eligrba

Performance always improves when playing for real fans.

You should turn off the game and search your house for the poor child 

HOF power.......You can keep him, St Louis. 

HOF power.......You can keep him, St Louis. 

Id like to thank the chick with the boobs for standing up for this 'big' moment

Uncomfortable silence & booze always makes for a memorable Thanksgiving

Performance always improves when playing for real fans.

It's a sound strategy, it works well for me at Thanksgiving.
 

Maybe when he gets back 'home' and we boo him he'll say 'eff it' Im moving back to St. Louis.... bai!

In my opinion, MLB could use broad changes to the game right now. My issues....
1. Everyone says Oakland and Tampa Bay need to resolve their stadium issues, except Angel Stadium is older than both of those and has a sooner deadline to meet. But even that won't fix the fact that....
2. The travel distances and schedules heavily favor East Coast teams. Every year, the Angels and Mariners spend more time in the air, less time relaxing on the ground than their East Coast counterparts. A big reason for this is because of...
3. Idiotic division alignment. One Western Division stays West of the Rockies and does not travel any further North than San Francisco. The other travels as far North as Seattle and has two effing teams all the way in Texas. It's not to say Texas is a bad state to play in but why the frick aren't they in a division with St. Louis, Kansas City, Colorado and Atlanta? Division alignment would be really simple if MLB would just...
4. Adopt the DH for all teams. It creates more opportunity for employment for offensive players and allows the National League to keep their greatest sluggers that age rather than losing them to the extremely limited number of American League teams that are actually competitive and have a need. Of course, none of this solves...
5. The problems with international spending and draft picks. Why should a team pick an 18 year old American when they can pick an 18 year old Dominican with a forged documents that claim he's only 16? Create an international draft, standardize the minimum age at which a player can be selected (17 makes the most sense), and make those draft picks available for trade.  This fixes a lot of the off the field issues, but contact address on the field issues, mainly...
6. Just how awful umps are at their jobs. It would be faster and more efficient to have an electronic strike zone.  This would require some rule changes, but some of the rules in place simply need to be enforced like not letting the batter out of the box between pitches.  That's one way to speed up the game. Another is an aggressive pitch clock so that the Rays don't hold the ball for four hours a night in order to keep a runner on first base. And next, even more stringent mound visit rules, so that the Red Sox and Yankees can't call a timeout after every freakin pitch to discuss pitch selection and defensive alignment. 
_____________________________
I think assuming the strongest suitors end up getting MLB teams, I'll operate off the following assumptions
- The Angels end up staying in Anaheim and working something out with the city. 
- The Rays stay in Tampa (area) and the A's stay in Oakland (area).
- Portland and Montreal get expansion teams. 
So this is how I'd align the divisions (and look, they come with cool division names now.....for the most part)
National League
California Division: Oakland A's, LA Dodgers, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants.
Central Division: Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves
Northern Division: Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos
Atlantic Division: Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles
American League
Western Division: CA Angels, AZ D-Backs, Seattle Mariners, and Portland (Ports?)
Heartland Division: Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals
Rust Belt Division: Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinatti Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates
Colonial Division: Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox
Playoffs would be FOUR DIVISION WINNERS, plus two Wild Cards.  Top two division winners get a first round bye.  Just as an example, in this format, with the standings right now....
NL: Bye - Dodgers, Twins.  ---------- Chicago Cubs vs Milwaukee Brewers.  Tampa Bay Rays vs. Atlanta Braves
AL: Bye - Yankees, Astros. ---------- Phillies vs. Cards, Red Sox vs. Indians.
 
 

I would join in if it helped Albert to make his retirement announcement at the end of the year.  It would be special if he did it while in St. Louis.

Thanks Albert for being slow enough to not score on a hit that should have been a double and a single.  Enjoy your stay at second base.....Standing Ovation!!

are we still doing this?

2.1 ip, 6h, 7er, 1bb, 5k, 2hr.  
how about a setback? 

Well, Mike Trout hasn't seen a real baseball player in regards to Pujols since he signed so at least it's consistent...

I agree

Faster than Pujols.
 

Wouldn't help. Trout's gone after next season anyway.

Seriously. Can you imagine how fun this team would be if we landed Ohtani?

We are going to call them the ExRays. 

Please be teams that are in the hunt for a WC spot in the AL 

What happened to his arm?

Tell me about it