1861

Wrong on the # of games, Cain, and Young! Right on Cueto and Murphy…good to see KC get their second title. Now it’s the Rangers turn to get their first! Right? Right??

1862

Part of the Greinke return was also Jake Odorizzi, who was part of the Wade Davis trade (and is a cromulent starter in his own right). So, yeah, tremendous returns for the Royals. Not to mention the Brewers received Yuniesky Betancourt, so that further tips the trade balance in the Royals’ favor.

~~

Glad Rany Jazayerli got to see it in person, sad there’s no more baseball.

1863

Who’d have thought in the Wil Myers for James Shields trade that the biggest players exchanged would end up being Jake Odorizzi and Wade Davis?

And if you’d have asked a Royals fan in 2011 or early 2012 about Davis, they’d have angrily shaken their heads and wondered if that guy was EVER going to figure it out as a starter. (Answer: maybe not…but as a reliever? Holy shit.)

1864

Congratulations to the Royals. They won the World Series in a very fitting fashion for their team.

1865

I think he get’s a lot of general criticism of the broadcast lumped on him since he’s the central piece, just like the quarterback gets a lot of the criticism for how the whole team plays in football. I actually mostly like him, I think he’s a good facilitator of conversations and it’s not his fault that he is saddled with guys like Harold Reynolds who not only spout ridiculous cliches, but just flip flop randomly between different view points inning by inning.

I do think that Joe does suffer a bit from the need to force ‘The Narrative’ into every little aspect of the event. He was pushing a lot of stuff about how the ‘so called experts’ didn’t give the Royals any chance this season. I mean, no one knew they would add Ceuto and Zobrist, for starters, but I don’t think that anyone thought the Royals would be trash. Everyone who makes predictions knows that the error bars are huge. That’s a wonderful thing about sports. It would be awful if it was easy to predict. But the Royals are WS Champs and they get full credit and glory there. But they don’t have some magical mythical skill set that no one appreciates. Analytic focused fans and writers have long pushed the idea of speed and defense being undervalued and spending money on mid-tier arms can make a lot more sense for the money. Hell, it was only a couple years ago that the statistical community loving the heck out of Alex Gordon was being used as a talking point about how statistics were foolish.

Of course, I am blaming Buck for the aggregation of a bunch of other things, which is just what I was blaming other people of doing :) It’s hard to mentally separate. But I do think he’s one of the better national announcers.

1866

I feel like Joe Buck has gotten much better at national broadcasts in the past few years. Around 09-12, he just sounded bored in the booth all the time.

1867

Eh, I guess if you’re able to see into the future, sure. I’m sure you were looking at those 2007-2010 Royals and saying, “Gosh, just wait until 2015; World Series!” I mean, did you see the “plan” they had in place? The team was terrible, it appeared they had no clue, draft after draft produced terrible results… Greinke was right to want to leave that team and organization.

1868

I can’t blame him for that, at least not on the baseball broadcasts. Tim McCarver brought down that booth. I actually enjoyed listening to McCarver back in the 90s, but he went downhill fast before finally leaving after 2013. We complain a lot about Reynolds, and rightfully so, but he’s still better than that was.

1869

Well, part of it was that from the end of 2010 through 2011 and even into 2012, Buck was announcing with a vocal cord problem, something that he kept kind of hush-hush until he was starting to recover, but after it was pretty noticeable. He had some kind of infection that settled in his larynx and it took a while to beat and then took even longer to recover.

1870

Not blaming your boy Zack. Just pointing out that the baseball gods sometimes have a cruel sense of humor.

1871

Today is a good day.

I’m hungover as fuck, but it is still a great day.

1872

That makes a lot of sense. He does seem to announce with a little bit more excitement now, which I think helps him out. For me, I know find him perfectly average in terms of announcing (which is a huge step up in my mind).

1873

I’d be in the same boat, if I wasn’t told that today was going to be a “all hands on deck” sort of day at work. Turns out, no so much.

I inherited my KC fandom from my old man, who spent his formative years in KC. It was great to see this team win this way after falling 90 feet short last year.

Took the old man out to lunch. Not sure I’ve ever seen him this giddy. A good day indeed.

1874

What sort of series will it be to start out the 2016 season, when the Mets travel to KC to open the year? I imagine someone will get plunked after the headhunting pitch.

1875

I’m at meetings in Washington DC this week, and was agonizing over having to be in business dinners while the games were being played. Fortunately last night was a quick meet and greet and then back to the room Once again, Top of 9, down, I underestimated my team and assumed I’d be watching the game on my phone under the table tomorrow night; how perfect for them to win that way. It was just a perfect example of who they are this year; the risky run home by Hosmer, putting the pressure on the other team, the “move the line” attitude they have in the latter innings, every player on the roster getting into the game at least once in the Series, nice management of his bench by Yost, the exuberence of the team on the bench, and Wade Davis being Wade Davis for the last 3 outs.

Stayed up way to late last night/this morning and early morning meetings, but it was worth it. Told my daughter in KC we have a date for opening day in KC to watch them get their rings. With the Mets on the visitors bench.

1876

Apparently the Nats negotiations with Bud Black broke off without a contract, so Rizzo and the Lerners are turning to…

…wait for it…

Dusty Baker!

Holy shit! I think if you listen closely, you can hear the elbow ligaments of Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg screaming in protest.

1877

Is that a window closing? Nah, lets just slam that sucker closed.

1878

Bob Nightengale and Scott Miller both reporting that the Nats offered Bud Black a 1 year deal at $1.6m.

Don Mattingly just signed a 4-year deal at $10m to manage the Marlins. But, I suspect it’s the years.

The Nats offered Black two years only, but at a hugely discounted rate, in the $2m range. They refused to guarantee beyond two years.

Incredible.

1879

That’s it, I’m done. WTF

1880

Baker has used pitch counts since the days of Chicago. And no, Prior and Wood were ruined because they had arm killer deliveries. They should have learned a thing or two from Maddux.

the problem with Baker is he is old school and not a stat nut. But he is a manager that knows how to keep players happy and focused on the game.