tmwiese55

I agree. And the games are all at the same time the last day. Assuming the scores are up on the board, if you see the Cubs are up 6-1 in the 5th maybe you hold off on Hader, Jeffress etc but otherwise you play to win the game.

I also agree that series MVPs could/should sometimes go to losing teams when their performances are clearly superior. Think LBJ in their first loss to the Warriors when he had no help (love and Kyrie hurt) and had to do everything himself and still won 2 games. Can't think of one of the top of my head for baseball but I'd guess Bonds would be a possibility if we went back and looked at stats.

Jesus had another rough night last night. Maybe some more days off are in the cards for him to hopefully get him recharged before the playoffs. Maybe Shaw with a start at 1B today or tomorrow.

Key word here is should. I do think it was the deciding factor between Braun and Kemp in 2011. To take it to the extreme example, do you think the World Series MVP can come from the losing team? I think this question is a good test to explain why many people prefer the MVP to come from a playoff team. True and if it is a virtual tie then sure have that be a factor, like Braun/Kemp. MKE won 14 more games that year btw. Also, playoff team vs non playoff team is often a significant difference in wins and you can make an argument of putting up stats in a lower pressure situation. If one guy is on the best team and the other the second best team and they're only 2-3 games difference it really shouldn't matter. But you're right, should is the key word. Just takes a few people to say 'derp his team won the division.' Note: personally I have no problem giving it to non-playoff players. Trout is the best player in the league, any year he's healthy he should probably get the MVP. But as noted above, one can make the arguments about pressure etc.

Which is just wrong. Baseball being the sport or at least second most that one individual player has the least impact on a team winning. So if you're within a few games of each other it should be completely irrelevant.

You need 4 guys. I'd rather have Braun than having to play the likes of Perez and Nick Franklin etc.

I've been on the "keep LAD out of the playoffs" train but at this point it seems moot. So might as well root for them over COL so that we get one of COL/STL instead of Kershaw. I guess I do think STL is the worst team so logically I'd prefer to play them. However, it's probably a toss up between the two with no significant odds differential in who we'd beat so I'd rather play COL becaue I have no beef with them and it wouldn't sting as bad if we lost to them. Plus I'd root for them in the next round instead of having to for sure deal with STL/CHI in the NLCS

Yelich has definitely surpassed Baez. Great SLG does not compensate for a bad OBP, and all the talk about his versatility is overplayed. Yelich can move over to a premium defensive position and be a mediocre defender there just like Baez. Baez playing great 2B defense is no better than Yelich's LF defense. It does not translate to CF, but Baez's 2B defense doesn't really translate to SS very impressively either. I still think Cain is my leader, but I can't stick to my guns much longer at this rate. You don't have to be a slugger to be MVP if you're the best leadoff man in baseball. His OBP has basically been .400 all year and he plays premium CF defense. A lot of teams are just hoping for bonus offense if they have a premiere defender at CF, SS, or C, and the Brewers are getting a .400 OBP. It's ludicrously valuable. For all the talk of Yelich being hot at the right time, that's just narrative - not value. I think Cain's consistency has probably been more valuable. He has basically been the NL leader in WAR for position players literally since day 1 by some measures. All well said. Thing is we know how MVP voting works. The counting stats matter. We can say how it should be but that's just not reality. 310/400 with 11 HRs and 41 RBIs just isn't going to win MVP. Yelich has also scored 20 more Rs than Yelich. Also, Yelich's OBP is only 14 below Cain's right now but Cain is 130 behind in OPS. That difference in slugging is huge. Also, WAR and defensive metrics are still so unknown/flawed/inexact or whatever you want to call it that voters and even people like us have to hesitate to put tooo much weight into those things. And again it's not like yelich is some kind of liability on D to create a massive gap there as it would be if Yelich's stats were being gained at 1B or DH. Sure is nice to have two guys legit in the conversation though.

I suppose I'm biased and all but I really think he should clearly get it over Baez now that he's closed the HR/RBI gap so much. Those were the arguments the other way and they're now greatly reduced. It's really down to those two IMO.

I thought I remember basic spray charts taking his fly balls and overlaying them to MP that they expected his HRs to go up a decent amount. not necessarily into the low 30s though, more like mid 20s

Braun has been doing the every other month thing. He was pretty good in April and June and great in August. He was pretty terrible in May and July and has been bad here in September. YEa it was about 2ish weeks ago when they were pumping that 900+ OPS so that checks out. and like i said you can tell hits aren't falling. Generally though he hasn't looked bad lately though, lots of hard hit balls. Unlike say the first 2-3 weeks this year when he was a trainwreck. Of course he's not worth the money he's being paid anymore but as said it's sunk cost and he's still a functioning mlb player. I hope Santana rebounds and does so well that he does take the majority of ABs, that's a good thing for MKE. My point was the overreaction to a basically a 10 AB sample for Santana combined with pointing out that you want 4 good OFs due to the nature of Braun's injuries and just how now everyone pops on the DL for 10 days here and there. I think both Yelich and Cain did these year too. Also, you need a good 4th OF or bench player come the World Series to DH

Was just gonna say the same thing. Wow people take a breath. Braun has had a 900 OPS the second half, not sure if it has dipped below though as recently it seems hits aren't falling. And as noted his bad luck stuff has been there all year. He's basically been fine/adequate. Santana was bad, went to AAA and only did ok there. But he hits two HRs back to back to days and now he's got BRaun's spot for good. Don't get me wrong, Braun isn't what he was and will spend time on the DL, so we do need another OF. But if this year taught us anything depth is important. I hope Santana is back and does well next year, but there is a need and role for both. The odd man out in this situation will be Thames now that Jesus is a near every day guy.

Really I don't see why the Mets would just give up with this pitching staff. Matz has also done well since coming back from injury. They should go into next year with top 4 of their starting rotation that you could argue is the best in the league, at least is in the discussion. Make some smart bullpen moves a la the Brewers, get Cespedes healthy. Maybe a new manager and see what happens. Probably would have to find a way to add one more good bat to go along with Cespedes back. I'm not saying they're all of a sudden a title favorite or anything but they're really not that far away. Even guys like Rosario, Nimmo, Conforto are solid MLB players.

Unfortunately he'll get 2-3 ABs though. I hope the bases aren't loaded

Problem is if that happens and we are still within 3 games of the division you can't really sit them. You have a for sure off day on Monday, barring some tie break game of course, everyone should be fully rested and ready to go. Especially if just Sunday is a day to rest them all. That's at least 2 full days off for all, 3 or more for others. If you go too far beyond that you're into the much hated rust area that so many folks here expressed hatred for during that Marlins series.

I'm not sure what I posted back then (I hope it was in support if I posted at all), but to me I liked it because he was barely older than Brinson yet a proven player signed for years. And to me Brinson was overrated, especially in that if he was injured for another year and/or came up to MLB and did poorly then he'd lose all his prospect/upside/hype and plummet down the rankings/trade value. So a good time to get for sure value in return for Brinson.

Not at all, this loss makes them have to win out. That's it. Not eliminated at all. Now, of course after how blah they've looked i don't expect them to do it or anything but this just made them have to win every game from here. Before, they could've afforded to lose one of the tough road games but not anymore. This looks like a collision course of Bama vs OSU at this point. Bold prediction for the year: no one will play Bama within single digits all year. Them having a legit passing QB makes them almost unbeatable IMO. I thought preseason that the hype of the offense and O Line was way overboard and so far that's true. hope they get their act together. The 2010-11 type offenses were beyond these guys imo. My idiot friends and I used to bet 4.5 over/under on plays for a score with that 2011 team. They were ridiculous.

I see a lot of different arguments and am not going to call anyone crazy. But I really think think Jeffress should be the Cy Young choice and i don't think it's close. As KD says, he's the real MVP. You can make an honest argument that JJ has been the best reliever in the whole league. I know Hader has been great too and stands out more due to the ridiculousness of his stuff, but really Jeffress has been better than him plus he's so durable, doesn't need the multiple days off and goes multiple days in a row. Basically, if you're just going who was our best relief pitcher I think it should be JJ and I think he's been a bit overlooked all year. He's truly been incredible all year. MVP: Yelich Cy: JJ MIP: either of those two is fine but I go JJ. Then I think for a minute and think how important it is to play every day like a position player so...

I get the point (and it was my gut when it was implemented) that having the season come down to a 1 game playoff isn't quite right. However, beside the Division advantage mentioned already I think the biggest thing they like is that having the 2nd WC keeps several more teams 'alive' longer in the regular season. I don't care to get into specifics this year, but just talking in general. I think that is a huge aspect of them going to this format which can't be overlooked and after my gut not liking the 1 game I've come to accept this as a positive.

Maybe they've already made that decision. But really what we need is to win as many games as possible, that's the priority. If they think Jesus is good to go and gives the best shot right now, which is likely since Thames has frankly been very bad for two months now, then he should play.

All Pirates starters are RH, Granderson will get a game this weekend and it makes sense to be Sat/Sun so Braun doesn't do the day/night back to back. But he's not all of a sudden going to be our starting Of vs all righties. He's going to be a great PH and occasional starter. This is like the opposite of Schoop's bad start with all the overreactions to a small sample fast start. Having a PH come in late with his experience and patience is going to be huge though and of course if the Braun injury bug pops op you have him.

I'd guess Braun plays today and will take off one of Sat/Sun due to the day night aspects of saturday sunday games

I don't think I've really seen anything from Schoop that would require him to be pulled from SS duties either. I know he has made his share of errors since being with us, but I don't recall anything SS specific that is worrisome. As in a weak arm or horrible range (at least not worse than they thought they were getting when they first went this route). He's just botched a few balls here or there and most have been at 2B in my memory.

Somebody posted Schoop has good numbers vs Archer and i'd assume a lot of ABs. Could be a day to let Shaw play 1B and give Jesus one more day to clear his head. Guessing they'll want Arcia for D today.

Dodgers article relatedd to the discussion that has taken place here and generally why we shouldn't want them in the playoffs https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/9/13/17855124/los-angeles-dodgers-national-league-favorite-playoffs-world-series