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Pandemic Realignment: Sox in the Cactus League West


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19 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

Is there any team worse than the Sox in that division?  It looks like 3 or 4 .500ish teams plus the Dodgers.  Much tougher than the AL Central.

I will note that they really stuck it to the Yankees with that North division......

You could make a decent argument that the Angels entire team is Trout, Rendon and Ohtani.

I mean look at their roster. Outside of those 3 guys(and maybe Dylan Bundy because he was having a wonderful spring with a significant velocity increase) it's absolute crap. 

Jo Adell helps, but even if he comes up and rakes, and Bundy is good they're still the 2016 Sox on steroids. 

https://www.mlb.com/angels/roster

 

I'll take the Sox roster over the Angels. 

Edited by Jack Parkman
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7 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

You could make a decent argument that the Angels entire team is Trout, Rendon and Ohtani. 

I mean look at their roster. Outside of those 3 guys(and maybe Dylan Bundy because he was having a wonderful spring with a significant velocity increase) it's absolute crap. 

https://www.mlb.com/angels/roster

Maybe so, but that roster without Trout/Rendon/Ohtani is no worse than the Royals or Tigers.  Heck I think there's a big chance of a significant Indians regression.  But Dodgers/Reds/Angels>>>>>>>>>Twins/Royals/Tigers

Edited by GreenSox
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3 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

Maybe so, but that roster without Trout/Rendon/Ohtani is no worse than the Royals or Tigers

Right, and that's what brings them to the 75-82 win/162 range instead of complete crap like the Tigers and Royals. 

They're the 2016 Sox on steroids. 

Edited by Jack Parkman
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32 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

Is there any team worse than the Sox in that division?  It looks like 3 or 4 .500ish teams plus the Dodgers.  Much tougher than the AL Central.

I will note that they really stuck it to the Yankees with that North division......

This Reds blog is worried about the Sox: 

https://blogredmachine.com/2020/04/10/cincinnati-reds-radical-realignment-big-challenge/

The Dodgers are the obvious kings of that division. The other four teams are all close, but have some fatal flaw.

The Sox are uniquely built for this scenario, but will need their youth to perform.

The Reds have improved their offense a lot, but their defense is...shaky at best.

Angels may have the most top heavy team in the league.

Indians are also top heavy, with a lot of industry previews having them just behind the White Sox due to this.

Ultimately, I'd expect both Cactus League wild cards to come from the West, depending how they do the scheduling.

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1 hour ago, GreenSox said:

Maybe so, but that roster without Trout/Rendon/Ohtani is no worse than the Royals or Tigers.  Heck I think there's a big chance of a significant Indians regression.  But Dodgers/Reds/Angels>>>>>>>>>Twins/Royals/Tigers

This break would have given the Indians a chance to get over those couple of ST pitching injuries right? 

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I am not really looking at this from the winning viewpoint. I would like to see young players get some time in, and it would be great to see baseball, if only on TV.  I never thought 2020 was a championship year for the Sox. It was to be one more building block before everything went to hell.

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This is probably wrong but I’m of the opinion that playing in a tough division raises the competitiveness of your team if they are on edge and crushes them when they are far off. Sometimes just expecting to cruise in a bad division makes you worse.

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2 hours ago, GreenSox said:

Is there any team worse than the Sox in that division?  It looks like 3 or 4 .500ish teams plus the Dodgers.  Much tougher than the AL Central.

I will note that they really stuck it to the Yankees with that North division......

I like it.  A couple of games over .500 probably gets a playoff invitation.  Also, great for development of young guys playing decent opponents every day.  We also have exceptional depth at both starting pitching and catchers.  Like our chances of making something interesting out of this crazy season.

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It'll also mean more chances to beat up on the cubs for more than 4 games a year with this temp realignment. Honestly, it would be kind of fun to play some teams more often that we don't traditionally play, get to see some new players and form new rivalries. There are a number of teams in the Cactus League that have intriguing young players like the Padres, A's, and Reds.

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This is a really cool idea and all, but I just don't see how this works. If this happens, players will have to play at night to avoid that unbearable desert summer heat. If they start games at 7, that means all games in Chicago would start at 9 and end around midnight. And for the fans not far away in the eastern time zone, that means starting at 10 pm (thinking of those cleveland fans and few Sox fans living east of Chicago). I, along with many others, would not be able to watch more than 1-3 innings. Just doesn't seem feasible to me. And players should not be out there before 6:00 (and that might even be pushing it). 

Edited by ScooterMcGee
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37 minutes ago, ScooterMcGee said:

This is a really cool idea and all, but I just don't see how this works. If this happens, players will have to play at night to avoid that unbearable desert summer heat. If they start games at 7, that means all games in Chicago would start at 9 and end around midnight. And for the fans not far away in the eastern time zone, that means starting at 10 pm (thinking of those cleveland fans and few Sox fans living east of Chicago). I, along with many others, would not be able to watch more than 1-3 innings. Just doesn't seem feasible to me. And players should not be out there before 6:00 (and that might even be pushing it). 

Three games a day at Chase / night games.

Then the players will have to play a few day games here and there, but if they aren't all day games, they could possibly endure the summer.*

*Says the guy who doesn't have to do it.

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4 minutes ago, justBLAZE said:

All of these scenarios seem like logistical nightmares, not only but players voicing their disapproval.  I have a feeling MLB leaks these on purpose to gauge fans reaction.  I dont see this happening.

Agree this is probably just a way to keep the baseball conversation going, which is fine. It’s a good way to stay optimistic until it’s too late to play in 2020. Hopefully the situation is a lot better by June and they can start gearing up for a shortened season. If it ends up being 60-80 games, so be it. 

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5 hours ago, justBLAZE said:

All of these scenarios seem like logistical nightmares, not only but players voicing their disapproval.  I have a feeling MLB leaks these on purpose to gauge fans reaction.  I dont see this happening.

I don't see it happening either. Players are not going to leave their families to fend for themselves for months during a pandemic.

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2 minutes ago, Sarava said:

I don't see it happening either. Players are not going to leave their families to fend for themselves for months during a pandemic.

I think it’s useful to start having these conversations because this billion dollar industry wants to figure out how to run itself in this mess, and without having these first conversations we can’t even figure out what the important problems are. The reaction of the isolated players is clearly one. We’ve also seen in Japan that their league started making preparations to open and then 3 of their players got it, shutting down those preparations. Aside from the fact that the federal government is useless there’s not much we are sure about right now, so you may as well start asking what it would take to open something, what the formats could be, and then watch to see how the problems develop.

There are some obvious ones. Just think of basic things. One shortstop gets it, shows no symptoms, they throw the ball around the infield 10 times in a game and now even with distancing everyone on that team is exposed and so is anyone who is tagged at 2b. How do we manage that? I don’t know, but could there be some answer? Maybe.

We don’t want every industry to shut down for 18 months, even I don’t want that and I think these idiots are about to kill another hundred thousand because they think they can reopen stuff in 4 weeks. So let’s start thinking through what the issues are, if the whole league doesn’t work then it doesn’t work, but at least we tried.

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On ‎4‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 3:22 PM, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

This would be outstanding for the Sox.. Apart from the Dodgers is there any team that is significantly better than the Sox??

Cubs, Indians and A's would be okay.. Then it looks like a shit ton of trash.. 

Man, the Arizona league would be trash compared to Florida.

Pretty confused by this take. Every one of those teams is a playoff contender and you could legitimately argue that all are better. Not to mention, Dodgers are the best team in baseball and were a lock to win 100+ games barring catastrophic injuries hitting. 

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20 hours ago, justBLAZE said:

All of these scenarios seem like logistical nightmares, not only but players voicing their disapproval.  I have a feeling MLB leaks these on purpose to gauge fans reaction.  I dont see this happening.

There are logistical issues for sure. The bottom line here in my opinion is this: players want to play and players want to get paid. They aren't getting paid unless there's baseball this year. Because of those two things, there will be baseball this year. 

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15 hours ago, Sarava said:

I don't see it happening either. Players are not going to leave their families to fend for themselves for months during a pandemic.

They absolutely will if it's the only way they get paid. This is the one thing that people are blowing way out of proportion. By the time this would theoretically start, the social distancing practices would be lessened. It'll be realistic for these guys to have their families with them in June. Especially in Arizona where there isn't even a stay at home order in place. I love my father. If he had to leave the family for 4 months to make $10 million though, I would've quickly gotten over it. 

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