2016 MLB Postseason Thread

Ah, c'mon dq. You know Bob Gibson could have pitched that game left-handed and destiny would have taken care of it.

On the matter of the cold and weather, the one thing I'd really like to see is MLB/Fox willingness to move the game up if playing it at night is going to be so miserable. I know that's too much to even dream, but it is by far the easiest solution.

 

Our best offensive player hasn't seen the field in ages. Our second best offensive player is a rookie. Our supposed-to-be-our-best-player has been pretty mediocre all year. The best offensive catcher in baseball is lost for the year.

Our second-best pitcher is basically done for the year, leaving Scherzer and Roark, who have been very average the last few weeks.

And then after that .... you either get Gio, who isn't satisfied unless it takes him 90 pitches to get through four innings, or one of a host of rookies who occasionally look good, but mostly meh.

Oh, and we're talking about a D.C. sports team, which means collapse is inevitable.


Dodgers in four.

 

And the Dodgers have not been to the World Series in 28 years.

 

Fair enough on recent history. But just because we've been fortunate enough to have it not have been an issue, doesn't mean we can't look for ways to make sure it's never an issue. Or one day, we'll see a three or four day weather front come through some city and game 6 or 7 will pushing the second week of November.

 

A couple of pages late but:

Cherry picking an arbitrary endpoint like "last 16 starts" pretty transparently tells me that Arrieta was much better in any endpoint other than that exact one. His season would have made him a top-2 pitcher on most teams. It was not a bad season. It was a long way down from last season because last season was something only peak Pedro Martinez and Bob Gibson could touch. He was still well above-average.

And he will be going third for the Cubs behind Hendricks and Lester.

 

He'll be going against Bumgarner. He loses.

 

Either that or they could schedule eight doubleheaders for each team each season. Doubleheaders used to be scheduled regularly on Sundays. The problem is that games are now 3-plus hours rather than the 2 hours they used to be.

 

The ESPN exclusivity window would kibosh Sunday doubleheaders. As Tony says, three hour games mean that a doubleheader is close to seven hours in elapsed time. Many nightcaps (do miss that word) would bleed into ESPN's broadcast game. They could do some holiday doubleheaders. Days are longer for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, and there'd be no broadcast contract conflict.

 

The guy with the 4.15 career ERA in the NLDS?

Fair enough, as good a way as any to execute the gentleman's sweep

 

Never will happen, but they can do like college baseball and make the doubleheader games seven innings each

 

The Rangers are double-screwed. Day games at home for Games 1 and 2. And Joe West is the umpire crew chief.

 

Whether you go to 18 or 20 starts (which makes him look slightly better but still over 4.00) or go generally by months or split the season into thirds, it's clear he hasn't been a very good or a particularly long-lasting pitcher. Doesn't it seem far more likely that the Arrieta of June through September shows up rather than the Arrieta of April and May?