MLB general postseason 2020 thread

okay now I'm bummed they won because we might've gotten to see how they'd treat a COVID outbreak on a baseball team right before GAME 7 OF THE WORLD SERIES

sorry, that was a dumb way to put it. i don't actually think of them as "asterisk years". this was a crazy fucking year. but they all tried, and the dodgers played really well and deserved it. but still, just that they won both of the "weird" years

okay now I'm bummed they won because we might've gotten to see how they'd treat a COVID outbreak on a baseball team right before GAME 7 OF THE WORLD SERIES

not to get all tin-foil hat, but maybe they deal with it by not letting the test results known until mid-game?

I think manifred has his own voice in his earbuds tbh. He’s talking like he hears himself talking and is confused

and just lie about why Turner got pulled? yeah you could probably do that

I just hope we never see a 60 games season ever again.

what we're about to see is massive layoffs

no need for scouts when there are no games (and video everywhere); no need for salespeople when there are no season tickets to sell; no need for coaches when there are no short-season minor league teams

'95 was shortened by 18 games; it has 11% of an asterisk.

xpost It started already

take sides: gary bettman vs rob manfred

(obviously boo them all)

But yeah part of why I rooted for the Dodgers so much this season, other than Kershaw and Betts fandom, is really because of how they got cheated in 2017. At least it gives me a sense of restoration.

Bettman has a longer path of destruction

Manifred is just a toady

I'm taking Manfred because Bettman will outlive us all and will still be doing the same speech routine under the boos in 2176 and he's not a man he's a vampire he scares me.

If the owners in MLB suddenly caved and said we need to pay the players more manifred would start dancing but bettman is from the stern school

Wild how these little trolls end up here

wild how you imagine that MLB owners would ever cave

I don’t imagine! That’s the thing I’m saying that manifred is a true mouthpiece

ok fair

oof

. @Ken_Rosenthal: “He tested positive yesterday. They got those positive results back this afternoon. Ran a test today, came back positive again. This is NOT a case of a false positive… he was asked not to go on the field. He insisted upon it, the Dodgers insisted upon it.” pic.twitter.com/GG7PTbluuo

— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) October 28, 2020

That's going to undermine sympathy going back to the Houston WS just a little bit...How could he/they be so stupid?

(I don't mean to be callous, obviously I hope he's fine, but geez.)

Absolutely shameful.

they, for sure

i guess they collectively thought

[the value of justin turner in this one game, playing free, without a mask] > [the collective risk of any covid-19 it spreads]

flags fly forever, i guess

actually flags are notoriously annoying to deal with and have to be put up and taken down all the time, it sucks. they get beat up too

The Justin Turner story is blowing my mind. If 10-15 Dodgers players go on to test positive then this should be as big a scandal as the Astros trash can banging was. I want to be happy for the Dodgers finally winning but I think we're only scratching the surface of this story and it could blow up in their faces big time.

Just scratching the surface, yes--did they know before the game? Wouldn't they time the testing so you'd have results before the game, rather than the 7th inning? That doesn't make sense.

There's a long Rosenthal story in The Athletic that I haven't had a chance to read yet.

"MLB said it learned in the second inning that the result of Turner’s test from Monday had been inconclusive; the league had been shipping hundreds of tests from Texas to its lab in Utah each day, and the results typically came back in the early evening. Once the uncertainty about Turner arose, the league asked the lab to expedite his test from earlier Tuesday. When the result came back positive, league officials told the Dodgers to remove Turner from the game.

Why didn’t the league exercise an abundance of caution and get Turner off the field immediately after learning he might be positive? Apparently, because inconclusive results are not uncommon, and the standard procedure was to run a second test.

Would Game 7 have been played on Wednesday if the Rays had rallied to defeat the Dodgers? The league said it would have reviewed the matter with its medical advisors, but similar circumstances during the regular season normally led to postponements."

More:

https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/mlb/news/justin-turner-covid-positive-test-timeline-dodgers-world-series/r1rqb78k3e1r18gbfq1ork5k7

yeah I'd think they'd have to postpone Game 7 a few weeks?

i have an idea, though:

fucking...wear a mask?

what is wrong with everyone

who gets an inconclusive test, with the possibility it's positive, then doesn't wear a mask?

It's pretty funny to me the amount of Trumpian-level gymnastics Justin Turner performs to cover up his bald spot and he can't even bother to wear a mask after he tests postive for COVID.

idiots

I hope he gets a lengthy suspension.

It's so weird...It looked like the WS (and postseason in general) was going to go a long way towards restoring a botched season. The right team won, there were dramatic games and comebacks and near comebacks, and a new best-player-in-the-game debate sprung up. Instead, the WS will be remembered for two things: Turner reminding everybody of and exacerbating the game's handling of COVID, and Snell getting lifted. The second is part of the game, but it pushes a button, the takeover of analytics. I'm not down on that: a franchise like Tampa Bay would never stay competitive if not for smart use of analytics. My post last night about taking out Snell was basically me accepting that that's how things are done now--you can't ask a guy to do something he's never asked to do. But I think it's fair to say that the game has alienated and probably lost a few fans when analytics becomes rigid dogma.

anderson was tremendous during the regular season but had allowed runs in six straight appearances before last night.

he, a righty, was brought in to face mookie betts, who had absolutely terrible numbers vs lefties (like snell) this season. he was also committed to then face corey seager, who crushes righties.

and sometimes in world series you do indeed ask your cy young-winning pitchers to do things they don't normally do -- i mean it's not like he was at 110 pitches or something.

i think it's less a matter of 'too much analytics' than weighing certain analytics too heavily and considering them cut-and-dry when they're more just guidelines.

You ask players to do stuff they don’t normally do all the time in the playoffs. Doesn’t always work, but it’s common to see guys pitch on short rest, or have guy a play out of position or go an extra inning or two.
Cash, imho, was a great manager all season - but I don’t think he adjusted his thinking for the World Series.

I'm not arguing, believe me--as I prefaced my post last night, I was always the guy who was on here complaining about pulling starters too soon.

considering them cut-and-dry when they're more just guidelines = when analytics becomes rigid dogma

And maybe they should occasionally let Snell pitch deeper into a regular-season game; then they're not asking him to do something he never does. (Complicated by the fact he was coming back from something, I think.)

Sheehan:

Snell, to pick the example in play, has a 592 OPS allowed when facing batters the first time, 711 the second time, and 742 the third time. That understates his decline; Snell’s strikeout-to-walk ratio drops from 3.5 to 2.4 to 2.0 with each pass through the lineup. His strikeout rate drops from 34% to 26% to 22%. Letting Snell face a lineup a third time is a bad idea, and Kevin Cash knows this. In five postseason starts prior to last night, Cash had let Snell face 11 batters a third time. They were 3-for-10 with a homer, a double and a walk off him, roughly what Randy Arozarena is hitting. Just last Wednesday, Cash tried to get Snell through the bottom of the fifth facing the top of the Dodgers' order; a walk to Mookie Betts and a single by Corey Seager forced him to go to the pen.

In that start, as long as we’re talking about “dealing,” Snell had a no-hitter through 16 batters on 71 pitches. The next four batters: walk, homer, walk, single. Tonight, Cash went and got him after 18 batters and 73 pitches.

Every pitcher is dealing until he's not, and you literally need only go back to Blake Snell’s last start to see that.

A manager’s job isn’t to sit there and wait until his pitcher makes it plainly obvious he needs to be removed. His job, especially in Game Six of the World Series with a one-run lead, is to make sure it never gets to that point. Blake Snell isn’t handled like Jack Morris, and treating him that way is how you lose baseball games.

This was the big topic of the night, at least until events overtook it. Cash, though, made the right decision. He made the decision he’s been making with this team all year long, not letting the starters lose the game, getting them out before they deteriorate, knowing -- based on the numbers both general and specific -- that they will deteriorate, knowing that he has a deep and powerful bullpen for just this task. This is how they win games, how they won 51 of the 80 games they played, how they got to within two wins of a championship on a payroll that wouldn’t cover the Dodgers’ coffee budget. This is how the Rays have won all year, and dunking on it because it didn’t work in Game Six of the World Series may not be emphasizing the second part of that clause enough.

He goes on to say what you might want to quibble with is the choice of reliever to follow Snell. But that really, what the Rays needed was for somebody to hit besides Arozarena.

Ok. That’s a fairly enlightening explanation.

Instead, the WS will be remembered for two things: Turner reminding everybody of and exacerbating the game's handling of COVID, and Snell getting lifted.

I believe the Brett Phillips hit will be remembered.

i'll remember arozarena's crazy tear

Unreal from Turner. From memory he was the leader of the Dodgers spearheading the "we are taking this seriously, no hi-5's, masks at all times, not walk off celebrations, we do not treat this lightly" public declaration in the middle of the season (if anyone wants to do the work of finding that announcement, much appreciated). I am a Dodgers fan and its really sad to have a world series tainted, especially because of all the decrying of a tainted world series in 2017 that has been done by the fan base! I know its a false equivalence, but it just would have been nice to earn one without having to apologise afterwards :\

https://dodgerblue.com/dodgers-news-justin-turner-concerned-accuracy-saliva-tests-results/2020/07/09/

Interesting read

Instead, the WS will be remembered for two things: Turner reminding everybody of and exacerbating the game's handling of COVID, and Snell getting lifted.

Yes to Turner, also Arozarena's HR's, the crazy game 4, Seager winning WS (and NCLS) MVP. It was a well-played series between two great teams. As for Snell, this isn't Pedro and Grady Little, nobody will remember it by next season. He threw fewer than 6 IP per start in the year he won the Cy Young. He has 21 IP in the seventh inning or later in his entire career. If he stayed in, he would have gotten two, maybe three more outs? Snell got rocked in his third time through the order against the Dodgers in Game 2. Why do people think this represents a turning point in the use (or misuse) of analytics?

Bret Phillips slipped my mind--for sure.

As for Snell, this isn't Pedro and Grady Little, nobody will remember it by next season.

I'll see you in 2029; I'm 0-1 so far.

Meanwhile, Turner rates barely a mention on mlb.com.

Of course he doesn’t. It’s the Pravda of the game.