nrockway

Angels come back to beat the Asstros behind 2 homers from Trout. They want out of the postseason as badly as Detroit does.

Started the game late, watched until it was 8-1 or something then nodded off with sweet dreams about Yoendrys Gomez's 93mph four seamer...woke up and the score was 8-5 and Leasure about to give up a 4 piece. Colson coming up clutch was totally hype though. Grant Taylor shut the door throwing absolute heat. For Leasure, these are the first runs he's given up since August 26. He was bound to fumble at some point but otherwise he's been quite good. The last outing vs the Yankees was not so good and he simply looked bad tonight, wasn't commanding his pitches. Venable made a nice call to the bullpen to get him out of there. He simply didn't have it. Sometimes that happens, I wouldn't write him off, but I think he's a 7th/8th inning pitcher kinda guy and not a closer. Grant, on the other hand, is a Mason Miller kind of dude. His ERA will be quite good next year I imagine. I really like those two and Wikelman at the back end of the bullpen.

Unfortunately I don't find this hard to believe at all. All TIF has done is channel money designed to assist the public into the hands of private real estate developers. B-b-b-but it's "privately financed!!". I think that's the only part City Council heard and cared about. It's an easy dub to tell constituents "you're not gonna pay a dime!". Unfortunately that's totally false, the project will, as you say, still be massively subsidized by public funds if it actually moves forward. The City will just see none of the financial rewards (if there are anyway) nor have democratic oversight over the project. And for a fucking soccer field, a sport nobody actually cares about in this country. This is genuinely the dumbest council Chicago has ever had made up of fake 'progressive' yuppies and corrupt dinosaurs. The other bit was about how they voted in unison to approve that new 'accessory dwellings unit' ordinance (there was no debate or dissent), how it's going to make housing more affordable despite plenty of evidence how such programs do absolutely nothing in that regard (see: California for instance, see the Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton administrations more generally). The ADUs simply give homeowners an opportunity to become landlords and improve their property values by relaxing regulations, thinking it's 'dignified housing' for a family to live in a hastily-built shack on someone's half acre property or in their one-window attic. I'm sure CHA is licking their chops about it especially because they won't have to lift a finger. https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-housing-authority-hud-transformation-plan Still waiting for CHA to rebuild all that housing they demolished near 30 years ago and promised to rebuild in a more 'humane' way. The best this progressive city can come up with is trickle down housing, 'granny flats', channeling public funds into the hands of billionaire investors in the hopes that, like, 20 'below market rate' units get built. North Side voters who live in a bubble definitely don't give a s%*#, they actually think they're being helpful. The policymakers have been brainwashed by 40 years of Ronald Reagan derived policymaking, that public investment is actually a nuisance and government only exists to facilitate the accumulation of investor/developer profit. 'Neoliberalism' is sort of a buzzword, but this is what it actually is in practice right before our eyes.

I think this Tatis grand slam seals the deal on The DBacks season. Reds and Mets going down to the wire, Mets are facing an easier team. I wonder what kind of deal Zac Gallen gets this offseason. ERA up to nearly 5. Wasn't that long ago he led the NL in WHIP and posted a 2.5 ERA. His trajectory is kinda Cease-esque, good one year bad the next. Both will be interesting UFA's. Both are traditionally healthy. I wonder if they sign 1 year deals.

I asked rhetorically 'what would you have thought about the GM of the 2014 Astros at the time?" It's easy to say things with hindsight. It's semi-amusing that his 'pre-success' resume sounds a bit like Getz. I reference Stearns that the Mets are fucking garbage and Getz literally made moves that Stearns should have made to address the flaw that might keep their $340mil roster out of the playoffs. You didn't seem to address either point. I guess you can't really address the rhetorical question, but simply ponder it. But you seem very certain how 'destined to fail' the White Sox are and you don't have much basis for it. I'd love to talk more about this but I have to leave!

genuinely illiterate

bro what

The resume is irrelevant though. We can compare side-by-side the moves the guy with the "great resume", David Stearns, has made with the Mets relative to Getz with the Sox. The Mets could've kept Vasil, Orze, might've signed Houser, might've even signed Michael A Taylor instead of trading for Jose Siri and would have a better team this year. Among other moves and wasted mega-expenditures. Stearns signed Soto, right, and retained some key players because of the massive budget. Any GM could've signed Soto to that team. If the Mets acquired pitchers like the Sox did, they're not fighting for the playoffs with a $340mil payroll. The good pitchers on their team (sans rookie McClean) are from the previous front office. The resume, "the past", isn't really the question. Tony La Russa has a great resume too, he's a Hall of Famer, how'd that work out for the Sox? The point is about how past success doesn't necessarily indicate future success. The Astros had Hahn-esque, recent-Sox type teams under Ed Wade, and the MLB team immediately got worse when they hired Luhnow. The MLB team was really bad for several years under Luhnow. Do you think posters on this board would care about his resume with the Cardinals when the Astros are bottomfeeding? And yet, look how it turned out for them. Speaking of those Cardinals teams, "Luhnow's hiring initially prompted skepticism, since he had no previous experience in baseball and had not played the sport since high school. He was derided with nicknames like "the accountant" and 'Harry Potter'". Sounds like somebody we know. They won 105 games the year prior to Luhnow taking over the scouting department and not many of his draftees made MLB before being hired by the Astros. Had some MILB championships (The Barons just won their second straight). He didn't have anything to with Yadier Molina for instance. He did draft Lance Lynn who debuted prior to be hiring by the Astros. Maybe reliever, proper MLB reliever, Joe Kelly debuted during his time there. Several other 'meh' MLB players whose names I don't remember joined the team and contributed to their WS team (83 wins) in un-meaningful ways. He opened an academy in the DR (something the Sox just did). His resume is essentially that of Chris Getz the farm director with less baseball experience. The actual point being made is that it took several years for the Astros to turn into a dynasty after being a terrible team for several years. Sox fans would've been calling for his head. Hiring Mike Elias would've been even more eye-rolling. I'm not sure that Getz is either one of those guys, I just don't think the argumentation checks out. Talk about what is being done in the present day in order to build an effective organization, not their "resumes". Rookies and first year coaches don't have a resume but everybody starts somewhere. Young people in the real world wouldn't ever get hired over people with a 40 years of experience or privileged brats who attended Ivy League universities because their parents forced them to study from day 1 or did 'extracurriculars' in the third world. Talent wins out over pedigree. Or it ought to (it typically doesn't except in sports). Harder for us in the peanut gallery to analyze that in baseball executives. But the signs are there. If the signs aren't actually there as I think they are, let's talk about it. I like to analogize Chris Getz to David Stearns because it seems like a very easy argument to make that Getz would've done a better job with this Mets team. Stearns could have hired Bannister or Venable over Mendoza (not sure either one is a good manager, but one was a hot commodity). Within the Sox, the organizational deficiencies have certainly been addressed...it's just, again, too early to say if it'll actually work. Are Fauske and Bonemer good picks? Will the new Dominican academy bear fruit when the Sox haven't operated there since that one guy was convicted by the feds for stealing from children/the org? Is Marco Paddy's replacement any good? Did the new Arizona facility actually help un-bust Colson Montgomery? Will an unsheathed Mike Shirley's draft picks do anything? tl;dr: pedigree is meaningless and so is the w/l record during a rebuild

So if you're the aforementioned 2013 Astros, you'd fire Jeff Luhnow and his scouting director, Mike Elias, right? You just lost 107, 111, 92 games after all. Were those guys really bad at their job? The Astros proceeded to win 311 games over 3 seasons (104 wins average). The Orioles hired that moron scouting director for some reason, proceeded to lose 108, go 25-35 (95 loss pace), 110 games...before winning 101 and 91. I don't know how baseball fans don't realize in their many years of watching the sport the timeframe in which teams are actually built. It's true of most sports. I can appreciate the emotional component of it certainly, the mlb-PTSD wrought by JR. I could appreciate the idea that Getz and co is drafting bad players and that the minor leaguers aren't developing. The only thought is the MLB team's W/L record which is short-sighted and simply a wrong mode of analysis. This is potentially an interesting debate/discussion where I'd love to be proven wrong. But, frankly, it's genuinely too early to say anything definitively. There are positive advances that many on this board harp on that fall on deaf ears. Things the White Sox did not used to do but are doing now. The sorts of thing that modern MLB teams do. I'm not sure if the fans who pay close attention to MILB think the sky is falling. I thought it was a fascinating take that "hiring a biomechanics staff was stupid". Weren't we all calling for that sort of thing in previous years? I think it's interesting that similar voices who thought Crochet/Montgomery were busts also think losing 100 games is a meaningful indicator of future success.

1969 Mets won the World Series. 2017 Astros won the World Series Orioles probably lose 100 games 4 seasons in a row if the third season isn't shortened due to COVID (60 games played, BAL was on pace to lose 95 anyway). Soon after, they won 101 and 91 games. TBD on the Rockies and Sox. Astros and Orioles seem to be the relevant point of reference. "Losing 100 games" doesn't actually matter in the long term.

sheesh, at least get in a run down, let Quero get to second.

oh look, Gilbert walks the lefty now he has to face Stanton. Davis could've done that. grand slam incoming. or a 3 run double. bad managing.

get over it. nobody is even looking at this thread. ostensibly they are watching important baseball games at this late stage in the season that might determine who enters and does not enter the postseason (like the $340mil loser mets).

hate pulling Martin in this situation

Cal Raleigh is doing some wacky things 'for a catcher', but Judge is simply better. This might be his best season. .331 average, .457 OBP. He's got nearly 200 OPS points on Cal. At least 41 OPS+ points (we'll see how the night ends).

Oh I just watched the play. Dansby caught it by third base, then fell out of play/into the net. Threw it home and would've gotten Lindor by a mile. But both baserunners were simply given the base.

double post

sorta just glancing at this play-by-play, but how does something like this even happen? how far is Dansby ranging to catch a foul ball that runners at both 2nd and third are advancing? maybe the run scores, but how does speed demon Alonso end up at third?

Martin has been on fire after a couple of jams. The one run that scored, Teel yelled at him "let it go foul" but it was probably the right play to just take the out.

sorry I couldn't watch it. but hey, we get one last futuresox game thread out of it! Thanks, BamaDoc for always posting these threads. See ya next year.

welp, didn't see that coming... imagine throwing Michael A Taylor's HR ball back onto the field. Dumb fan.

Also the next guy up, Meidroth, is 0 for his last 13 😬

They just claimed him from Miami. Benintendi and Tauch both to the IL.

yeah, but in retrospect, unless Taylor hits a double or something, I think you'll take 1 run with the bottom of this order up against an elite pitcher.

tbh that actually seems like the play with those two guys due up and K machine Michael A up. It resulted in a run and it otherwise probably would have been zero. it's not like it's .850 OPS Perdomo bunting with 0 outs.