Crack of the Bat, Y'all: A Thread for Baseball

[JamesSchneider]

I lived in the UK for 6 years.

Sports Night still sums up cricket best for me.

Oh god I want to know, I just can't know. Want to, can't

[El_Josharino]

What a Series. What a postseason. Holy crap. Holy crap. How long until pitchers and catchers report for spring training? No, I can't wait that long. Can't do it.

[El_Josharino]

Fuck it. Found a stream of an NPB ballgame. Fuck yes.

[El_Josharino]

Oh sweet, Yu Darvish is pitching for the Nippon-Ham Fighters tonight. Dude is probably gonna end up on our side of the pond next year.

[El_Josharino]

Hahaha, at this ballpark in Japan they're playing "Who Let the Dogs Out".

In other news, Darvish just hit 154 km/h, which is apparently right around 96 mph. Dude appears to be legit.

[El_Josharino]

HOLY SHIT BOBBY SCALES PLAYS FOR NIPPON-HAM!
This is great! I saw this dude last year when he was playing for the Cubs AAA affiliate.

[El_Josharino]

This is great. There are no commercials. When one inning ends, everyone just hustles the fuck out and they keep playing. No between inning nonsense.

[El_Josharino]

Darvish is like 6'4. Get ready to be sick of people saying "Japanese Randy Johnson"

[El_Josharino]

Darvish had a perfecto going through 4 and a third, but just gave up his first hit. Bummer.

[Thermofusion]

I like that you were in here drunk live-posting a Nippon leagues game.

Well, I'm assuming you were drunk. Not sure what to suggest! Used to be a few years ago you could watch the occasional Tigres del Licey game online...

[El_Josharino]

Drunk, yes.
I wonder if there are any streams out there of Arizona Fall League games...

[El_Josharino]

Derek Lowe traded to the Indians! Whoa. The Indians are apparently trying to put together the groundballingings rotation of groundballers who ever groundballed. Lowe, Masterson, Carmona, and Jiminez. Hopefully all these kids they've got in the infield can pick 'em.

Now all the Braves need to do is trade Jurrjens for some bats at either Left Field or Shortstop and we'll be all set.

[Thermofusion]

Rumors have the Pirates looking to deal Garrett Jones. I think a 1:1 for Jurrjens is fair, don't you?

[El_Josharino]

In a vaccuum, yeah, that's a pretty good deal. The thing is, Jones is a lefty, which the Braves are already pretty loaded on (McCann, Freeman, Bourne, Heyward, Hinske...), and being a lefty he profiles better in right field rather than left. I just found out Jones was drafted by the Braves back in 1999. How 'bout that. He also has pretty drastic platoon splits and I dunno, I just have this irrational dislike for platoons. I don't really think that Jones fits the Braves' needs as an everyday guy. If we didn't have Hinske, I'd pretty happily take him as a role player who would get fairly regular starts at 1st/LF/RF and come off the bench a lot.

I think they'll probably make a play for Josh Willingham as a free agent. They've had a baseball-crush on him for a few years now, and he had a pretty solid year in Oakland last year. Then maybe hold out until spring when they can show Jurrjens is healthy again to avoid selling too low on him. See if Tyler Pastornicky looks ready for the big show in spring, and if not then maybe try to deal Jurrjens to Baltimore for JJ Hardy on the hopes that Baltimore will want to clear a path for Manuel Machado at short. But that's just me.

[Thermofusion]

The problem with Garrett Jones is everything about him is streaky. Batting and defense. If we get any kind of value on the block for him, we need to take it.

Seemed like every team had a baseball-crush on Willingham at the trade deadline, as I remember the Buccos and a number of other teams pursuing him with gusto. I wonder if his value is as high in the offseason, though, cause "bubble team market inflation" was especially bullish at the trade deadline this summer.

[El_Josharino]

Yo new thread:
http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/forums/index.php/topic,13270.0.html