2023 World Series- Rangers/Dbacks

[Balta1701]

26 minutes ago, ron883 said:

Let's be real, this team doesn't win with Bochy either. The roster was too damn flawed. 

That 2021 team had a real, legitimate shot if they were smarter. Especially if you could throw in better defensive fundamentals, an approach at the plate that isn't obsessed with ground balls the other way.

[Bob Sacamano]

On this date 13 years ago, Bochy won a World Series with the Giants beating the Rang

Edited November 2, 2023 by Bob Sacamano

[ron883]

22 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

That 2021 team had a real, legitimate shot if they were smarter. Especially if you could throw in better defensive fundamentals, an approach at the plate that isn't obsessed with ground balls the other way.

TLR sucked complete ass, but your hatred of him blinds you too much. It's ridiculous to think a manager in his first year on a team would drastically improve their defensive fundamentals and hitting capabilities. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by ron883

[chw42]

6 minutes ago, ron883 said:

TLR sucked complete ass, but your hatred of him blinds you too much. It's ridiculous to think a manager in his first year on a team would drastically improve their defensive fundamentals and hitting capabilities. 

Look at the Rangers' offensive numbers last year and compare them to this year.

7 of the 9 regulars on this World Series team played regularly in 2022. The only 2 who didn't are Jung and Carter.

The Rangers are a very similar team this year from a position player standpoint. They improved their pitching through free agency this year, but their improvements on offense came from Seager and Semien having better seasons and Heim, Taveras, Garver, and Garcia improving a lot.

[caulfield12]

15 minutes ago, ron883 said:

TLR sucked complete ass, but your hatred of him blinds you too much. It's ridiculous to think a manager in his first year on a team would drastically improve their defensive fundamentals and hitting capabilities. 

Sounds familiar.  Abreu and tobacco.  Abreu and empty stats.

[caulfield12]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/course-tv-ratings-diamondbacks-v-210653982.html

[Highland]

Glad to see the Rangers win. 84 game winners don't belong in the World Series. The better team rightfully won.

Playoffs are way too long because of stupid wild cards.

Just think: If by some miracle the Series were being played in Chicago, they would be playing in winter-like conditions. Yes, let's play baseball in the beginning of November.

[35thstreetswarm]

Bruce Bochy:  who knew?  (Besides everyone, I mean.)  I swear this season was custom-designed to torment me personally.

[RibbieRubarb]

I always wished my second World Series parade would be in Chicago again...

But taking my youngest son to his first parade (my oldest got to go in 2005) will be special. 

[Balta1701]

11 hours ago, ron883 said:

TLR sucked complete ass, but your hatred of him blinds you too much. It's ridiculous to think a manager in his first year on a team would drastically improve their defensive fundamentals and hitting capabilities. 

Even ignoring all the clear mistakes he made during the Astros series and the games he gave away during the season for no reason whatsoever...there were some fundamental strategic choices that they made which backfired.

Take a look at the pitching staff. Coming off of 2020, literally everyone could see that "the health of pitchers" was a concern, because none of them pitched 150 innings the year before, and Rodon in particular was going to have some worry since he was also coming back from injury. LaRussa burned out his starting pitchers as much as humanly possible in the first half of the season to get a 10+ game lead in the AL Central, and never scheduled in break time for most of them until they actually hit the IL. You had Rodon hit the IL with arm soreness and tiredness, you had Lynn break down with a knee problem, I believe Giolito hit the IL, and Keuchel fell apart as soon as the sticky stuff ban existed. 

Maybe the latter doesn't fall on LaRussa as much as Katz and company, but "Pushing these guys as hard as possible in the first half to the point that they were injured down the stretch" and "Burying Kopech as a 1 inning reliever in the bullpen for July, August, and Most of September rather than sending him to the minors, streching him out, and using him as a starter to give each other guy a break" - these were big picture strategic decisions that looked like bad ideas coming into the year and turned out to be bad ideas in the end. Maybe they still lose to the Astros,  but maybe if they stretched Kopech out, they come in with home field advantage, Rodon's arm is stronger and he goes in game 1, and all of a sudden you have a different series.

[whitesoxfan99]

13 hours ago, chw42 said:

He wasn't actually good until 2019. He was pretty mediocre for the A's until Ron Washington taught him how to defense. Then he learned that elevating and pulling the ball = homers and he's been pretty good ever since. 

He was a really good player from 2016-2018 as well (3.5+ WAR pace ever year during that stretch) but he became a legitimate star in 2019. 

[Panerista]

White Sox are just bad characters with unrealized talent. Let's give the guy responsible for development of talent the keys.

[caulfield12]

Once again, it's not accidental they have GG candidates at five positions...Lowe at 1B going from worst in OOA in 2022 to something like second over in 2023.

[caulfield12]

Texas Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who struggled with his fielding last season, has made a remarkable transformation and is now a finalist for the Gold Glove award. Lowe, who won the Silver Slugger award last season, spent the offseason and spring training working on his defense and has impressed with his improved glove work this season. He credits his success to his hard work, as well as the influence of slick-fielding shortstop Francisco Lindor and the guidance of Rangers coaches Tony Beasley and Corey Ragsdale. Lowe’s impressive turnaround is a testament to his determination and dedication to the game.

 

https://bvmsports.com/2023/10/19/texas-rangers-nathaniel-lowe-goes-from-worst-fielding-1b-to-a-gold-glove-finalist/

Tony Beasley was brought over from the Pirates' organization by Jeff Banister originally when he managed the Rangers.  Know these guys well from time in Augusta in 1990s and they are both really hard workers and personally self - disciplined with leadership qualities galore.

Edited November 2, 2023 by caulfield12

[greg775]

Had a couple questions. I watched none of this World Series. Not a pitch.

a.) I read somewhere ratings were at a historic low for WS. My question is does this matter? Do Fox and the other networks care at all about ratings? Or is all good in that area because there were still a ton of commercials and advertisers bought in?

b.) As a sporting event, how was it? Were the games good? Was it glorified home run derby combined with batters foolishly swinging at bad pitches and striking out? Did any starters go past five innings? Did the pitch clock help make watching the game of baseball tolerable this WS?

c.) I heard some podcast guy commenting on how there are not enuf Americans playing MLB and too many foreign players and also too many no name players. He was lamenting the average person, average person, cannot name 2-3 players on any team except the team they follow closely. Anything to this?

d.) Have analytics simply ruined baseball? Eliminated all popular stat categories? Is the shift the most annoying trend in sports history?

Peace out.

Edited November 2, 2023 by greg775

[caulfield12]

2 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Had a couple questions. I watched none of this World Series. Not a pitch.

a.) I read somewhere ratings were at a historic low for WS. My question is does this matter? Do Fox and the other networks care at all about ratings? Or is all good in that area because there were still a ton of commercials and advertisers bought in?

b.) As a sporting event, how was it? Were the games good? Was it glorified home run derby combined with batters foolishly swinging at bad pitches and striking out? Did any starters go past five innings? Did the pitch clock help make watching the game of baseball tolerable this WS?

c.) I heard some podcast guy commenting on how there are not enuf Americans playing MLB and too many foreign players and also too many no name players. He was lamenting the average person, average person, cannot name 2-3 players on any team except the team they follow closely. Anything to this?

d.) Have analytics simply ruined baseball? Eliminated all popular stat categories? Is the shift the most annoying trend in sports history?

Peace out.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/course-tv-ratings-diamondbacks-v-210653982.html

This writer argues it doesn't matter one iota.

Edited November 2, 2023 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Greg...news bulletin: the pronounced shift defensive alignment is out.

[35thstreetswarm]

1 hour ago, greg775 said:

Had a couple questions. I watched none of this World Series. Not a pitch.

a.) I read somewhere ratings were at a historic low for WS. My question is does this matter? Do Fox and the other networks care at all about ratings? Or is all good in that area because there were still a ton of commercials and advertisers bought in?

b.) As a sporting event, how was it? Were the games good? Was it glorified home run derby combined with batters foolishly swinging at bad pitches and striking out? Did any starters go past five innings? Did the pitch clock help make watching the game of baseball tolerable this WS?

c.) I heard some podcast guy commenting on how there are not enuf Americans playing MLB and too many foreign players and also too many no name players. He was lamenting the average person, average person, cannot name 2-3 players on any team except the team they follow closely. Anything to this?

d.) Have analytics simply ruined baseball? Eliminated all popular stat categories? Is the shift the most annoying trend in sports history?

Peace out.

Yes and no

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

Had a couple questions. I watched none of this World Series. Not a pitch.

a.) I read somewhere ratings were at a historic low for WS. My question is does this matter? Do Fox and the other networks care at all about ratings? Or is all good in that area because there were still a ton of commercials and advertisers bought in?

b.) As a sporting event, how was it? Were the games good? Was it glorified home run derby combined with batters foolishly swinging at bad pitches and striking out? Did any starters go past five innings? Did the pitch clock help make watching the game of baseball tolerable this WS?

c.) I heard some podcast guy commenting on how there are not enuf Americans playing MLB and too many foreign players and also too many no name players. He was lamenting the average person, average person, cannot name 2-3 players on any team except the team they follow closely. Anything to this?

d.) Have analytics simply ruined baseball? Eliminated all popular stat categories? Is the shift the most annoying trend in sports history?

Peace out.

Like you and like most seasons since 1993 I didn’t watch a second of it. TV Ratings matter to indicate how much interest general fans have.

Forty years ago, like the Kentucky Derby or the Super Bowl, many everyday wouldn’t follow MLB games every day (or horse racing or NFL), but would generally flip on the WS (and KD and SB). Now nobody gives a rats ass except for the SB. 

I don’t believe analytics played a role, but do believe less people watching games locally (minor leagues contraction) and playing games (pick up games, organized leagues) has played a role. Much of our recent immigration is from Latin America which has a baseball tradition.

Growing numbers of people each can’t access games anymore (games all on cable) and after years of this you shrink collective interest. Out of sight, out of mind.

The NFL could make a lot more money short term like the MLB and other leagues did and start putting all games on cable or pay per view, but they are smart enough to know having 95% of your games available for everyone is the best way to sustain and grow your business.

Teams from the NBA and NHL have started to shift some or most games to over the air broadcasts with much success. The Las Vegas Golden Knights have more than doubled their TV viewership over last year shifting to a VHF station.

https://www.ktnv.com/news/golden-knights/vegas-golden-knights-tv-ratings-more-than-double-from-last-season-with-scripps-sports-new-data-reveals

The Sox were greedy and stupid shifting all games off of WGN. In a generation, they will be lucky to draw over 1 million fans if they continue down this path, and they will blame everyone on Earth except themselves for what they had wrought.

Edited November 2, 2023 by South Side Hit Men

[caulfield12]

25 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Like you and like most seasons since 1993 I didn’t watch a second of it. TV Ratings matter to indicate how much interest general fans have.

Forty years ago, like the Kentucky Derby or the Super Bowl, many everyday wouldn’t follow MLB games every day (or horse racing or NFL), but would generally flip on the WS (and KD and SB). Now nobody gives a rats ass except for the SB. 

I don’t believe analytics played a role, but do believe less people watching games locally (minor leagues contraction) and playing games (pick up games, organized leagues) has played a role. Much of our recent immigration is from Latin America which has a baseball tradition.

Growing numbers of people each can’t access games anymore (games all on cable) and after years of this you shrink collective interest. Out of sight, out of mind.

The NFL could make a lot more money short term like the MLB and other leagues did and start putting all games on cable or pay per view, but they are smart enough to know having 95% of your games available for everyone is the best way to sustain and grow your business.

Teams from the NBA and NHL have started to shift some or most games to over the air broadcasts with much success. The Las Vegas Golden Knights have more than doubled their TV viewership over last year shifting to a VHF station.

https://www.ktnv.com/news/golden-knights/vegas-golden-knights-tv-ratings-more-than-double-from-last-season-with-scripps-sports-new-data-reveals

The Sox were greedy and stupid shifting all games off of WGN. In a generation, they will be lucky to draw over 1 million fans if they continue down this path, and they will blame everyone on Earth except themselves for what they had wrought.

They didn't decapitate the minor leagues...they cut what, something like 35-40 teams?   That was roughly 20-25% depending on how you account for short season teams.

I hardly can believe that there was ever going to be a turnaround or renaissance in economically-challenged cities like Clinton Burlington and Waterloo, for example.

[greg775]

3 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Greg...news bulletin: the pronounced shift defensive alignment is out.

yeah but the games i watched before tuning out after the all star break they were still shifting enuf to be noticeable.

[caulfield12]

9 minutes ago, greg775 said:

yeah but the games i watched before tuning out after the all star break they were still shifting enuf to be noticeable.

Couldn't break plane of 2B before a pitch though...

[SoxAce]

Dane Dunning is a World Series Champion.. very happy for the guy.

[Dominikk85]

On 11/3/2023 at 7:28 PM, SoxAce said:

Dane Dunning is a World Series Champion.. very happy for the guy.

I think that was a great trade for both sides. Lynn collapsed  this year but he was good the first year and solid the second year, can't expect much more from a 35 yo.

 

Dunning isn't really great but a nice depth guy for the rangers who really need any pitching depth they can get.