If the Cards work their way into a tie, I'll be working at Busch Monday. That's pretty much all I care about here.

Arent Nats down both ace pitchers. Scratch them.

Hell ya go Cards

"the Jays thank the Lord finally get a win to push them to the #1 spot"

You mean for wild card. I'm pretty sure the Red Sox are winning by a margin of 5 games.

Also WS will be the Dodgers or Cubs vs either the Rangers or Red Sox, at least according to this: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-mlb-predictions/

The Red Sox are gonna kick all of y'all's collective asses.

And yeah, Nate Silver is such a boss for predicting that the World Series will be one of the top two seeds from each league facing one of the top two seeds from the other league.

The teams with the best records seldom make the WS. Cubs are by no means a certainty

The Cubs have two potential Cy Young winners plus Jake. A three- or four-man rotation throughout will carry them without an issue. They have one of the best back ends in the game. They have one of the best offenses in the game. Anything can happen, but the Cubs are as well rounded as any team has been in recent memory.

Also, I talked to Tom Ricketts a week ago and he said he would buy me a beer on my 21st birthday if the Cubs win the WS, but I'm still rooting for the Red Sox.

Yea it's going to be tough for the Nats, and they're down Ramos as well. They do have home field advantage, if that means anything.

And of course I mean the wild card game. The divisions were all clinched a couple of days ago.

As for the people asking how the Cubs can lose, the 2001 Mariners can answer that for you.

The Jays compare favourably to the Red Sox in every way except the pen. Baltimore is a pushover, not to mention they barely have any fans. The Jays should make the WS this year.

"The teams with the best records seldom make the WS. Cubs are by no means a certainty"

I mean yeah it isn't always the two highest records, but usually the winner of the world series is one of the top 5 records overall. I listed 4 of the top 5

"The Jays compare favourably to the Red Sox in every way except the pen."

I take it offensive stats don't mean much to you.

"The Jays compare favourably to the Red Sox in every way except the pen. Baltimore is a pushover, not to mention they barely have any fans. The Jays should make the WS this year."

How? Like that Run differential and record certainly aren't giving you credence. Your top hitting leaders are only leading on HRs (only by 4) and in aggregate our hitting is just higher:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/stats/batting/_/name/tor/toronto-blue-jays
http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/stats/batting/_/name/bos/boston-red-sox

Also, the pitching wins championships.

Moscow, stop making me +1 bo. I like you guys more, but you're worse. The Rangers are also smoke and mirrors. It's the Red Sox or Cleveland in the AL, and it had better be over of the Nationals and Cubs in the NL, because the idea that the Mariners aren't the most hapless franchise needs to be gone by the time they actually do make the payoffs.

The lineups are definitely comparable. We've had Bautista playing injured for a long stretch, and a couple of guys in bad slumps after the AS break. Our rotation blows the Sox out of the water. We've also been horrible in one-run games.

Why do you get to have a better team than me when you're so wrong all the time?

The lineups aren't comparable. The Red Sox have by far the best offense in baseball. I don't care about injuries. Everyone has their share. The Red Sox have multiple MVP candidates in Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts (the former a lot more likely), a resurgent Dustin Pedroia out of the leadoff spot, Hanley Ramirez playing like the player he was always supposed to be, and David Ortiz riding off into the sunset. JBJ has been one of the most consistent slash hitters all year. Sandy Leon is hitting like he's an All-Pro catcher. The only hole is third base and if Pablo Sandoval ever even halfway lives up to that stupid contract they gave him instead of trading for Donaldson like I wanted them to, then that's taken care of. Toronto has a couple of big time hitters but it is not nearly the well-rounded lineup that Boston has.

As for pitching, I don't have any real stats at my disposal and I'm not gonna go hunting for them, but Toronto's season ERA is 3.80 and Boston's is 4.01. Not a huge difference. In BAA, they're basically even. Toronto has more quality starts. I guess that matters to ESPN. I wish they had better pitching stats.

The Red Sox went 19-8 in September and carry that into the postseason. The Blue Jays just had their worst month of the season. They were 24th in home runs in the MLB in September, and their offense relies on that. Better hope they get that back if you want any shot of outslugging the best offense in the league.

In other news, my girlfriend claims to be both a Red Sox fan (born in Boston) and a Cubs fan (lives in Chicago). She served Theo Epstein at the bar at her restaurant the other day and had no idea who he was. I question her loyalty.

Your girlfriend is dating you. Maybe she's just not that bright.

At least she isn't a Mariners fan. That's the ultimate gauge of stupidity.

I think of it more as a slow-burning masochism.

I also wouldn't really expect anyone in this thread to understand the concept of rooting for your own city's team.

Bliss.

Jays are the best team in the AL. Just all of you wait and see.

Lol

Moscow I want to root for the Jays but you make it really difficult.

Think of it this way: pitching wins chamionships? The Jays have the best rotation in the league by basically any metric. We took the season series from Boston, and at full strength there is no way we lose a 7 game series to Boston in the ALCS. I'd bet a kidney on that. We need to hit homers, and we have clutch players who can do that in the biggest situations.

Join the Toronto bandwagon. You'll look smart afterwards. Right now I'm plannin to celebrate long into the night, and I'll be doing that throughout October, guaranteed.

If by "league" you mean all of Canada, yeah, you're spot on.

https://puu.sh/rygCj/8a35829668.png

Thoughts?

"Let me sort by one of the few stats that favors Betts over Trout."

Betts and Donaldson are pretty much equal for second, a fair bit behind Trout. Inevitably one of them will win instead.

Much like Moscow and his obnoxious love of the Jays, the BBWAA makes it much harder to hate Mike Trout like I want to.