Red Sox Clinch Playoff Berth

[drewski6]

Its different if you are a young prospect expected to be a MLB.  BUt like Cam Booser, a 31 yr old never been called up.  Lifelong dream of pitching in the majors is great and all.  But he ended up making 600k that year instead of like 70k because he was able to stay up.  Every day you are up is like 4k.  I wouldnt be mad if some of those happy tears were for the money.  Its gotta stink to be a AAA pitcher your whole career and see your friends who have normal jobs outearn you.  I suppose you can get a summer job.  But still.  Another issue is like lets say im a 32 yr old career AAA player and i go out to eat with childhood friends, and one is like a union tradesman, another is a mid-level accountant (above associate, below partner), and another is a moderately successful salesman.  And likely your friends are thinking pick up the tab, professional ball player and you are like i make the least at this table.  Thats gotta suck.

[mvp 78]

52 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

In this case, my excuse will be that they NYY, in a three-game series, at home, are a better team.  I think we're close overall, but Schlitter-Fried-Cole/Rodon are better than Gray-Tolle-Suarez.  In fact, in a 3-game series, I think the NYY are the best team in BB.  TBH, I think we'll need to catch a break to win.

That's much different than "the playoffs are random" and I agree. The Yanks are slightly better this year. 

[mvp 78]

46 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Off-topic, but one of the things I'd like to see in the next CBA is a minimum salary and service time for a call-up up.  Even if you are called up for a week, you get one month of major league pay and one month of service time.  Both sides can afford to chip in a couple of nickels and dimes to reward the quad-A and career minor leaguers.

Unfortunately, this would probably make a lot of smaller market teams just keep rotating through the same few taxi squad guys rather than giving a new guy a cup of coffee. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

That's much different than "the playoffs are random" and I agree. The Yanks are slightly better this year. 

Clear advantage Pinstripes, even if played on a neutral site and the Replay Center was in Alaska.

The Yankees' stars are clearly better. Every pitcher wants to be Cy Young like Schlittler, who also leads the AL in WAR at age 25. At the plate, Ben Rice is suddenly who we can only hope Anthony becomes some day: a 40-HR slugger with 100 runs scored and 100 driven in. 

Home runs instead of rallies should decide low-scoring games. NY has 11 guys in double figures in homers, plus two deadline pick-ups and a call-up combined that almost equal the missing Judge's bombs.

Red Sox have six in longball double figures. Gasper, who reached 10 last night, may not even start. Rafaela, who'll hopefully be in there, will have to find a way to turn it back on in a hurry. 

I'm glad Breslow addressed his need for more pop by trading for Mead and Rutschman. But if the ending of '26 is a repeat of '25, remember: the extended CBO didn't have to wait until August to improve to the offense.

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

That's much different than "the playoffs are random" and I agree. The Yanks are slightly better this year. 

I never meant to imply that playoffs are completely random.  The better team will win most of the time.  But no matter how good a team is, one-run games are usually a coinflip.

[ChiefsChamps69]

Chad Tracy earned the job congrats