2003 ML Baseball Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Kirk Tsai]

The Braves are amazing. There are some years, including this one, when people argued in the pre-season that they were no longer the favorites; but by the end of the season, they are always one of the first teams to clinch.

Gagne was bailed out today by a great relay throw. It was a two inning save, and he now has 78 innings for the year. That's too significant an advantage over Smoltz (61 inn.), I'd say, for Smoltz' to have a better showing in the Cy Young Award voting. I still doubt he'll beat Schmidt or Prior though.

 

[Shane Martin]

The Braves are amazing. There are some years, including this one, when people argued in the pre-season that they were no longer the favorites; but by the end of the season, they are always one of the first teams to clinch.

And one of the first teams to get the boot on the playoffs, but yes quite amazing if you think of it :p

I think they are due for a slow period but baseball's season is so long that I think it negates this type of effect unless the management of the team pretty much give up or trade away everything they have.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, not every team is always going to be hot going into the playoffs, and it seems that's what prevails in the postseason nowadays. Where are the Angels now? The Diamondbacks?

And given that stupid All-Star game stunt, even home field advantage got returned to the AL this year.

But that being said, no one really cares of about winning consistency. It's always about how many World Series a team wins, and that's fine. That's a legitimate criteria (of which, in the past 10 years, only the Yankees can lay claim to some semblence of dominance in baseball) to judge teams by.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Winning 12 straight division titles is a pretty staggering achievement.

Not denying it's an amazing achievement, but were they still in the West in '94, when Montreal was leading the East when the strike hit?

 

[Patrick_S]

Not denying it's an amazing achievement, but were they still in the West in '94, when Montreal was leading the East when the strike hit?

They were in the East that year and yes when the strike hit they were in second place. Since the season ended no titles were awarded and the streak was not interrupted.

 

[KurtW]

What are you guys thinking for Cy Youngs? MVPs? I give the NL CY to Mark Prior (how good is this guy going to get?), and the AL CY to Roy Halladay. I give the NL MVP to Barry Bonds and the AL MVP to A-Rod. NL ROY I'd say goes to Brandon Webb (anyone see his last start??) , AL ROY to Matsui (rookie my left ... anyway).

The only thing I see possibly changing is the NL MVP to Pujols if the Cardinals go on some amazing run and take the Central.

Boston and Chicago in the series!! (I would call into work sick for a week and a half to watch it too).

 

[Jason Seaver]

They were in the East that year and yes when the strike hit they were in second place. Since the season ended no titles were awarded and the streak was not interrupted.

Major League Baseball: Screwing Montreal over for a decade and counting!

 

[Marvin]

Winning 12 straight division titles is a pretty staggering achievement.

Indeed, though if it were the Yankees rather than the Braves that had done this, there would be the usual grumblings, whinings etc. about "large market" vs. "small market", competitive balance, and that sort of the stuff.

 

[JamieD]

Well, consider:


This here page...

Yeah, that whole 75 million odd spread sorta does make people a bit more jaded/bitter about the whole thing. Particularly since it's about 3 times as much as two teams in the division, and about $80 million more than what Boston had committed to. Yeah, I guess that sorta might explain why people might grumble.

Atlanta : 103,912,011
Florida : 63,281,152
Philadelphia : 95,338,704
Montreal : 45,853,889
NY Mets : 116,253,927

Obviously, those are opening day figures, Florida's is likely a bit higher, and the Mets have got to be spending a lot less...

People complain about the Yankees for many reasons, but saying that the Braves' success should make them targets for the same criticism hardly works..

 

[Shane Martin]

Alot of the Braves success in their league has been the fact that the other teams in their league have been so weak its not funny and the Braves are pretty much going to do what they want. They've had great mgmt/front office and a willing owner that is going to spend money to maintain his team.

This doesn't mean the Braves aren't a good team. They certainly are but I wonder if their being in a more competitive league like this year will that translate into a better postseason team?

 

[Brian Lawrence]

And one of the first teams to get the boot on the playoffs, but yes quite amazing if you think of it :p

A common misconception, Yes sometimes they do exit in the first round. But since the start of the Wild card and Divisional playoffs, they have advanced beyond the first round 6 out of 8 times, and in their 11 year run have made it to the WS 5 times (Granted they only won 1 of those 5)


Yes the Braves have a history of post season woes, but they are not nearly as bad a some would like to make those out to be.

 

[Phil L]

I give the NL MVP to Barry Bonds and the AL MVP to A-Rod. NL ROY I'd say goes to Brandon Webb (anyone see his last start??) , AL ROY to Matsui (rookie my left ... anyway).

I agree with those. I think that Jody Gerut (sp?) not Baldelli deserves very serious consideration for AL ROY.

NL CY will probably be Prior though I'd kind of like to see Gagne get it.

I thiink AL CY should be Tim Hudson.

 

[Dan Hine]

NL Cy Young to Prior? He'll win one someday but I don't think this year is his. Consider that Jason Schmidt leads him in every category except strikeouts (which is close) and his team is in a comfortable lead in it's division. The Cubs also have had solid seasons from Kerry Wood (13-11, 3.31), Carlos Zambrano (13-10, 2.77) and Matt Clement (13-11, 4.01). And it is possible that all four of them will pitch over 200 innings (Prior's at 197 and Clement has a shot with 191). No other starter on the Giants has more than 9 wins and the pitcher with the second most innings is Kirk Rueter with 136. Mark Prior has been a huge asset to the Cubs but I feel Jason has been the superior pitcher all while on a team where no one else could carry the weight.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

I can't see giving the MVP to Bonds over Pujols. Except that Bonds plays for a winning (playoff) team. You have to give some consideration to Thome too if you are talking about other things besides average. Bonds and Thome are both the heart and soul of their teams successes.

 

[Shane Martin]

I see Bonds winning over Pujols. His late inning heroics have all but locked it up IMHO. Then again I won't cry a river if Pujols wins.

 

[Phil L]

Pujols is great but he isn't even in the same league as Bonds. Bonds will and should win again.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

My NL MVP rankings

#1 Bonds (By a country mile)
#2 Gagne
#3 Pujols
#4 Sheffield

 

[Joseph S]

Who came up with the system to order tickets for the playoffs?

I liked it better when you could call Ticketmaster in Idaho instead. It took 3 computers running Mozilla, IE, Safari, Omniweb, and Camino simultaneously to get through for 5 measly tickets to the ALDS games.

 

[Steve_Tk]

What I've noticed is huge baseball fans will say the Braves are pretty amazing and what they have done is unheard of. The casual fans, like my parents, say "yeh but they never win the World series".

True, they don't. They probably will not win it this year. Whoever is playing the best come october is going to win it. But the Braves have not lost 4 games in a row all season long, and have stayed consistant. The Phillies may be the ones to go to the Series and that's great for them, I'll be pulling for them if they make it, but they didn't earn all season as much as the Braves.

Just winning 12 is a victory in itself. Would be nice for them to win a series, would get the average fans back into the Braves.

 

[KurtW]

The Braves have put down an AMAZING run. They HAVE won a World Series (more than us Cubs and Red Sox fans can say - did you know that if Washington DC gets a team, they'll have won a Nat'l championship 77 years ago, as opposed to the 80+ years in Chicago and Boston) and they've managed to keep the same coaching staff, for the most part, intact over that time span. They've done wonders with pitching, and I ALWAYS pick them to win the East because of it.

I don't see how anyone can talk down on what the Braves have accomplished. They're like the Yankees - you don't have to like them (you probably don't, in fact) but you HAVE to respect what they've done. I remember not too long ago they were considered a small-market team. Amazing how winning can put butts in the seats...