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Official 2007 MLB Season Thread

steamboat26 said:
If the red sox lost half their rotation, i'm sure they'd be far behind in the division.
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.... Hmm, because the braves didn't lose their planned rotation either.

Cormier: Out a quarter of the season (but will be back in the next week or so)
Hampton: Yet another season where he won't be pitching for us, so we got
Redman: Went on the DL with an ingrown nail (still never pitched worth a crap)

so 3/5 > 1/2
Yup, we lost half our planned rotation, yet still find ourselves contenders
 
MacNut said:
I grew up during the 80's Yankees, I watched them tank every season until 1995. So to say that I am a spoiled Yankee fan is a little extreme. Yes we have had a good run and that run was expected to continue. If at the beginning of the season the Yankees said, oh by the way we are going to tank the season this year I would of been ready to deal with it. But when they say we have a great team this year and then they tank that makes it hard to chew. It is not like I am a Royals fan and expect to lose every season.
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This answer sounds a little contradictory to me. You're not a spoiled Yankee fan, but you do expect them to produce every year. What team owner ever predicts poor performance? And be honest, what Yankee fan wouldn't faint dead away if Steinbrenner said his team is less than wonderful this year -- especially given that he spends far more than anyone else can?

This is what I mean by reality therapy. Somebody in New York -- and if it isn't the management, then it should be the fans -- needs to look into their souls and ask themselves if winning teams aren't about more than lavishing huge salaries on veteran players. I wish they would, if only because I think the Steinbrenner way has harmed the game. It might also bring you guys a better team, not to mention, more reasonable expectations.
 
IJ Reilly said:
This is what I mean by reality therapy. Somebody in New York -- and if it isn't the management, then it should be the fans -- needs to look into their souls and ask themselves if winning teams aren't about more than lavishing huge salaries on veteran players. I wish they would, if only because I think the Steinbrenner way has harmed the game. It might also bring you guys a better team, not to mention, more reasonable expectations.
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I totally agree with you there. When we won the '05 division, it was the greatest one that I had been around for. (I was there that night, it was quite a surreal experience)
Why? Because it was won on the backs of 21 rookies who all put their heart and soul into the game. Not players that we brought in for just a year and paid lavish amounts of money to.

The game is much greater when you can tell a player loves it, and puts their all into it every day and every game. Players that are in it for the money aren't nearly as good as players that are in it for the game itself.
 
Please, keep talking. I'm rather enjoying this. :) And I doubt STL will snap out it, the second half. Seems like LaRussa's pre-season antics were a bit of foreshadowing. Hmm, wonder if we could get Torre, back. ;)
 
The biggest problem with the Yankees in age, 2/3's of the team is to old. Every Yankee fan I have talked to over the weekend agrees that the team won't win with the age of the players they have. They payroll is high but most of the players are over priced and over aged. I would rather pay the same salaries to younger more productive players. Until Steinbrenner realizes that until he drops the dead weight from the team that things will not improve.
 
steamboat26 said:
The yankees situation could have happened to any other team. If the red sox lost half their rotation, i'm sure they'd be far behind in the division.
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I don't know about the Red Sox, but the unexpected happens to other teams and they don't necessarily tank. The secret is depth, and having talent at AAA level waiting for promotion.
 
MacNut said:
The biggest problem with the Yankees in age, 2/3's of the team is to old. Every Yankee fan I have talked to over the weekend agrees that the team won't win with the age of the players they have. They payroll is high but most of the players are over priced and over aged. I would rather pay the same salaries to younger more productive players. Until Steinbrenner realizes that until he drops the dead weight from the team that things will not improve.
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Thats what happens when you try to buy championships by signing a team full of veteran all-stars to huge contracts. Now they're getting older and they're performance is dropping.

You have to rely at least partially on your farm systems, and build up young talent to eventually play in the the majors, like the Red Sox have done with Youkilis, Pedroia, Papelbon, Lester, and soon Jacoby Ellsbury (he'll replace Coco Crisp as center fielder in 2008).
 
mattscott306 said:
The game is much greater when you can tell a player loves it, and puts their all into it every day and every game. Players that are in it for the money aren't nearly as good as players that are in it for the game itself.
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No kidding. I'd rather watch a bunch of talented, motivated rookies lose, than a team of prima-donna veterans win. My great joy this year as a Dodger fan is Russell "Hustle" Martin. He still makes some kid mistakes, but in every game his intensity burns like a magnesium fire. And Jonathan Broxton (22 years old) throwing 98 MPH strikes (or as Vin Scully put it the other day, "Broxton is throwing very, very tiny baseballs.") Win or lose, young ballplayers are fun to watch.
 
the giants finally have a national game tonight!! giants vs. mets... espn at 7 et... watch lincecum people! he's the future!
 
I used to think the yankees had a decent farm system with hughes, karstens, humberto sanchez, rasner, etc; but we've used almost all of them.
To macnut: I see your point with having a young team- we won in the late 90s because we had young players like jeter, posada, williams, and a young(er) but experienced rotation. I had always thought that after Jeter, A-rod, Giambi, and most of our rotation retires, we would bring in people like hughes who would lead us to more world series.
 
The problem with farm systems is that the teams baby the young talent to much by leaving them in AAA for to long. By the time they finally bring them up its to late. Pitchers have been so babied for so long now that if a starter goes more then 7 innings its considered a long outing. I wish that the young players would be brought up sooner and given more time to play in the majors.

The problem with baseball is that the players are given 7-8 year contracts and by the time they hit year 6 they are to old. I wish we could cycle in the younger talent sooner.
 
steamboat26 said:
we won in the late 90s because we had young players like jeter, posada, williams, and a young(er) but experienced rotation.
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You also had guys that were just "players" like Tino,Brosius (who was a Red Sox killer) and O'Neill..They just played their asses off for the team. They weren't overpaid,underperforming all stars..
 
fotografica said:
You also had guys that were just "players" like Tino,Brosius (who was a Red Sox killer) and O'Neill..They just played their asses off for the team. They weren't overpaid,underperforming all stars..
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And that is the problem, we don't have any clutch players anymore but all stars that don't care about anything but a pay check.
 
MacNut said:
And that is the problem, we don't have any clutch players anymore but all stars that don't care about anything but a pay check.
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Yeah, but obviously the Yankees don't really care about that. If they did, they wouldn't have went out and signed Clemens for $20 million because of the pitching injuries.

What they should have done was taken one of the all-star position players (someone like Abreu) and traded him to get a young pitcher or two. If the Yankees were smart, they would definitely trade him to pick up some younger players.

2007 is going to turn out to be a rebuilding year for the Yankees. They need to dump off some of the old guys and get some new players on there. For example, trade 38 year old Mariano Rivera who is starting to get too old and pick up someone new to close.
 
MacNut said:
And that is the problem, we don't have any clutch players anymore but all stars that don't care about anything but a pay check.
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except jeter ;)

I was always banking on someone from our farm system becoming a successor to rivera
Anyways, we need to dump giambi, find a good backup catcher to replace posada, and a get a younger outfield.
 
great start for the giants, Perez seems quite off tonight, very different from the last time the braves saw him. Every ball has been hit hard, keep it up! :D
 
steamboat26 said:
To macnut: I see your point with having a young team- we won in the late 90s because we had young players like jeter, posada, williams, and a young(er) but experienced rotation. I had always thought that after Jeter, A-rod, Giambi, and most of our rotation retires, we would bring in people like hughes who would lead us to more world series.
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This was the point I was about to make. It's hard to remember now, but the 1990s Yankees were not yet the team of mercenaries that they would become in the 2000s. That 1998 team that wiped the floor with the whole league was not criticized for buying a championship the way recent ones have been. The Yankees hadn't been contenders long enough for everyone to be completely sick of them, and you had to admire how well their pieces fit together. Their individual stats weren't as awesome as their record suggested, but guys came through when needed and no one else could touch them. Even though the recent Yankee teams have had the talent, they never fit together like the earlier ones did. I'm not sure that you can entirely chalk up their lack of World Series titles to that because there are so many random factors in the postseason. But they've had to overpay repeatedly to stay on top, and there's definitely been diminishing returns.

For an example of how teams retool and stay in contention, the Braves are the recent model (as much as it pains me to admit it). Except for Smoltz, I don't think there are any players left from the 1991 team. And several positions have had a revolving door of players. But even losing Maddux and Glavine didn't sink them. There's some luck there, of course, but they didn't break the bank over and over like the Yankees did. I consider their lack of World Series titles a matter of some bad luck and Cox being an overrated manager.

MacNut said:
And that is the problem, we don't have any clutch players anymore but all stars that don't care about anything but a pay check.
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Fans have complained about greedy players for about 150 years, so that's kind of tired. And over the long term, clutch players really don't exist. There are very few players (probably less than 20 all-time) who have really overachieved in pennant-winning and postseason situations over many seasons, much less for entire careers.
 
aloofman said:
For an example of how teams retool and stay in contention, the Braves are the recent model (as much as it pains me to admit it). Except for Smoltz, I don't think there are any players left from the 1991 team. And several positions have had a revolving door of players. But even losing Maddux and Glavine didn't sink them. There's some luck there, of course, but they didn't break the bank over and over like the Yankees did. I consider their lack of World Series titles a matter of some bad luck and Cox being an overrated manager.
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You're right, smoltz is the only brave from the worst to first season, but not only that Smoltz and Chipper Jones are the only two from the 95 world series season. The braves have, undoubtedly, one of the best, if not the best, farm system in baseball. Thats the reason the braves can stay in contention while being the 15th ranked team in payroll. I wouldn't trade our 14 division championships for another world series, it's something to be proud of, something that likely won't happen for any team for many years to come.
As far as Cox being an overrated manager, who would you rank higher than that man? He and schurholtz (I miss-spelled that) have been dynamic, two strong points that have helped the braves hit fourteen division titles in 16 years. I'd take Cox over any manager, and it will be a sad day when he retires.
 
mattscott306 said:
As far as Cox being an overrated manager, who would you rank higher than that man? He and schurholtz (I miss-spelled that) have been dynamic, two strong points that have helped the braves hit fourteen division titles in 16 years. I'd take Cox over any manager, and it will be a sad day when he retires.[/COLOR]
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I'll let this one make most of my argument for me:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jon_heyman/04/24/scoop.tuesday/index.html

I think the Braves' success is more Schuerholtz than Cox, constantly getting the personnel in and out of the roster. In the postseason, there's nothing Schuerholtz can do, it's Cox making the decisions. And it's in October that the Braves have underachieved. I have a hard time believing that this was all bad luck. Several of those non-World Series winners won over 100 games.

But you're right that they shouldn't look forward to Cox stepping down. There aren't that many better out there. By "overrated" I didn't mean that he sucked, only that he's not one in the all-time elite like some are saying.
 
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