Real Salt Lake was able to defeat the Seattle Sounders in their series, even though Real lost last night 2-0. That's because Real scored a 3-0 victory in the first game in the series. Real won because their aggregate score was higher.
The MLS has a weird playoff format. I haven't figured it out yet. For instance, you can have a tie in one match and still advance in a series. Real now advances to the Western Conference Finals. Here's another confounding thing, they'll play the winner of the New York-LA series. I thought Detroit being in the NHL's Western Conference was strange. But New York in anyone's Western Conference is down right mind boggling. New York and LA will fight, uh play, later tonight.
Congrats RSL!
I'm a big MLB fan. I usually love the playoffs, but without a rooting interest in this past postseason I hardly watched any of the playoff games. Yes, one can love baseball and not care who wins out of the less than exciting pairing of Texas and St. Louis in the World Series. My only regret about the playoffs, other than none of my teams made it, is that I missed the crazy Game 6 of the World Series.
Anyway I love 5 MLB teams and 4 of them are in process of having a new beginning. The only one of my teams that won't have a lot of changes before next season is the Atlanta Braves. It would be nice to see them learn how to win in the last days of a pennant race. My blog today is about my other 4 teams and the changes that should happen before the start of next season. This is ranked in order from least to most changes.
Pittsburgh Pirates: This is a team that I hoped started learning how to win last season. They were even in first place for awhile. That's important as it's not very often a team goes from worst to first. They don't need to make a lot of changes. They should be set at manager and with most of their players. I'm hoping they have 1 or 2 pitchers that assert themselves in the off season. Their pitching staff could use a significant upgrade. The Pirates need to find a couple of players to compliment Andrew Mccutchen as well.
Boston Red Sox: With Terry Francona gone it's important they find another quality manager that can deal with such huge egos. It also seems like there needs to be team chemistry and unity. Boston and Chicago are still bickering over the compensation that Boston gets for letting Theo Epstein sign with the Cubs. Epstein still had a year remaining on his contract. Both sides have agreed on significant compensation, they just can't determine what exactly that is. I do like that at one point Boston was insisting on the Cubs taking the overpaid Jon Lackey. I would love that move, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside. Realistically I hope Boston gets a couple of good prospects, I don't see anyone on that Cubs MLB roster that I want Boston to have.
A new more disciplinarian manager seems like it would be good. Boston needs to decide what to do with David Ortiz and Johnathan Papelbon. Obviously the Red Sox's first free agency priority should be to sign Jacoby Ellsbury to a Dustin Pedroia like contract. The second is to find at least a couple of good and durable starting pitchers. The good news is that the worthless Jon Lackey won't be playing this season. Oh how I wish they could just dump Lackey's contract on the Cubs. Lackey was probably the worst signing of Epstein's Red Sox regime. I'm glad Lackey won't be able to pitch this season as that will force the Red Sox to be even more resourceful in finding quality pitchers. Daisuke Matsuzaka is suppose to return midway this season, I'd be good though if he never plays another game in a Red Sox uniform. Like everyone else Boston fell victim to the Matsuzaka hype.
Should the Red Sox let Papelbon and Ortiz go? If they do that would give them $24.5 million to sign a couple of solid, dependable pitchers.
LA Dodgers: Finally Frank McCourt has agreed to sale the Dodgers. He could get up to 3 times in sale price of what he paid for the Dodgers in 2004. And that's after he almost ran that team into the ground! I'd be glad with any of the ownership groups of Peter O'Malley, Garvey/Hershisher, or Mark Cuban. Cuban just won a NBA championship, I didn't think the Mavericks had that within them. I hope he buys the Dodgers he could sprinkle some of that winning pixie dust on the Dodgers.
Once the new ownership of the Dodgers is resolve, the next step is they need to find some quality pieces to compliment Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp. (Albert Pujols would look great in Dodger Blue, just saying.) I'm fine with Don Mattingly having at least one more year as Dodgers manager. I'm hoping Mattingly was the main reason for the Dodgers looking better as the season progressed. The fact they finished the season with a winning record is amazing. But I don't care how good the manager isn't, there's only so many things he can do with mediocre talent.
I would like to see Huroki Kuroda to come back for at least one more season. He's a better pitcher than his record indicates. It's hard to win a lot of games with anemic run support. I would hope he would accept a bit of a pay cut though. LA already traded away the oft injured Rafael Furcal, that's a step in the right direction.
My team that needs to make the most changes is the woeful Chicago Cubs. The hiring of Theo Epstein as President of Baseball Operations is a good first move. I also agree with the firing of Mike Quade was a good second move. I don't know how much the Cubs under performing last season is Quade's fault, but he did seem to lose the Cubs last season. Then the next move is to find a great manager. I wasn't impressed with Dusty Baker, Lou Pinella or Mike Quade.
After that the Cubs need to make an addition by subtraction. Chicago needs to get rid of some dead weight if they can. MLB players are on guaranteed contracts, they can't be like the NFL and just cut under performing players. At the very least they need to get rid of Carlos Zambrano and his almost $19 million annual salary. I would love to see the Cubs use that money to lock up Matt Garza to a long term contract. Also their last main pitching issue is to get a closer. Carlos Marmol has a reasonable contract, although him blowing 10 saves isn't reasonable.
A second player that desperately needs to go is Alfonso Soriono, he has vastly underperformed his contract. He's a player earning $19 million for doing relatively little. I would to see him back in New York and not because I think that would be a good move for the Yankees. When he originally signed with the Cubs I was excited, but it looks like a bad deal now. The previous Cubs regime made some horrible decisions in signing certain players.
For both the Cubs and Red Sox they need to find the right fit when it comes to their next manager. I hope that both teams don't fall into the Wade Phillips trap. That's when you hire a new manager/head coach because he's experienced (usually means white as well) and has a "name". Many times people see the first two attributes but fail to recognize that said coach wasn't successful in previous jobs. Phillips had a losing record when Jerry Jones signed him. To very few people's surprise he was a bust and finally got fired after a 45-10 beat down at the hands of the Packers last season. Phillip's defense went on to have the worst season in Dallas Cowboys history. Good luck Houston Texans fans.
I'm all for recycling but retreads like Wade Phillips is one thing that shouldn't be recycled.
The Cubs already indicated they aren't going to hire Ryne Sandberg. Other than Terry Francona I don't see a great manager they can sign. Francona can benefit from new scenery. With Boston I'm not sure who they are going to hire either. It's very important that both teams make the right managerial decision, that decision will affect both teams for at least the next few years.
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