2016 World Series: Rapid Robert vs. Tinkers to Evers to Chance

Cubs in 5

No real preference as to who wins (in any other WS not involving the Jays, would be rooting for one of them). I just don't see how Cleveland gets by with Kluber and two great relievers, unless Merritt turns into this year's Josh Beckett or Steve Avery. Split the first two, Cubs take two in Wrigley, win in 6.

Cubs in 6

i do really hope the cubs take it in 5 so a great MGs song will possibly have a moment on twitter, also so they can win it at home

also fuck the ASG stip, cubs should have home field

It's ok, this way the Cubs get to win at home

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Cubs in 6. and then they become the new Red Sox.

Looking forward to more Dempster Caray bombardment this week.

Ferrell Caray as well, god damn it.

I can't really support either of them. Team in same division as Pittsburgh vs team with racist mascot. That being said, I think the cubs will win, in...let's say 6, I don't know.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cvi7nN0VUAATXAi.jpg:small

no no no no no

good christ

apparently they /want/ cubs backlash to begin ahead of schedule? damn

chicago cucks imo

that terrible piece is setting the cubs up for

http://66.media.tumblr.com/d354027ea44762d9da2a34aed0d29420/tumblr_mly4hnFihl1qg4blro1_500.gif

I want coco to get another ring but I'm guessing cubs in 5

btw great job with the thread title that no one will be able to find again once it drops off new answers

I was thinking "2016 World Series" might work.

salazar is supposedly on the roster, could go 65-70 pitches

lol brownie

@jonmorosi
Kyle Schwarber en route to Cleveland now on a private jet. He's expected to DH for the #Cubs in Game 1. @MLB @MLBNetwork

he did not appear to be moving too well in today's afl game, but then i suppose he never did when fully healthy either

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Rigged! The Cub is the real racist mascot.

Adding Schwarber for the WS seems a little silly given all the other options but I guess if you've got a chance to use him in his ideal position as DH you gotta take it

If he hits even one huge donger I will lose my shit and it will be worth it

not sure who will now be left off because of schwarber -- if it's willson, that seems dumb

Fangraphs theorized they would drop a pitcher, possibly Zastryzny or whatever that dude's name is. Doubt they would drop Contreras. Another option would be losing Heyward and playing Contreras in the outfield but it seems unlikely

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-kyle-schwarber-decision/

oh man if they dropped heyward that would be . . . harsh

Doubt they would but emphasizing offense over defense makes sense against Cleveland I think

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvlMsMWWgAA1Wtq.jpg

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/10/25/the-2005-white-sox-continue-to-be-erased/

lol

Cleveland Indians in 4 0
Cleveland Indians in 5 0

I forgot to vote. One of these. NOBODY BELIEVES IN US!!!!

Hate the mascot, not the team.

I can manage to do both.

gonna say the indians take this because baseball is crazy as fuck

ugh just for fun i checked stubhub prices

cheapest is ~$600 for nosebleeds and that's only game 2

game 3 is double that

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-massive-payroll-disparity-of-the-2016-world-series

cheapest ticket I found at Wrigley was $2,775 and that was for SRO

what are the face values like?

Tantalizing Tribe Trivia: Coco Crisp homered when the Indians clinched the division title, in game 3 against the Red Sox and in game 5 against the Blue Jays.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvoxsfOWgAUcXGP.jpg:small

also coghlan in RF, schwarber batting fifth, heyward on the bench

whoa

u crazy joe

brownie/snrub/phil/other clevelanders, do i need cable to watch the game tonight?

Nobody seems to mind that stupid fucking Tomahawk Chop that the Braves and Seminoles do. Braves is a racist name, too. Get rid of that.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, November 3, 2016 8:04 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes they do, u mad

Cleveland, I hope you win the World Series as soon as you get rid of Chief Wahoo.

― aaaaaaaauuuuuuuuu (melting robot) (WilliamC), Thursday, November 3, 2016 8:48 AM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm really, im bummed this morning and obv i would have loved to see cleveland win last night to top off a great year for the city but despite growing up here i have just never gotten used to seeing that logo everywhere, it is so blatant and jarring to me and just blows my mind to see thousands of people wearing it

The Indians are never getting rid of Chief Wahoo.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, November 3, 2016 9:03 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think eventually they will. im not super optimistic that anything will happen after this upcoming meeting w/ the league but i think as time goes on it will be apparent how indefensible wahoo is

https://twitter.com/MikeColeNESN/status/794039565229105152

― Spottie, Thursday, November 3, 2016 2:12 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bryant is such a hateable dude, fuck that guy

Lindor is back next season, my player of the post-season.

― Van Horn Street, Thursday, November 3, 2016 1:19 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya easily my favorite tribe player

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwUVJIAW8AAdoJz.jpg

probably just as well i went to bed in the top of the eighth

@miggymont26
Do you guys remember my BA in the regular season ? Who cares lmao

marcos what do you have against bryant?

haha nothing besides him being a good hitter on the opposing team in the world series

lol fair

i didn't really see cleveland play at all during the regular season, they're a fun team. lindor is scary good for someone that young and didn't seem to exhibit the world series jitters that a lot of the younger cubs players had.

otm really, im bummed this morning and obv i would have loved to see cleveland win last night to top off a great year for the city but despite growing up here i have just never gotten used to seeing that logo everywhere, it is so blatant and jarring to me and just blows my mind to see thousands of people wearing it

On my way out of work the other day I passed a guy coming the other way --needless to say, he was white -- with a stylized Wahoo logo made out of the words KEEP THE CHIEF. It amazes me how much white people have invested in this logo. (I'm white btw.)

As much as this loss hurt -- and it hurt a LOT -- it's still not as bad as 1997, when we lost to a bought-and-paid-for championship team that went on to have the worst record in baseball the next year.

http://www.knoxnews.com/picture-gallery/sports/local/2016/10/25/before-they-were-champs-cubs-during-their-time-with-tennessee-smokies/92714094/

wish a cubs-loving band would release a special one-off prog style masterpiece, like ten minutes long, about this world series. maybe call it, "cubs in 7". spitballing here.

― nomar, Thursday, November 3, 2016 1:17 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://archive.alternativenation.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/billycubsnew.jpg

THE WORLD IS AN UMPIRE

ha ha!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwV0W9OWEAA6Oev.jpg

This has to be one of the all time World Series, where do you rank it?

right behind 2010, 2012 and 2014

Angell:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/at-last

http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/11/03/john-paul-stevens-lifelong-cubs-fan-on-staying-up-late-for-wildest-game/

@The_Heckler
Maddon yanks Hendricks from victory parade after 4 2/3 blocks

does anyone else hope that steve bartman is in that parade and people are nice to him?

G7 was the most watched baseball game in 25 years (since the 1991 WS).

cameron: Is the Postseason Becoming Too Different?

was thinking about this a lot over the month

i don't follow other sports too much, are there other examples of massive strategy shifts during postseason play in say NFL or NBA?

i know plenty of people are fine with it, but it's a bit annoying to me and i hope some teams start to solve the buzzsaw bullpen strategy somehow, just to get things back to some degree of normalcy.

then again, 4-man rotations have been turning into 3-man playoffs rotations for a very long

one thing dave brings up that i never understood:

But the only real way to push innings from the bullpen back towards starting pitchers would be to have fewer off days in October. And that would require changing the postseason schedule pretty dramatically. Going from a 2-3-2 format to something like a 3-4 format would eliminate one off day from each series, and taking away that second rest day would make it more difficult for teams to extend their bullpens in the way they’re being used now.

Re strategy shifts hockey is often whichever goalie gets hot and runs the table

then again, 4-man rotations have been turning into 3-man playoffs rotations for a very long

― qualx, Saturday, November 5, 2016 6:42 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well this is weird, that was supposed to say "for a very long pretzel"

there are also strategy shifts in september with the expanded roster, but it does seem like certain managers (tito, maddon) dealt with the postseason better than others (buck)

but yeah there's no easy solution to good team for six months vs. good team in october, which will generally boost the team that can afford an A+ starter (particularly as a wild card)

this year, at least, it was pretty obvious that the cubs were the best team all around. but last year the cardinals had a remarkable season that will be forgotten because they lost a best-of-5 series. so it goes

It's not much of a secret that NBA players coast for most of the regular season and don't start really trying until the playoffs. That's a pretty significant strategy shift, more than anything we see in MLB.

it's like a given with most people that plane ride = off day. why? teams take planes all the time without a rest day in the regular season, is it really so hard to do it in the postseason?

In the regular season, they almost always play afternoon games on travel days and can avoid the off day. I really don't want to see MLB turn into the NFL, where teams kill themselves to get ready for a Sunday-Thursday double shot because the league wants to make more money broadcasting non-weekend games.

What I don't get is how teams carry eight relievers but as we've seen, they only trust two or three of them in crucial situations. If you're going to ride your best relievers (and use starters as relievers), then you can afford to drop three of your "pitch in case of blowout" guys and add more position players to your bench, i.e. defensive specialists, pinch runners, etc. And with an extra hitter available to come off the bench, you can avoid situations like having Michael Martinez bat with the World Series on the line.

And a huge no to a best of three wild card, which misses the entire point of the wild card -- to incentivize winning the division and not to get stuck playing a coin flip game.

In the regular season, they almost always play afternoon games on travel days

just looking at the orioles schedule this season, they had 22 travel days that didn't fall on a sunday and only 5 of them were in the afternoon. that includes 2 instances where the games were rescheduled postponed games where they could've picked whatever starting time they wanted, and they were still evening games.

they're big boys, they can fly on a plane and play ball the next day

Without checking, I'd guess that those non-off days happened between series with divisional rivals or other opponents involving a flight no longer than two hours and no time zone changes. In the postseason longer travel is a lot more common. Can you imagine playing a four hour playoff game on the west coast, doing mandatory press afterwards, getting on a charter flight maybe by two AM, flying across the country and landing at 10 AM, getting three hours of rest and then heading to park to start preparing for the game? It's possible (and some weird and unfair travel arrangements are going to happen sometimes in the regular season) but it's inviting sloppy and ugly baseball in what are supposed to be the most important games of the season. Plus the risk of injury goes way up.

the point of the postseason is to see corey kluber and jon lester three times, not ryan merritt. fair or not, there will not be changes to give fourth and fifth starters a chance to shine

i'm not going to go through the entire schedule again but sure, that's possible. but there are still obvious ways around having a zillion off days in october. night games are only guaranteed in the WS, there are plenty of day games during the LDS and LCS. i get that they want as many primetime games as possible but that isn't an excuse to just throw afternoon/travel games out the window. there never needs to be an off day in the LDS. in the LCS, there doesn't need to be an off-day between games 2 and 3 as both teams are still guaranteed to be playing. they could also do the wild card games on the same day and have the team that won the first game start the LDS the day after. for the world series, they could (gulp) schedule a day game. i mean, you mention the NFL scheduling to maximize ratings, this is just MLB/FOX warping normal ballgame scheduling for primetime ratings. let's stop having november baseball be a thing.

but the world series being too long isn't as much of a big deal as the rest of the postseason being too long anyway.

November baseball is inexcusable, and not just because of weather issues (although they got lucky this year with unseasonably warm weather). I don't have a problem with the pace of the postseason, so the best solution IMO would be to shorten the regular season somehow by about two weeks, with some combination of fewer off days and doubleheaders. I'd totally be in favour of short term roster exceptions to make that happen, e.g. expanding rosters to 30 players on the day of a doubleheader to keep pitchers' arms from falling off.

Teams would make less money on ticket sales and TV during the regular season though. So it'll probably never happen, or it'll take a commissioner with serious balls to push those changes through.

more doubleheaders imo, fans love em, you always end up with some unusual lineups, yes slightly less TV money so will never ever happen

"Re: Is the Postgame too different."

Obviously a 162 game marathon regular season is a different game than playing best 3 of 5 or 4 of 7 playoff series. If they played a round robin tournament like the NCAA College Series, it would be even different.

Only thing I would consider doing is take the regular season back to 158 games and start the playoffs a few days before. If they did that they could make the division series 7 games and probably make up the lost revenue for the 4 regular season games without getting into November, especially if they skipped one travel day each on the division series.

There was always talk of having the first two or three games of the World Series at a neutral site hyped up like a Superbowl, but I think clubs would balk at not necessarily having a shot to host a game. It would lose something going that way anyway.

My heretical thought is if they ever bring in the DH for both leagues I would completely realign the whole league by geography adding the two east, west, central, etc. divisions together. Play up in division baseball against regional rivals and then use previous year strength of schedule for who you play out of division, with some type of rotation that you see everyone over so many year cycle. I think having more in-division games would get more people to travel an hour or two to see their club on a regular basis and give TV more LA vs. LA, NY vs. NY, Chicago vs. Chicago games which seem to do good for ratings.

I seem to recall that, for a time anyway, record-keeping was an issue when it came to schedule length--the league didn't want to go through that whole Maris-asterisk debacle again. Maybe that's not an issue anymore, now that there's basically a whole decade that has an invisible asterisk attached to it.

NHL and NBA playoffs are way too long, and the regular season feels meaningless in a way it doesn't in baseball. I think baseball is the closest we have to a perfect format.

NHL playoffs are exactly the right length; it's the regular season that's too long

english premiere league has perfect format: one division, no playoffs

way to wreck the end of the WS thread, guys

enjoyed Cub win despite their many terrible fans, loved Murray-Theo interview. Now that all the oldtimers have been satisfied, may it be another century.

This was the worst, most gut-wrenching loss in baseball history. The Bill Buckner game was nothing compared to this.

the red sox led 5-2 in the 10th inning of a clinching game in 1986

the indians never had a lead after the fourth inning of game 5

i do always appreciate your snrubness tho

oh please. that wasn't even a game seven.

i can't stress enough how completely unqualified joe buck is to announce the cubs winning the world series

― qualx, Thursday, November 3, 2016 4:52 AM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i rewetted the last inning today and this comment is OTM, his choice of words, his cadence, he's garbage

whoa, *rewatched. but i guess that works too iirc.