jacksonianmarch

The old how to fix baseball idea. Well, I might as well throw my hat into the ring.... 1. DH for all leagues. No point in watching pitchers get hurt on the bases or swinging the bat. I like watching pitchers hit as much as I like seeing the Little League All Star pitcher face the runt kid at the end of the bench. It's embarrassing for the pitcher hitting and is unnecessary 2. With 2 wild cards and a play in game, I find the need for 3 divisions to be utterly useless. I would add two teams to make 32 total with 16 in the AL and 16 in the NL. We would then have 2 8 team divisions within each league. The winner of each division gets a bye in the playoffs. The other 4 teams will square off 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5. It would be a best of 3 series played in the higher seed's ballpark on 3 consecutive days. The ALDS will start the following day. With the likely need for a one day buffer after the season and before the wild card games, that will leave a maximum of 4 days off for division winners, allowing them to fight for the division to the last day using their ace in the process and getting them back for game 1 of the ALDS. Wild card teams who advance will have presumably burned at least their top 2 starters and if it went to 3 games, their top 3. This would convey a huge advantage to the division winning teams. The regular season would feature equal games vs all same league teams and a smaller but equal amount of games vs the interleague teams. All teams within the same league will play all teams an equal amount of times, which would ensure that the teams fighting for the playoffs don't have an advantage or disadvantage based on scheduling. 3. Each spot in the order gets a single strike zone challenge per game. This would be reviewed by electronic means with an immediate result. The batter must make the request within 3 seconds of the pitch. Conversely, a team gets 9 strike or ball challenges per game on the pitching side with the catcher making that request within 3 seconds. This preserves the ability of the umpires to manage nearly all of the game with the batter and pitcher having some say on egregious calls 4. 28 man rosters with 25 active is a brilliant idea. Stash the last 3 starters on the inactive before each game and actually have 24 of your 25 guys able to enter the game. This will flesh out some benches and allow for better pinch hitting opportunities later in the game. As it is, every pen is deep and a lot of teams are carrying 13 pitchers. This allows for only 3 bench guys limiting the effectiveness of the pinch hitters to preserve depth 5. You cannot limit the amount of pitching changes per inning, but you can require a pitcher to face 3 batters. This will effectively limit the LOOGY's and force a manager to play more than just matchups. Also, any pitcher removed for "injury" before their 3rd batter gets immediately placed on the DL. 6. Move teams from abysmal fan bases. We have some great cities in this country and in Canada. Why do we continue to watch games in Oakland and TB? Move Oakland to SJ (I like that idea). Move TB to the Carolinas or to New Orleans. Expand in Las Vegas and in Boston (yes, an NL Boston team or maybe outskirts of Boston like Foxboro). Montreal had a terrible fan base. No need to revisit that mistake.

Bogaerts' WAR projected over 162 games is 6.7. That would be a new career high for Manny Machado. Xander will be 27 for the entire regular season of his first FA year. Anyone thinking they were getting Xander at a discount were sadly mistaken. If this kid puts up back to back 6 WAR seasons while showing passable SS defense or better, he will be paid in the Machado realm.

Bogey sees the contract coming. It is gonna be huge. He is primed for an even better 2019

That's hard to quantify and likely not true. There were some stupidly good CFers who also were blessed with more speed than JBJ. JBJ might be the best defensive centerfielder without elite speed that I have ever seen.

Pujols put up a .299/.366/.541 slash in his walk year with StL. While it was down from his peak with OPS's over 1.1 4 times, it was still worth 4 WAR and his BABIP was down. Im sure they thought theyd get generational talent Pujols for 5 years. Instead they got good Pujols for 1 and nothing for 9.

Chap to the DL, Robertson dealing with some shoulder soreness. He is not DL worthy apparently. I'm waiting for that shoe to drop

Tell that to Albert Pujols. I think the Sox move on from JD if he opts out. Let him get a 5 year deal from someone else where he shows another year or two of prime and 3-4 years of sub prime decline.

This is the first time the Sox lost three in a row. As it stands, the Sox are up 7 in the L column over NY and 16 on a playoff spot. I think you’ll be ok. That being said, the Sox have absolutely feasted on the bottom feeders this year. They took care of business in Boston vs the Yanks but aside from that, have mostly annihilated the bad teams and have held their own vs good. The Yanks, until that Boston series, had annihilated the good teams and been bad vs teams like TB and BAL. It’s strange. The Sox have two more vs CLE before they get to feast on TB and the awful White Sox. I have a feeling they’ll right the ship

And Chapman now exits due to injury. Nothing new, just the balky knee. And yet we win again. In other news, our offense has been neutered and we scored 2 runs in 12 off a bunch of children. Also, Sheffield is being moved to the pen for his presumed Sept callup. Would be nice to see his stuff down the stretch in short stints

Castro just cleared waivers.

Why would you call it his shoulder? You have to sign off on a DL stint. Why would he sign off on his shoulder being the cause? It’ll cost him millions if there’s a shoulder concern a year plus before he tests the market

Johnson has done his job. If Sale comes back and ERod return, you push BJ to the pen or mothball him for an off-season deal assuming Sale has nothing intervenable in the shoulder. Johnson is your best trade chip and should return you a big league impact reliever

We started the year with IF depth. The problem is, our IF depth became our starters and then we dealt away Drury who was solid depth. You don’t replace a SS of Didi’s caliber on the fly. We likely move Walker back to 2b, Torres to SS and move Stanton to RF

DD really outdid himself here. Get prime JD at a lower AAV but higher up front and watch him be an MVP candidate. Most Sox fans want the Sox to retain JD, but you should just enjoy the fact that you got him for two prime years and what will likely be no commitment beyond prime

I’m chipper? Not really. Just lost our starting SS for a bit too and Judge is gonna take the whole six weeks to return. Soon, we’ll be inviting Scranton to play in our stead

My anticipation is he has something in there. The trouble is always determining if it’s the cause of the issue or not.

I wonder if they’re gonna push Sale to get an MRI. Now in the general population, you’ll find a high percentage of people with shoulder tears that are asymptomatic. If they find something, they’ll need to decide if it’s the cause or just a harmless incidental

And I don’t buy that this is a “rest” stint. No way that he hits the DL a second time for a shoulder issue due to rest. They’d pick something less concerning for his future earnings or else he wouldn’t admit to it. Like another poster said, hammy, blister, etc. A recurrent shoulder issue will scare down his earnings come 2020

The amount of pitchers who flamed out in the minors due to injury back then was immense. You just never heard about it

Didi down with a heel injury. Snake bit team keeps rolling. He’s likely headed to the DL

I know that. The fact is missing a month down the stretch with “shoulder pain” in the penultimate season of his contract will drive down the price.

And if he ends up ok, the Sox just saved themselves a fortune when they try to re-sign him

For his last stint, I thought maybe they were resting him and then he went out and dominated. Hence, I thought it strange he’d sign off an a DL stint noting his shoulder especially with his contract year coming up. Now, he’s clearly got something in there. Is it minor? Is it major? Who the heck knows. Labrum tears don’t always manifest with pain like cuff injuries do. You’ll either lose velo or have trouble loosening up. Clearly the Sox aren’t happy here, but the timing couldn’t be worse for Sale. This second DL stint may have cost him multiple millions of dollars

I’m talking a pillow deal only a la Beltre

The stros are getting Springer back now and Altuve back soon. They’ll roll in Sept