MLB 2011 thread!

[Yoshio]

It's summer that means it's baseball time!

Hey, hockey and basketball are over, and football hasn't started yet so i figured we needed a thread to discuss what is going on in baseball so here it is

i'm a big red sox fan but i like to follow all of the teams i'm not the most up to date on who is good on what teams these days but i do try to keep informed (plus all my relatives up here in Connecticut are waay into either the red sox or the yankees so there is no way for me to ignore baseball while i'm up here, even if i wanted to)

so who do you guys think the playoff teams are gonna be?

also, i hear that there are talks about the houston astros moving from the NL Central to the AL West which could be interesting since the Texas Rangers play in the AL West and there is a small rivalry between those teams (it would also even up the number of teams in the NL and the AL, as well as increasing the AL West to 5 teams from 4 and decresaing the NL Central from 6 teams to 5, making everything even.)

[Mike-KT]

I like the Astros moving, as it would mean more Jays vs Astros games.

My team is the Jays, and although they aren't having a stellar season, and their bullpen is failing hard, I think they'll have a good team moving forward. Their rotation should be very good in a few years, and if Hechiavara can succeed then their infield will also be solid. There's a lot of hate for cory patterson, but from what I've seen he could be a lot worse and they have bigger holes to be concerned about, like a closer. They went huge with their entry draft this year, so if half of those prospects hit near their ceiling then the Jays will be good for a while. (for more info, see here (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/JaysProspectGuide.pdf))

This is the one reason I'm glad Rogers is raking in the cash, so that they can afford a great farm system, and the expensive contracts for their best players, like Bautista.

I feel that the MLB should move to an 8 team per league (16 team total) post-season, to improve the races, get rid of the stupid wild card, and give more teams a chance to earl lucrative playoff revenue.

[Yoshio]

i'd like there to at least be a second wildcard team (10 total playoff spots) but the problem is that the baseball season is crazy long already, where do we find the time for new playoff rounds?

the idea of shortening the regular season has been met with alot of resistance