A rookie can't be an ALCS and World Series MVP when replacing the former de facto captain at a critical position like shortstop. Oh wait....
Anybody can be the ALCS and World Series MVP as long as they are on a team that makes it and on the field. History is littered with them because - Baseball. In a small sample of games anyone can get out of their mind hot. I am going to root for Jeremy for the next 4 years and maybe longer, but I expect him to have a career as an exceptional glove at the most vital position who also won't hurt the team as a #9 hitter. That's very valuable. Maybe Omar Vizquel with a slightly better bat but lesser baserunning value.
Which is EXACTLY WHY you needed your best offensive and defensive options playing. Thanks for making the case against yourself.
I’d like to read blogs expansively to include podcasts and take a little credit for running that drooling idiot out of town on a rail. I mean, I don’t think I can rightly claim any credit but I’d like too.
Ok so this is funny. Preparing for my POD today and as promised we said we were going to dork out on the math and try to calculate how many wins Dusty cost us last year. I did an hour and a half of spreadsheets and baseball reference and a bunch of other stuff and my number came out to 3.2 Games. I think it's probably higher than that b/c I made no attempt to play guys in more advantageous situations (like Meyers only against LHP, or Diaz never DH'ing), so I'd say the number was probably 4 games he cost us through lineup decisions. Then, to check myself I just played Diaz at catcher 125 games and maldy at Catcher like 40, while also giving Chas back an extra 15 or 20 games Dusty took from him and benching Abreu so Diaz could get 20 games at 1b. Just those 2 simple decisions, pro rated out, added up to 3.1. Then I looked at our Pythag vs our actual record and it was 93 wins v the 90 we actually had. So, with even luck and optimal playing time the answer is 97 wins. This last years astros team, with the players available to it, and average luck should have probably won 97 games. Will be interested in seeing Andrew's math on this. We will be doing a weekly throughout the offseason. 1st offseason one is look back at manager look ahead at managers we like or are looking at. #2 will be highs and lows and favorite parts of the year. After that it will just be whatever makes sense in light of events going on in the offseason- projecting out 2024 and then some talk about baseball movies. I love baseball movies.
In the sense of I only wasted 90 minutes doing something that I fact checked in 3. felt dumb. But not too bad. Sometimes that kind of thing is good to attack a problem from different perspectives and end up in the same place.
At any rate, it’s just awesome to not have an imbecile manager who plays Maldy over Diaz all season and in every game in the playoffs. Yes, that alone makes him a super dummy. So glad that bullshit is gone.
Because that team was better and could absorb his suckiness. This years team could not. However, we had a solution with an OPS over .800 and much better defense. That’s why Dusty is a selfish dumbass and had to go. But you are stupidly only here for Dusty so there is no convincing you.
So if this years team could not absorb suckiness does one player make a difference? Btw, they couldn’t absorb suckiness because they all sucked.
