Good for him; he was quietly the best starter on the Mets for a few years, it's good that he's finally getting the recognition as the anchor of their WS-level rotation over the past few years (obv. not the past year or two with injuries)Jesus, Degrom 29 out of 30 first place votes.
I liked Cash for this. He basically invented the Opener role, which was a fascinating wrinkle this season. We saw Cora up close, and he was excellent.Melvin won in the AL, Cora a respectable 2nd. Link above
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Cora & Melvin were entirely left off of one ballot each. Both of those ballots fully accounted for Boone's votes.
Betts was the best player in baseball. All-world defensively, one of the best base stealers/runners in the league, and the best offensive player too. And he was the best player on the best team. He was, definitively, better than Trout this year. I cannot fathom a legitimate argument for anyone but Betts for AL MVP.MVP announced tonight
Anyone have an argument for anything other than Betts/Yelich?
Well-deserved for Snell. Cash should have won on transforming baseball grounds, even though all the revolutionary pitching mgmt stuff actually came from the front office.
Shouldn't we wait to see how widespread the "opener" and other variations of bullpen use become before we say what the Rays, Brewers and, yes, the Athletics did this year actually "transformed baseball"?Well-deserved for Snell. Cash should have won on transforming baseball grounds, even though all the revolutionary pitching mgmt stuff actually came from the front office.
Who was pulling the strings on Roberts for all those decisions?
Is that common knowledge to Rays press and fans? I never heard that on MLBN or anywhere else. You often hear about day to day direction coming down from the front office to the manager, most recently and maybe the loudest about Dave Roberts in the World Series. I’ve never heard it admitted though from either end. Roberts wore it all himself (the questionable decisions).
Mookie's own mother calls him Mookie, you know...I am eagerly awaiting 6 p.m. as though it were a playoff game. I want to see who's in the room with Markus Lynn.
I read that JBJ calls him Markus Lynn, and I thought that was neat. It seemed to me to be a sign of respect. However, if he prefers Mookie.... I'd like to ask him.Mookie's own mother calls him Mookie, you know...
Funny.Their most brilliant move has been throwing visiting teams off by making sure nobody is in the stadium.
I do remember that Rays - Red Sox playoff game in which the Rays used nine pitchers, nobody for more than 2 innings. That was the clinching game, tight all the way, 3 - 1 final.Who was pulling the strings on Roberts for all those decisions?
I think it’s pretty well understood that the Rays take a very collaborative approach to basically all baseball decision making, where the front office and the analytics department are intimately involved in everything. They’ve got analytics guys in uniform in the dugout all through spring training, even. Heavy shifting, fielders with notecards, third time through the order effect, throwing tons of change ups, lots of pre-planned rest days, lots of players playing multiple positions, whatever their new little insight or advantage is, it’s heavily researched. That’s just how they roll under Sternberg. I’m not saying Cash is some Art Howe type stooge, but a Rays manager doesn’t just decide on his own to do something totally new with a pitching rotation. The reason he got the job, and Maddon before him, is they bought into being part of that system and were willing to be the face of not doing things by the book.
They started experimenting with the whole bullpen games thing back in 2013 when Maddon was still there. Remember game 4 of the 2013 ALDS? They’ve been ramping up the shorter starts thing (3rd time thru the order effect) for a few years now and also moving more and more towards trying to get their best short relievers facing the other team’s best hitters, regardless of which inning it is. Opener was a natural evolution of those trends. All driven by analytics. Cash has discussed all that at various points, although they are obviously pretty tight-lipped about anything they think is proprietary.
Their most brilliant move has been throwing visiting teams off by making sure nobody is in the stadium.
Yes, I've heard JBJ call him that. Not sure I'd seen the first part of this, from Wiki:I read that JBJ calls him Markus Lynn, and I thought that was neat. It seemed to me to be a sign of respect. However, if he prefers Mookie.... I'd like to ask him.
Friedman. Brought the Rays system to LA.As for who was pulling the strings attached to marionette Roberts, Farhan Zaidi, I guess. If it did happen.
Oh yeah, Friedman. Coincidence, Jim Leyland was just on MLBN and he said when he and Dombrowski were working together, same thing I said above, that Dombrowski saw him (Leyland) most every day and there was discussion and advice but never any lineup direction.Friedman. Brought the Rays system to LA.
Good luck to Mookie. He deserves it.
The concept of "bullpen" games, particularly in the playoffs in a do-or-die situation, isn't really new. Maddon got a lot of the credit for that particular game, which is justifiable because he was trying to win the game any way he could and his bullpen was more reliable than his fourth starter. But it wasn't something he regularly practiced. His roster was set up to be deployed "traditionally".I do remember that Rays - Red Sox playoff game in which the Rays used nine pitchers, nobody for more than 2 innings. That was the clinching game, tight all the way, 3 - 1 final.
No, cAPSLOCK, coming up.dAMMIT, Did I miss it? I was buying shoes online and lost track of time.
Are we to assume the mother of the child is the young woman to the right of the MVP? I wish we could have seen the baby's face.The fact that he is holding his new baby girl during this makes me love him more than I have ever loved any ballplayer before.