2020 MLB Season Thread

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ericjackson/status/1287750533638430723

Tonight's Marlins-Orioles and Yankees-Phillies games have been canceled.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Some comments after watching a few games so far:

The rust is showing on a lot of players.  I don't recall ever seeing so many baserunning mistakes and fielding errors (and really awful ones, e.g. totally misplaying what should be an easy fly ball to the outfield).

I think I like the new extra-inning rule with each team starting with a runner on second.  It certainly livens things up.

I definitely like the three-batter rule for relief pitchers.

I'm not crazy about the DH being introduced to the NL, but I suppose that was inevitable.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/WCVB/status/1289667334420836352

[GeorgiaModerate]

And another one bites the dust.

The Cardinals went to a casino didn't they?

Proving that they didn't understand risk, on more than one front.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Congrats to Mariners along with Tampa Bay and Toronto Blue Jay's, whom share the team colors, they are the minor leaguers of the MLB and will never win a Wrld Series. If there is consolidation which will have to be considered due to ongoing Pandemic,  wouldn't mind seeing all 3 teams cut

The Blue Jay's have already won a World Series... Twice.

Tampa Bay is one of the best teams in the American League, and well yea the M's suck.

Listen, here: if OC says the Blue Jays have never won a World Series, then the Blue Jays have never won a World Series. If OC says Tampa Bay sucks, then they suck.

Who do you think you are, challenging the word of Atlas' lord & savior!?

I must have missed the memo saying OC is the lord and savior of this forum, given the lack of speaking in any intelligible language, let alone English.

FWIW, I put OC on Ignore ages ago and haven't regretted it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29797239/tom-seaver-hall-fame-pitcher-mets-legend-dies-75

Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, who led the New York Mets to an improbable World Series victory in 1969, has died at age 75.

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced that Seaver died Monday from complications of Lewy body dementia and COVID-19.

RIP to Tom Seaver, probably the greatest player the Mets ever had (Nolan Ryan doesn't count because the Mets traded him away when he was still young.)

You mean it wasn't Marv Throneberry?

As a side note, all Mets fans (or any baseball fans) should read Now Wait A Minute, Casey, Maury Allen's hilarious book about the early days of the Mets (if you can find it).

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here's one of those weird baseball oddities: power hitter Freddie Freeman of the Braves had never hit a grand slam in his 10 years in the major leagues -- until last Friday night, when his 233rd career homer was his first grand slam.

Today he hit his 234th career homer -- and his second grand slam.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Braves just scored 11 runs in the bottom of the 2nd.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Braves just scored 11 runs in the bottom of the 2nd.

The game wound up being the first ever MLB game to finish 29-9, marking the first time in 21 years that a never-before-seen final score was recorded.

Wildest game I've ever seen. 

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Braves win 1-0 on a walkoff hit by Freddie Freeman in the bottom of the 13th!  What a game!

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Central divisions went a combined 0-7 in the Wild Card Round.  That brings up an interesting point of why the expanded playoffs were so important.  This season, the MLB was, practically speaking, 3 separate leagues (East, Central, and West), with no cross over, so we had no way of comparing region to region in the regular season.  There were three objectively terrible teams in the Central pod, arguably the three worst teams in baseball this season.  That allowed the other 7 to get into the playoffs even though the postseason results suggest that the Central teams were probably all overrated.  The Yankees, Astros, and Marlins all won series even though they would have missed the playoffs with a normal format at the expense of extra teams from the Central.

The AL Top 8 wound up being pretty cut and dry, so I doubt it would have changed, but the Giants and Phillies have real gripes that maybe they would have had a better record than some of the Central teams if a normal schedule was played.  But, the point of the expanded playoffs was to counteract that, so no one can say they weren't given a shot.

The flameout of all the Central teams has left a lineup that has a pleasing symmetry:

AL West #1 vs. AL West #2
AL East #1 vs. AL East #2

NL West #1 vs NL West #2
NL East #1 vs NL East #2

[GeorgiaModerate]

Braves are gonna beat Marlins, sweep 3/0  first 2 are in Atl😃😃😃

They're all in Houston.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Dodgers are pathetic.

Counterpoint: the Braves are really good.