Oct
20
Poll: Which World Series team do you support?
ByShort and dirty: With the Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies set to face off in the Fall Classic, baseball fans will enjoy a World Series with two relative newcomers. The Phillies, despite their lengthy history, have just one title and were last in the Series in 1993. For Tampa, 2008 marks their first winning season ever. Who gets your support?
For whom are you rooting in the World Series?
Feel free to discuss any aspect of the Fall Classic in the comments. Wednesday’s Cole Hamels-Scott Kazmir match-up should be a good one, and apparently, Tampa and Philly have a non-baseball sports rivalry going on. Who knew?
I’m happy for both teams, if I have to throw a vote I guess the Phillies, they’re fans have suffered more.
I can’t believe I have to wait 2 weeks to watch the NEXT Prision Break! Damn playoffs, I haven’t watched the playoffs so far this year and I’m not about to start now. FOX better get it straight, unless the Yankees are in it, DO NOT mess with Prision Break and House! AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Until a few days ago, I was rooting for the Phillies out of sympathy for their fans. Now I’m rooting for the Rays out of gratitude for putting away the Sox.
agreed…plus, Upton, Longoria, Garza and Price are really fun to watch right now
Yeah, they’re a lot of fun to watch when they’re beating up on the Sox or an NL team.
Phillies are about to get wrecked.
http://tigers-thoughts.blogspo.....bofdh.html
So much for speculation as to whether or not offer Giambi arbitration….looks like he won’t even be a type B.
So, Shin-Soo Choo is a Type B and Giambi is not? Makes sense to me.
Yeah, I went back and saw that. Really? Jason Kubel and Luke Scott, really?
“As I’ve stated before, the designated hitter and first base rankings are subject to wide variations because there are so few players in those pools. ”
Perhaps that is accounting for this somewhat?
Up until now this had seemingly been the best predictor for the Elias rankings. Giambi looks pretty far out of it though.
When do the real Elias rankings come out?
Not sure, maybe Mike knows?
Last year they can out on October 31st, so hopefully soon.
Or, rather, that’s when I found them online. So maybe sooner.
I know that you guys hate him, and this comment will be under a lot of ridicule, but why isn’t Melky Cabrera on this list?
Nevermind. I just realized that this list was a combo list of players who played those 3 spots.
No idea Andy.
There has to be something wrong with these calculations. Giambi scores lower than Ryan Garko? Delmon Young? I don’t understand.
It must be all the DL time from last year. What else could it be?
Playing time counts in the stats. Being a mediocre full time player scores higher than being a good part time player.
The rankings cover the last 2 seasons. While Giambi had a really good season this year, he missed half of last year and wasn’t as good when he did play.
True, but half a year of crappy Jason Giambi + a full year of mildly good Jason Giambi >>> anything from the Shin-Soo Choo, Jason Kubel, Luke Scott, Sean Casey, Jacoby Ellsbury, David Murphy, and Denard Span catalogs…
Giambi had 30 homers and almost 100 rbi’s this yr. He had 14 and 39 last yr. Even with the subpar 2007 he should rate at least B.
True. Also, so much for anybody who still was interested in signing Milton Bradley. He’s a Type A?
I’m not giving up a pick for an old overpriced malcontent who can’t hit outside of Texas or stay healthy.
I wouldn’t let a draft pick scare me away from signing Bradley.
His health and the fact that we have a logjam in DH/LF are plenty scary enough though.
Oh, I’m with you, I was already against Bradley. This is just the crap icing on the turd cake.
This is a tough decision, if the phillies win it will lead to more anguish and repressed anger for mets fans, which frankly, is hilarious. If the rays win we will never ever hear the end of their first to last story how they toppled the two traditional AL east powers and how their manager is a genius because he uses the word amorphic (i guess the bar is set pretty low for baseball players). In the long run I think it’s beneficial for the yankees for the rays to win as it will be harder for them to repeat and have that same magic and underdog chip that propelled them this year. All in all i think the phils put up more of a fight than people give them credit for but the rays take it in 6.
Re: the article on the Philadelphia-City of Tampa rivalry:
Silly New York Times, hockey’s not a sport!
I’m going with the Phillies. They haven’t played in a while but I still like their bullpen and offense more than the Rays. The Rays definitely have the edge in the rotation though. The Phillies have a little bit of everything and I think it is just enough for them to win the WS. Go Phillies!
Right now I’m supporting the Rays but the Phillies are just as fun to watch when their offense is rolling. The games at Citizen’s Bank could turn into home run derby’s if the tone of the ALCS has any carry over on the Rays side and Howard desides to show up (One of my good friends is a die-hard Phils fan and calls David Price “Ryan Howard’s wost nightmare”). I don’t think either team has my overwhelming support and I won’t be disappointed with either outcome. My only hope is that it’s fun to watch
Ultimately, I feel more sad for people who live in Philadelphia (for numerous reasons), so I’ll be rooting for the Phils.
Although I hope it goes 7 and David Price has several electric relief appearances that foolishly convince TB management to make him a closer.
I look froward to watching all the “Joba in the bullpen folks” in the national media latch on to David Price if they arn’t to red faced (which they shouldn’t be-no one in the media has any shame).
I think I read a piece in a newspaper today that described Price as “baseball’s new K-Rod”.
Phanatic vs. Raymond.
It’s no contest. I bet you didn’t even know that furry blue thing was called Raymond.
I thought the Rays mascot was Jenn Sterger?
What you really didn’t know is that Dick Vitale is the guy in the Raymond suit. Ever see them both at the same time? I thought not!
It’s Wade Boggs in there. Eating chicken and having sex. With himself.
And the chicken.
+1
It will be interesting to see how the Rays fare next year. Obviously, this was not fluke, but they did have their top 5 starters start every game from April 30 through September 21.
It isn’t popular opinion around here but I do see them regressing at least slightly next season and I think you listed the main reason right there.
They did have a few players under perform, but if you look at their roster at the beginning of the season, they did pretty much have a perfect storm of health and people having up years.
But hey, maybe they use some of this new found revenue and make a bit of a splash in the FA market.
That and Balfour & Howell’s career ERAs are double what they put up this year, though Howell’s was all starter
Also remember that Upton and Crawford had subpar years and Longoria was a rookie and Pena didn’t hit the first few months.
They also had subpar production from RF.
And all the innings the young pitchers are adding to their resumes won’t help next yr or the yr after.
Rays mostly because i bet them to win the ws in vegas in JANUARY!!!
As a yankee fan i would rather the yankees win then me make money, but every year i bet my sleaper teams to win, this year happened to be the rays
Out of curiosity, how much do you stand to make/lose?
He bet a dollar with Randolph and Mortimer Duke.
I bet $100 on the odds in january….so yea i stand to lose $100
and how much do you stand to make?
He’s full of it.
If he bet money on it he’d know the odds off the top of his head since they were as high as a team can be.
I know exactly how much but I’d rather not talk about it. Hardly full of it my man
An Eagles vs Bucs game? Boy the media is trying to do everything possible to get people to watch this series.
As far as I’m concerned, my World Series is over. The Rays already beat the Red Sox and left ESPN analysts everywhere drying their eyes. I’ll casually watch the WS and it should be a good competitive series. But I won’t be too into it simply because I’m not rooting too strongly for/against either team.
It might actually be fun watching a WS without having to worry about getting too emotionally involved like when the Yankees or Red Sox play.
I love your TV show, btw.
There is actually a TV show? I thought it was just a marketing campaign?
More FrankTV ads….. until you throw up.
I’m rooting for the Phillies just so that the Mets fans will shut the hell up.
I wonder if they are saying that TB should make Price a closer or a set up man.
Should’ve heard Francesa today. Somebody called up and ridiculed him about this same topic and he said you can’t compare the two. Why not?
He kept saying he knows 3 years from now Joba will be the closer… wait and see… wait and see.
It’s kind of sad at this point; how he refuses to accept reality even as it’s staring him in the face and contradicting his assertions. He’s like Uncle Rico. If they’d have put him in they would’ve won state.
Keep livin’ the dream Mike.
On the plus side for Fatboy Mike, however, at least he isn’t a dead ringer for the 40-Year Old Virgin.
Well, let me just start out by saying I’m firmly in the ‘Joba starts’ camp. That being said, let me show you what Mike is talking about. Here’s Joba’s career stats from the Cube
http://www.thebaseballcube.com.....lain.shtml
Notice something? He’s never pitched more than 118 innings, and that was in his first year at Nebraska. The next year he was hurt, the year after the Yanks wanted to keep his innings down (and protect him from Torre). This year he was hurt again, and on an innings limit.
The fact remains most 23 year old starters have thrown 150-175 innings by now, and Joba has yet to show he’s able to. He hasn’t done it yet.
In Joba’s defense, most 23-year-old starters don’t really throw 150-175 innings until their 22-year-old and 23-year-old seasons, and we’ve been fucking with those seasons by giving him extensive stints in the pen and not letting him just stay on regular 4 day rests as a starter.
FWIW.
Oh yeah, I agree and that’s one of the reasons as I stated before. But its safe to assume the club has info we don’t, so just take the stats at face value and draw your own conclusions.
Anyway, my point was the facts as they stand right now actually back up Mike’s side of the argument. Now just because Joba hasn’t done it yet doesn’t mean he cant or never will, but by taking that tact that puts him on the side of the facts and us on the side of speculation. Solid argument on his part. I still thinks its wrong, but he’s on solid ground.
my point was the facts as they stand right now actually back up Mike’s side of the argument.
Except, you know, for that one huge fact that Joba has been a dominant starter already. That fact trumps the other “facts” that the Joba-to-the-pen crowd want to use. By far.
The fact that Joba has been a starter and a dominant one means he should be a starter and we should keep him on track to be a starter FOREVER. I used to say that I’d need to see maybe three or four more solid years of Joba not being physically able to throw 200 innings in a season before I gave up on him as a starter. Now, that’s not enough. I don’t want to see him move to the bullpen until he’s on the tail end of his career, Terry Mulholland and Rick Aguilera style.
Think about this: Curt Schilling was (besides a massive douchenozzle) one of the truly great pitchers of our generation, and he helped the Diamondbacks and Red Sox win three titles this decade. If Mike Francesa was the GM of the Phillies, Curt Schilling would have been converted into Troy Percival long before he ever had the chance to become Curt Schilling.
Would you rather have Curt Schilling or Troy Percival?
No one thinks it’s better if the Phillies win because their fans actually turn up to the ballpark? Only around 15,000 people in the country can call themselves Rays fans in front of a mirror. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t particularly want the 25,000 extra one-timers to enjoy a WS win they don’t deserve to see.
Meh, if the Rays win the whole thing, so few people down there will actually remember/care, we can probably just wait a few years and then start telling people we won the 2008 World Series and nobody would notice.
Where is the “I don’t give a shit” option? lol