2012 MLB Winter Meetings and Offseason

[draynay]

I don't really think it would change the amount of perfect games a year significantly, I mean all it takes to ruin a perfect game is a single, randomly well placed hit. I don't think that has to do with doping. ERA's on the other hand could definitely drop. I'm not a baseball expert by any means though, so take that as you will.

strikeouts are up, fewer balls are put into play, nobody ever reached 200 strikeouts until the last few years and now its the chic thing to do

Mark Reynolds is making Rob Deer look like Tony Gwynn and Reynolds isn't the only one failing to put the ball into play, Adam Dunn, Ryan Howard, and many more are going down on strikes. It could be a shift in hitting philosophies or changes to the strikezone, but fewer balls in play could be a contributing factor to increased likelihood of no-hitters and perfect games. Not every no-no had 10+ Ks in it, but in Cain's perfect game he had 14. The fact that the Rays seem to be on the wrong end of these pretty often could lend some weight to the hitting philosophy theory, maybe they have a tendency to be a sink or swim kind of team offensively.

[VanillaO]

As a Red Sox fan, no one I know is really blaming Valentine but the media and players. The fans are pretty sick of the entire team underperforming.

[Fahrenheit]

This probably comes off as a typical Yankee fan response... but, I'm just waiting for the playoffs to start, as I've been bored with the regular season for about 2 months already. The only slight bit of excitement comes from who is going to be the #1 seed and who will be the #2 seed in the AL between NY and Texas.

[kidsafe]

Paid attendance for last night's Giants@Dodgers rivalry game featuring Bumgarner/Kershaw was 36K. What's up with that, Dodger fans? Your team is fighting for first place in the division, it's the oldest rivalry in baseball, and you can't even muster >40K for what ended up being one of the best pitching duels in my lifetime?

[belfpala]

Paid attendance for last night's Giants@Dodgers rivalry game featuring Bumgarner/Kershaw was 36K. What's up with that, Dodger fans? Your team is fighting for first place in the division, it's the oldest rivalry in baseball, and you can't even muster >40K for what ended up being one of the best pitching duels in my lifetime?

I watched the game at Oakland last night, and they barely broke 10k attendance... Sad. Of course, that wasn't a rivalry game at all, but still... the stadium looked EMPTY.

[kidsafe]

I watched the game at Oakland last night, and they barely broke 10k attendance... Sad. Of course, that wasn't a rivalry game at all, but still... the stadium looked EMPTY.

See my post about the As ownership a few pages back. It's a terrible shame what they are doing to the team in order to get them moved to San Jose, which is never going to happen.

The Oakland A's owners are actually among the richest in baseball. The terrible payroll and low fan turnout is intentional posturing by Wolff (the majority stake owner,) a real estate magnate responsible for major development projects in San Jose and surrounding South Bay cities. He bought the As for one reason... His goal is to build a new ballpark, inflate the value of the team so he can sell them to a new ownership group. He wants to make Oakland look like a city devoid of baseball fans, he wants to force Selig (an old fraternity brother) to rescind the Giants' territorial rights to San Jose so he can score a huge property deal.

WRT to fairweather fans showing up in droves. Perhaps if the team actually makes the postseason, but I doubt they even get 20-25K fans per game right into October if they're in the hunt. If the Giants are in the postseason, that would be a detriment to fan turnout right up until the World Series, which would be a huge boon.

---------- Post added 2012-08-22 at 11:27 AM ----------

Okay so Kershaw drew 36K, and Joe Blanton drew 56K. Down is up, and Dodgers fans confuse me. Was it the Fernando Valenzuela bobblehead givewaway?

[conscript]

Bartolo Colon suspended 50 games for a positive testosterone test. I will almost 100% guarantee he was one of the guys a GM told Buster Olney last week was almost certainly using. Colon in 39 and having one of the best seasons of his career. His stats have gotten better the last couple years after being fairly awful his entire career. Pitchers don't have the best season of their career at 39. They just don't.

[koodledrum]

Atleast Colon admitted it & accepted responsibility, but still disturbing that it's the second case we're talking about inside a week for pretty much the same shit, which would somewhat correlate with the suspicion that multiple (or most dependent on which articles you're reading) major leaguers are on the same product. It is possible for pitchers to have career years at 39 (Wakefield might spring to mind - granted a different beast altogether) but who knows now how much of that decent year was Colon and how much of it was artificial.

On the good side, I loved the story of Jim Joyce helping save that womans life the other day, kinda makes you a little happier knowing that for once there's an umpire making the news and it's not for being an ass - granted an umpire who will forever be known as the guy who blew one of the biggest calls in baseball and admitted it, but still perhaps one of the better moments in recent times.

[havenwood29]

My friend and I were having a debate, so I figured I would just ask here. Which player would you rather have, Allen Craig or Todd Frazier?

[conscript]

My friend and I were having a debate, so I figured I would just ask here. Which player would you rather have, Allen Craig or Todd Frazier?

Going by what little I know of each guy, Todd Frazier. Frazier is two years younger. He is more flexible in positioning with his ability to play third base. Neither one of them is a defensive player you'd write home about although Craig is slightly worse (-1.1 dWAR to-.3 for Frazier, worse UZR at 1st, better at LF, but neither very good anywhere). Both have a fairly similar triple slash (Frazier-.294/.351/.562 Craig-.309/.374/.572). Similar power, similar plate command with Frazier slightly behind. In the end I'd rather take Frazier's 440 innings this year at 3rd than over Craig's 52 innings split between 3rd and 2nd while the rest aren't spent in as defensively taxing positions. Plus the two year age difference thing.

[Skarsguard]

Of course when my A's do good something like this happens http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/82...lb-drug-policy

Colon gets 50 game ban for PED's........WTF.

[Skippy88]

I watched the game at Oakland last night, and they barely broke 10k attendance... Sad. Of course, that wasn't a rivalry game at all, but still... the stadium looked EMPTY.

I would probably chalk it up to being a Tuesday and students getting ready for school if they aren't back already. Attendance are funny things sometimes. One day it's jam packed and the next it's where the hell is everyone.

[belfpala]

I would probably chalk it up to being a Tuesday and students getting ready for school if they aren't back already. Attendance are funny things sometimes. One day it's jam packed and the next it's where the hell is everyone.

I'm a Twins fan (if you didn't notice from earlier posts). 10k attendance, even at the Metrodome, would have been considered ridiculously low. Even at the depths of our low-ness. Even for a Wednesday afternoon flyaway game.

[kidsafe]

I would probably chalk it up to being a Tuesday and students getting ready for school if they aren't back already. Attendance are funny things sometimes. One day it's jam packed and the next it's where the hell is everyone.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance

Obviously weekday games during the school year are going to be worse than Fri/Sat nights, but Oakland has the second lowest attendance in the league. It's a damn shame since they are in the middle of a division/wildcard race.

[Soffker]

The A's always have poor attendance. Every time i catch a ranger game when we're playing them, no one is at the ballpark, but 10-20k. I thought the A's wanted a new ballpark though?

[koodledrum]

pft, we have football clubs over here who would bite your arm off for 10k fans at an average home game in the Scottish Premier League - those clubs make the A's games look packed (and in a league of 12 clubs, that is 11 of them), it does suck when you see what is clearly a massive stadium designed with American Football in mind with like quarter attendance. Not sure how their ownership figures that taking them to San Jose will make any difference, but it will probably do them well to get into a stadium better befitting their attendance, drop the capacity by 20,000 seats and it won't look half as bad as it currently does.

[kidsafe]

The owners of the A's are in real estate with a lot of property in San Jose. If the A's move there, property values go up. Plus they get to sell the team for an inflated price while most of the funding for the new stadium comes in the form of a bond/taxes and corporate sponsorships.

[conscript]

The owners of the A's are in real estate with a lot of property in San Jose. If the A's move there, property values go up. Plus they get to sell the team for an inflated price while most of the funding for the new stadium comes in the form of a bond/taxes and corporate sponsorships.

Ya but is he just withholding 40% of the team's tickets in order to drop the attendance or is Oakland just an incredibly awful market like Tampa is. Tampa is a great team year after year for the last 5-6 years and they can barely fill half their stadium and thats even with the horribly inflated numbers teams release as the "attendance." If this is the way the team is going to play and this is the type of fan support they will get I'd want to move them to San Jose too whether I owned property there or not.

[koodledrum]

Yeah I know that, but ultimately that's not what Major League Baseball will see it, even if Selig is a frat brother that's not gonna sail as ultimately I believe any relocation would require the blessing of the league and there's a fair chance the Giants will fight hard to avoid them moving to San Jose - if the league does allow it I can see it taking a very long time. But in baseball terms (which will be the overriding swinger) it's questionable how much of an impact it would actually bring for the money which would be invested - because you know the A's owners will not stump up 100% of the cost of relocation & rebuilding, ultimately meaning tax money will need to be spent, I'm no economist, but last I heard California was in some financial distress, making such investment deeply unpopular. If people are educated well enough (and lets be blunt, if I can make the connection anyone who graduated high school should be able to) to see that it's purely done for a company/individual's profit then it will be a major bone of contention and that's something politicians dislike as it puts them in the firing line. I know other major new stadia have had state funds used, but there's a major difference between say New York providing funding for car parks at New Yankee Stadium and a potentially rather more sizable investment in a stadium - the car parks ultimately are seen less as a use of money and more as an investment which will turn profit.

[Fenixdown]

The A's always have poor attendance. Every time i catch a ranger game when we're playing them, no one is at the ballpark, but 10-20k. I thought the A's wanted a new ballpark though?

Yet at Arlington you get a solid 38-42k (43k is a sellout in The Ballpark).

GO RANGERS!!!!

P.S. : BOO A'S!!!! :P