Toronto Blue Jays Talk

They've added one more wild card position in each league (so, now 10 teams as opposed to 8 in the post season). This creates a new one-game, wild-card round in the AL and NL between the teams with the best records who are not division winners.

From wiki:

Also, with the adoption of the expanded playoff format in 2012, the five-game Division Series will begin with two home games for lower seeds, followed by up to three home games for higher seeds. This one-year change will eliminate a travel day prior to a decisive Game 5 of a Division Series and was necessary because the 2012 regular-season schedule was announced before the agreement on the new postseason was reached. For 2013, the Division Series will return to the 2-2-1 format used in previous years.

I think the problem a lot of casual fans (myself included) have with baseball is that the regular season is ridiculous. 162 games and only the top 4 (now 5) from the AL and NL get into the playoffs.

That and the payroll discrepencies. Yankees spend about $200M, the Padres and the A's $55M.

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm

I watched "Moneyball" on Friday night...while the movie was alright, what was really well portrayed was that feeling of helplessness that a lot of these GMs must feel when they see teams outspending them 4 to 1.

Guaranteed Blown Save Night was last night... A's with a Grand Slam in the bottom of the 9th to seal the deal... once again, closers can't close...

Getting mad.

Casey Janssen came through with the save last night... and what is going on with Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion... talk about opposite directions.

Bautista needs to get it going. Nice record with him not doing much though...

Vladimir Guerrero signs a minor league deal with the Jays...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7916601/vladimir-guerrero-inks-minor-league-deal-toronto-blue-jays

Interesting signing... I guess they feel he's still got something left...

What the hell? That is truly shocking to me.

Blew Jays drop two in a row vs TBay with a ton of errors... and Lawrie lost it on the ump last night... suspension coming for sure.

shabbs wrote:Blew Jays drop two in a row vs TBay with a ton of errors... and Lawrie lost it on the ump last night... suspension coming for sure.

I'm not for blaming the umps, the errors cost the jays the game last night (the rays are to them what the bruins are to the sens). But those were just awful strike calls by the ump there.....deserved that beer thrown at him lol

Yeah... the ump was totally gunning for Lawrie. He was calling a strike even if the ball hit the ground in front of the plate. Hopefully MLB will look at that too. Talk about refs affecting the outcome of a game.

But, the Jays do need to fix all those errors they're making. They've been atrocious lately.

Not a fan of baseball at all, but saw it on Sportscentre and while you can't excuse Lawrie's behaviour, the officiating was awful. They both should be punished.

4 game for Lawrie. Bet they appeal to let him play the next 5 games as they are at home and then they'll drop the appeal. 4 games seems reasonable.

Lawrie comes across as a bit of a crazyman. He deserves his suspension.

The two "strikes" he took were definitely balls though, and that ump really Cussed it up.

Jays responded last night with an 8-1 drubbing of the Yankees. Could the Yankees miss the post season this year?

Big Ev wrote:Well we just got Adrian Gonzalez. Watch out AL East!

SDH89 wrote:Yikes, Red Sox strike again - Carl Crawford to a 7 year/142 million $$ deal. Lots of money, but Crawford is a hell of a player.

aaaaand they're gone.

How the mighty Red Sox have fallen. The poor manager selection really had a big effect on their club.

I think that had an effect but they just needed to start over after it was clear guys like Beckett weren't the right fit anymore. How they got rid of all those contracts is beyond me.

With tons of cash available now, I'm interested to see what they can do this off-season. I'm hoping they can go after Josh Hamilton.