Of Hobbitses and Uruk-Hai
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This MLB Trade Rumors' article is fun. As is always the case, the comments are even more fun.
(And as is currently the case, no baseball comments thread could ever be as fun as a NinersNation thread entitled "It Is Time for the Airing of Grievances." Of which the Seahawks' rampage is number one, of course.
I thought with Mebane out they would start to fall
But besides him, Unger and their TE1, they’re surprisingly healthy as we hit the home stretch. I thought it would be OUR team that got better as the season went along, but that has not happened at all.
my grievance is with Baalke for not constructing a roster with matchup advantages against Seattle
they have beat us convincingly now for a few games and are better across the board including coaching.
With Harbaugh on his way out, it’s up to Baalke to find ways to flip those advantages any way he can even if it means dipping into FA unlike last couple of years.
We won’t win a title if we are 2nd or 3rd best team in the division.
Seattle grabbed Bennett and Avril in free agency
Those two were huge in their SB run and their continued success this year. We gotta do similar
Official Shawn Oakman Draft Bandwagon Driver
You want Baalke to kidnap Bennett and Avril?
I agree 100% with this.
The only goal, as I’ve said for three years in a row now, is to have a better record than Seattle.
No other team in the NFL, currently, worries me in a road playoff game… only Seattle. Our roster shouldn’t be built to compete with any other team… only to beat Seattle. That should have been the only goal and had it been, we’d likely have won last season.
When it comes to football, I discuss rationally but root fanatically.
Thanks Delmuir. People don't quite get this for some reason
IMO, if we can find players who can create matchup advantages against Seattle and beat them in Seattle, those same players will also help us beat other NFC contenders in Packers, Dallas, Eagles, Lions, etc along with our division rivals in Cards and Rams.
But unless we can beat Seattle in Seattle, our road to the playoffs is longer, not at home and likely to end before the SB.
For the next few years, they are going to go 6-2 or better at home. 7-1 or even 8-0 are not unlikely for them with that HFA and defense. Without winning that one matchup on the road, we have to be extremely great at Levi’s, or otherworldly on the road to overtake their record.
I hear that Seattle uses a 5-play kiddie book as well but,
they execute the unholy *** out of it.
Hobbit is the only 21st Century new wave dual-threat QB who is actually delivering on the promise, cuz he can run like an RB and throw like a Brady.
Every time I have to praise a Seahawk, I die a little more inside.
Okay. That's enuffa that.)
....
Back to MLBTR, they nominate 7 terrible contracts and 3 bargains to their readership, asking the fans to rate them together for surprise factor. Fangraphs, early on, put Nelson Cruz' contract at the top of the terrible list, but Cruz doesn't make the cut in either direction. Some things never change, baby.
In view of the kinds of moves given by MLBTR ... spending $20 of your last $40 roto on the only cleanup Uruk-Hai in the player pool, and leaving your last $20 on the table as waste ... befuddling how that move is in any way controversial.
In roto you'd have paid twice as much. Dr. D wouldn't have paid twice as much, but he'd a paid once as much.
Anyway, SSI wouldn't mind hearing your take on which of the following were the most ill-advised moves:
- 3 x $30M for Billy Butler
- 4 x $44M for Nick Markakis
- 5 x $82M for Russell Martin (bonus points: Martin & Kemp or Cruz, Zunino & $20M/yr?)
- 2 x $17M for Kendrys Morales
- 4 x $46M for David Robertson
- *Coughing up your franchise player for Brett Lawrie
- *Any other move Billy Beane made this winter
I mean, Josh Donaldson OPS+'ed 145 and 127 the last two years at 3B, and "earliest Free Agent" is 2019. Yeah, we know, Billy. Had absolutely nothing to do with anything off the field.
The cost-efficiency of Uruk-Hai's deal aside, I'm just glad we got him and not Kendrys. The above list puts this into rather sharp perspective.
Here's to an Oakland A's season that's as much fun for the Bay Area as football was. Oh, wait. Been there, done that.
Cheers,
Dr D
The injuries have been a gigantic buzz kill
And seattle’s success causes me to be dependant on prescription pills
Official Shawn Oakman Draft Bandwagon Driver