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I really think you're discounting the desire for taking his time to shake off rust and get confidence back before immediately throwing him into the fire. Yes, he's healthy but he hasn't had to mentally prepare to face the best competition in over a year. It's not like he pitched in the majors for a year(or even a month) and then got hurt.

I hope they cease to exist

Okay him too.

They could put anyone leadoff not named Nomar Mazara and I'll be fine with it.

Anything to get people off the Astros for five minutes

Basabe is going to rebound big. 90% sure his struggles were hamate related.

Go look at a batting average to exit velo chart

"Yoan Moncada didn't deserve a tenth place vote and Fegan is a hack" Phil Rogers??

And will be having his spring training on the fly. That's the point.

Because he never takes his windbreaker off

Gio is Gio. Other Gio is Gonzalez or Gonzo. This is the way.

People can think whatever they want, the Astros haven't earned the benefit of the doubt. It's just wrong to assume a dip in numbers is some gotcha moment. It's possible they cheated they're balls off and their numbers go up anyway when the cheating is taken away. A dip in numbers doesn't damn them, just as much as numbers staying flat don't absolve them.

It won't 'confirm' anything. People will treat it as hard evidence. But it's not.

Wild to see how far he's come not just as a player but as a person. It wasn't that long ago that you'd never hear the guy say a word.

You're right. Good players never play poorly and average ones never play better.

Math, and the way baseball works, should tell you you can't just wave away any team in baseball in a one game play-in or a 3 game series.

Baseball is not Basketball. The 14th best team in baseball would beat the best team probably 30 or 40 percent of the time. The reason the playoffs are a crapshoot is because baseball as a game is random as hell, not because top teams don't get a tune up or whatever the hell your talking about.

This is the exact reason I think it sucks. Rewarding teams for being mediocre.

The White Sox quite literally won 4 out of 7 games against the Astros in 2019.

Not sure what isn't being understood here.

This parts fine. I just can't get past letting 47% of the teams in playoffs in a sport where the 2019 White Sox are able to beat the 2019 Astros in a 7 game series.

At least with hoops, the difference between the 1-seed and the 8-seed is large enough that the 8 rarely wins.

You can't have a 6 month season and let 14 teams in. It's rendered completely pointless. I don't hate on Manfred and most of MLB as much as most people, and generally encourage them be thinking outside the box, but this idea SUCKS

Also helps being available for vet minimum vs. asking for several million dollars.

There's no such thing as garbage time for guys who have millions of dollars on the line.