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- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
How do Rays fans feel about the team having to move to Tampa to play at Steinbrenner field?
I watched (on TV mind you) a lot of Jays games in 2020 and 2021 in Dunedin & Buffalo.
There was a narrative that 2021 really inflated Vlad's reputation as a slugger hitting in minor league parks after this mediocre '22 & '23.
He similarly was slugging only .400 in late June of '24 before going on a tear for the final 3 months. Now he thinks he's Juan Soto and the Reddit fanbase wants to pay him like him too.
At this point with how bleak the Jays' situation is between aging expensive pitchers, walk year contracts for Vlad and Bo & nothing but league average guys coming up on the farm, I hope the FO has the balls to do the right thing by trading Vlad and blowing it all up.
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2024
It's going to be absolute hell outside in the summer. I'm happy about it just to put to bed the notion that "If the Rays played in Tampa they'd draw better attendance" once and for all. Either they do or they don't, and I'm banking on they don't.
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
It's going to be Montreal Expos-circa-early-aughts embarrassing if the Rays have mostly empty seats on any given night.
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2020
That franchise has just been unlucky since it began. You go 10 years without sniffing anything resembling even a winning record, which is sure to snuff out any goodwill from being the novel new thing in town. Yes, they got 2.5 million the first season, but they had guys like Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff to get people interested and then by 2002 those guys are long gone and they're barely cracking a million fans.
It didn't help your first owner was a cheap dinosaur who refused to purchase internet access for the team or have team e-mails because he thought it was a fad. He basically nuked whatever goodwill there was from bringing baseball to Tampa.
Vince Naimoli turned the Rays radioactive and think what you will of Stu Sternberg, he did a semi-decent job rehabbing the team.
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GloryHole Stalker
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2017
While it almost certainly will not happen, I wouldn't mind seeing a league contraction. Chop off about 4 or 5 teams. The MLB talent base has felt diluted, to me, since it's 90s expansion and increased North American and Japanese recruitment doesn't really feel like it's helped.
As long as we're talking about stuff that won't happen: It's too bad the minor leagues are a farm system and not independent. Because if it was baseball could operate like the EPL with the worst teams in the MLB being relegated to the minors and the best minor league teams promoted.
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2020
Baseball is galaxies different from soccer though and the minors absolutely is the best system as it tends to weed guys out. Very rare is the college player who is ready to go straight to the pure grind of the majors, let alone a kid from high school or the Caribbean. If I were a White Sox player on the cusp, you're damn right I would've rather been in Charlotte this year, than playing in front of 2,000 fans on a shitty big league club.
I personally think they fucked with the MiLB system doing away with short-season and rookie leagues post pandemic.
The difference is there is no way in MLB to weed out terrible clubs that don't compete. That is what the relegation and promotion in futbol accomplishes.
You could write a book on how badly the milb was screwed over. Cancelling the 2020 season, contracting the league, using it as an experiment grounds for shitty rule changes, etc.
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2017
Former Oriole Brian Matusz died yesterday. He was only 37.
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
The Rockies and Marlins can go; they've been money pits forever
They won't fold the Reds or Pirates due to their historic impact, plus Roberto Clemente day has been one of the league's biggest legacy grifts since forever.
I have a feeling the league might toy with the idea of merging two teams into one if they're still committed to bringing a franchise to Nashville.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2021
For the Marlins, every time there is success, ownership blows it up. Right now, it's their fifth time doing this (the ball club is just over 30 years old)
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2017
The Roki Sasaki Sweepstakes have ended with the most obvious conclusion.
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
Jays fans are having a melty after being serial bridesmaids again after Ohtani, Soto, Burnes, etc.
Being named as one of a trio of finalists really gave them false hope once more after being abused so many times as the "second best offer".
I'm okay with missing out on Sasaki because I'm on Team "burn it down to ashes". I want them to trade Vlad and Bo this spring, but that's never going to happen.
At this point I also want them to trade Vlad just so I stop hearing how Vlad is the "face of the franchise" and will be for the next two decades.
And I want to see all the Leaf Redditors cry.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2021
Getting a big star does not really solve the issues that the Jays are in with a that pitching core that regressing and hitters that can not hit. The Mariners buck broke the Jays and management panicking to fix the issues doomed them.
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- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
Shapiro and Atkins tried to buy a starting rotation with Gausman and Bassitt (along with trading then extending Berrios) to accelerate the contention window back around 2021-2022 when Vlad and Bo broke out.
The problem is that no other pitching talent or otherwise came up through their system to fill holes or replace aging vets came afterwards.
It also made whiny Redditor fans more entitled, expecting and demanding that the team add yet another saviour mercenary FA star every winter to paper over the stars and scrubs nature of the flawed roster.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2021
Which is dumb considering all three times they have been to the playoff in the Vlad era, they got swept. The team is not ready to contend.
After all their signings already the Dodgers have signed two of the top relievers Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott. Their hoarding of talent in the offseason after a WS win is triggering discussion of new payroll and balance rules. https://www.newsweek.com/sports/mlb...-discussions-about-baseball-economics-2018044
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
I had no idea that the 38 y/o Yates had such a career year (or was still pitching TBH).
The Jays signed him one offseason to be their closer (after he failed another team's physical IIRC). He never threw a pitch because his arm blew up in ST.