The growing season...

[m23uza1hem36]

Since baseball boards are generally dead, I figured to create some thread where it wouldn't require an every day visit but gathers opinions and etc.

Basically, there's 162 games in a season that I'm going to split into eight "mini-seasons", the first to the seventh mini seasons would include 20 games each, the eight mini-season 22, to equal the 162 games.

For every mini season, give your opinion of how the team has fared, how your expectations have changed, what you believe needs to be changed, and lets cut the crap, anything you thought was interesting, disappointing, blah blah you get the point. The seasons could be merged, for example, for the second mini season, which would be 40 games in the season, you can talk about the whole season, your not just limited to that month. Also, for every mini season, award an MVP (most valuable player), a MIP (Most improved & impressive player - from the previous mini season), and YMMSP (you make me sick player) for the mini season.

I don't know if this is a good idea or not, just a random thought I had anyway, here are the mini season dates.

Mini season 1 (Games 1-20, 4/6/09 - 4/27/09)
Mini season 2 (Games 21-40, 4/27/09 - 5/20/09)
Mini season 3 (Games 41-60, 5/21/09 - 6/10/09)
Mini season 4 (Games 61-80, 6/11/09 - 7/3/09)
Mini season 5 (Games 81-100, 7/4/09 - 7/29/09)
Mini season 6 (Games 101-120, 7/31/09 - 8/20/09)
Mini season 7 (Games 121-140, 8/21/09 - 9/11/09)
Mini season 8 (Games 141-162, 9/12/09 - 10/4/09)

Maybe if we get enough people to include their awards, we can tally them up and stuff.

-Obviously, multiple games are canceled/postponed every year I'll have to think of how to deal with that, anyway, yeah, lets see if this works or not, any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

NOTE: I was bored when I made this

[Snakebites]

I'd be willing to participate in something like this.

If we can get a few more posters in on this it could be a reasonable idea.

BTW, I nominate Verlander as an early frontrunner for YMMSP.

[ajaX82]

i can roll with this

Mini season 1 so far: not good

[Liqourish]

I nominate Brandon Lyon for YMMSP for mini season #1.

So far, my MIP is Brandon Inge.

Of course this could change over the next 18 games, but i doubt it with these two choices.

I'll save my MVP until the first mini season is over, but Cabrera, Inge and Edwin have been impressive thus far.

[m23uza1hem36]

^^
I agree with every thing you said but if Verlander has another shady start, he's my YMMSP automatically for the rest of the first mini season

[Snakebites]

YMMSP will probably be based on expectation for me.

As such, any bullpen player would have to be pretty putrid indeed to even garner consideration, given how low my expectation is there.

[RustInPeace]

Just give Miggy the MVP for every mini-season

[ajaX82]

Mini Season 1 MVP so far is Inge, followed closely by Cabrera.

[m23uza1hem36]

^
I'm with you on that, I think it'll end up being one of those two for sure, unless someone gets really hot for the rest of the month.

[m23uza1hem36]

Verlander for YMMSP

[Liqourish]

Nah, Verlander only had one really bad game and that was the season opener in Toronto. He pitched well against Texas, and he had good stuff last night, it just so happened that a few bobbled plays and errors resulted in some Mariner runs.

He threw 108 pitches in 7.1 IP and 79 of them were strikes with 8 strikeouts and 5 hitless innings. Those broken plays in the 5th inning caused the loss.

A Beltre doubled to right. 3 0 - Verlanders fault
R Branyan singled to right, A Beltre to third. 3 0 - Verlanders fault
J Lopez singled to left, A Beltre scored, R Branyan to second. 3 1 - Verlanders fault
R Johnson sacrificed to third, R Branyan to third, J Lopez to second. 3 1 - Verlanders fault
Y Betancourt grounded into fielder's choice to third. R Branyan scored, J Lopez to third on throwing error by B Inge. 3 2 - Branyan doesn't score and Lopez doesn't move to third if not for the error at the plate.
F Gutierrez reached on bunt single to pitcher, J Lopez scored, Y Betancourt to second. 3 3 - Lopez wouldn't have scored if he weren't on third because of the error at the plate. Also, three Tigers went to the ball after it was bunted and no one could field it cleanly. It was a routine play that allowed Gutierrez to even reach base.
I Suzuki singled to center, Y Betancourt scored, F Gutierrez to third. 3 4- Gutierrez is on base because of a bobbled ball.
F Gutierrez scored, I Suzuki to second on wild pitch by J Verlander. 3 5 - Verlanders fault on the wild pitch. Gutierrez wouldn't have scored if he was thrown out on the bundt attempt.

Verlander made his share of mistakes, but he also had the help of just bad defense and careless mistakes. He's the pitcher so he's credited for the runs, but at least imo, he doesn't deserve to shoulder all of the blame for that inning.

[m23uza1hem36]

My mini-season 1 awards,

MVP: Edwin Jackson, I would go with Inge or Cabrera but it all starts with pitching and he's been much, much better then I expected.

MIP: Not even close, Brandon Inge, enough said.

YMMSP: Justin Verlander, as Pistons #1 said, this award for me was based on expectation and I expected him to be a lot better to start this season after last years.

Who ya'll got?

[Liqourish]

MVP: This ended up being much harder than I thought. I tried to compare who did the most for the team, who helped us most to win games, and who individually is the most valuable... in the end, I went with Miguel Cabrera.

MI(improved)P: Brandon Inge. No explanation is nessecary.

MI(impressive)P: Josh Anderson. This kid has come in and stepped up. Honorable mention to Ramon Santiago for his hot start, but Josh has just brought it every single game.

YMMSP: Maybe I'm in the minority, but I didn't expect much from Verlander this season so him getting off to a rocky start really didn't disgust me. What made me sick was watching Brandon Lyon come into a game and give it away on more than one occassion. Sometimes players can make a bad play, but he literally lost us a couple games.

[Snakebites]

MVP: I'll just go ahead pick Cabrera. Easy call.

M Improved P: Inge. I'm openly skeptical of his offensive progress (I suspect he'll come back to earth soon), but if we're just looking at this mini-season its an easy call.

M Impressive P: Granderson. 5 home runs? Probably a fake trend, he's been just okay in most other ways, but that stat jumps out at me for Curtis.

YMMSP: Verlander. I made my criteria very clear. He's still got such good stuff, he just dicks around too much and is way to easily rattled. Watching him makes me sick because of how could we all know he can be.

[m23uza1hem36]

My most impressive would be Granderson but I'm going to roll with pitching again and go with Armando, he hasn't missed a beat yet.

[RustInPeace]

MVP: Do I really need so say it? Miguel Cabrera.

M Improved P: Brandon Inge. He already has 7 HR's this season. I expected him to have this much by the time it was halfway trough the season. He's been very impressive so far.

M Impressive P: Don't really know the criteria for this, but I'll just go ahead and give it to either Galarraga or Laird. I never thought Laird would be a pretty good bat. Galarraga I expected to have a bad start and finish with an ERA around 4.

YMMSP: Tie between Lyon, Verlander, and Rincon. GTHO my Tigers plz.

[m23uza1hem36]

MVP for May most likely Verlander, he's probably also my most improved and most impressive.

YMMSP, Lyon, rest of the year. This guy just pisses me off

[Liqourish]

We've sent down or listed every pitcher with an elevated ERA except for Lyon.

MVP: Most likely Verlander. We've had impressive games from Justin, Edwin and Rick, but we need Justin to be the ace of the staff if we want to win this season. He's that valuable.

MI(improved)P: Porcello. He's won three straight with an ERA of 1.00 in May after making a few adjustments from his 1-3 April with an ERA of 6.23. He's been so good Jim Leyland referred to him as "(bleeping) Nolan Ryan". LMAO

MI(impressive)P: I dunno, I think Clete batting out of the 3rd spot has been impressive. He's just making things happen. And his insertion into the 3 spot allowed Leyland to adjust the roster and has got the Tigers offense going.

YMMSP: Brandon Lyon. Ryan Raburn gets consideration, but his grand slam will get a pass for awhile. He needs to stop sucking though or else he ties with Lyon for this honor.

[Snakebites]

MVP is Verlander, and he also gets Most Improved for going from YMMSP to MVP.

Most impressive: Tie between Jackson and Porcello for helping to hold down the fort while other parts of the staff were struggling. Its safe to say they've both considerably exceeded expectations. Keep it up guys.

YMMSP: Lyons is probably the conventional choice here, but I didn't expect much from him to begin with, so I'll take the opportunity to offer another choice: Magglio Ordonez. He's supposed to be a cornerstone of our offense but he's been a blackhole in the lineup. Congrats, Maggs, the award is all yours.

[Liqourish]

I thought about Maggz, but I'm giving him a break until we see how he returns from the bereavement list. His wife has been very sick and had surgery and he has been with her. That can take a toll on anyone. If he doesn't return to form over the rest of the season, than there will be a problem, but right now, I'm cutting him some slack.