Oh I’m not writing them off, after all, they still have Trout and Ohtani, but 10 game losing streaks ain’t something to ignore.
This is interesting. Yankees have a winning record on every day of the week this season except for Sunday
Tied now 4-4 in the 9th. We’ll see.
So the Phillies fire Girardi and go on a winning streak. The Angels fire Maddon and continue their losing streak and Trout gets injured. That’s a shame. Although I think it was time for both managers to take a hike. Haven’t been a fan of Maddon going back to Chicago. He has a real bad case of smartest guy in the room syndrome.
So far two blowouts between the Twins and Yanks. Hopefully the Twins can take the series tomorrow. A guy in the league I run was at the game and our league text thread was filled with how awful Stanton is in the field. To be fair, he didn’t get a $300M contract for his glove.
I really like both of those guys. I like Girardi because I’m a Yankee fan. I like Maddon because he IS the smartest guy (at least as far as us plebes can tell) in the room and has the track record to back it up.
The Angels front office seems to me to be one of the most dysfunctional in MLB. They have the two best players in baseball and can’t finish above 0.500. Seems like they’re trying to run an MLB franchise the way you would run an NBA team… you can’t win in MLB with a few superstars if everyone else sucks
The Pirates also seem to be REALLY bad, but they’re bad because they’re cheap. The Angels are bad because they’re stupid
There are two managers I can’t stand, Maddon and LaRusssa. Tony was good at one point, but his time passed him by years ago. Maddon was good too, especially with the Rays, and he was also extremely lucky in 2015 when the Cubs won it–everything just broke their way. With the Angels though, his smartest guy in the room syndrome reached new heights, and his decisions seemed to be a big fuck you to everyone, I know more than you sort of thing, instead of obvious win the game decisions. The only move he did I agree with is taking the kid gloves off Ohtani and letting him pitch and hit all season. That was the obvious move though.
The Angels are poorly run, but you should remember they made a run at Strasburg (his TJ since then is neither here nor there to the discussion) and when he resigned with the Nats, the Angels went after Rendon. Not the best decision, clearly, but they have been trying. Also, the franchise really had a reckoning after Tyler Skaggs death. He was supposed to be one of the pitchers to turn that rotation around.
As for Girardi, I actually kinda like him overall, but all reports coming out of Philly is that the team completely lacked energy. The team’s turnaround since his firing kinda proves it.
Also, there’s a lot of bad teams. The Pirates are one of them, and they’re cheap. The O’s didn’t need to tank for 5 years to turn it around. Jeter just left the Marlins because he didn’t agree with their approach or that they’re legitimately trying. Mattingly still managing there I think confirms that sentiment (let Jazz play every day, dammit!). The Reds sold off most of their stars, and the A’s are trying to pull off the plot of Major League. There’s a lot of bad teams. The Angels seem to have a lot of bad luck though. Remember in baseball, if you play poorly, you go 3-9. If you play poorly with bad luck, you go on a 12 game losing streak. Bad luck has a lot to do with that franchise.
Sorry, that’s my baseball rant for the day.
Stanton is a pretty decent defensive player, despite the rough game. It was also his first game back in the field from the IL iirc.
I don’t particularly like girardi, but the teams “turnaround” doesn’t prove anything - good and bad teams alike can have streaks in baseball, and bad luck,.as you note, is much more of a thing in baseball than other sports.
Fair enough. Didn’t know he had just come back.
Agree to disagree. Momentum is a real thing in most sports, especially baseball. Lots of good quotes around that, such as “momentum is your next day’s starting pitcher.” But I’d also say that sometimes, a managerial shakeup can break teams out of negative momentum. If Girardi getting fired immediately started a winning streak, then it was a wake up the players needed.
Also, I just need to mention how happy I am the Angels just lost again. Every player used a Nickelback song as their walk up today to try to break them out of this losing streak. If they’d won, Nickelback would be like the 2019 Nat’s Baby Shark theme. Nickleback would be played at every home game for the REST OF THE SEASON. Thank God they lost. That would’ve been brutal to watch.
LOL, yea… my guess is that was the final nail in the coffin.
That said, guess I just REALLY don’t like the Angels. They beat the Giants (my 2nd fav team) back in 2002. They adopted the whole “Los Angeles” thing when they are not in Los Angeles. Yea, I suppose you could say the same about the Jets and Giants in NFL… but at least they started out in NYC proper? But I’m happy they’re still losing. I love Trout and Ohtani and wish that they could move on to better organizations
There will always be bad organizations in any professional sport. For some reason, the Angels just really sort of rankle me. Ok… my rant over lol
They beat the Twins in the ALCS that year to get to the Series. I was at the Dome for one of the games. Couldn’t hear my buddy next to me. But yeah, I was pretty pissed at the Angels too that year. Plus I really wanted Bonds and Dusty Baker to get a ring. Regardless of anyone’s opinion on PEDs now, no one knew Bonds was juicing at the time (although I still think he deserves to be in the Hall).
I don’t think I paid the Angels any mind again until Trout made it impossible not to. And then Ohtani sealed it. So I guess I like their players, not the team.
I mean shit, watch Moneyball. Did the A’s win that season? No. The Twins beat them in the playoffs. That was supposed to be our year. Unfortunately, Minnesota teams only know how to do one thing: lose in the most heartbreaking fashion. You have to be strong, or dead inside, to be a fan of a Minnesota sports team…And now I’m remembering Phil Cuzzi and Joe Mauer at Yankee Stadium in 2009. Is it too early for a beer?
Funny that really seems to be true of the Wild as well. We need not mention the Vikings.
Ah, the A’s. I don’t know a ton about their current ownership but you gotta love Billy Beane. To me, the thing with Moneyball is about efficiency… and that is different than “winning it all”. Sort of like, can you focus your efforts and train at whatever thing/sport it is to be good… most likely yes if you’re smart about it. Can you become elite? That is something completely different.
I suspect that Las Vegas is simply trying to take whatever the Bay Area doesn’t really want. Obviously, the politics of the area comes into play as well. Do I like what current A’s management is doing? No. But at least I can see sort of see what’s going on there and it’s not ineptitude at the level of Angels management
Look at the Wolves this year too. Had a double digit lead in the 4th quarter of Game 6. Lose and they’re out. Don’t give it up…They lost, of course.
1 Like
I see you did have the Lynx!
1 Like
Well if you run a sports franchise, your goal should be to win the last game of the season. And tbf, the book was originally going to be written about the Twins, but Terry Ryan wouldn’t agree to it since they didn’t win anything.
Billy Beane is responsible for making commodities of players more than anyone. I don’t know if that’s necessarily something to be celebrated. Also, I have some serious issues with the movie. It makes it sound like the A’s had a 20 game winning streak that year because Scott Hatteberg played first base, rather than a big 3 of Hudson, Mulder, and Zito, plus the MVP in Miguel Tejada.
“See what they’re doing.” You mean like trying to pull off a real life Major League? Sell off all their good players, tank the season, incentivize fans not to come to tank attendance, and then move to Vegas. I would agree that whatever the politics going on in Alameda County and with the proposed waterfront location for a new stadium, it’s kind of fucked.
Edited: A high school baseball game in Texas had higher attendance the other day than the A’s game.
Can you expand on that? The commodity part, I mean. I’ll take your word that Beane had a role
Sure thing. It’s the idea that players are completely interchangeable. That your only focus should be on a stat such as WAR, chasing wins sort of thing. Ignoring a balanced lineup of lefties/righties (for instance the Yankees were way too right handed heavy last year). Also, and while this is still a somewhat controversial idea because it can’t be measured, chemistry, clubhouse culture. If players get along, they play better. Trading players indiscriminately with no regard for how that will affect a clubhouse. And opponents of chemistry will point to the idea that Ruth and Gehrig didn’t get along for instance. That’s not true. They very much got along on the field. But Gehrig was really a mama’s boy who just went home to his wife every night and basically did what she told him, and he didn’t really approve of Ruth’s late night lifestyle. Doesn’t mean they didn’t get along entirely.
When something can’t be measured, analytics minded people hate it. Whether it was the 2013 Red Sox all growing beards, or the 2019 Nats playing Baby Shark every night, that’s chemistry, and it bonds the team. Winning teams have more than just good players and numbers on a spreadsheet. And that’s why Billy never won anything. Plus the fact his team was so cheap they wouldn’t give him any money to spend. But that’s another topic.
I dunno about that… yea, maybe it’s partially true, but it’s much better than the whole Joe Morgan attitude of “that dude just KNOWS how to win”. When you’re in management, your job is to be analytical and not emotional. In that sense, Billy Beane is sort of the Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods of sports management. I’m sure that others tried/did similar things as Beane did before him. Bill James was “the father of baseball analytics” per Google search (I remember him, just forgot his name so I had to Google it)
EDIT: While we’re on the topic of Moneyball… Michael Lewis has to be one of my favorite authors of all time. He is also extremely analytical… Blind Side was an amazing book. Movie was just “meh”
Yes, the movie was decent but missed the point of the book. And yes, Beane was lucky to have those big 3 as well
It’s been a while since I lived in the Bay Area… but my guess is that there are plenty of other entertainment options as compared to say, Cincinnati. So the A’s get much less love than the Reds do. Also a lot more immigrants, so no attachment to baseball… it’s just another entertainment option. So while “the market” should be able to support two teams, for some reason it doesn’t
Thanks! I’m more of a hockey fan. The same dynamic (need for balance) applies there to a large degree, but most teams are still managed by conservatively minded “hockey men” who follow those concepts. Many more data-minded fans complain about it regularly 
With a relatively low salary cap that even small market teams can usually hit, it’s a different universe of course.
1 Like