sign him after last year's playoffs. But maybe $765 million makes it easy to shrug that off.

But with Mariners, Brewers, Dodgers, Cubs and likely the Red Sox in as well, most of the teams I sort of root for to win are also in it this year. Also curious to see how well the Padres do this year. Last year, they put a scare into the Dodgers and almost knocked them out early. In a way, they were almost the hardest team the Dodgers faced on their way to winning another Championship. Wonder if the Padres have it in them to upset some teams this year so even they've got my interest.

And I guess there's also the Philadelphia Phillies taking up some space in these proceedings but, along with possibly the Tigers, you're also going to have some dud non-interesting teams making the playoffs. What can you do? There's more shrug-I-don't-really-care-about-them teams in a league than there are ones you root for. Just gotta hope they aren't the ones that end up winning unless they're facing off against the teams you loathe.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm so excited about the Guardians, their comeback has been incredible. They were 15.5 games back at one point, which would make this the biggest comeback to win a division in MLB history, but it's even crazier that just a month ago they were 12.5 back. They've been on just a ridiculous run, and it's been so fun to watch.

[Ian Sane]

The Jays are my team but with the Mariners being the closet team to me and having gone to games in Seattle many times I have a soft spot for them as well.  My brother is an outright M's fan, so with both teams in the playoffs it could get interesting in my family, if it ends up being him against our dad and I.  It's going to eat a lot into Switch time but it will be nice to watch the playoffs with Dad.  Brings back memories of '92.

[Khushrenada]

Boo-Yah! Blue Jays sweep the Rays and keep that top spot. Astros have been eliminated and the Mets just miss making it also with the Reds taking that last spot. Can't wait to see how this all plays out.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Guardians clinched the Central when the Tigers lost to the Red Sox earlier in the afternoon, but finished the season with a walk-off 3 run home run in the 10th anyway for good measure. What an incredible finish, but now we have to play Detroit for a third series in three weeks.