Lose four our of five starting pichers on a team that lives on pitching. Lead the [admittedly weak] A Least until a bad July slump with a rotation consisting of Colume, Ramirez, Karns, pray-for-rain and Archer. Lose Loney and Jaso to the DL, add in a rookie manager............I think my RAYS deserve some over mention.
I am a life long Red Sox fan-with a $180 million dollar budge and two over the hill players , they deserve to be a clear number 1!! When you have the worst starting pitchers in baseball and a GM that should be working at the Class A level what can you expect!! the club president said he was very disappointed with the team's performance- he should compare the lineup position by position with the Yankee s The Sox win at shortstop and second base (when Pedroia is healthy ) They lose at every other position and pitching What does it mean- last place in the worst division in baseball. I'm putting my Red Sox cap away until next year!! It can't get worse can it?
The Mets, as everyone knows, have a terrible offense and superb pitching. Yet they are over .500 and in the race for their division title. I don't know about gamblers, but that's a lot more than I expected!
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Remember this about the Mets terrible hitting:
Everyone of the Mets' position players hits for a higher OPS than last year's number 2 hitter for the Yankees.
I think the difference between the Mets being over .500 rather than under has been Familia. I really hope they don't ever repeat last week's 5 appearances in a 7 day stretch. That is ridiculous.
It's time for Mejia to step in so that Familia never pitches on back to back days. I don't really care if that's how other closers do it. This guy ought to keep his arm intact for next year.
Everyone of the Mets' position players hits for a higher OPS than last year's number 2 hitter for the Yankees.
I think the difference between the Mets being over .500 rather than under has been Familia. I really hope they don't ever repeat last week's 5 appearances in a 7 day stretch. That is ridiculous.
It's time for Mejia to step in so that Familia never pitches on back to back days. I don't really care if that's how other closers do it. This guy ought to keep his arm intact for next year.
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Mr I spends 180 mil on the Tigers and they are not underachievers? Every year I hope a low budget team will win the WS, especially one that none of the so called experts predicted. Sadly pay for performance only exists in golf.
The experts have failed to pick the WS winner for at least 4 of the last 5 years. The experts are terrible: they just pick whoever won the year before, and add in a team that had a big name signing or trade.
PS - watch Arizona in the 2nd half and into next year. They are the next Minnesota.
PS - watch Arizona in the 2nd half and into next year. They are the next Minnesota.
Well i dont think too many people expected the Yankees to be in 1st place at the all star break and they certainly have exceeded expectations.Joe Girardi and crew have done a masterful job.Go Yanks!!!!
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The difference for NY this year:
- Swapping out Jeter for ARod in the lineup. Having Jeter bat second last year was an epic disaster. To put it in perspective, every Met starting position player is hitting for a higher OPS than Jeter did last year.
- Signing Miller.
- Swapping out Jeter for ARod in the lineup. Having Jeter bat second last year was an epic disaster. To put it in perspective, every Met starting position player is hitting for a higher OPS than Jeter did last year.
- Signing Miller.
And, the Red Sox?
The Red Sox deserve a place on the underachiever list. More New York media bias I guess.
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New York media is biased in favor of the Red Sox, you are saying, then? An interesting theory...
The New York Mets are probably the biggest underachievers, but it has mostly to do with ownership. The Wilpons are by far the worst owners in major league baseball today, and quite possibly in the entire history of the game.
These should be historic seasons for the Mets with a pitching staff that may well be better than the '69 and '86 championship teams. Unfortunately, the Met offense is the worst in baseball and will likely remain so indefinitely. Even a mediocre hitting line up would have the Mets well out in front of the Washington Nationals. Despite playing in the nation's largest and most profitable media market, the Mets have one of the lowest payrolls in the game. Last season, the Wilpons arrogantly informed their fans that they would not improve the team unless attendance increased and they stuck by their threat in the off season.
Is there another single instance in the history of American capitalism in which a major business publicly declared that it would continue to produce an inferior and over-priced product unless and until its customers started buying more of it?
These should be historic seasons for the Mets with a pitching staff that may well be better than the '69 and '86 championship teams. Unfortunately, the Met offense is the worst in baseball and will likely remain so indefinitely. Even a mediocre hitting line up would have the Mets well out in front of the Washington Nationals. Despite playing in the nation's largest and most profitable media market, the Mets have one of the lowest payrolls in the game. Last season, the Wilpons arrogantly informed their fans that they would not improve the team unless attendance increased and they stuck by their threat in the off season.
Is there another single instance in the history of American capitalism in which a major business publicly declared that it would continue to produce an inferior and over-priced product unless and until its customers started buying more of it?
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Nothing else will matter about the 2015 season if the team currently holding the second wildcard position in the NL keeps on winning. When are sportswriters going to wake up?
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How did the Detroit Tigers not make the list of underachievers? They're barely a .500 team despite being regarded as the runaway favorite to win the AL pennant.
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The article used a preseason oddsmaker to determine who the favorites were/weren't.
If you were listening to the geniuses in the media, they picked the Tigers, but the aforementioned geniuses only use 2 criteria: who won last year and who signed or traded for the biggest name players. That is why they are usually wrong.
The Tigers were were and are on the downside of their current run, looking a bit like the 2012 Phillies.
It would be interesting to compare the oddsshark data against the ESPN et al consensus to see who is doing better. My guess would be the former.
If you were listening to the geniuses in the media, they picked the Tigers, but the aforementioned geniuses only use 2 criteria: who won last year and who signed or traded for the biggest name players. That is why they are usually wrong.
The Tigers were were and are on the downside of their current run, looking a bit like the 2012 Phillies.
It would be interesting to compare the oddsshark data against the ESPN et al consensus to see who is doing better. My guess would be the former.
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It's a sign of the times that the author resorted to statistics to determine the list rather than any kind of subjective analysis. Can you imagine Shirley Povich or Red Smith using that kind of basis for an article? Me either.
They would have given us good nuanced reasons for their pre-season picks and informed (and entertaining) analysis of why they were wrong.
Sorry, but an intern could have written this article.
They would have given us good nuanced reasons for their pre-season picks and informed (and entertaining) analysis of why they were wrong.
Sorry, but an intern could have written this article.
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The teams that made the splashiest acquisitions were San Diego and the Chicago White Sox, both teams that were expected to contend this season. Surely the fact that both are under .500, with the Sox in last place, qualifies for the underachievers. On the other side, the Mets, despite their promising young pitching, were not seen as contenders, yet they are only two games behind first place Washington, a team widely predicted to run away with their division and make it to the World Series.
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Splashy acquisitions usually take a year or two to start paying dividends.
Seriously? Two back-to-back, extra inning, walk-off wins by the Pirates against the Cardinals, the two teams with the best records in the National League, and it doesn't even merit a story? I am very disappointed in you. Pay any attention to the smaller markets???
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I think you are confusing the ny times with espn
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I couldn't agree more with CJS. Those last two games between St Louis and Pittsburgh were the most riveting and important games played in the NL's first half of the season. While the second half of the season could make them moot, at this juncture of the season they were quite important, let alone unbelievable (regardless of who won - really). It was two excellent teams displaying incredible pitching, fielding and hitting in a key setting. Yet, the press coverage was minimal (HR Derby, an exhibition of zero consequence gets more coverage. hmmm).
This is still a New York paper, though with more national and international coverage than most.
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Surprises, good and bad, are what makes a season interesting.
Reversal of fortune makes for a great story.
Reversal of fortune makes for a great story.
Where are all the Yankee fans that were screaming for Cano to be retained at any price? Brian Cashman gets a lot of abuse, but whether it was him or ownership they deserve praise for putting sentimentality aside for a career Yankee and letting Seattle overpay for Cano's years of decline.
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We're shocked here in the land of 10,000 lakes. Trailing my five runs and down to our last two outs, we scored seven runs to win 8-6. Incredible.
I don't believe yet -- we don't hit well enough and we have $24,000,000 at first base hitting .275 with hardly a homer -- but things are looking better than any time in the last few years. We pitch. Pelfrey. Gibson. Milone. Santana. Hughes. We have a great closer in Perkins. Our middle relief isn't bad.
The one thing I worry about is timely hitting. But scoring seven runs with two outs in the bottom of the last can make almost any pessimist feel good.
I don't believe yet -- we don't hit well enough and we have $24,000,000 at first base hitting .275 with hardly a homer -- but things are looking better than any time in the last few years. We pitch. Pelfrey. Gibson. Milone. Santana. Hughes. We have a great closer in Perkins. Our middle relief isn't bad.
The one thing I worry about is timely hitting. But scoring seven runs with two outs in the bottom of the last can make almost any pessimist feel good.
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Better that $24 million at first for the Twins than the $24 million at second for the Mariners - for the next 8 years!
Thanks for saving the Yanks from wasting $175 million, Seattle!
Thanks for saving the Yanks from wasting $175 million, Seattle!
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I would have expected the Padres to have been mentioned, if not featured.
But hype is not usually prediction...
But hype is not usually prediction...
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The Detroit Tigers must be in the underachieving ranks as well - .500 at the break. Ugly ball being played up in Comerica Park.
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Think it through: most importantly, they lost Scherzer. V-Mart and Verlander are aging and have been out most of the year. That's probably good for 4 games right there, which would put them at a respectable 48-40.
They weren't that good, and they are not really doing all that poorly either.
They weren't that good, and they are not really doing all that poorly either.
So what if the oddsmakers made foolish predictions? What do they know? They aren't baseball authorities. They're gambling authorities. The Houston Astros finished 70-92 last season. The previous year they lost the most games (115) in franchise history, and finished 45 games behind the first-place As. 45 games! They take the crown this year for overachievers, by a hundred miles. And they deserve every bit of the spotlight. Hats off to Houston.
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Precisely in the respect that odds makers are gambling authorities and not baseball authorities. How they make money is to get an equal amount of dollars bet on either side of the line. Thus a line is set at the mid-point of their sense of the median of bettor's expectations. However given this what they are doing in setting the line they are thus reflecting their perception of consensus opinion -of those willing to back their opinion by putting cash on the line. Baseball authorities who make predictions do not back their predictions in this manner.
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The gambling authorities usually get it right. That's how they make the money.
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