Right? Baseball is so much more fun as a fan when you get to watch it played at an elite level. Let's hope that continues for a while.
I know Atlanta went 14, in the current era that has to be the best...12 years to go to tie! In all seriousness, it could happen
11 straight, then they were 6 behind Montreal when the strike happened, then they won 3 more. Yankees won 9 straight from 98-06. Dodgers have won the NLWest the past 6 years. Looking back farther, you have to take into account the advent of divisions, then more divisions, diluting the achievement.
MLB.com Released their 2019 Astros Top 30 today. They ranked Houston’s farm 6th in the league, behind the Braves, White Sox, Rays, Padres, and Blue Jays. Houston has 6 Grade 55 prospects and 6 grade 50. Here’s how that compares to the rest of the league: AL: Rays: TBD Jays: TBD White Sox: TBD Astros: 6/6 Rangers: 3/11 Twins: 3/9 Tigers: 3/9 A’s: 3/8 Orioles: 3/7 Mariners: 3/5 Indians: 2/12 Angels: 2/8 Yankees: 2/7 Royals: 1/9 Red Sox: 1/8 NL: Braves: TBD Padres: TBD Reds: 5/5 Dodgers: 4/9 Pirates: 4/5 Backs: 3/5 Nats: 3/4 Mets: 2/8 Phillies: 2/8 Rockies: 2/7 Cubs: 2/6 Marlins: 2/6 Giants: 2/5 Cardinals: 2/5 Brewers: 1/8 http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2019?list=hou
Interesting notes from this list: Nova grades very well in Houston's analytic measures of strength, speed and condition. Abreu’s curve compared to McCullers Solomon Grade 50 Beer, who is denigrated as an athlete, was a world class swimmer at age 11. Dawson was a premium power profile college bat who has transformed into a CF prospect Bielak switched to spike curveball and tighter slider. Straw actually is strong and has power, but he waits until the ball is very deep into the zone before swinging, which is why he doesn’t hit HR. Schroeder, Whitley, and McCullers are the only HS pitchers Luhnow has drafted in the top 10 rounds. Santana was a boxer. Prospects 26-30 got 40 grades, which makes it seem like they have adjusted their scale. SS Deury Carrasco throws 100 mph. Enoli Paredes idolizes Yordano Ventura and was compared to a righthanded Cionel Perez.
It’s crazy given how talented our MLB roster is and how many prospects we’ve graduated. The Braves are going to be a force in the near future as well...it would be cool to have an ATL/HOU WS.
I was thinking of betting a HOU/ATL WS matchup. Current odds are 30/1. I can’t take them until their SP rotation adds a bit more reliability. I could see them going after DK, would be a great vet presence for their young arms. Or maybe they try to catch Verlander-in-a-bottle and move for MadBum.
MadBum would be a good move for them IMO, DK as well (I think he would fare better in the NL). That being said I would have thought the payout would be a bit better than 30/1 if you hit on that...getting both teams right is pretty difficult.
It doesn't seem to bad. I'd assume Yankees and Red Sox are close to that. If you made 3 identical bets of each of Astros/Yankees/Red Sox vs. the Braves, you would get ~10 to 1 odds if one of those 3 teams made it along with the Braves.
I think I'd just bet the Braves to win the NL before I would do that but I get your point. Off topic but just looked at the odds and the Yankees, Sox and Astros are all basically 3 to 1 to win the AL...I think it would be a solid play putting X amount on all three of those basically getting 1 to 1 that one of those three will make it to the WS. I just don't see how any other team will make it...the Indians are the only chance and that is low IMO.
If one of those three teams wins, your best case, you would break even. If the Indians or someone else wins ALCS, you lose.
This would be the worst bet ever. There would be no way to win any money with several ways to lose money.
Not Astros, but good insight into scouting. This article used several thousand scouting reports from the Reds to get an idea of what scouting was like. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/...s-scouting-report-series-part-1-data-findings Some tidbits... The following graphs for hitters and pitchers, which plot OFP against career WARP, reinforce the idea that OFP grades are only a little bit better for prognostication purposes than throwing darts at a draft board. If OFPs were predictive, we would see diagonal lines ascending upward. Instead, they’re almost flat. ... The correlations were much higher for Reds players than non-Reds players. In other words, Reds scouts were significantly better at evaluating Reds players than their rivals’ players. ... There was very strong agreement on BA’s top 10 prospects, who were almost universally rated positively by Reds scouts, but there was little difference in the Reds’ ratings between BA’s prospects from 11-50 and from 51-100. Being ranked at all compared with not showing up on a BAlist, however, was quite informative. .... “Timid” pitchers did better than “battlers,” and “careless” pitchers ended up above average. My thoughts...On overall future potential (OFP), I'm not surprised there was limited correlation as scouts are grading guys at multiple levels with only MLB value being measured. In other words, projecting a guy in low levels to produce in the majors has to be incredibly inaccurate as these guys aren't facing anything close to MLB quality competition. There have been quite a few studies that show teams get less value from acquiring players from other teams than projections suggesting teams know their own players better. This article reinforces that sentiment. I would have guessed the Reds would have better agreement to about the Top 25 before correlation went to near throwing darts. On the "timid", "careless" pitchers being above average performers, I've suspected these labels get double counted (i.e., his skills likely perform worse because he's timid and then gets hit in grades again for being timid after it was already factored into his skills) which may cause some low makeup players to perform better than scouts expect.
Not if they are all 3-1 (haven’t looked) If you put 100 on all 3 and one wins, you win 300 and lose 100 each on other 2. 300-200=+100 So the premise of his original bet is good. The problem is it’s baseball, so it’s never as easy as it might seem I think the sneaky good team could be Minnesota
Was thinking like poker as if bet was included in the pot. This is right. Pot odds are basically even assuming 80% chance of winning.
