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Baseball Season 2006
- Thread starter MacNut
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thedude110 said:
Thanks. About what I expected. The NL West gets disrespected for some reason, but in reality, unlike the other divisions, there are no bad teams in it, there just aren't any outstanding teams. Anybody could win it. The division is going to be a dogfight well into September -- which for my money, is good baseball. (I've got tickets for the next-to-the-last Dodger game of the season, against San Diego. Here's hoping it's a meaningful one!)
MacNut said:
Because it's a pretty average division (historically) in a very bad NL. The West is .500 out of division -- I'm going to jump to a hasty conclusion and assume that this means they're struggling with the good teams (Mets, St. Louis, for example -- teams that would likely win the West if they were in the West), drawing with the average teams and beating up on the Pirates and their ilk.
Do you really think everyone outside of the NL West is terrible? If so, then the NL West must be really good!
MacNut said:
stay the same. the marlins are good baby! we are sooo young and gonna be sooo nasty again
MacNut said:until the next time they have a massive player selloff and start with nothing again.
kinda like after we beat you in your own house to win the world series?
MacNut said:
Stay the same, since Atlanta's record versus NL West teams is 14-14 and the Marlins' record is 8-7 (Florida hasn't even played Arizona and the Dodgers yet this season).
Tigers gave up a minor league prospect for Sean Casey.. solid left-handed bat, good defense, but a little uninspiring power-wise.
Solid if unspectacular move IMO... though I hope they'll stay away from the Soriano sweepstakes now... Bowden is asking too much (not only from the Tigers) for an 8 week rental.
Solid if unspectacular move IMO... though I hope they'll stay away from the Soriano sweepstakes now... Bowden is asking too much (not only from the Tigers) for an 8 week rental.
xsedrinam said:
In 1994, the Rangers led the AL West under .500 when the strike ended the season. Their record was bad enough that a sub-.500 finish was not implausible.
Of course, there's always the 1973 Mets (who I love mentioning), who barely finished above .500 in a two-division NL, then upset the Big Red Machine in the NLCS and took the A's to a seventh game in the World Series.
MacNut said:
You're really fixating on last year's historically bad year for the whole division, which was pretty flukey. In the years before that the NL West has had good division winners, they just met up with better teams in the playoffs. The Dodgers got whipped by St. Louis in 2004, who were far and away the best team in the NL that year. And IIRC, the 2003 Giants won 100 games before being upset by the Marlins (although those 100 wins were a bit misleading because they really didn't improve from 2002). In 2001 and 2002, the NL West champ went to the World Series, you may recall.
As for Bonds, you may have noticed that having the best hitter on your team doesn't guarantee regular-season success, much less in the playoffs. In his long career filled with historic seasons, he has been to the World Series once. Ted Williams, once. Willie Mays, twice. Ernie Banks, never.
Individual greatness doesn't always translate into a winning team. A-Rod is a prime example: great stats, but he doesn't create many wins for his teams. It is not Bonds' fault that the rest of his team hasn't performed well enough to win a title. In the 2002 World Series they lost in spite of his great performance. That's baseball.
stonyc said:
i saw that today too and thought that was a great move for detroit. casey was good on cincy, but disappeared kinda in pitt. now that hes on a contender, i bet he will provide another good bat for their lineup
Ahhhh!! What is it with the Dodgers and their tendency to pick up guys significantly past their prime who only have 1 or MAYBE 2 years left in them? Fred McGriff, Rickey Henderson, Robin Ventura, and now Greg Maddux? And they even gave up Cesar Izturis for him, who has A LOT more time left in him than Maddux!
zephead said:Ahhhh!! What is it with the Dodgers and their tendency to pick up guys significantly past their prime who only have 1 or MAYBE 2 years left in them? Fred McGriff, Rickey Henderson, Robin Ventura, and now Greg Maddux? And they even gave up Cesar Izturis for him, who has A LOT more time left in him than Maddux!
I notice you had to go back about ten years to find this "tendency." (Ventura, for one, made major contributions to the Dodgers 2004 division pennant. Remember all those slams?) Besides, the Dodgers are hardly the only team to trade for veterans down the stretch drive.
I'm really sorry to see Izturis go, but realistically he was trade bait and everyone knew it. His elbow reconstruction also makes his future questionable. It's also too soon to say that Greg Maddux hasn't got any gas left in him. He's been playing for a pretty awful Cub team this season. I don't think there's any question but that the Dodgers came out of this trading season a stronger team, and they didn't have to give up much to get there.
IJ Reilly said:
You definitely can't lump Ventura in with McGriff and Henderson. The latter two contributed almost nothing. Let's put it this way, the stats-oriented front office of the time begged Ventura to come back and play another season in LA, both for his hitting and clubhouse presence, but he opted to retire instead.
IJ Reilly said:
I've always liked Izturis, but his production just wasn't high enough. Between the arm injury and Furcal's contract, he just didn't have a roster spot anymore. I don't have a problem with trading for Maddux. If anyone could turn it around due to change of scenery, he seems like a good candidate to me. What makes me wary is that both players (Maddux and Benemit) are free agents at the end of the season, which means that the better they play down the stretch run, the harder it will be to keep them for next year.
aloofman said:
Maddux has already said that he'll give LA the first shot at signing him next season. Hard to say if he's just being a crafty veteran in saying so, but it is good politics. Lugo is clearly a rental property. Kent is already signed for next season, so unless the plan is to play Kent at first then I don't see a place for Lugo in LA beyond 2006. Betemit may be a resigning target if he plays well and the infield prospects aren't ready yet.
I really like that Colletti has left the heart of the youth movement intact but still gave the Dodgers a shot at this season. Tough to find any cause for complaint, knowing the constraints and the available players.
I'm generally too depressed by the Giants first long losing streak of the year to want to post much in this thread, but what the heck are these shots at the NL West about? Last year, was terrible, but the NL West has, and had in the recent past, as much talent as any other division in baseball. If you're looking to the future, the talent is heavily on the side of the NL West. I just wish more of that resided in San Francisco instead of LA, Arizona, and Colorado.
aloofman said:
Sure, but I think we need to take this year by year, because you never really know. Kent still has some life in him, and would be an asset on any team if he doesn't get hurt, and Furcal is pretty obviously playing below his demonstrated abilities. I like to think, in looking at the Dodger's amazingly dreadful July, that the law of averages will catch up to this team and they can still finish ten games above .500, which is probably enough to win the NL West.
Sayhey said:I'm generally too depressed by the Giants first long losing streak of the year to want to post much in this thread, but what the heck are these shots at the NL West about? Last year, was terrible, but the NL West has, and had in the recent past, as much talent as any other division in baseball. If you're looking to the future, the talent is heavily on the side of the NL West. I just wish more of that resided in San Francisco instead of LA, Arizona, and Colorado.
I couldn't look at this thread during the Dodger's recent slide, or the sports section of the newspaper, either. Now that the team has been dealt a pretty good hand for the rest of the season, I'm feeling more encouraged.
I don't get these recurring attacks on the NL West either. Now that everybody knows that the division has the best overall record in the NL, they really should stop. Get the message, please: it isn't 2005 anymore.
Sayhey said:
Without a dominant team -- or even a team that appears likely to get out of the first round of the playoffs -- the NL West seems easy to dismiss.
I think a lot of folks look at the NL West and say "maybe the best team in that division is third or fourth best in the NL." Then they look at the depth of the division, declare it average, and say that it's not as tough as the AL East or Central. And I think most of those things are true.
But I think when you look a little harder, the NL West is an above average division plagued by parity.
Such that: People love dominant teams and upstarts, but the West is lacking both David and Goliath.
Ahh, my bad, I forgot Ventura was still pretty goodIJ Reilly said:
. A lot better than McGriff and Henderson. I was just saying that some past-their-prime players sort of "retire" to the Dodgers, and by that I mean they get their last 1 or 2 years of playing on the Dodgers, then they retire.I have a(n out-there) theory on why the Dodgers are on such a skid. The Angels and Dodgers have sorta "swapped" themselves after the All-Star break, because before the break, the Angels were skidding and the Dodgers were doing pretty good, and now they're opposite.