Moose Milligan

I went with Henderson as I think Hall's injury knocked him down a spot or two. I will say that this is the first time in several years that I've remained happy through this spot in the top 5. The system looks to be pretty flush with talent. I don't miss the years where a guy like Hayden Penn was in the top 10 somewhere and it was kind of an eye-roll.

I'm fine with the lack of power if he can be a high average/high on base percentage guy. Great command of the strike zone, can take a walk. I'm not sure if he'd ever be a leadoff guy but if he can get his on base percentage in that .380-.400 range, that's valuable. Or he could make a very potent 1-2 punch with Mullins at some point, unless it's some sort of baseball sin to have two lefties back to back at the top of the order. IMO, there's room for a high average/high on base guy in today's game. Is someone going to tell me that Tony Gwynn or Ichiro wouldn't be as regarded in the MLB today? Not that Cowser is the next Gwynn or Ichiro but the obsession with power is a bit much today.

Because you need to go head to head with your division to see who comes out on top. Division games matter more as it's a direct +1/-1 in the standings. Any time I see someone on here arguing for a balanced schedule or a division re-alignment all I can see is someone who's upset/jealous at the Yankees/Sox and what they spend and wanting an easy way out.

Yeah, but the Blue Jays are not in the National League.

Pedro is fun to think about, always. Could go without hearing the other names again for the rest of my life and would be perfectly happy to do so.

Carl Pavano, top end pitcher? Sheesh, that must have been a rough offseason.

Playing big payroll teams? What about playing small payroll teams like Tampa who also beat our brains in? I don't know if FA pitchers really don't want to play in Baltimore because it's my personal belief that the Orioles haven't tried. I don't think the Orioles have made giant efforts to sign any quality free agents in the past few years. Now if there were constant reports out there saying that the Orioles had equal offers on the table to other clubs and the player decided to go elsewhere, fine. It is easy to say that FA pitchers don't want to come play here because we haven't signed any. But I don't think that statement can be true unless we know for a fact that quality free agents have turned the Orioles down time and time again. In regards to vastly different levels of competition, I'm not sure what the fix is there. For argument sake, say there were no divisions, just the two separate leagues. Each team played each other an equal amount of times throughout the season. In that case, would we think the Yankees, Sox and Rays would somehow be mitigated due to a balanced, equal schedule? Instead of beating up on us, they'd get to beat up on us, the Rangers and the Tigers and equal amount. The Yankees, Sox and Rays are always going to be there in the end, no matter how you cut it. If the desire to change up division alignment in order to avoid the Yankees, Sox and Rays as much as possible is what we're after here, then I guess we should be satisfied with playing weaker competition throughout the season, hoping to make the playoffs and hoping for "anything to happen" in a series with one of those teams. For me, that's not really ideal. I'd like for Elias to build this organization in order to compete with the Yankees and Sox and Rays. We can whine about payroll but we all know that payroll doesn't automatically create a great team. I'd rather stick it out in this division against these teams so we know we can hang with them rather than be the best of an average group and lying to ourselves into thinking we're good.

Yeah, I don't really get this either. Sure, there's the argument for getting hot at the right time, but as SG said the team that wins the most games rarely wins the whole thing...in any sport. Your division is your division...but who had better records that didn't get in? The Braves won 88 games. The Brewers and Cardinals won 95 and 90 games, respectively and they made it in. If your gripe is that the Cardinals won two more games and had to play the Wild Card game, I kinda get that. It sucks to have your entire 162 game season come down to one winner-take-all game but at some point everyone's season comes down to a win and survive or a win and advance game. Anyway, the Giants and the Dodgers won 107 and 106 games. San Diego won 79 after cratering in September. Two of the Padres losses came at the hands of the Braves, though by that point in the month I think they were already ruled out. So which teams with better records didn't even get in the playoffs?

I went with Cowser, too. The sneak peek we got to see this year vaults him this high. I know some are worried about the lack of power but I'm not. He's got a chance to be a high average hitter and it looks like he could be in the 1:1 ratio for walks to strikeouts. IMO, he's got a chance to rise faster than anyone else in the organization. Barring CoC's favorite topic of the labor dispute, I think he can get up to Norfolk by season's end and Baltimore in 2023.

I think the ranking is a bit aggressive but I understand it, especially after all that's been covered in this thread. I think I'm excited about Mayo more than anyone else. Including AR and G-Rod.

I think another reason is that the NBA and NFL promote their players better. And the nature of those sports is that one guy can take over and dominate a game. I don't watch Tampa Bay because of their team, I'm watching for Tom Brady to go 30/40 for 350 yards and 4 touchdowns. I watch the Bucks for Giannis getting 30 points at 15 rebounds. I could watch the Dodgers to see Mookie Betts but what if he goes 0-4? Same with Ohtani. The game I went to this past summer, I went to go see him and he was relatively disappointing.

I went with Mayo. More excited about him than anyone else outside of AR and G-Rod, really.

I'm so glad we agree.

Yeah, I can't imagine that any of the players would want to understand the damage of the '94 strike. Kids these days. They only think history starts in their lifetime.

No, no...milk the pandemic AND the work stoppage. I think cooler heads will prevail. Both sides know what's at stake. MLB and the MLBPA have to be aware that baseball is declining in popularity, lagging behind the NFL and probably the NBA. They know that a work stoppage would be a huge, huge black mark on the game and it would dig a deeper hole, maybe one that they could truly never recover from. There's really not much they could do. They can't rely on Cal chasing 2,130 to gain fan interest, there's nothing like that on the horizon. They can't turn a blind eye to a PED problem and rely on huge amounts of home runs and home run chases to revitalize interest. You've got guys like Ohtani and Trout to promote but they do a pathetic job of that. There's a ton of young talent playing right now but they can't generate the interest for these guys. SG is right, they do look doom and gloom but I think they'll figure this out. But as OFST80s said, you can never bet against the MLB doing something stupid and Manfred is involved so...there's a chance.

Well if you don't have cable (are satellite dishes still a thing? They are the WV state flower, I suppose) or a streaming service and consider TBS, TNT FS1 backwater channels...That sounds like a @waynebugproblem. My parents are old and tech adverse, they still didn't have a problem finding the playoffs. Baseball is losing in popularity because people these days have the attention span of a gnat. That's one of the reasons, anyway. KC won a World Series a few years ago. Tampa is always, always competitive. Small markets are able to do just fine in the MLB.

Morons.

Should be one thing we can all agree on.

Who cares, they all suck.

Sure.

Yes, I'm happy to rest easy now knowing that THE SAWX won't have a chance to win another World Series. At this point I'd just like to see a good 6 or 7 game World Series. Actually kind of pulling for the Houston Dusty's because I like Dusty. I know, I know OMG HE RIDES HIS STARTERS SO HARD HE'S TERRIBLE FOR BASEBALL but whatever. The NFL looks at the MLB and just laughs. Can't wait for all these emails to be released and now that congress is applying pressure I'm sure they will be.

I'm betting that we'll see Valaika at some point in 2022. Not that I'm hoping for that, by the way.

I'm not sure what an umpire has to do to get fired. Seems like a job you can keep for life until retirement no matter how bad you are. Also, it doesn't seem that there are any penalties for being bad at your job when it comes to being an umpire.

I'm fine with the Red Sox getting screwed. I don't know why you guys are bitching about it.