MLB Topic 2 (since the original is broken)

[Lurch1982]

The races:

AL East: Yanks are back in first, should be the favorite to take it due to Boston getting banged up. Tampa can make up some room: They need to keep winning series, hope the Yanks/SOx beat each other up, and then take a few games from each. Its doable, but its going to be hard. The Jays are going to be selective sellers. I don't know if they'll get enough for Halladay. They might move some fielding pieces (Scott Rolen). Baltimore is supposed to cut salary significantly.

AL Central: You'll have a better idea next week. CHW and DET have a HUGE 4 game series starting today. After that CHW play 3 against Minnesota. Depending on what CHW does will determine if they buy or sell at the non-waiver deadline. Cleveland is shopping Victor Martinez and possibly Cliff Lee. KC is rumored to be shopping Mark Tehan.

AL West: LAA should have no problems to the postseason. Texas and Seattle are in the right position to make additions at the deadline and push for the WC or--if they're really lucky--the division. Oakland already started selling today: They shifted Matt Holliday to STL for a king's ransom of prospects.

NL East: Phillies race to lose. Atlanta needs more help to catch up, and I don't know if they'll make hte move. Expect Florida to shed out any larger contracts or players about to hit arbitration. Washington is supposed to shed any player over 30, while selectively keeping some better ones. Dunn may or may not be on the block (my bet is next year). Nick Johnson will likely get moved. The Mutts are the disgrace of the league. With their payroll, they should be able to tard up to .500. They've been out for a while, and I think they may be too retarded to try to firesale the healthy old pieces they have left.

NL Central: Yesterday, I said this division would go to whoever made a huge trade. The Cards did that this morning by trading their top prospects out to Oakland for Matt Holliday. This gives them legit lineup protection for Pujols and this should be enough to allow them to pull away. The Cubs have faced too many injuries (losing Ramirez for half the year caused them serious problems) and two key players not producing (Bradley and Soriano). Their only chance is that Bradley and Soriano wake up and the offense starts producing runs. Cubs as of yesterday: if they score 3 or fewer: 5-36 vs if they score 4 or more: 41-9. If their bats wake up to match the solid SP they've used, they could make a run against the Cards. Milwaukee and Houston are pretenders. They both have negative runs scored/runs against ratios (Cards and Cubs are positive), and neither have solid SP rotations while having massive holes in the lineup. The Astros need to add someone to the hitting lineup to balance out the bottom half. The top half is extremely solid (Berkman though he went to the DL yesterday, Lee, Pence, and Tejada), one middle/bottom guy (Pudge), and a bunch of crap that quite honestly should be bench players. They need a top tier pitcher other than Oswalt (no, Wandy doesn't count) that can keep runs down. MIL needs a few moves, and even then I don't think its enough. THey're practically the same team last year, except they don't have two top quality starters (CC and Sheets) and they're missing Bush and Weeks to the DL. Cincy managed to die after the ASG, and they should start selling pieces to get into place for next year. Pittsburgh will continue to sell off parts for no good reason.

NL West: LAD should run away with this. SF and COL are making an interesting WC chase, but neither is real IMO. I don't think either will make significant moves (SF due to the owner dying, COL due to the owner being a total cheapskate). I give the edge to SF, but I'm not convinced that the WC will come from here. Arizona should selectively sell parts to get prospects. SD should, well, who knows. Anyone desirable is hurt. They should just take a BOHICA attitude towards the next season as they're totally ****ed up right now.

The NL wild card is still open to half the league. Legit players: Cubs/Cards, Brewers/Astros (if they make a move), COL, SF, ATL, maybe FLA.

AL wild card is BOS, TB, TEX, SEA, maybe 2nd place ALC (doubtful since I think if a team falls back, they're firesaling).

[Crazyswordsman]

^You know, of all your talking about me making up demeaning nicknames for teams, you're a bit hypocritical calling my team the Mutts, but that's what I call them now too. Doesn't mean I'll stop rooting for them. -CSM

[Lurch1982]

The only nicknames I have are Mutts (which I only use when they're either fake or terrible, which they've been both in the last few years) and White Sux (because I'm a Cubs homer), both of which (1) make sense and are (2) easy to understand even if you haven't seen them before. You use **** that borders on esoteric that even hardcore sports fans don't pick up on.

But yeah, the Mets are a total mess right now and I don't think they'll be able to fix it for at least another season. I feel bad for their fans.

[Panfan]

all i use are skankees and red sux, basically

[PONIES]

i will be amazed if boston wins the wild card.

[Deku Trii]

I don't want to hear any Wandy hate, Lurch.

[Lurch1982]

Wandy and the Astros suck more than the Cubs right now. And that's sad since the Cubs stopped playing any meaningful ball at the allstar break.

The races going into the last month.

The Yanks are back. Book the first World Series in the House that Tex built. Tex should be your AL MVP. The Red Sox are jamming the panic button so hard that the button broke. They just got Wagner from the Mutts. Won't help them.

The Central looks like it actually might go down to the last week. Detroit has the edge on pitching. The White Sox have too many ****ty starters and bad contracts. The Peavy trade is more for next year than now, but Peavy could put them over the edge if he can get back early enough to make up 3.5 games. The Twins are trying to surge back, but I don't think they're legit.

The West is the Angels. I don't know if Texas can make up the games to catch LAA, but I do think they'll be in the WC hunt down to the wire. I give them the edge over Boston.

The NL East is the Phillies show. Cliff Lee to Philly is the baseball equivalent of sending Gasol to the Lakers. They're going to try to make a defense, and I really like their chances. Florida doesn't have the pieces to catch up, and Atlanta isn't consistent enough. Both are essentially out of the WC race. The Mutts just want the season to end. Johan just went to the DL for the season with bone chips.

The Central is Cardinals territory. Holliday pushed them over the edge, and makes them deadly in the playoffs. The concern is the pitching, but they're less reliant on that since Holliday has been hitting the crap out of the ball since joining. The Reds and Pirates still suck. The Astros are trash, made no moves at the deadline, and still have atrocious pitching that wastes the potential the lineup has. The Cubs are more or less out of it. Their schedule in the last month is very light, but they'd need to pretty much sweep the Pirates, Reds, and Nationals and hope for 2/3 from everyone else to even have a chance. Also hope STL has a slowdown, since they only have three more games. Its possible, but possible in the same sense that a team can come back from being down 3-0 in a 7 game series.

The West is a lot closer than it should be. The series this week between the Dodgers and Rockies will basically determine the last month. Either way, Jim Tracy is your manager of the year. The Rockies look scary, but I don't think they're legit because their pitching is so terrible. Marquis is not good and his wins are bloated from playing in Coors Canaveral. Their runs away are significantly lower than at home. If the Rockies have to travel on the road for the playoffs, especially to STL or LAD (in the CS), they're not going to win. Even Philly might annihilate them because of superior pitching. The Giants looked better last week, but then they choked up in Coors Canaveral and dropped back several games in the WC. They can still catch them, but they need to hope for a LAD asswhipping of COL this week.

Playoff calls as of right now:
AL: NYY(1) vs TEX(WC); DET(3) vs LAA(2)
NL: PHI (1) vs. COL(WC); LAD(2) vs STL(3)

[Metal Man]

Huh. My Dad's confident the Dodgers will pitch their lead away. Just curious, what's your take on how they'll keep their lead, Lurch?

(Of course, my Dad seems to be good at making mistakes with things like this, so I'm not surprised if he is missing some basic fact in all of this)

[Deku Trii]

I'm not defending the Astros as a team and you know it. Wandy, however, has become a badass.

[Lurch1982]

Originally Posted by Metal Man

Huh. My Dad's confident the Dodgers will pitch their lead away. Just curious, what's your take on how they'll keep their lead, Lurch?

(Of course, my Dad seems to be good at making mistakes with things like this, so I'm not surprised if he is missing some basic fact in all of this)

They went into Coors Canaveral and took the series. If the Rockies can't beat them in Coors, they have no shot in beating them in LA. They're up 4 games on the Rockies and 7 on the Giants. The last month for the Dodgers is a bunch of SD, Ari, Pitt, Washington, and six against the Giants. In other words, they only play six games against a team with a winning record. Actually, they're only playing six games against a team that's better than 20 under .500. If the Dodgers collapse, it will be more epic than the Mets in the last few years. I just don't see it happening because I don't see any of the teams they play beating them enough. If the Giants sweep them out, the race might go down to some three-way horror story ala the Big XII last year, but even that's an outside shot as it would take the Giants and Rockies staying on pace.

Dodgers also have the lowest staff ERA and lowest staff run totals in the NL, and the second lowest HR totals. Again, they would need a combination of injuries and an epic collapse to fall out of the West at this point. The Rockies series increased their lead over COL to 4 games with no games left against the Rockies, and they have the easiest schedule remaining out of the three teams left in the NL West.

One thing to look at the NL West is if any of the teams land guys through the waiver trade system. Apparently Rich Harden was claimed by someone in the NL today, so there's a chance that someone in the NL West can make a run at landing him in the next 72 hours.

Originally Posted by Deku Trii

I'm not defending the Astros as a team and you know it. Wandy, however, has become a badass.

Unfortunately, Oswalt had a string of bad-luck starts and the rest of the staff is beyond atrocious. I feel bad for the Astros because they're going to pay out of the nose to retain Wandy after a career year. If they don't, some other team will get saddled with overpaying him. I really don't think he's as legit as his numbers suggest.

But considering how badly the Cubs are playing, the Astros might be in the running for first loser in the NL Central.

[Joker]

GO DODGERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Metal Man]

Hopefully they'll beat the Cards this time around. At least then they will have gotten somewhere.

[Crazyswordsman]

Just about the worst possible ending to the worst season in some time.

(Go ahead, Lurch, laugh at me. You've earned it).

Basketball's starting soon though, so I have that to look forward to. -CSM

[Deku Trii]

As an Astros fan, I felt a special privilege to have known how Game 4 of this WS was going to play out as soon as Lidge let someone on after easily recording 2 outs.

[Metal Man]

And the Dodgers lost to the Phillies again.

Curse you, Phillies.

[PONIES]

about 2 weeks late, but whatever

[Metal Man]

Better late than never.

</Cliche>

[Darkknight11]

The Blue Jays lead the MLB in HRs wow!