Rest of Baseball - 2012

[Rome]

See below.

[Rome]

Ethier gets 5/$85M with an option that makes it $100M.  Trade Pence now

^ A million times yes to this.  So long, Spaz. ^

[ice grillin you]

so when they sign heidi the dodgers will have dropped almost 400 million bucks on three players in less than a year

[Munson]

Once Phils trade Pence, they'll resign Hamels. No where else to spend the money really.

[Rome]

Munson nail head.

[ice grillin you]

phillies are six toronto outs away from being double digit games out of first

nationals are beatin down heads again

[PhillyPhreak54]

They're playing out of their minds. I have to wonder if they'll fade. Younger teams usually do when having success for the first time.

[ice grillin you]

they probably wont stay on their current 100+ win pace

94-98 wins sounds about right...they arent going to fade if by fade you mean .500 or some shtein close to that

[PhillyPhreak54]

Not really .500 but maybe 86-87 wins.

[Geowhizzer]

Part of that answer will be how closely they stick to the 160 innings limit to Strasburg.  If they take him out of the rotation in August, they'll fall back to earth pretty quickly.

[ice grillin you]

thats so overblown

a 160ish innings will take strasburg to september....meaning he would miss 4-5 starts....even assuming they lost every one of those starts which is a stretch would still not cause them to come back to earth fast...they have a really good five deep rotation and losing one of those pitchers for a month isnt going to cause the team to implode...theres just not enough influence from a guy who plays once or twice a week to make that happen

if they all of a sudden become a .500 playing team for a couple months on end it will be because of a multitude of factors not because one pitcher misses a few starts

now the playoffs would be an entirely different story....not having strasburg there will be a tremendous difference maker

[Geowhizzer]

Today was the Nats' 61st game, and Strasburg has pitched 77 innings.  If the Nats stick to a hard cap on the innings, that would be around mid-August, around 40 games left.  On a five-man rotation, that's 7-8 starts, not 4-5.

I'm not saying that the Nats will fall to .500 - but that 90-92 seems about right for them this year.  I also don't expect the Nats to stay on the hard cap.  I'm just saying that if it does, it replaces a #1-2 guy with a #4-5 guy and will affect their final record.

Also, please notice I said part of the answer.  So we're not as far off as you think.

[BigEd76]

Dickey with another 1-hitter, and the Mets are appealing to switch it to a no-hitter

[BigEd76]

perfecto for Cain

[ice grillin you]

I'm just saying that if it does, it replaces a #1-2 guy with a #4-5 guy and will affect their final record.

sure it will....they might finish with 95 wins instead of 100....but to me thats not "falling back to earth"

falling back to earth would be playing .500 baseball for the next two months