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MLB Off-Season 2011: Only a few more weeks until the radio talks about baseball again

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T

TheNatural

My Member!
Anyone have any suggestions for a quality AM radio? I need to get one before baseball season starts. Baseball on the radio > TV.
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
Windu said:
I think he means an actual radio, not a station.
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Yeah a physical radio, not a station.

Wouldn't mind listening to half the year on radio, then when mlb.tv has a discount later in the year like they did last year, going in on that.

http://slickdeals.net/f/3148590-MLB-tv-Premium-24-99-for-the-rest-of-2011-regular-season-YMMV

Going to watch for any early season promotions for free games though, since apparently that's who they gave the coupons for rest of season subscriptions to last season.
 
A

Analytical

Banned
Stolen! Matt Garza’s $30,000 Rays’ 2008 AL championship ring

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-b...535313.html;_ylt=AmUPAnGaCtVmKOaBmcM26q0RvLYF

Did someone put up a sign saying it's OK to steal Tampa Bay Rays stuff? The Fresno Bee put the word out Tuesday that the 2008 AL championship ring belonging to Matt Garza was stolen from his home in Fresno County, Calif.

This breaking-and-entering news comes less than a year after criminals burglarized the spring training Florida residence of Evan Longoria, David Price and Reid Brignac, stealing (among other items) Longoria's AK-47.

Stealing. From Joe Maddon's ballplayers. The nerve of some people.

Garza's 14k white gold ring, encrusted with 47 white and one yellow diamond, is valued at $30,000. So it's not the typical piece of jewelry a high-school junior might order through Jostens.

It's also personalized, engraved with Garza's name on the inside. I don't know how easy it is for someone to remove engraving from a ring, but unless Garza's name is taken off, the ring will be pretty tough to fence.

An especially neat detail of the ring: It includes Maddon's 9=8 formula on one side.

He's currently a member of the Chicago Cubs, but Garza was the MVP of the ALCS in '08, when the Rays advanced to their first World Series. Give him his ring back, dang it. He's not going to win one with the Cubs this season.

Hopefully, the sheriff in Fresno will have similar luck to the authorities in Florida, who made several arrests in the Longoria-Price-Brignac case.
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I had no idea players got ALCS rings.
 
V

vas_a_morir

Banned
Dude, what if we made the home team bat in the top half of the inning? It would really shake things up. Fans would love to see a different style of play at home!
 
L

Little Green Yoda

Member
ActStriker said:
But shouldn't you play by home park rules regardless?

Maybe do it for random exhibitions or something
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I'm not saying I agree with it (it negates some of the HFA and once IL play becomes spread out over the season, the chances this directly affects a stretch run in Sept. is quite likely). But it does make some sense even if I don't agree with it.

Claiming it's a slippery slope or that we might as well introduce more inane rule changes is ridiculous. The DH rule was introduced over 30 years ago. The slippery slope would have occurred then since that was a much more drastic change than what is being proposed now. And the rule split hasn't exactly hurt baseball.
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
MLB Network did some kind of formula for the top 10 LF production this coming year. It makes me feel better about the Reds LF situation looking at what else is out there:

1. Ryan Braun
2. Matt Holliday
3. Josh Hamilton
4. Carlos Gonzalez
5. Mike Morse
6. Alex Gordon
7. Josh Willinghm
8. Desmond Jennings
9. Brett Gardner
10. Carl Crawford


Hamilton has only averaged 114 games per year the past three years and if Braun's suspension is upheld that's 112 games at most.
 
L

Lambtron

Unconfirmed Member
Woah woah woah, where's Ben Revere? Looking forward to his zero patience, zero power approach in left this year!
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig continues to talk confidently about expanding the baseball playoff field in 2012. But sources tell ESPN.com efforts to make that happen remain bogged down, all because of one thorny little complication: the details.

Wednesday was supposed to be the day the commissioner's office finished a proposed schedule for the 2012 postseason and shipped it to the players' association for consideration. But sources told ESPN.com that deadline wasn't going to be met -- not because talks have broken down, but because fitting two extra wild-card pieces into the postseason puzzle has proven to be more involved than the commissioner has been willing to acknowledge.

The new Basic Agreement stipulates that the commissioner's office and the union need to decide by March 1 whether it will be possible to expand the playoffs this year. Both sides still believe that deadline can be met.

However, multiple sources continue to tell ESPN.com that it's not yet safe to say that adding two wild-card teams for 2012 is "pretty definite," as Selig suggested to USA Today this week.

Here are the major complications:

• The regular season is scheduled to end on a Wednesday (Oct. 3), and the World Series will start exactly 21 days later, on Oct. 24. It isn't feasible at this point to change either of those dates.

• The Division Series are now tentatively scheduled to begin Saturday, Oct. 6. So the schedule-makers have to figure out a way to jam two one-game wild-card showdowns, plus potential tiebreaker games and/or rainout makeup games, into the two days in between.

Keep in mind that it's now far more likely that there would need to be at least one tiebreaker game under this system. Because the difference between finishing first and being a wild-card team will now be so great, the two sides have agreed that it isn't fair to break those ties any way other than on the field.
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A lot more here:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7...-efforts-expand-2012-mlb-playoffs-sources-say

This is one big clusterfuck. Fuck this shit and fuck you Selig.
 
A

ActStriker

Member
They should just wait until they can tailor the schedule around it. There's no sense in trying to ram it in at the risk of the teams that would be involved.

But Selig gonna be Selig
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
ActStriker said:
They should just wait until they can tailor the schedule around it. There's no sense in trying to ram it in at the risk of the teams that would be involved.

But Selig gonna be Selig
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They should just not do it period. I wouldn't mind conditional playoffs where teams with a certain amount of wins and a certain amount of games back get a chance to play themselves in, but that's rare and doesn't happen often. It annoys me that a team can finish 7, 8 games above another team and lose ONE game and not make it in. They're really going to fuck up a team's playoff chances and what they do over 162 games for ONE game?
 
S

Sanjuro

Member
Adam Blade said:
Sylar was that annoying Rays fan, wasn't he?
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image.php
 
M

Madtown_

Member
ZeroRay said:
I think the entire value of going to the post season will be diminished somewhat with these new Wild Card rules. I thought the old ruled were close to perfect.
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The one thing adding 5th team does do is give extra incentive to win the division. I don't like the one game playoff that comes with it, though.
 
L

Little Green Yoda

Member
AnEternalEnigma said:
This x1000. If we had the extra wild card in 2011, that insane last day of the season would have never happened.
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But how many insane last days of the season in other years did we miss because we never had 2 wild cards? Hmmmm?

I don't mind the change if only because it makes the division title more important and punishes the WC teams. But I agree that brute forcing it in this year is stupid and unnecessary.

Madtown_ said:
The one thing adding 5th team does do is give extra incentive to win the division. I don't like the one game playoff that comes with it, though.
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I think a one game playoff is essential to avoid screwing over the division winning teams by having them sit around for half a week (or more) waiting for the WCs to duke it out. Plus, the one game playoff is urgent enough so that WC teams don't have the benefit of toying around with their rotation.
 
D

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
evil solrac v3.0 said:
can we just drop this extra wild card bullshit? it's basically rewarding teams for nothing. sorry but if you didn't make it in you didn;t make it in.
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On the contrary its just rewarding teams who actually win their division.

The playoffs are already a crap shoot. Now teams that don't actually win their division will have their fates decided by the most random possibility there is after a 162 game marathon it comes down to a 1 game playoff.

The new system actually rewards winning your division. The old one never did, so I'm a fan of the new one
 
D

Dmncnby2k9

Banned
I like the one game playoff. Should make for some nice moments and rewards the division leaders. Should not be added this year though.
 
C

clemenx

Banned
There can easily be 3 teams fighting for the 2nd wildcard or 5 teams fighting for the 2 spots. All of that stuff can still happen AND we get a 1 game playoff for sure after all that.

The only bad thing is if you don't like teams being added to the playoffs. But I love the 1 game playoff and the fact that winning the division is important.
 
R

RBH

Member
He’ll turn 40 in April, had surgery on each knee in the past two years, and has tired of speculation about when he’ll retire. But Chipper Jones is not tired of playing baseball.

Atlanta’s iconic third baseman is preparing for his 19th season with the Braves, and Tuesday he made it clear the 2012 season might not be his last.

“As long as I stay healthy and I’m having fun, I’m going to keep going,” he said before an informal hitting session at Turner Field. “I sit here with three weeks to go before spring training and I’m not ready to say this is it.”

Jones is entering the final guaranteed year of a contract that will pay $14 million in 2012. The deal includes a $7 million team option for 2013, which vests automatically at $9 million if he plays at least 123 games in 2012.

He played 126 games in 2011 despite a stint on the disabled list for arthroscopic knee surgery, which kept him out of the All-Star game.

The 2013 option has escalators that could add $1 million each for 128, 133, 138 and 140 games played in 2012. (Jones last played as many as 140 in 2009.)

He hit .275 with a .344 on-base percentage and .470 slugging percentage in 2011, well off the .304/.402/.533 career line. He had 18 homers and 70 RBIs; the only time he’s had fewer of either was 2010, when he had 18 homers and 46 RBIs in 95 games before season-ending surgery for a torn anterior cructiate ligament in his left knee.

However his 33 doubles in 2011 were his second-most since 2003 and his .814 on-base-plus-slugging percentage was third among National League third basemen.

Also, Jones’ .976 fielding percentage was second among major league third basemen.

“I still feel that I can go out and play a solid third base, which I did last year,” said the seven-time All-Star and former league MVP. “And I still feel like I can be productive in the middle of the lineup. If it’s the 3-hole or the 5-hole or the 6-hole — it doesn’t bother me where I hit.

“I think if I struggle with the knee injuries again and I’m not having any fun, and if the team’s struggling, obviously, I’ll make that [retirement] decision when it hits me. As of right now, I’m signed through the end of this year and we’ve got an option for next year. I’m certainly going to take everything into account, but my body will tell me when that day comes. It’ll be cut-and-dried.”

Jones thought his body might be telling him that in November, when he felt pain in his right knee playing in teammate Brian McCann’s charity softball tournament.

“I came out that thinking, I can’t play with my knee feeling like this,” he said. “And this was after a month [of rest]. I said I was going to give it till Jan. 1.”

He got another scare in November when he stepped in a hole in the dark while hunting on property he owns in Kansas, the second such incident in as many winters for the avid outdoorsman. Jones said he felt a pop in his knee and was so concerned that he flew back to Atlanta for an MRI.

He decided to wait and tell Braves officials after he got the MRI, figuring there was no need to worry them unless he had to. The MRI showed no damage and Jones said scar tissue was determined to be the likely cause of the pop and discomfort.

After resting his knee until Jan. 1, Jones said it felt good when he started hitting.

“As I was working out early in the offseason I was having a lot of trouble right-handed, just like I was at the end of the season,” he said. “Really getting down into the swing and using my legs, I couldn’t do that. It was still bothering me at Mac’s softball game. But I guess the six weeks staying off of it, getting back into the groove in January — I had all my faculties, all my abilities since Jan. 1.

“It feels good to be able to walk into the cage and be able to work on stuff, get myself into shape not having to worry about how my knee’s going to feel.”
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http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves...ast-season/?cxntfid=blogs_atlanta_braves_blog



182643_697038482443_31204713_38078908_3332953_n.jpg
 
D

Doytch

Member
The 2013 option has escalators that could add $1 million each for 128, 133, 138 and 140 games played in 2012. (Jones last played as many as 140 in 2009.)
Click to expand...
Cause he sure as hell couldn't use the stairs on those knees, AMIRITE??
 
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