2025 Major League Baseball Thread

[eagle20]

What a series the Nats played great

[DanTheMan]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

Choke job complete for Houston. Unreal they managed to beat Greinke and Cole once, and Verlander twice.

To be fair, they probably watched tapes of the NYY-HOU series. Verlander and Cole were not looking unbeatable against them either. In this series, they got exposed. At least Greinke delivered when they needed him.

[myanks12]

Congrats to the Nationals! They did it with quality starting pitching and a clutch offense that doesn’t strike out a ton. This is a recurring theme with WS winning teams and unfortunately some teams refuse to believe that this is the way to win.

[DanTheMan]

Bryce Harper right now....

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by DanTheMan

Bryce Harper right now....

There's going to be so many Harper memes

[BeastCreatureTrapper]

Originally Posted by BeastCreatureTrapper

I don't see the Nationals coming back. Looks like Houston has this one in the bag.

Full disclosure: When it comes to MLB, I don't really know spit from shine. I usually just check in a) to ensure that the Yankees get knocked out of the playoffs and b) for the World Series itself. My earlier concessionary comment was in a private hope of the reverse jinx. I was pulling for the Nationals, mainly because I love seeing road teams win Game 7s, and to have a World Series where only the road teams win would have been (and is) amazing!

I would be curious to see if the ratings for the World Series picked up for the seventh game. I get that baseball has been slowly declining in popularity compared to the NBA and the NFL, but there may be nothing more intense and captivating than a Game 7 in the World Series. The tension is just incredible. I honestly couldn't pull myself away from it, in spite of my Halloween movies being put on standby for a few hours.

Congratulations to the Nationals and their fans. That was an amazing finish!

[MifuneFan]

Houston fans have been pretty well behaved and classy

[MifuneFan]

Brian Cashman be like: I'll take Rendon and Cole please

[traths]

Congrats Nats!

[MifuneFan]

Strasburg was great, but I feel Rendon was more deserving for MVP overall.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Brian Cashman be like: I'll take Rendon and Cole please

Cash needs a pitching coach as well.

It was a great series. People can bash the Yankees all they want but they had 30 injured players this season and still managed to win the division and get to the ALCS.

I had to root for the Nats as they were the underdogs. Martinez did a great job and they did this all without Harper and having a rough start at the beginning of the season where it was rumored the Nats were going to cut ties with Martinez. Now they are World Champions.

[myanks12]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

There's going to be so many Harper memes

Only one unfortunate thing about Harper...he's on a team with a lot of young talent who now have a successful manager. He'll probably get his chance to win it all in the coming years.

[DanTheMan]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Houston fans have been pretty well behaved and classy

Their Twitter fanbase has been unbearable. Just as braggy and obnoxious as a good number of the AL major teams’ fans, including those of my fellow Yankees.

[Musashi]

Originally Posted by BeastCreatureTrapper

I get that baseball has been slowly declining in popularity compared to the NBA and the NFL, but there may be nothing more intense and captivating than a Game 7 in the World Series. The tension is just incredible. I honestly couldn't pull myself away from it, in spite of my Halloween movies being put on standby for a few hours.

An interesting point. I often figured that a big thing that made the Super Bowl so popular was that NFL playoffs are truly single-elimination; on Super Bowl Sunday, much like on the night of Game 7 in a playoff series, there will be a champion.

[terp_fan99]

Very cool the Nationals won!

4 of the last 5 World Series have given us 2 first time champions, a team that hadn’t won in 30 years and another that hadn’t won in over a century. Meanwhile the NFL with it’s salary cap and parity is already a given that we’ll once again have to suffer through another Patriots Super Bowl.

[BeastCreatureTrapper]

Originally Posted by Musashi

An interesting point. I often figured that a big thing that made the Super Bowl so popular was that NFL playoffs are truly single-elimination; on Super Bowl Sunday, much like on the night of Game 7 in a playoff series, there will be a champion.

And I was going over that in my head, after posting my comment.

NFL playoffs are, by far, truly the most exciting and intriguing, for the single-elimination factor that you mentioned.

The Super Bowl has the potential to be incredibly exciting, especially if your team is involved. However, a Game 7 in the World Series, has more build-up, over the ridiculously long season and all the playoff games leading up to it. I also think that the single swing of a bat, or a manager's mishandling of a single rotation decision, can suddenly swing a game and a season so dramatically in a baseball game. So, on that note, every pitch feels huge. There's little room to breathe.

With the Super Bowl, not every down feels that tense. In addition, the eternal break for the SB halftime show kinda brings a lull to the game for a bit.

I mean, I'm grabbing at straws here, don't get me wrong. I think both a World Series Game 7 and the Super Bowl are about as good as it gets, but all things being equal, I give a slight nod to a well-played, tight Game 7 in the World Series over the Super Bowl on the gridiron.

As for the NBA, ehhhh. Game 7s in the NBA, any round, are so heavily-favored to the home team that they are rarely compelling to me.

[Moviefan1203]

Congrats to the Nationals!

[BeastCreatureTrapper]

Originally Posted by terp_fan99

Very cool the Nationals won!

4 of the last 5 World Series have given us 2 first time champions, a team that hadn’t won in 30 years and another that hadn’t won in over a century. Meanwhile the NFL with it’s salary cap and parity is already a given that we’ll once again have to suffer through another Patriots Super Bowl.

In all fairness, what the Patriots are doing is historically above and beyond what the league is designed to not allow.

There's something to be said for a dynasty and seeing if and how they can keep a sustained run going, in spite of a league trying to create parity to prevent such longterm success.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by DanTheMan

To be fair, they probably watched tapes of the NYY-HOU series. Verlander and Cole were not looking unbeatable against them either. In this series, they got exposed. At least Greinke delivered when they needed him.

The Yankees were the too scoring team in MLB this year. Of course you're going to get knocked around some by them. The Nationals are nowhere near as good offensively as NY

[BizCat]

Congrats to Washington!

Sucks to be Harper.