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"Satirical" ESPN PreSeason MLB Power Rankings: Milwaukee 29th


homer
Brewer Fanatic Contributor

No this is not a mis print. Eric Neel has the Crew ranked 29th in his initial power rankings:

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=neel/080219

 

 

29. Milwaukee Brewers

Eric Gagne apologized to his Brewers teammates for the "distraction" he caused them. The ritual (see Paul Lo Duca earlier this week as well) of these vague, no-questions-asked pressers has become so standardized, so utterly without content, that it made no difference whatsoever that Gagne had only just reported to camp that day.

 

Am I missing the joke here? He also has Chicago Cubs ranked 26th.

"Dustin Pedroia doesn't have the strength or bat speed to hit major-league pitching consistently, and he has no power......He probably has a future as a backup infielder if he can stop rolling over to third base and shortstop." Keith Law, 2006
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It's clearly some kind of attempt at a joke. He has the Red Sox at 15. I guess he might just be trying to point out the absurdity of preseason rankings, but I'm not going to wade through that to try find out exactly what he had in mind.
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Yeah, it's got to be some kind of joke but you'd think there'd be some mention of that in his intro.
"Dustin Pedroia doesn't have the strength or bat speed to hit major-league pitching consistently, and he has no power......He probably has a future as a backup infielder if he can stop rolling over to third base and shortstop." Keith Law, 2006
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if it's on Page 2, it's a joke. End of story. EVERYTHING on that page is written satirical, for the most part.

 

I would agree that it's rankings to show you that rankings are meaningless in the pre-season.

 

I'll have to check it out later on just to see.

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P.I.T.C.H. LEAGUE CHAMPION 1989, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2007, 2011 (finally won another one)

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Jokes are usually funny which is what confused me. The point is also terrible if that is his point. Yeah you cannot predict the season perfectly but you can certainly do better than what he has listed.

 

Last year I participated in the Predictatron 2008 competition at Bpro.

 

I was off by the following amounts on W/L records

 

11 - 2 times (Col and Cle)

10 - 1 time (Sea)

8 - 1 time (Hou)

7 - 1 time (Was)

6 - 4 times

5 - 5 times

4 - 4 times

3 - 3 times

2 - 3 times

1 - 2 times

0 - 4 times (Mil!)

 

I'm far from the best at this (though I did finish in the top 10 and won a BPro subscription) and I was pretty darn close on 16 of 30 teams, relatively close on 9 others and only far off on 5 teams total.

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you should read some of the comments to the article on ESPN.com.

 

There are obviously many others that were not amused by it and/or didn't get it that it was a joke.

- - - - - - - - -

P.I.T.C.H. LEAGUE CHAMPION 1989, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2007, 2011 (finally won another one)

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It's ranking the teams based on their "cleanliness" in terms of substance abuse.

 

Then why is Oakland so low when they only have young guys now basically? Which Braves are accused of steroids to be in the bottom part? Why would the yankees be #6.

 

I dunno, I stand by the fact that it isn't funny, even the little blurbs he wrote aren't funny. I don't usually read ESPN so maybe that is just par for the course with them.

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We know there are people who think it's too early to rank the teams about to begin the 2008 Major League Baseball season. One hundred and sixty-two games left to be played, they say. Everything still up for grabs, they insist.

But these are the same people who say B12 sounds like a plausible explanation, and LiLo's nudey New York Mag shoot looks like the beginning of a real turnaround.

These people are innocents.

We know better.

Obviously a joke. If you can't see it then I don't know what to say.
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Obviously a joke. If you can't see it then I don't know what to say.

 

Yes but it isn't funny, that is the point. Nothing about the article is actually clever or interesting and the rankings are absurd even when taken in the context of the joke. Just a very poorly written article overall. I mean if the point is really to order the teams based on drug use he even did a terrible job of that.
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Page 2 is only good when there are actually jokes backing up the stuff. I know I might be in the minority in liking Bill Simmons, but at least that guy knows sports and makes crazy/funny remarks. This clearly made no sense and it's more ESPN trying to branch out as a pure media entertainment outlet than anything else. I personally like ESPN, but like everything else you have to look past the bad and corny stuff. The more sports coverage the better in my opinion -- I do wish though it was covered more so by sports people, but what can you do.
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Brewer Fanatic Contributor
I suppose I should have read through all the rankings and team blurbs before posting. Oh well - egg on my face.
"Dustin Pedroia doesn't have the strength or bat speed to hit major-league pitching consistently, and he has no power......He probably has a future as a backup infielder if he can stop rolling over to third base and shortstop." Keith Law, 2006
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Page 2 is only good when there are actually jokes backing up the stuff. I know I might be in the minority in liking Bill Simmons, but at least that guy knows sports and makes crazy/funny remarks. This clearly made no sense and it's more ESPN trying to branch out as a pure media entertainment outlet than anything else. I personally like ESPN, but like everything else you have to look past the bad and corny stuff. The more sports coverage the better in my opinion -- I do wish though it was covered more so by sports people, but what can you do.

I only watch or listen to Mike and Mike in the morning now everything else on ESPN is garbage.

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