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The season is not actually over is it? This is a bad dream and I'm really in the middle of July right? Wake me up when September starts again, dammit Billy Joe Armstrong!
Recap
Oh.. wait.. :(
Tribe News
It's the end of the MLB season and that means it's time to vote on a bunch of random awards. Doctor Smooth, or Michael Brantley as he goes by during the day, is up for the Hank Award. He is up for the award -- which is given to the top offensive player in each league -- against the likes of Mike Trout, Prince Fielder, Josh Donaldson, and Miguel Cabrera. Needless to say, he needs every vote he can get right now.
Other Tribe players are up for "Esurance MLB Awards," which are fan-voted versions of the real end of season awards. Francisco Lindor is of course nominated in the Best Rookie category, and Jason Kipnis is up for bounceback player. Kipnis was worth a career-high 5.2 WAR in 2015 after being worth a career-low 0.7 WAR last year.
Eight years ago yesterday, the infamous bug game happened. I bet you feel all itchy now.
#OTD in 2007: The Bug Game. http://t.co/XuZqyPl0fZ pic.twitter.com/GqfJJT85Kq
— Cleveland Indians (@Indians) October 6, 2015
Around the League
Former Cleveland Indians starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia announced suddenly yesterday that he is checking himself into an alcohol rehab program. After a disappointing first half, C.C. has pitched his way into potentially being in the New York Yankees postseason rotation. Obviously with checking himself into rehab he's taking himself out of consideration. Nothing but best wishes for Sabathia from us at Let's Go Tribe.
If you missed it two nights ago, Ichiro finally got his chance to pitch. The 41-year-old veteran has been... itching... to pitch for a while now, and FanGraphs' Jeff Sullivan has a fascinating look back at the years of Ichiro's desire to pitch.
There was a time when the Washington Nationals seemed like a surefire dynasty. So many young and talented players, but it has not come together and now the franchise is unraveling from the top down, starting with the firing of manager Matt Williams.
....also their entire coaching staff.
Our neighbors to the North are going to be enjoying baseball and hockey in glorious 4k resolution next season. Granted, barely anyone has a 4k-capabable TV, but Rogers has announced that they will be carrying all 81 Toronto Blue Jays home games in 4k. Unfortunately, that means you have to look at that gross Rogers Centre carpet field as if you were actually there.
MLB set out to shorten baseball games this year and they succeeded. Kind of. At season's end, the average game lasted 2 hours, 56 minutes (a full six minutes faster than last year), but at one point in the season it was up over three hours, hinting that some of the rules meant to speed up the game were not being that heavily enforced during the middle of season.