Don't Make Me Laugh

by seton hall snake pit on Apr 22, 2008 5:56 PM EDT Comment 24 comments

I was just watching ESPN and a commercial for the upcoming SportsCenter came on. The quick flash at the episode was and I quote, "Coming up, are the Cubs the team to beat in the National League?". Talk about a laughable. The DBacks going into today are the league leaders in RBIs, 3B, Total Bases, SLG %, ERA, Ws, and we place in the top 5 in nearly every other major hitting AND pitching category. Doesn't that make us the team to beat? How are the Cubs the team to beat?

0 recs | Comment 24 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

nobody

gives a shit about arizona… we could win the world series this fall and still be considered a sleeper next. espn is a joke.

by leemellon on Apr 22, 2008 6:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

ESPN isn't a joke

Jokes are funny.

Really, though, that’s absurd.

"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

by kishi on Apr 22, 2008 6:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Chicago is a bigger media market than Phoenix.

Ergo, the Cubs are the team to beat.

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 22, 2008 6:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

At least

they’ve got us at #1 in their Relative Power Index, with the Cubs at #2. (RPI is sorta like the Sabermetrician’s answer to Power Rankings—uses run diff, win %, strength of sked, etc.)

They’ve also got the Rockies at #6, the Giants(!!) at #7, and…. the Friars at #26 and the Dodgers at #28.

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 22, 2008 6:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Well, we’ll just have to remind them how we beat them ‘till they bled Cubbie Blue last October. So, from that point of view, they were the team (for us) to beat. And badly.

by foulpole on Apr 22, 2008 9:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Jesus H. Christ...

You people look extremely childish when you make threads like these. At the moment, the Cubs lead the league in Runs, BA, OBP, have a respectable pitching staff and the second-best record in the league. As they are on their upswing winning eight of their last ten and absolutely destroying the Mets in a two game series, this is nowhere even close to being an unreasonable question. It’s a matter of projection and to call the Cubs the team to beat is a fair conclusion to come to.

ESPN has been fellating the DBacks for the last week or so, but for the last week, the Cubs have been playing the better baseball. The fact that you think this is “absurd” means that you should probably get some perspective and realize that not every national sports program can be “let’s talk about how good your favorite team is all the time”.

by dahlian on Apr 22, 2008 10:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Heaven forbid we take a moment to exult in the success of our favorite team. I must have missed most of the vast attention ESPN has been giving the Diamondbacks- was that before, after, or during the seemingly endless slew of Yankees coverage?

Besides, I think you’re wrong. Making threads like this would make us look extremely childish.

"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

by kishi on Apr 22, 2008 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Enjoy the success

Just don’t go around thinking that every thing has to stop and talk about the DBacks just because we’ve gotten off to a hot 19 game start.

If you want to turn this into another “ESPN spends relatively greater amount of time covering baseball teams from cities with relatively greater amount of people” go ahead, but a: that’s just the way the world works so you’re just spitting into the wind and b: that alone doesn’t make the question of “are the Cubs the team to beat in the NL” absurd. Most reasonable projection systems still have the Cubs as the better team on paper. They’re only a half game behind us in the standings. They’ve been playing like a championship caliber team for the last ten day and of late they’ve been doing it without Alfonso Soriano.

And yes, you must have missed the nightly fellatio given to the DBacks on Baseball Tonight, frequent references to their being the best team in baseball and constant praise of their young core and dynamic pitching.

by dahlian on Apr 22, 2008 11:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't think that the national sportsmedia needs to fellate the Dbacks,

(Heck… we’ve got the other teams in the NL West to do that) but I think it’s really going overboard to say that the Cubs are “the team to beat in the National League”, and as a fan of a medium-market squad with a better W/L record, I feel that this is quite disrespectful, and I resent it.

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 23, 2008 1:16 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Come on now,

“disrespectful”. They’re talking about the team to beat which is not much more than a glorified power ranking.

Win/Loss record is not the be all end all measure of team quality, especially after 20 games. This is such a complete non-issue that I can’t believe you guys are citing this as a legitimate grievance.

It’s time to get over the persecution complex. If we keep doing our thing it won’t matter two shits what the national talking heads are saying about us.

by dahlian on Apr 23, 2008 1:31 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Perhaps instead of win/loss

we should use run differential? If W/L isn’t the be all end all measure of team quality, then what is??

Maybe instead of us airing our legitimate grievances at being ignored by most of the country, and you criticizing us for having a “persecution complex”, you should try paying as little attention to our complaints as you seem to do to the sports media world?

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 23, 2008 1:46 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Just to point out...

The Cubs record is bloated because they’re 6-0 against Pittsburgh – including two wins in which they scored thirteen runs. Against everyone else, they’re only 8-6. Sure, we’ve played five against the Giants, who are possibly similarly awful; but against everyone else we are still 11-4. No, if anyone deserves the “team to beat” label, it would be us, rather than the Cubs. Not that the Cubs are a bad team, of course – but once again, market-size drives perception of a team, rather than reality, I’d say.

by Jim McLennan on Apr 23, 2008 4:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

But,

Getting aside the fact that it’s a fool’s errand to make a definitive statement about team quality based on 20 games, do we even know that they declared the Cubs the team to beat?

They used the popularity of the Cubs and their recent hot streak to pose the question about who the best team is. If you’re having that conversation, then you do legitimately have to involve the Cubs in the discussion. It’s a question about what team will have the best record at the end of the season, not which team has looked the best over the last three weeks. If you’re asking the latter question, then obviously the DBacks are the correct answer, but if you ask the former, it’s nowhere near as certain.

And I did a quick look through the ESPN video posts to see if I could find the answer to “are the Cubs the team to beat?” While I haven’t found that clip, so far I find a video published today with Rob Neyer declaring us the best team in the NL (http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3358922&n8pe6c=3)
yesterday’s interview with Reynolds that’s positively effusive (http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3357001&n8pe6c=2)

I guess we’ll never know…

by dahlian on Apr 23, 2008 5:01 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

2.....2 clips

I don’t know about you but I spend nearly every waking hour watching sportscenter as I have nothing to do but go to class and the Diamondbacks tend to be a oh yeah and the DBacks won again at the end of the hour. I’ve seen one episode of baseball tonight where they actually talked about us for about 5 min. I’m not saying it is unreasonable that the Cubs could be the best team, but right now you would be an idiot to not say us.

I made this thread just to get our frustrations out that we get no attention. I understand the business of things, in fact I talked about it with SportsCenter’s Bob Ley about 3 weeks ago. Personally I think it was pretty childish to just blow up without provocation. Chill man, chill.

Baseball season, when everything becomes right in the world.

by seton hall snake pit on Apr 23, 2008 9:52 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, c'mon now.

Don’t backtrack and try to change the subject. If AJ says he heard the Worldwide Leader call the Cubs “the team to beat in the NL”, then I’ll believe him.

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 23, 2008 10:27 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

How is that backtracking?

I’ve read and reread the original post and I still haven’t got to the point where he says that someone on Sportscenter called the Cubs the team to beat.

Usually when they make those sort of statements it’s to knock down the idea. They just use the popularity of the Cubs to pose a provocative question in the hopes that it’ll get people to tune in after the commercial break.

And as for two clips, that’s apart from the game clips like “Brandon Webb goes 5-0”. In fact, when you discount all of the generic fantasy focus videos, there are more clips posted about the Diamondbacks than any team but the Yankees.

by dahlian on Apr 23, 2008 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

game clips don't count

everyone’s game clips are shown, that doesn’t mean they’re getting the coverage they deserve.

No one called the Cubs the team to beat, they just heavily suggested as can be seen in my original post. This was posted before SC even aired that episode. In that episode they did say yeah you can say that, and then proceeded on with this SHOULD be the team to beat and they showed a Mets highlight (shocker there). I was generally stating that it was dumb to say are the Cubs the team to beat when we’ve done them one better. That’s all.

Baseball season, when everything becomes right in the world.

by seton hall snake pit on Apr 23, 2008 5:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Did you look at the page?

Not every game clip is loaded, just the top 5-6 games.

So they were projecting that the Cubs would be the best team in the league. For some reason you think this is dumb. Just realize that it’s not a question of what have you done for me lately, but what are you going to do for me. As much as I hate to say it, they’re probably right about the Cubs.

They’re now tied with us for the best record in the league. Their offense is better than ours. Their run differential is only seven runs less than ours and they’ve won nine out of their last ten games. They also have an experienced lineup without having to worry about any rookies that may take a nosedive or Brandon Lyon pitching to his peripherals and turning into Joe Borowski 2.0.

by dahlian on Apr 24, 2008 1:49 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Because

Kerry Wood is a surefire proven closer …

by Captain D Bag on Apr 24, 2008 8:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

Cubs have also played 14 of their 20 games at Wrigley.

"I was tied to a chair and he had a baseball bat. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do."

by DbacksSkins on Apr 23, 2008 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

THEY SEE US ROLLIN

THEY BE HATIN

The boys in Sedona Red slugged it out with a pretty pesky poltergeist, then stayed on to dance the night away with some of the lovely ladies who witnessed the disturbance.

by soco on Apr 23, 2008 12:50 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Quite..

I don’t see the point of this argument. Quite frankly I’d rather go unheralded throughout the season and then win it all, rather then by hyped up ala the Yankees and Red Sox. Also, lets not forget how well that team in the AL Central who were supposed to sweep away everything have done this year after being lauded by the press all winter long.

Are the Cubs a bigger team then us? Yes
Should they outperform us with that payroll and fanbase? Yes
Are they playing well? Yes
Do we honestly care what the national media think of us? No
Will it affect how we perform? No
Do we kick ass? You bet your ass we do

by Wimb on Apr 27, 2008 7:41 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs