The Baltimore Orioles

[paul3mac]

Just saw on ESPN the Twins GM is resigning .  Sign him, let him and MacPhail have full control of the team and Angelos can sit back and wait for the world series rings to flow in    

[Venerable Bede]

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
  I still can't figure out why the NL Central has six teams and the AL West only has four teams. How is that fair?

there are 30 teams. . since baseball does not have interleague play throughout the season, the leagues cannot be even, or else there would be 1 team not playing when all the other teams are playing.
 
 as to why the nl central has 6 teams. . .when baseball did their realignment in 1994 and went to 3 divisions and had 2 nl expansion teams, the nl central ended up with 5 teams, while the nl west and nl east both had 4 teams. there were 28 teams at this point (14 al teams and 14 nl teams)
 
 in 1998 with the addition of the d-backs (nl) and devil rays (al), the leagues totaled 30 teams, but 15 in each league.  since baseball is played primarily intra-league, that would have resulted in 1 team not playing.  so, to keep that from happening, mlb had to move 1 al team to the nl.  so the brewers switched leagues, and the tigers moved from the al east to the al central (to solve the inbalance that would have happened in the al with 4 teams in the al west and central and 6 teams in the al east)
 
 so, to answer your question- since it's inception, the nl central always had more teams than the other division's, and has 6 teams because of the intra-league schedule.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

You lost me. If there were 15 teams in each league (which isn't the case), why would there be one team not playing during intra-league play? Seems like you could have 15 games on tap, each featuring a team from each league.
 
   

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
   

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
  I still can't figure out why the NL Central has six teams and the AL West only has four teams. How is that fair?

there are 30 teams. . since baseball does not have interleague play throughout the season, the leagues cannot be even, or else there would be 1 team not playing when all the other teams are playing.
 
 as to why the nl central has 6 teams. . .when baseball did their realignment in 1994 and went to 3 divisions and had 2 nl expansion teams, the nl central ended up with 5 teams, while the nl west and nl east both had 4 teams. there were 28 teams at this point (14 al teams and 14 nl teams)
 
 in 1998 with the addition of the d-backs (nl) and devil rays (al), the leagues totaled 30 teams, but 15 in each league.  since baseball is played primarily intra-league, that would have resulted in 1 team not playing.  so, to keep that from happening, mlb had to move 1 al team to the nl.  so the brewers switched leagues, and the tigers moved from the al east to the al central (to solve the inbalance that would have happened in the al with 4 teams in the al west and central and 6 teams in the al east)
 
 so, to answer your question- since it's inception, the nl central always had more teams than the other division's, and has 6 teams because of the intra-league schedule. [/b]

[shemptiness]

Intra, not inter.

[godsshoeshine]

you're thinking of interleague play, when nl and al teams play each other
 
 during the rest of the year, there has to be an even number in each league. the al has 14 teams (divisions of 5, 5, and 4) and the nl has 16 (divisions of 6, 5, and 5).

[vansmack]

when the stadium opens our budget will skyrocket into the top-third of the league and we'll have a competitive team in 2009 ... and unlike the completely incompetent orioles, the nats have a proven management team in place who know how to build a team from the ground up

Haha, doing some research on what I said about the Nats farm system and saw this.  Awesome.

[set1914]

Looking back, that is very funny about the Not's.

I am hoping the O's build on last year and go over 500 this season. That would be real nice if do. If not, I still be an O's fan.

[StoneTheCrow]

The O's won't be a .500 team this year but they'll be a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  2011 is a lot more likley for breaking .500.

[HoyaSaxa03]

The only real problem with Boswell's analysis, from my perspective, is that he is overvaluing the Nats draft positions.

LOL

[sweetcell]

when the stadium opens our budget will skyrocket into the top-third of the league and we'll have a competitive team in 2009 ... and unlike the completely incompetent orioles, the nats have a proven management team in place who know how to build a team from the ground up

Haha, doing some research on what I said about the Nats farm system and saw this.  Awesome.

you were saying...

[vansmack]

Look at you guys taking half the quote and trying to make me look bad. 

Here's the full quote:

The only real problem with Boswell's analysis, from my perspective, is that he is overvaluing the Nats draft positions.
 
 Their farm system is extremely light of big league talent, at last viewing I think they were in the high low 20's in farm systems.  To think that they can draft their way into a contender in one season is a little shortsighted.
 
 It takes more than money to buy high priced free agents to be a contender (something the cubs have never learned).  It takes a good mix of young talent and free agents, and I think the young talent for the Nats is not going to be their in 1-3 years - especially in the pitching department.

Emphasis added.

That was 2007 when Boswell was arguing that the Nats were going to be good in 2010.  I said it would take 3-4 years longer than that and I.Was.Spot.On.

As usual.