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2016 MLB Season Thread

63dot said:
Nobody is close to the Cubs.

Look who they have. It's like they have the best of the Dodgers, Nationals, Indians, Blue Jays, and Giants. They are so deep they resemble the 1990s New York Yankees. Not only do I think they will win WS, but they will take the dynasty mantle from my Giants.

Usually a team wins WS with great pitching but while their pitchers will do well, maybe only better than the average WS winning team, their bats will just punish the Indians. Look what they did to the Giants in the NLDS late in the last game of that series. Look what they did to Kershaw tonight. I think they will do the same damage against the Indians.

People forget but it's also been forever and a day since the Indians won so they aren't exactly coming into this as if it's routine, either.
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I'm a diehard Detroit Tigers fan so my comment is going to be a little biased, but my Tigers got destroyed playing the Indians during the regular season. With exception of maybe the Tigers starting pitching (though they were still good in that department) the Tigers looked better on paper stat wise in my opinion. The Tigers would had even made the playoffs had they not played those pesky Indians. :D I think the Cubs will still win the World Series, but it wouldn't totally surprise me if the Indians won it. Especially if the Cubs think they have the WS won before they even play the first game. I'm kind of torn who I'm going to root for, because I like both teams. I think I'll just sit back in my lazyboy chair and enjoy a good World Series (hopefully). I say Cubs in 7.
 
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AustinIllini said:
My childhood is riddled with Cubs games watching Harry Caray and Steve Stone call Cubs games. I became a Sox fan in my teens, but honestly I haven't been so excited for a baseball series in a decade. Go Cubs Go
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Mine as well, although for another, frustrating reason. Until Omaha got an independent TV station, we only had 5 local stations: the 3 network channels (no fox or WB at this time), and 2 PBS stations. So the only channel that aired shows like Transformers or G.I. Joe, was WGN on cable in the afternoon when school let out.

And when we rushed home to catch the second part of a two-part cliffhanger, we turn on WGN to see...

.. a cubs game.

If TVs weren't so expensive back then, I would have broken it. :p

BL.
 
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This year's Cubs team is not immortal. Really, the Giants would have made it pretty nerve-wracking for them if only their terrible bullpen didn't blow that ninth inning lead in Game 4.

That said, they do have a tremendous advantage on paper over the Indians, especially with regards to the starting rotation. At this stage they will begin to actually miss Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, but who knows? I still remember the Dodgers winning a World Series in 5 games with Orel Hershiser and smoke and mirrors against a very loaded opponent.

I'm rooting for the Indians, mostly to see some of my Ohio native co-workers happy. I told them back in April that their Tribe would make the postseason. They didn't believe me at the time. And really, won't the world end when the Cubs finally win another World Series? Don't want to risk it. :D
 
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Silencio said:
This year's Cubs team is not immortal. Really, the Giants would have made it pretty nerve-wracking for them if only their terrible bullpen didn't blow that ninth inning lead in Game 4.

That said, they do have a tremendous advantage on paper over the Indians, especially with regards to the starting rotation. At this stage they will begin to actually miss Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, but who knows? I still remember the Dodgers winning a World Series in 5 games with Orel Hershiser and smoke and mirrors against a very loaded opponent.

I'm rooting for the Indians, mostly to see some of my Ohio native co-workers happy. I told them back in April that their Tribe would make the postseason. They didn't believe me at the time. And really, won't the world end when the Cubs finally win another World Series? Don't want to risk it. :D
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I will be happy for the Cubs because of the long wait, but the Indians not only have their own long wait but were memorialized as the sorriest team in baseball more than once by Hollywood. The Indians are huge underdogs so I think outside of the two cities, I think Americans will be rooting for the Indians somewhat more with their lack of talent. The Cubs are entering this season with it being theirs to lose and they are really nothing more than a bought NL version of the Yankees from players up through front office (wunderkids Epstein and Hoyer).
 
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63dot said:
I will be happy for the Cubs because of the long wait, but the Indians not only have their own long wait but were memorialized as the sorriest team in baseball more than once by Hollywood. The Indians are huge underdogs so I think outside of the two cities, I think Americans will be rooting for the Indians somewhat more with their lack of talent. The Cubs are entering this season with it being theirs to lose and they are really nothing more than a bought NL version of the Yankees from players up through front office (wunderkids Epstein and Hoyer).
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The Cubs wouldn't be where they are without their homegrown players either. Much like the Yankees dynasty, it took signing FA vets to complement their homegrown players vs what the Yankees tried to do since 2003 onward which was just buy everyone to form a team and said screw player development. The suspension of Steinbrenner was the best thing for the Yankees back in the 90's.

Epstein isn't perfect either. Just see his final years at the Red Sox and those horrible contracts as well.
 
quagmire said:
The Cubs wouldn't be where they are without their homegrown players either. Much like the Yankees dynasty, it took signing FA vets to complement their homegrown players vs what the Yankees tried to do since 2003 onward which was just buy everyone to form a team and said screw player development. The suspension of Steinbrenner was the best thing for the Yankees back in the 90's.

Epstein isn't perfect either. Just see his final years at the Red Sox and those horrible contracts as well.
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He got fired by Boston, right?

I think if Epstein wins with the Cubs, he will erase any bad past seasons he had in baseball and will come out like some winning guru. I can see NYY coming out to woo him and give him a shocking amount of money.

Sometimes big office bosses can be the most important player on a team and I think Magic Johnson has done a lot for the LA Dodgers who may have not even made postseason without him.
 
I'm going to draw a foreign parallel into this.

I don't think it isn't an unknown that I follow Australian Rules Football more than the NFL or any major American sport (rationale and advocacy of that is grounds for another entirely huge thread altogether), and in that sport there were two big underdogs (in the terms of winning their league's greatest prize) were playing it out on the first Saturday of October: The Sydney Swans and the Western Bulldogs. Up until 2005, the Swans hadn't won the premiership in 72 years, since 1933 (they won in 2005, and again in 2012), and it was the Swans that went in as favourites to win it all. They had the best team on paper, and the biggest football presence in terms of on-field personnel.

The Western Bulldogs, on the other hand, came into this as not really Cinderella-storied underdogs, but had overcome a lot of adversity. Their coach was fired 2 years prior, and their captain quit, entering the draft to be drafted by another team. their current captain ruptured his ACL in their 3rd week of the season, requiring a full knee reconstruction, and 15 months of therapy. Furthermore, they had made it into the top 8 to play in the finals, in 7th place on the ladder. No team had ever won the premiership from 7th.

To add on top of that, the Western Bulldogs hadn't won since 1954 (62 year drought) and hadn't competed in any finals series/playoffs since 1961; a commentator had stated that it had been 20,090 days since their last Grand Final appearance.

So let's look at this. 55 years since their last finals appearance for the Bulldogs. The Cubs, from the Steve Bartman incident back 2004 to their last World Series win: 96 years.

62 years for the Bulldogs between championships. The Cubs: 108 years.

The colours of the Western Bulldogs: Red, White, and Blue. The Cubs: Red, White, and Blue.

Finally the fans. The Bulldogs never gave up, despite taking solace in the fact that they always had next year to try, with some of them never seeing their side winning it all. (yes, the same can be said with the Swans up to 2005, but rolls with me here).

BTW: against the odds, the Bulldogs won, and are the premiers of the AFL for season 2016.

The Cubs? It would be worth tuning into WGN to hear the ghost of Harry Carey properly singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the 7th inning stretch instead of God Bless America, and hearing him shout out, "way back! It might be! It Could be! It IS! A home run! Holy cow!"

Oh, and expect a lot of beards to be cut if they win. :D

BL.
 
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63dot said:
He got fired by Boston, right?

I think if Epstein wins with the Cubs, he will erase any bad past seasons he had in baseball and will come out like some winning guru. I can see NYY coming out to woo him and give him a shocking amount of money.
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Well the Cubs just resigned him to a 5 year extension. The ownership in Boston is clueless. They have their former manager against their former GM.
 
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MacNut said:
Well the Cubs just resigned him to a 5 year extension. The ownership in Boston is clueless. They have their former manager against their former GM.
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Yeah, he'll be a Cubs exec as long as he wants to be. The Yankees just can't outspend the Cubs.

I would be interested to know if Epstein has aspirations to move up within the MLB itself.
 
Just got an alert from USAToday saying that Fenandez had cocaine in his system when he was killed in that boating accident.

Very stupid.
 
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ucfgrad93 said:
Go Cubs!!!
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My Cubs are in trouble now. I thought that if they could win game 4, all would be well. But down 1-3 in a seven game series is a tough road to travel.
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Centaurr said:
no one is perfect.
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True, but it's a sad story that we hear far too often. Young, new found wealth, and yes, doing stupid things.
Hey, lots of older, not so wealthy people do stupid things all the time!
 
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