flavum

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jul 12, 2012 -> 09:17 AM) 6 games vs Tigers in September. I think it comes down to that. 7 of the last 32.

Other. I think the Sox play better because they're going to add a starting pitcher, they have Youkilis for another 77 games, and I think the offense will convert Peavy's quality starts to wins at a higher rate than they did in the first half. Plus 27 of the 77 games are against the Royals and Twins. Sox need to crush these teams. Nothing worse than 17-10 vs Min and KC. I wouldn't be surprised if the Sox go 46-31 the rest of the way for 93 wins.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2012 -> 12:15 PM) They won't go to fewer divisions. The whole idea is for more teams to be able to use "champions" on their t-shirts and marketing. Yeah, I know that has a lot to do with it. Maybe dorks need to stop buying Division t-shirts and hats and just wait until they win the ALCS or NLCS. I noticed the hats last year just said "MLB Playoffs", instead of what division was won. Wonder how those sold?

QUOTE (Knoxville Sox @ Jul 12, 2012 -> 09:05 AM) With 30 teams it just makes it difficult to split things up evenly since that 30 is split 16/14. Given Houston's move next year to the AL will help remedy that. I would like to see them maintain 6 divisions with 5 teams. Take the 3 Divisional winners and 3 Wild Cards from each league. The top 2 overall teams get a 1st round bye. Wild Card Round – Home field advantage to higher seed team. AL1 – Bye AL2 – Bye AL3 vs. AL6 – 3 game series AL4 vs. AL5 – 3 game series The debate here in my opinion is how do you handle the 3 game sequence. 1st two games @ higher seed and a Game 3 at the lower seed? 1st game @ lower seed and last 2 at home for the higher seed? Divisional Round AL1 vs. AL 4/5 AL2 vs. AL 3/6 5 game series – 2, 2, 1 League Championship Divisional Series winners in a 7 game series as usual and then onto the World Series as usual with 7 game series. This only pushes the postseason 1 week out. Last year's WS was played October 19-28th. If played out as mentioned above, I had the WS projected from October 28 - November 4th. If they ever expand it to 6 teams per league making the playoffs, I think they need to ditch divisions altogether. Stack the leagues, play a balanced schedule (or real close to balanced), and seed them 1-6. If they shortened the season by 4 games, they can fit in a best-of-3 with the 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5. What they could do, is just have the top seeds host the entire series. The 5th and 6th seeds would have to go into their ballpark and win the best-of-3. The problem is teams hate sitting for 4-6 days without playing. So if a 1- or 2-seed got knocked off in the first round, they're automatically going to blame the days off whether it had a role in their losing or not. And as far as November baseball, MLB doesn't want it...but Fox forces them. Game 7 of the World Series should always be scheduled for the last Thursday in October, and have the rest of the schedule built backwards from there.

Humber will pitch Game 1 of the doubleheader tomorrow in Birmingham. Rain in the forecast.

AAA all-star http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...pcaaaa_ilaaaa_1 Birmingham- PPD Winston-Salem-Walters http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...wswafa_myrafa_1 Great Falls- Brennan http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...grfrok_ogdrok_1 Bristol rained out

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 02:08 PM) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Ventura Era. We don't talk like that anymore.

The Road Trip: Quintana vs Chen Peavy vs Hochevar Sale vs Mendoza Floyd vs Cook Humber vs Lester Quintana vs Doubrant Peavy vs Morales Sale vs Verlander Floyd vs Porcello Humber vs Smyly This rotation assumes Floyd is #4 and Humber comes back, and Porcello and Smyly go in this order. The rest is pretty firm.

Kannapolis- Devenski http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...kanafx_lexafx_1 DeMichele 0-4? How dare he.

QUOTE (kev211 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 12:44 PM) There is literally no chance this happens. The MLB will make sure that both the Yankees and Red Sox can get in every year. How did that work out last year? How is that going this year? How does the new system with the potential 2nd best team having to win an extra game help the Yankees or Red Sox? The new playoff system hurts the Red Sox more than anyone. And the new CBA draft rules knocked them down even more. It's time fans start realizing the Red Sox aren't as good as they were, even if they still get the attention from ESPN. The Red Sox can pay to compete every year, but them making the playoffs as much as they did, is over.

No. You can't have divisions of four teams. One is bad enough. If you have 8 divisions of four teams, too many bad teams will make the playoffs. The NFL has a bad system, but they can get away with it with only 16 games. With 162 games, you can't have 8 divisions of four teams.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 10:26 AM) It's not as easy as you might think. If you want to group division based on close location (I call it Hyper Regionalism), it falls apart pretty quickly. You end up with uneven divisions of 3,4 and 5 teams. The only way to do smaller, evenly number divisions is to add 2 expansion teams... which is a VERY bad idea. I actually have a Google Doc over about 5 different realignment scenarios and they all suck. Divisions of 5 each are actually easier and the fairest arrangement. Not necessarily. What if they make a West Division with the 8 teams in the Mountain/Pacific time zones, a Central Division with the 8 teams from the central time zone. And 2 East Divisions with 7 teams each from the eastern time zone. So it would be 4 Division winners, with 6 wildcard teams. Although by the time they do radical realignment, they'll probably be up to 12 playoff teams.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 10:08 AM) I know it sounds like a terrible idea to traditionalists, but what it would do is make the Sox much more visible to Cubs fans. Seeing the Sox above the Cubs in the standings all the time might chip away at that fan base . . . Honestly, I feel the opposite. I think having the Sox and Cubs in the same division would kill the Sox. We've already seen that these games don't sell out. Now you're going to add more Cardinals and Brewers, where those fan bases have embraced rivalries with the Cubs...they aren't going to come to USCF over Wrigley, like it or not. And as far as chipping away at the Cubs fan base, it's not going to happen. The Sox need to focus on the casual fan, and get more of them to the park. They have to find a way to make kids who don't have strong allegiance either way, to become Sox fans.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:56 AM) My belief is that eventually the NL will adopt the DH, and at that point the leagues will be eliminated and all the teams will be realigned geographically. I think the changes for 2013 are the first step, but there are apparently enough NL owners still resisting the change. That's what scares me. I feel like if they go to all DH, it opens that possibility of radical realignment. The Astros/Rangers thing is going to test this. If they ever have the Sox and Cubs play 18-19 games a year, I might be done with baseball. That would be jumping the shark in my book.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 09:34 AM) The whole 15-15, full season inter-league play thing is just stupid. Go all in and "dissolve" the league differences, or re-segregate the leagues again. Don't go half way. If they want to do inter-league play throughout the year, then do like the NBA does where you play ALL teams, but teams in your league and division are played more often. I don't see how interleague all season is a big deal. It's still 6 series. I think spread out over the season makes it easier to ignore. 7 NL, 7 AL, 1 IL- most of the time. Fine by me. And if they stuck with the Sox and Cubs playing 6 per season, they can have one series in April or May, and the other series in August or September. Having them back-to-back weeks or even back-to-back months is what makes it stale. If you split them 2-3 months apart it makes it better. Also, the once a decade Opening Day versus the Cubs would be kinda cool. Also, nobody should be complaining the Sox have 84 games in the city. All things considered, the Sox have the easiest travel schedule in MLB.

AAA All Star Game is on MLB Network tonight, if that floats your boat. I'll pass.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 10:37 PM) Am I the only one who finds the ASG for every sport just utterly boring? The All Star Game is a lot like the regular season. A lot of the games are boring. This was one of them. Dunn not playing? Don't care. 77 games left. 44-33 we're playing in the postseason.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 01:05 PM) If you mean they should have the same rule year-round, that's fine, but you can't expect the NL to have pitchers bat during intra-league play and then have a DH for every game in inter-league play. That would be unfair. I do like the idea of flipping to using the away team's rules though--gives fans of AL teams a chance to see their pitchers (try to) hit at home games. No, I said the middle game of each interleague series would be the opposite league's rule. That means if they play 6 interleague series, the AL and NL would still play 9 games with a DH, just not all in one chunk, or a full week at a time. Obvioulsly starting next year, that won't be as much of an issue because it will be spread out throughout the season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 12:34 PM) Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan Going to discuss the possibility of NL/DH and AL/pitchers hitting with Joe Torre this offseason. That makes chances of it happening good. Bud Selig says he likes the idea of using the DH in NL parks and the pitcher hitting in AL parks during interleague games. If they're going to do anything different, they should make the middle game of each 3-game interleague series the opposite league's rules. That way a DH doesn't sit for 3 days straight, and if they have back-to-back series in NL parks, it won't be a full week of sitting. On the larger issue if they should have same rule, either all DH or neither, it should be DH in both. Pitching is so specialized now, even with younger players. The investment in pitching is bigger than ever to risk injury hitting. And pitchers just can't hit well, and it's bad for entertainment. To those who cite the "strategy" of NL baseball, you'll get over it, and the younger fans will never miss what they never had after a couple years.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 12:37 PM) Jerry Crasnick ‏@jcrasnick Bud Selig says it's "inexcusable" that Rays rank 29th in the majors in attendance. So move them. Simple as that. Either get them in a new park where it's safer and more accessible, or move them to a city that can support them.

QUOTE (Cali @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 12:26 AM) So Hawkins is already a bust. 24 K's in 77 AB's. (I'm joking but I assure you some people on this board already do think he's a Bust) I don't care what he does this year. He's probably trying to do too much. He's probably homesick. He's probably played more baseball in a short period of time than he has in his life against the best competition. This is where the attention an 18-year-old gets is completely unfair. 20 years ago, a guy got drafted and you didn't know his stats until the season was over...or you really had to look for it.

Birmingham- Arroyo vs Ben Sheets http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...biraax_msbaax_1 Winston-Salem- Petricka http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...lynafa_wswafa_1 Bristol- Sanchez http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...brirok_gvlrok_1 Great Falls- Parrent http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...bilrok_grfrok_1

AL Player of the Week.

If they just go 1-2-3-4-5 the rest of the season, starting with the second start after the break, each starter will pitch on four days rest 8 times, and five days rest 6 times...and then the 1-2 starters on 4 days rest for the last two games of the season if they need it. If it's Quintana, Peavy, Sale, Floyd, and then the 5th starter, the second and third Detroit series and the Yankees series will be Quintana, Peavy, Sale. Game 161 is Quintana, 162 is Peavy, and 163 is Sale, if needed. I like all of this, and I hope they don't get rained out, skip anyone, or go to a 6-man.

I don't know if Peavy going to the AS Game changes things now, but I have a feeling it's Quintana on Friday. Quintana Peavy Sale Floyd Humber (if he's ready)