Time to clean out the cupboard on a couple half-hearted
notes I took as the season wound down before I start the preview.
9-13-21
The Giants immortal
Jon Miller and Dave Flemming had this exchange during a game. After coming out of break, Miller did a spot,
reset the game situation, and handed it over to his partner in a succinct,
profession manner right before the first pitch.
“Ball one,” Flemming said without further comment.
“I appreciate your minimalist style,” Miller quipped.
“I like to be concise.”
There was a sound effect of something clanging off a metal
sheet.
“Ball two.”
“Just a bit outside.”
“That missed the mitt by two feet and went straight to the
backstop.”
This is what I love baseball for.
Later that night, the Chihuahuas
lost a game to the Isotopes on a
walk-off two-run homer. Embarrassingly,
even Tim Hagerty got caught up in
the excitement of calling it. It’s been
a long season for the little dogs, we can forgive Tim for a small lapse in his
allegiance. He seemed apologetic as he
immediately composed himself afterward.
9-26-21
Tim reported that at the last Indians home game today, they had a clearance sale at the team shop. It’s a sad day. A week later, the Rangers would host the Indians for their last series ever. Unfortunately, I missed all of those games.
9-27-21
Today was the last Chihuahuas
home game. It was a well-attended day
game. I wished I could have been there,
as I have a couple of other times (2016, 2018). The players waved to the fans after the game. Gosuke
Katoh went around and thanked the grounds crew for their efforts this year.
9-29-21
While I was on vacation, I got hear a Rangers’ home game at night with Eric Nadel and Matt Hicks. I’m not sure if Eric has been calling the
away games this season. About halfway
through the game, a visiting reliever came in with the bases loaded and no outs
and slowed the game to a crawl. The guys
turned their annoyance into some comedy as they commented on it. Even worse, the Rangers managed to not score.
“45 minutes later the side has struck
out,” said Eric.
Okay, on with the preview.
Let’s make some random comments about this season’s winners.
AL
East Winner Rays
How did these guys trade away one of their best pitchers (Blake Snell) in the offseason and lose
another great pitcher to injury (Tyler
Glasnow) and get better? Their
computer-generated pitching staff decisions haven’t missed a beat. They’re scoring a lot of runs with Brandon Lowe, Randy Arozarena, call-up wonder kid Wander Franco, and mid-season pickup Nelson Cruz.
Worse for their competition, the Durham Bulls won the Triple-A
East championship this season. The
Rays are still going to be really good next year, if not even better.
AL
Central Winner White
Sox
This was the least surprising result of the division
races. They were penciled in before the
season started and inked in as their competition melted away. (In the case of the Indians, they’re disappearing altogether after this season. See if I ever write about them again.) Whatever happens in the postseason, the Sox
do have that immortal Field of Dreams
game win.
AL
West Winner Astros
Has there been any winning team more under the radar than
the Astros? Shoot, nobody noticed them
last year and they went deep into the playoffs.
I guess they’re good, since they play in the same division with the A’s and the surprising Mariners.
AL
Wildcards
The Red Sox got
exposed as the year went on and lost the division. It was lucky that they held on for a
consolation prize. The Yankees’ sheer payroll got them
by. Were it not for their overspending,
they have no business being in the playoffs.
NL
East Winner Braves
They made some good moves at the trade deadline to win it,
but mostly the other contenders in the division came apart from their inherent
flaws. They did really well without Ronald Acuna Jr., but they’ll miss him
in the playoffs before their quick exit.
NL
Central Winner Brewers
If you win in Milwaukee, does anybody in the rest of the
country notice? Only if your team name
is the Bucks. (The Packers
are doomed this year.) I’m told their
pitching staff is excellent, but I really haven’t seen much of this team this
year. Their offense is sus.
NL
West Winner Giants
Who saw the Giants being good this year? Let me make a quick call here. Hello, Nostradamus? Did you see the Giants being good this year? Really?
I’m impressed, because you’re the only one. Can you show me the proof that you predicted
. . . Hello? Hello?
As someone else put it, “They’re a home run hitting team
without a slugger, and a great pitching team without an ace.” They brought in the walls at Oracle Park and improved their home run
totals and their pitching. Welcome to
the future. This computer-generated team
is a true anomaly. They’ve got more
World Series experience playing for them right now than most other teams’
old-timer games. I hate their
knee-taking manager, Gabe Kapler,
but I have to admit their computer’s human interface to their team has done a
really good job. They’re almost making
me jump on the bandwagon.
NL
Wildcards
The Dodgers
lost Trevor Bauer mid-season and Clayton Kershaw at the end and they’re
still probably the favorite to win it all.
How do they do it? Money. Why doesn’t every team just do that? The Cardinals
went on an epic winning spree at the end of the season to force their way into
the playoffs. They should really send
the Rockies a nice fruit basket or
something for gifting them Nolan Arenado. That’s probably more than the Rockies got for
the trade.
The
Losers
Padres: Could
there have been a worse playoff exclusion for the sport than this team? I know Shohei
Ohtani is the most compelling player in baseball, but Fernando Tatis Jr. is the most exciting. Neither are in the playoffs. The Padres were such a fun team for the first
half of the season. Everyone was looking
forward to seeing them play in October.
Their drop off after the Field of Dreams game has contributed to the
disappearance of baseball from the sports collective conscious.
I know fans and even the players are calling for manager, Jayce Tingler, to be fired, but a more
hardcore group of fans want GM, AJ
Preller, gone with him. I don’t
blame him for losing out on Max Sherzer
and Trea Turner. The Dodgers
made the Nationals an offer nobody
could match. But Preller should have
gotten some pitching help. Even decent
pitching, not great, would have saved their season.
An even better option, he should have been developing
pitching talent. Preller overspent on
free agents, while trading away great position players, while also not
developing any pitching talent. All of
those great Chihuahuas teams I listened
to for years featured great position players, who were traded and are now
playing on other MLB teams. But, they weren’t
traded for enough worthwhile pitching.
Judging by the Chihuahuas this year, their cupboard is now bare. His strategy almost worked this year, but not
quite. They are getting back a really
good pitcher next year. Maybe things
will turn around.
Mariners:
It’s been so awesome to see former Chihuahua, Ty France, doing well. Pity
it wasn’t in a Padres uniform. Even with
management sabotaging this team at the trade deadline, they did surprisingly
well. Maybe next year, if their GM can
remember which team he works for.
Angels: Mike Trout backing up Shohei Ohtani wouldn’t have helped this
team in the standings. Nothing will help
this team get to the playoffs other than more pitching. At least they got rid of the Curse (Albert Pujols).
Blue
Jays:
They took over the mantle of baseball’s most exciting team with their young
star, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., in the
second half of the season. Their problem
was playing in a division with three other playoff teams.
Rangers/Rockies:
These are the two teams I can hear on the radio sometimes locally at
night. Wow, are they bad and dumb. Trevor
Story’s stock has only fallen this season.
It was bad for the team not to trade him and perhaps worse for him.
Moments
to Remember (cue the Masters music)
Best moment of the season:
Field of Dreams game no question.
I won’t say it saved the season, but at least baseball was relevant for
a couple of days.
Worst moment of the season:
Easily the All-Star Betrayal. This
turned off a bunch of fans right out of the gate. It was an incredibly dumb move by MLB.
The
Reckoning
Well, let’s grade my picks for this season.
AL Division Winners: A’s, White Sox, Yankees
AL Wild Cards: Astros, Blue Jays
NL Division Winners: Dodgers, Cardinals, Braves
NL Wild Cards: Padres, Nationals
World Series: Braves over White Sox
Other than that Nationals pick, the rest were solid at the
time. The Braves winning it all was way
too edgy.
AL Division Winners: Red Sox, the White Sox, Astros
AL Wild Cards: Rays, Yankees, Blue Jays, and A’s will
fight over the other two spots.
NL Division Winners: Dodgers, Mets, Brewers
NL Wild Cards: Giants, Padres
World Series: White Sox over Dodgers
I completely soured on the Braves given their first
half. I was right that four teams would
be fighting over the ALWC spots.
Postseason Predictions
(Last chance to get this right)
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