moccasin

My grandma was a native American, and she didn't like the logo. I am not offended because I know the logo doesn't intend anything bad. It was originally drawn by a 17 year old.

But I do appreciate this decision, just because I see that there are people who are sensitive and thoughtful enough to show that they care about minorities.

Do you know who the real easily offended snowflakes are?  The ones that are so hurt about not having their favorite logo on the players uniforms anymore, that they are calling out to boycott the season. Talk about wussification.

I am very happy that this is happening now. The current system is just stupid, and there needs to be changes made.

Why do teams get to employ players at league minimum for 3 years?

Why do teams that throw out their expensive players find the most revenue, through the revenue sharing system?

The number of tanking teams right now is ridiculous and it's looking like the NBA now.

On 1/1/2018 at 9:31 AM, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Do you think it made Darvish, or Tanaka worse? Once they came here they both eventually tore their UCL. Darvish worse than Tanaka but both did get hurt.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/76156074/major-league-baseball-six-man-starting-pitcher-rotations-tommy-john-elbow-injuries

But for all the belly-aching about young players with high pitch counts, there's a place where young people throw as often as American kids, but the adults don't have Tommy John surgery as often.

Japan. 

In Japan, young pitchers throw insane innings all the time. Daisuke Matsuzaka famously threw 250 pitches in a high school tournament, and a young man threw 232 pitches this year. When it comes to one-game workloads, young pitchers in Japan have no peers. 

But take a look at the prevalence of Tommy John surgeries in Japan over the last two-plus seasons, thanks to this Wikipedia list translated for us by Patrick Newman. Even once adjusted for the number of teams in each league, the differences are stark.

Year	TJ/Team NPB	TJ/Team MLB
2012	0.833	2.30
2013	0.667	1.63
2014	0.083	1.10

So Japan has similar structures in high school and college -- with sometimes even more intense one-game workloads -- and yet in the big leagues, their elbows remain healthier. Seems fairly cut and dried. We should be looking at the Japanese pitching structure for

18 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Very interesting. 

I personally think a lot of it has to do with max effort.  If you know you're only allowed to throw a certain number of pitches, you're more likely to max out for those.   Whereas if you're told to go pitch until your tired, you may take a different pace.  

If you're talking about the pros, I 100% agree. Many pitchers still take a lot of pride in completing games here, so they don't go max effort until they get into a jam.

But not the High School tournament. It's a huge event, all games are televised nationally(not even the professional league playoffs are televised nationally) and draws more attendance than the pros. It's every baseball kid's dream to play in the tournament, and I doubt that they save their arms. A lot of them act like they don't care if their arms fell off during that period.

Well, this is my theory about the difference in amount of TJ.

In the western world, people go to the doctor for the slightest problems, get medicine for everything, and even a small tear could end up in a surgery.

But here, people try to treat problems through exercise, eating habits and rely on natural healing. Opening up an elbow and artificially replacing a ligament would be more of a desperate last resort type of thing.

The actual pronunciation is o-o-ta-ni. Outani would be the best way to write it actually.

I lived in Japan 20 years, read the language, and understand the culture. 

It's not a divided nation like the USA, and if you offend one of their people, everybody takes it as an attack on them.

And yes, Vegas Halo Fan, calling them China and Korea angers them more than anything.

BTW, I have zero Asian blood in me, but I identify as Japanese and people treat me as one of theirs. Being Asian and Japanese are two different things, you will never understand.

You are all wrong. The Japanese news site has more than 10,000 comments filled with anger and disappointment.

People saying this is not a big deal don't know. People in Japan are pretty furious about this, and yes it is big news there.

In my opinion, this is not a good message sent by Manfred, but I have no clue how the people over there will respond. It's still early in the morning.

The Indians have pitching, just like the Royals did when they played the Angels.

If Judge performs against the Indians, let's say that he did something that Trout couldn't do.

What I see from his comments, is that he does care about what the media says. He knows he has been called the worst player in baseball. And it probably motivates him, which I am very fine with.

I just hope he doesn't hurt himself again, giving him some excuse to play another year without performing like a big leaguer. 

Also, if he can't beat a throw from short left field, he needs to benched. That's not acceptable.

9 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

It's hard to tell what happened from looking at the box scores. Wasn't there a 154 game schedule back then? I ask because the 1916 Giants played 155 games that year and had 3 ties on the books. They played a double header on Wednesday, took Friday off, had another double header on Saturday, didn't play Sunday, then had a double header on Monday (with game #2 being a tie after 8 innings) and followed that up with a double header on Tuesday. All in all they played the Pirates 6 straight times, which makes sense because one of their earlier ties was against the Pirates. The other tie was against Boston, which was definitely not made up the next day.

So it does seem like these are make up games. I'm left wondering why they started the game over, and whether or not the stats from the tied game are included in players season / career totals.

The stats from the tied game were wiped out too. So that's why Elias considers it a 26 game winning streak.
 

But huge props to the Indians. In terms of degree of difficulty, it could be argued that what they accomplished was tougher. 5 man rotations, pitch counts, wins at home and on the road.

The Giants' win streak 101 years ago did not include a tie.

Technically, it was a postponed game after 8 innings, re-played the next game in a double header.

Their streak is a legit 26 game WINNING streak.

I really love watching Richards pitch, his stuff is really electric. Fastball has life, and oh that curve ball. He makes hitters look dumb when lefties swing at pitches about to hit their front leg, or when they stare at pitches dropping right down the middle of the plate.

I really hope he can stay healthy.

I have seen him in Japan, and he is a freak of nature.

He throws 100 mph, and hits absolute bombs. He is the best pitcher and Japan, and also the best hitter.

But he isn't as great of a pitcher as Darvish, and as a hitter, he isn't as great of a hitter as Matsui.

He is still very young, and in my opinion, a better hitter than pitcher.

I believe the batting title qualifier is based on PA as well.

Anyway, what I'm looking forward to the most is, the Angels making the postseason, and it resulting in the reversing of the criteria people have held against Trout in their faces.

People have been saying that the Angels could have "Not made the playoffs" without Trout. 

But if the Angels make it this year, you can now say that the Astros would have made the playoffs without Altuve, but the Angels wouldn't have without Trout.

If they come very close in WAR, that should become the tie breaker.

I just checked fangraphs WAR, and shockingly realized that he is only 0.4 points behind Altuve for the lead. His WPA(clutchness) beats everybody by a mile, and if the Angels actually make the postseason, it's going to be hard to justify not voting for him again. He is on pace to qualify for the batting title too, especially if MS puts him in the 2 spot.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=300&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

2 weeks ago, Altuve had a lead of about 1.5 points so I can't really see Altuve clinging on to the lead here. He might even start resting toward the end of the season.

I used to take the word Valuable literally, and think that if your team didn't make the playoffs, you don't belong in the MVP consideration.

But then, I realized that that reasoning actually sucked. How can you penalize a great player for having a bad pitching staff?

So Donaldson is having a less productive season, but because Sanchez and Happ are better than Shoemaker and Weaver, Donaldson is better than Mike Trout.

Yeah, that really makes sense.

I hate to admit it, and it hurts, but part of the reason he isn't an icon is because him team sucks.

If the Angels had made the playoffs every year, he could have 5 straight MVPs.

Also, him not being the number one (or two or three) pick in the draft and stuff does' help either.

Just wondering, who was the last lefty/switch hitter acquisition to have success with the Angels?

It seems like every single of them fails.

All OF positions and 2B are obvious.

1B, I'd like to use someone to pick up some of Trout's errant throws, so I'll take Pujols/Cron.

SS, I'd still take Simmons. 3B, Trout slightly over Escobar. Catcher, obviously Bandy and others.

We also need 4th OF Trout and utility INF Trout, and DH Trout.

So in all, 8 Trouts please.

They had a guy hitting .322/.960 with RISP coming next.

Great situational base running, as always.

I love when opposing teams do stupid things like loading the bases for Trout.

Of course Angels return favors though.

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

We'd still have signed Hamilton, just for $20 million less, and you would still have the exact same perception you do now.

Yes we would have, but if there was a amnesty option, we could do that to him, and sign other players the past off season.

You can't let one bad contract handicap teams and fan interest for 3+ years.

Baseball seriously needs a salary cap. These terrible contracts are harmful for the game, and to fan interest as well.

One thing I learned from watching baseball these past years, is that you can win without a Cy Young/MVP candidate, but you can't win without a dominant setup man/closer.

The Angels were good when they had Percival, Shields, and Frankie. When guys like Donelly, Arredondo, Frieri were dominant, they became dominant as well. 

The Yankees never fell off because they had guys like Robertson and Betances after Rivera. 

3 minutes ago, Angels N Skins said:

Pull him now if you want a chance to win 

The perfect time to pull him should have been after the Griffey ceremony.

Maybe let him throw the ceremonial pitch.