Big deal. The biggest complaint currently with interleague play is that teams like Milwaukee last year had to play at the Yankees and Red Sox, while division rival and World Series champions St. Louis got the Blue Jays at home and travel to the Orioles. The Cardinals never saw New York or Boston. Football, which features eight total divisions of four teams, has a set rotation of which divisions play each other well in advance.
All four teams from each play each other. Everything is fair. Baseball could do the same thing. There would be no fear of teams not having the same teams on their schedules as every other member of their division.
If it means things would be fair and balanced, so be it. The final day of the MLB regular season saw two of the greatest collapses in baseball history. Louis Cardinals. Not just for the fans to keep more hopes alive longer, but so that games are more meaningful later in the season. Commissioner Bud Selig also announced Wednesday he would like to see an additional Wild Card be awarded to each league. That would mean the AL and NL would each have three division winners and two wild card recipients.
The only way this would work with five teams from each league is to eliminate one quickly to make the number four. Suppose the two wild card winners play a one-game, winner-takes-all contest. Ideally, it would be more logical to have a quick three or five game series, but then the three division winners sitting idle have gone cold and are at a competitive disadvantage.
We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. The NL Central will be bad this season. How bad? Other than the Arenado trade, the entire NL Central joined in a largely lethargic offseason, collectively sitting on their hands or trading away their best players in a sort of reverse arms race: As the Dodgers and Padres one-upped each other to build superteams out West, all the NL Central teams apparently figured they had no mandate to improve, because none of their rivals were improving much either, never mind how far behind it leaves them in the World Series chase.
The result is a division that looks like the worst in decades, at least before the season has begun. The first problem is that the NL Central was not starting from a particularly strong position even before the offseason teardown. Because of the pandemic-mandated regional schedule last season, the 10 teams in Central divisions played only each other in the regular season, meaning it was difficult to judge how they stacked up against the other regions.
But the offenses sure looked rather terrible. Eight of the bottom 12 teams belonged to the two Central divisions. With those lowly team performances, it follows that Central Division games, as a whole, saw much less offense than games in the other two regions.
Though he lacks the defensive polish of Barnhart, a two-time Gold Glove winner, Stephenson should represent a significant upgrade offensively from the Reds' long-standing No. Even while slotting second on the depth chart for most of last season, Stephenson still earned himself regular starts at Barnhart's expense against left-handed pitching, typically slotting into the heart of the lineup on those occasions. Overall, Stephenson slashed. The Reds will presumably add another defensive-minded veteran catcher to the roster this offseason, but in the likely event he faces lesser competition than Barnhart and receives an uptick in playing time in , the year-old Stephenson could have a legitimate case for being viewed as a top-five fantasy option at the position.
Quintana, the 47th overall pick of the first-year player draft, finished the campaign at Low-A Lakeland, batting. A glove-first third baseman, Quintana may struggle to hit for enough power to profile as an everyday corner infielder in the majors.
The Reds are apparently interested in bringing back the year-old, but he should receive plenty of interest on the open market while coming off the most productive season of his career. DeShields appeared in 25 games with the Reds in and slashed.
However, he'll be cast off the man roster heading into the offseason. Sanmartin allowed one run on seven hits and a walk over six innings Sunday, striking out six and earning a win over the Pirates.
Sanmartin walked Anthony Alford with the bases loaded in the first inning but settled in for five scoreless innings after that.
His first two career MLB starts came against the Pirates and he took full advantage, posting a 1. The 6-foot-2 southpaw should begin the season with a spot in the starting rotation after a strong debut. Votto went 1-for-5 with a three-run home run in Sunday's win over Pittsburgh. Votto launched a three-run shot off Cody Ponce in the fifth inning, his 36th of the year. The slugging first baseman drilled six long balls with 11 RBI over his final 11 games this season.
Votto narrowly missed out on tying his career-high 37 homers set back in and finished with 99 RBI. He slashed. The year-old will finish the season on the bench for the third time in the final four games with Tyler Stephenson receiving another start. This Week in Sports Reference Find out when we add a feature or make a change. Do you have a sports website? Or write about sports? We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data.
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