OFFICIAL 2017 MLB THREAD

[BmillsSkier]

Congrats Houston. Fun Series for sure.

[nutmegchoi]

What a great year to bring the championship title for the city, too.

[The SnowShow]

So happy for Houston!!

[ticketchecker]

Awesome series

[GeezerSteve]

4 strong innings from Morton

[SkiCougar]

I'm going streaking !

[BmillsSkier]

Happy for the first lift-op I'm aware of to win a World Series: El Oso Blanco. Evan Gattis.

Fellow former Bravo McCann too I guess.

[SkiBall]

More happy for the Astros than the city of Houston. Just the baseball in me. But it is good that the city has a little something to cheer them up.
LA has a chance to return, lots of youth. But it seems like we think the WS teams will be back the next year and it doesn't really go that way. But that is what makes baseball fun.

[Game Over]

My Aunt and Uncle somehow got a free $5300 mattress outta the win due to some local promo.

[BmillsSkier]

I've got a pretty pricey mattress that's worth every penny. But I just gotta see what a $5300 mattress looks like.

It better give complimentary reach arounds.

On top of a free World Championship.

[Game Over]

King cooling Tempur Pedic. They are furnishing a new beach house so they also bought 7 other beds but they had to be over $3k to qualify for the deal.

[The AD]

I guess they're the "Lastros" no more.

[MakersTeleMark]

King cooling Tempur Pedic. They are furnishing a new beach house so they also bought 7 other beds but they had to be over $3k to qualify for the deal.

I think it is hilarious that you know this already.

[The AD]

If you buy eight beds at a time I think you deserve to have one of them thrown in for free.

[BmillsSkier]

Some remodeling firm in Cleveland had a deal where if the Tribe won 20 or more games in a row this year, and the customer booked and paid for their project in June; they got it for free.

Well, of course they won 22, and I guess the company paid out something like 35 free kitchen, basement and addition jobs - 100% free and even rented out the Jake on an off night to celebrate with the winners. Hope they had good prize insurance.

[GeezerSteve]

I'm going streaking !

pics

[Bunion 2020]

< 5 months til Pitchers and Catchers report.

[neckdeep]

I think he smoked his arm getting them there.

IDK how much Darvish can be scapegoated. Some say the slick baseballs screwed certain pitchers more than others. Darvish couldn't get his slider to break like he wanted and that's his best pitch. It wasn't just him. Verlander said the same about the balls and his slider. Jansen gave up his first home run off a slider after throwing 95 sliders without giving one up. Morton said the WS balls were influencing his pitch selection. Last night's game had a lot of hit batters; control was obviously an issue. As time goes by, this will be a big part of the story of the 2017 season. Right now everyone is marveling about the long ball revolution but as the afterglow of the series wanes, the sports writers will turn more to critiquing how baseball was dramatically changed simply by making some tiny adjustments to the equipment.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/10/29/wo...-kenley-jansen

[GeezerSteve]

Gee golly, a losing pitcher blaming the equipment. That never happens

[GiBo]

That was cool. Only thing better than a Giants WS win is a Dodgers WS loss.

Jim Nance was on the sports radio show I listen to on the way to work. He said he stays at the same hotel in NY where a lot of the MLB teams stay when they come to town. A staff member at the hotel told him that bar none, the Astros were the most down to earth, nicest guys of any team he's ever had there. And they seem like it. Good for Houston.

[neckdeep]

Gee golly, a losing pitcher blaming the equipment. That never happens

Read the article. Pitchers on both sides did not like these balls. I didn't say this took anything away from the Astros great performance. But if you don't think the game was dramatically changed to promote offense in the regular season and then again in the WS, then you haven't been paying attention.

[Grange]

Dodgers look defeated.

That is what I thought after they only scored one run in the sixth inning. Darvish did not have a good WS. I'm sure there are a lot of Dodger fans that think he should have been pulled right before Springer came to the plate, but it's hard I find it hard to blame the manager considering how much the bullpen has been used. I was also impressed with how long Kershaw went though he did pitch well. I would have preferred a closer game 7, but overall this was a fantastic World Series.

[GeezerSteve]

Read the article

I read that article and several others on the same subject before you posted. Pitchers make excuses at every level of the game. They always advocate for an edge, e.g., higher mounds. Baseball specs are loose and baseballs have always varied from batch to batch and season to season. See, e.g., the dead ball era. They all deal with the same equipment. 'Stros won the WS fair and square.

ETA: Report: Some MLB players dismiss talk of slicker baseballs

Is the baseball actually hurting pitcher performance in the World Series?:

At the same time, it doesn't necessarily compute that pitchers are complaining about the baseball when the Dodgers are hitting .176 in the World Series and the Astros .226. Of course, the teams have combined for 15 home runs -- three of them off sliders.

Let's look at the overall data on all sliders (from ESPN Stats & Info): [see data in linked article]

There doesn't seem to be much evidence overall that pitchers are struggling with sliders, although a more comprehensive study would compare the postseason pitchers to how they fared in the regular season with their sliders.

We know Clayton Kershaw and Dallas Keuchel didn't struggle with their sliders in Game 1. Kershaw threw 35 sliders and got seven misses on 20 swings. Keuchel threw 19 sliders and got five misses on nine swings. It was also 100 degrees that day, while it was colder and indoors in Houston.

Brian Bannister, a former major leaguer who works for the Boston Red Sox as a vice president of pitching development, tweeted that the different weather conditions could definitely be a factor: [see tweet in linked article]

Astros pitcher Brad Peacock threw 3⅔ hitless innings of relief in Game 3. He threw 10 sliders, but the Dodgers swung at just two and missed both. While he was effective, only two of the 10 sliders he threw were located in the zone (compared to a regular-season rate of 45.6 percent).

[neckdeep]

I read that article and several others on the same subject before you posted. Pitchers make excuses at every level of the game. They always advocate for an edge, e.g., higher mounds. Baseball specs are loose and baseballs have always varied from batch to batch and season to season. See, e.g., the dead ball era. They all deal with the same equipment. 'Stros won the WS fair and square.

ETA: Report: Some MLB players dismiss talk of slicker baseballs

OMFG, take the stick out yer ass. I'll say it out loud for you if that's what it takes. THE ASTROS WON THE GAME AND THE SERIES FAIR AND SQUARE. THE CUBS WEREN'T IN THE WS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE GREAT PITCHING AND PROBABLY WEREN'T EVEN ONE OF THE TOP FOUR TEAMS IN MLB. Happy now?

By the way, your link blows. Buster Olney sez so...wow....pardon me if I care more about what the actual pitchers have to say.

[ex-powderbroker]