nrockway

Weird bullpen management this series. The starter King only goes 1 inning despite looking good? Why did Darvish start over him in the first place? Miller and Saurez throwing a combined 45 pitches in game 2 also strikes me as a curious choice... Also, why are the announcers having an orgasm about Swanson making a routine play? "He's everywhere!" No, he's standing at shortstop and the ball was hit directly to him.

I was just thinking that Brooks could've made that play lol. JK, that ball was ripped, Statcast said it had a .720 expected batting average. But Sheets did indeed look silly.

1.54 ERA in 35 IP is simply good. I noted the peripherals (in low volume). His stuff is absolutely the same as it has been. Not using him in place of rookies/second year players would be a mistake. And I find it doubtful if he does actually return. He pitched 4 games in the World Series last year and closed out 1, below in the bullpen behind Treinen. I find it unlikely that Blake Treinen is the high leverage choice before he is this postseason. This season, post September, Yates/Treinen/Scott were getting that closer role before he was. All three of those guys suck/collapsed/can't be trusted. I think they all actually have negative WAR (checking: they have -0.6, -0.6, -0.5 bWAR). Sasaki probably gets the 'closer' role before Kopech does I would think. But I might say with confidence that Kopech is a very useful pitcher to LAD in some capacity, probably a high leverage one...again, assuming he returns.

I think Roberts will play him if he's healthy. Even in a lower leverage role, he helps their bullpen considerably. As far as righties go, I think he gets a spot before Henriquez or Sheehan. Maybe not Roki if he's truly just a bullpen piece these playoffs. Sasaki and Kopech seem a lot a alike to me in terms of their stuff. I mean, he pitched some important innings in the World Series. If the starters they're relying on blow up, there's plenty of room for all of them. This is assuming Kopech is even ready to go in time. Treinen as a closer just feels like playing with fire. The guy has just not been good this year, but I think you're correct in that Roberts trusts his veterans.

Why not? He's way (way) better than Treinen and much more tested than Henriquez or Roki. Kopech was excellent in his limited time this year. He was very good for them in the postseason last year en route to a WS. Well, the peripherals aren't so great, but his stuff is as good as ever. I think Mikey figured something out after he was relegated to the bullpen/traded.

I definitely thought the worst team ever might've been semi-competitive if everyone played to their utmost potential. Robert, Eloy, Moncada, Benintendi, etc. producing like they had in the past. That clearly didn't happen and the shame could've fried the egg all over my face. Bump whatever thread I discussed that and I would think "aw, whoops".

Right, if their starters can't go deep, they might be in trouble. They had two great outings from their starters in a 3 game series. Might not have the same fortune against the Phillies offense across 5 games. Wonder if our old friend Kopech will be back from injury, he will certainly help.

Despite their regular season record, I think the Dodgers are by far the best team in MLB. They definitely overmatched the Reds whose pitching was never that good to begin with, but collapsed regardless and never had much of an offense. LAD's offense is too high-powered. I think they will do the same to the Phillies unless it turns into a slugfest. But the Dodgers starting pitching is all healthy and converting Kershaw and Sasaki to high leverage relievers might be the difference maker in such games. Ya never knows what happens in the MLB playoffs, small samples and all, but I wouldn't bet against them. If the Yankees can beat Boston, I suspect they are the team to beat in the AL.

Brother, I haven't seen a post of yours in months that wasn't a troll post. One or two sentences, dismissive, seemingly 'holier than thou'. No real analysis. Nothing in good faith. Nothing kind. God forbid I respond to a thread regardless of its date. Some forums have a policy to lock threads after a certain date. You have that power. Since that wasn't the case, I replied to it! I think you appreciate the discussion or you wouldn't have replied four times. Others seem to be replying to it as well considering it's the offseason and there isn't much to talk about besides "this team sux" and Garrett Crochet objectively rocks. I'd consider it a useful bump or else nobody would've replied to it. I made a serious thread a few weeks ago hoping to prompt discussion and nobody replied to it, aw shucks. I'm certainly not "laughing" at anyone. It isn't that serious. It's a bat and ball game. We're all fans of a team that is historically not very good and the more marginal team in our city of residence. The idea is that some might reflect on their emotionally-driven tirades and make more thoughtful posts in the future. Maybe a silly idea. You act as though I can control people's ways of thinking whereas we've recently determined that you admins control the weather, stalk posters, are possibly non-human entities, etc. I tend to think the admins are the ones to facilitate discussion and not relatively new users. You have more power over this matter than I do. Genuinely, the discussion was interesting and there are a lot of posts that made no sense even at the time. I suspect time will progress and posts made over the past year will look similarly as misinformed. I'm mostly intrigued by the idea that Crochet could never be a starter because of his limited experience/injury history. I think it's akin to Montgomery being called a bust and now this talk of Noah Schultz. Jury is still out on Schultz or if Montgomery can repeat his awesomeness. I purposefully didn't quote any of your posts because I thought it might offend you, but it seemingly did regardless. I was trying to avoid conflict! You didn't have to respond, my friend!

Oh. Interesting anecdotes and not surprising, but I'm always skeptical when people I've never heard of air out their grievances like this on social media. Especially because this guy hasn't played baseball in over a decade. According to his Wikipedia page, he only played within 6 MLB orgs and never found a role. I wonder if his top 5 will entail los Sultanes de Monterrey or 統一7-ᴇʟᴇᴠᴇn獅.

no I don't. maybe you could explain it to me, "no fat chicks" guy

when do I tell people what to say or think lul I can be quoted as saying something along the lines "it would be boring if there weren't disparate viewpoints". I constantly disagree with caulfield and I think he's an awesome dude. you seem to have that bullying instinct though.

didn't this guy play for the Windy City Bulls for, like, 10 days? 3 time slam dunk champion

Fangraphs gave him 2.3 WAR, baseball-reference gave him 1.5.

ESPN has the absolute worst broadcasts. Last night, they cut away from an Ohtani lead off home run to show a WNBA talkshow. Later on, they were showing a replay while Tommy Edman was hitting a home run. Tonight, I'm simply annoyed by the dumbass broadcasters. Trevor Story had a pretty good game and the room temperature IQ broadcaster thought he was very clever talking about Story's "storyline season" (get it?)...except the dude put up .740 OPS this year after a couple of years putting up .900+ OPS and is one of the most overpaid/oft-injured players in baseball. Hardly a storyline season. Maybe he meant it's like the tenku in the Japanese kishōtenketsu four-act play structure, a "twist" of sorts, but I sort of doubt it. I think the guy simply couldn't resist the lowest brow play on words imaginable regardless of whether or not it made sense. Worse than Schriffen.

Hiring Stearns has been an unabashed failure. Eppler was clearly better at the job. I wonder if it's a coincidence that the Brewers took a step forward after Stearns left and they hired Eppler as a 'special advisor'. Also, feel like it's simply karma that the criminal racketeer/inside trading owner isn't being rewarded for his ill begotten gains. Yes, none of these owners earned their money ethically, but this guy has got to be the biggest sleezeball in MLB.

This point is frankly outdated. The savvy owner doesn't even want public money outside of grants (free money). All of these billionaire bozos aren't doing private financing out of the kindness of their own hearts. They just want to reap all of the profits and not have to share in it. These ventures actually make money nowadays compared to 30 or 40 years ago. The public return on investment is generally good, although it depends how the project is done. It shouldn't be viewed as a 'public subsidy' but rather as an investment that derives more tax revenue than is spent. I'm skeptical about the Fire deal because it seems like the alderpeople are not even thinking about the TIF investment for a soccer team that nobody watches. I suspect once they figure it out, it will halt construction. There is actual tax revenue to be derived from these projects, we talk about it with the 'ballpark village' concept. Many cities are reaping benefits from it. JP Morgan et al is a better source of financing for these billionaires because JP Morgan doesn't demand democratic oversight or ask for non-profitable concessions like a PUD might. Private financiers demand a return on their investment but not in the way the public does. They don't take an ownership stake in the facilities like the City/State might. The Royals totally bungled their past stadium proposal because their owners follow in an outdated mode of thinking unlike the Braves ownership. Braves stadium public funding never went to a vote but received public funds in a roundabout way akin to TIF. The Fire are hoping to follow in this path I reckon, I hope alderpeople are savvy enough to see through it. So far they are not. I already wrote a letter to my alder about it, but she strikes me as already not stupid in this regard. The Fire stadium is such a bad idea and it'll be a miracle if it actually gets built. I guess that makes me a NIMBY.

There's a constant tone of negativity on this board and it's typically misguided/not rooted in anything factual. I don't understand the urge of being a dick on the internet especially to fellow baseball/White Sox fans. No one's pounding their chest, I just used the SoxTalk search feature to look at opinions of Crochet after he made a terrific postseason start. And found many of the remarks quite amusing and not surprising. The bullies are typically as wrong as they are uninsightful. I don't take it as seriously as you seem to. I'll bump the Montgomery thread eventually. Maybe one of the Schultz threads in a few years. Also, notably, people keep re-bumping this thread to be like "why are you bumping this thread?" lol. Y'all could just ignore it. Or lock it. Or continue to talk about the same fuckin thing in every thread "boo hoo this team is bad". Like get a new bit. Is the entire offseason gonna be whiny like this?

Precisely, people make emotion-fueled arguments that tend to defy reason and sound judgement. Wouldn't trust the ability to make a reasonable evaluation about the sport. Find it curious as to why people are so interested in ragebaiting themselves. I'm not sure if that was the point you were trying to make.

I mean the guy just torched the Yankees and threw 120 pitches and the Sox were apparently stupid for even trying him as a starter. Amusingly, it's a similar cast of voices in the 10 concurrent threads whining about the Sox. I was looking at old threads about Crochet in light of his awesome postseason start and the comments in them were genuinely baffling...although not necessarily surprising. People just like to whine.

Snell is lights out. 1 hit, 1 walk, 70 pitches through 6. Usually he's at 100 pitches through 4.

these various Crochet threads are awesome

"self esteem" is Gen X coded. 1980s through and through. The Gen Z motto would just be nihilistic. ey bruh its only sports frfr 😭😭💦💦

why do they play postseason games at noon on a Tuesday?

nothing about this post makes any sense to me. starting with the lemon cookie, to 'tampering' to the implication that the sox are constantly tampering. is it a black sox reference? why a lemon cookie? is that even something people say? i don't think that's an expression.