Angels could use EE

oh man, now that would be a terrible signing.


It's been a pretty boring start to the winter meetings, even the rumors are meh so far.

Pujols can barely even jog anymore, so they'll probably need a replacement for him very soon.

By the end of EE's contract it'll look like a tractor pull out there with both of them dragging pianos around the infield.

But think of Trout, EE & Pujols on the same team.

I'm hoping Sale gets moved. The White Sox have been so short on young talented position players for a long time.

LOLLLL Jon Heyman just said the Angels are interested in Chase Utley. Pujol, Trout, and Utley, you got yourself a playoff contender.

Just read that the Nationals have taken a huge lead in the Sale race, and it would center around Giolito and Robles. I heard speculation earlier about Trea Turner being the big piece, that would be nice.

No way the Nats move Turner.

If Giolitio and RObles are the biggest pieces they get for Sale, the WS got clowned. If Trea Turner is involved, the Nats are ****ing morons as he could contribute big next year.

Do you think this is best long-term, it should all even out assuming one league is not always dominant? Short-term concerns should always be avoided when trying to make the best long-term rule.

The choices are basically:

1. Based on overall record
2. Alternate each year (the way it used to be)
3. All-Star game winner decides it
4. Other? I can't think of anything else that could get approved.

I prefer number 2 because, while 2016-17 is an outlier, the leagues are seldom balanced and record is therefore an inaccurate indicator of play level.

Personally, I'm fine with any of the options and don't see any of them as a big deal. If you want to give the best team home-field advantage every year I would say regular season record would be the best way to do it and probably correct most years. The Cubs had 8 more wins than the next best team, I'd say they earned it and cannot envision an argument that says another team was more deserving but am all ears.

As for alternating years vs. letting the all star game winner decide, I don't see how that makes a difference as it should even out long-term and the best team won't always win either. If anything, if the NL was truly tanking their all-star team would be worse and lose the game, like they did this year (I'm not saying that was the case).

Why don't they reward the league with the better record in inter league play?

I like the idea, but the interleague schedule is not completely balanced so I am sure there would be similar complaints, I'd be fine with it but I'm not sure about the casual fan, whose collective views are important too as much as we might not like that idea.

Agree with every point made here.

Let the public shaming begin!

I hope 25% of writers turn in blank ballots in protest

I'm at the point where I'm just rooting for it to all be torn down and rebuilt because that's less work now, that's now the more likely path towards it not being a joke

I think this guy should be in the HOF.

Career WAR of 60.

Seasons of:

5.6
5.0
6.3
5.8
6.7
6.0
7.2


Jim Edmonds falling off the ballot is a disgrace.

I thought the magic number was 70 career WAR

Mike Trout's at 47.7 and turned 25 three months ago

Crazy

So the Red Sox are gonna sell the farm for Sale

Wondering why they waited until the offseason to get serious with this

I love it. Regardless of how meritocratic it is, I think the casual fan would grasp the logic (even tho we understand it's faulty) easily.

The two leagues are playing each other, which team did the best against the other league?

Also gives one more thing for fans to monitor throughout the season. The reasoning behind the AS game was to make it more important. Well each interleague game played by a PO contender just got more important.

Really think it would be great for the game.

Divisions are already unfair, you can only strive for so much.

Sale for Moncada and other prospects done says Rosenthal. Oof.

Dombrowski hates prospects

I don't really see the issue with just going by best record, even if it's not perfect. To me, the "better" team is the one that should get home field, so whatever metric we use should be the one that gets that right most often. Just because the "better" team only has the better record say 80% of the time doesn't mean we should just throw up our hands and go with something that only gets it right ~50% of the time (coin flip, alternating years, ASG).

Interleague record of the two teams is significantly better than those, but is just as biased by the unbalanced schedule as total record is, but with a smaller sample size. Simply changing it to best overall record already makes every game played by a contender more important, and gives playoff teams even more to play for right up until the end of the season, since they're competing for HFA not just within their own league (and not just in interleague games).