Month: March 2019

The MLB bets we would make in 2019

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The start of baseball season means it’s time for predictions, but we asked our writers to take it a step further heading into Opening Day. The assignment was simple: Find two bets you would make for the 2019 MLB season, with one thing you are certain will happen and a long shot you think could pay off in a big way. Here’s what our baseball experts think will come true.
They have 38 games against two of baseball’s superpowers, the Red Sox and the Yankees, and the Rays could win 90-plus games as well. As the Orioles begin the process of rebuilding, they’ve done almost nothing to upgrade the lineup — wholesale nfl jersey what’s the point, after all — so why would they be 13 wins better than the 47-win team of 2018? A lock. — Buster Olneyi
There are always over-under win-total bets worth making. The Cubs and Rays over. The Giants and Blue Jays under. None is as sure a thing as the under on Baltimore at 59.5 wins. The Orioles are in a brutal division. They’re in active rebuild mode, nfl jerseys china cheap so any valuable assets will be dealt. They might not be 47-115 bad again, but they won’t be much better. — Jeff Passan

The Astros won their division each of the past two years, and they are basically guaranteed to do so again. The Mariners and the Rangers are rebuilding, the A’s can’t possibly repeat what they did last year and the Angels don’t possess nearly as much talent.where to buy nfl jerseys  The Astros are crazy good. — Alden Gonzalez

Six months have passed and I’m still not sure how the A’s won 97 games. They’ll be good again, but not that good. And certainly not as good as Houston. — Eddie Matz

Brewers over 86.5 wins womens nfl jerseys cheap

Think the 2015 Royals or the 2016 Cubs. personalized nfl jerseys Milwaukee has unfinished business, like those teams had the previous seasons. And this isn’t even a World Series prediction — just that the Brewers won’t drop more than nine games off their 96-win total of last year. — Jesse Rogers

MLB’s David vs. Goliath: Will Daniel Descalso outhit Giancarlo Stanton this year?

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Here’s a hot-take kind of question: Who was the better hitter in 2018, Giancarlo Stanton or Daniel Descalso?

Stanton, the highest-profile acquisition of the  nfl jerseys for sale previous offseason, was very good for the Yankees: 38 homers, .852 OPS and a 127 wRC+, meaning he was 27 percent better than the league’s average hitter. He was on a couple of MVP ballots. Descalso, paid $2 million after the Diamondbacks picked up his option in November, was pretty good, too: 13 homers and a .789 OPS, with a 111 wRC+.

So that was easy. Stanton hit better, assuming the point of hitting is to get on base and hit the ball far.authentic nfl jerseyi

But, of course, it’s not. The point is to score runs, and for scoring runs, some hits are worth more than others. Descalso hit .free nfl jerseys 270/.372/.541 with men on base, while Stanton hit only .236/.315/.429. Descalso drove in 17 percent of the men who were on base when he came up, while Stanton drove in only 14 percent. Of course, Stanton drove himself in 38 times, 25 more times than Descalso did — but now the question is close. By RE24, a stat that also credits a batter with the runners he advances with his hits, it’s a virtual tie. That’s assuming, at least, that the point of hitting is, rather than “get hits,” to create runs.

But it’s not. The point is to win games, and for winning games, some runs are more important than others. We call the hits that drive in those runs “clutch.” In 2018, Daniel Descalso was the fourth-clutchest hitter in the majors, according to FanGraphs’ metric.personalized nfl jerseys cheap  And Giancarlo Stanton was, using that same measure and that same term, the fifth least-clutch. In high-leverage situations — those situations where the game is most likely to nike nfl jersey be materially affected — Descalso was far more effective, with a .591 slugging percentage to Stanton’s .462, and a .378 OBP to Stanton’s .313. By win probability added — which measures the hitting team’s chances of winning before nfl jerseys on sale  a player bats and after he bats, crediting the change to the batter — Descalso was one of the league’s most productive hitters last year:

So that turns out to be not that easy of a question:nfl jerseys sale  Descalso, Daniel Descalso, was apparently quite a bit better than Stanton, and also better than Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado. It’s a hot take, but you can actually stand behind it. But now here’s the really hot-take question: Who will be the better hitter in 2019, Giancarlo Stanton or Daniel Descalso?

Which of baseball’s most unbreakable records might actually get broken in 2019?

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In the years since Barry Bonds retired, records have been mostly replaced in baseball by fun facts. A record is something you chase. People know what it is in advance. A fun fact can be just as impressive, but it is bespoke and discovered only after it happens. Mike Trout has the most WAR in history through age 26. Jamie Moyer had more wins after his 31st birthday than Pedro Martinez had in his career. Mark Grace once hit .825 when he went the opposite way,nfl jerseys for cheap authentic  the highest ever. Fun facts, but not records.

There will be some fantastic fun facts this baseball season, a few dozen from Trout alone, but try to find a real record that might be broken. Records, since Bonds retired, hardly ever get broken. Other than Aaron Judge breaking the rookie home run record in 2017,nfl jersey supply  and the Yankees breaking the all-time team home run record last year — both fairly fringy as records go — can you think of any record in the 2010s that (A) you were aware of before 2010 and (B) has been broken since? Not really! i

The main reason is records get set in extreme environments, and baseball mostly isn’t as extreme as it was in the 1960s (when pitching was out of hand) or the 1930s (when offense was) or the 1880s (when there were only eight pitchers and they each threw 600 innings)cheapest nfl jerseys . Instead of records, we have to settle for seeing the greatest baseball players in the history of the world, putting up non-record statistics. Alas.wholesale authentic nfl jerseys

But what if a fan from the future came back in time and told us a record was set this year? What if she said it was one of the big ones, even? Let’s say, one of the 20 most significant records that can be set entirely within the course of a single season?buy nfl jerseys Which record do you figure it would be?official nfl jerseys

What follow are The Big 20, the 20 records I estimate are the biggest deal, ordered by how likely they are to be broken this year. We’re ignoring the purely anachronistic records, the ones that are of such an ancient style of play there is no opportunity for a player to break them. We’re treating only batting records set since 1901, and only pitching records set since 1920, as official records. And we’re not debating the composition of The Big 20 itself, because it exists only for the framing of this article. What is nfl nike jerseys  up for debate is the question at hand. We’re starting with the least likely.

NCAA Men’s Tournament 2019: Power-Ranking the Sweet 16 Teams

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With all of the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds still playing in the 2019 NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, this might be the best Sweet 16 ever assembled.

Power-ranking these 16 teams was no easy task buy nfl jerseys wholesale , even with the given that all four No. 1 seeds belong up top and that the only remaining team seeded lower than No. 5 belongs at the bottom.

For the most part—let’s call it 80 percent—these rankings are based on how well the teams played during the regular season. But they aren’t necessarily in the same order as they were in our pre-tournament power rankings because a significant amount of consideration was given to how they looked in their first two NCAA tournament games.6696a39c341fb21b72afb56480892e74_crop_exact
Case in point: Both LSU and Tennessee dropped a few spots on nfl jerseys store account of their nail-biters, and there’s a new ACC team at No. 1 after Duke’s near-disaster against UCF.

One important thing to note: Difficulty of path to the national championship has no bearing on this list. Rather, this could be considered a ranking of how we would reseed the remaining 16 teams based on perceived strength.nfl authentic jerseys wholesale

(If it’s title odds you’re interested in, we published those earlier in the week.)china cheap nfl jerseys

We’ll examine how teams played in the first two cheap nfl womens jerseys rounds, their biggest strengths and weaknesses, their MVPs and what they need to do to win it all, starting with the team that never should have been in the tournament in the first place.where to buy official nfl jerseys

The Worst-Case Scenario Every NFL Team Must Avoid in 2019 Season

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Every NFL team would love to play in the Super Bowl. But in reality, only a handful of teams have a shot at a championship in any given season.

While teams won’t publicly admit as much, many have goals well short of a Lombardi Trophy in 2019.personalized nfl jersey

Teams like the Oakland Raiders, New York Giants and the Arizona Cardinals know Super Bowl LIV isn’t in the cards. They do have other important objectives, though—whether that’s identifying and developing a franchise quarterback, getting back to nfl cheap jerseys from china  a respectable record or building a foundation for the future.8912ca6b274349bf941a2f816015dee9_crop_exact

While each team should have specific goals in 2019, they also have certain worst-case scenarios they must avoid at all cost. We’ll examine one for each team here, along with how it could derail a team’s 2019 campaign, its long-term plans or both. buy nfl jerseys wholesale
Regardless of who the Cardinals have under center in 2019, they need to embrace the uniqueness and innovation of new head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s offense.

“This isn’t a ‘find the next [Sean] McVay’ thing; it’s a ‘find a coach who is out in front of the evolution currently transforming the NFL’ thing, where coaches who prioritize ‘establishing the run’ and ‘just getting to third-and-manageable’ are dying out,” all nfl jerseys Steven Ruiz of For The Win wrote after the Cardinals hired Kingsbury.

Arizona must allow Kingsbury to have control to see whether his system can be the next big thing in the NFL.nike official nfl jerseys

As such, general manager Steve Keim needs to focus on getting Kingsbury the proper talent for his offense in the draft. Meanwhile, ownership and other front office personnel can’t ask him to be conservative and lean on David Johnson and the run,sale nfl jerseys  even if that may lead to the most immediate success.where can i buy nfl jerseys

The Cardinals have to evaluate Kingsbury with a big-picture focus in mind.

Chris Bosh Jersey Retirement: Ranking CB’s Top Moments from Heat’s Big 3 Era

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When the Miami Heat retire Chris Bosh’s No. 1 jersey Tuesday night, it will not be without a tinge of incompleteness.

Two championships are a lot. A Hall of Fame resume does not reek of business unfinished and feats stolen.cheap nfl jerseys reviews  Thirteen years in the NBA is a long time. And yet, in Bosh’s case, it isn’t nearly long enough.

Blood-clot issues prematurely ended his career. His last appearance came in February 2016, at the age of 31, with three years left on his contract and at least just as many remaining on his heyday.

There will be this natural pull to wonder what might have been for the Heat in the post-LeBron James era had Bosh never been forced into retirement. He was that important to their plans, and as many forgot while he ceded status to James and Dwyane Wade, he was that good.customizable nfl jerseysbd4e64b20f01c4ae453fa00e6f206c13_crop_exact

In the end, though, Tuesday is a celebration. Bosh earned this honor in his six years with Miami. His role during the Big Three era specifically remains special, not just because of the titles and photobombs, but because the gravity of what he did, of how much he meant, went underappreciated in real time.buy nfl jersey

Let’s look back at Bosh’s best moments over one of the wildest, make your own nfl jersey most dominant four-year stretches in league history.

Props to Mario Chalmers for fake-sacrificing his body in the name of making LeBron James smile. His facial expressions throughout the entire clip are pleasantly cartoony, too.where to get cheap nfl jerseys

Chris Bosh deserves a round of applause for staying in character just long enough to make this funny. His face is contorted into feigned rage for a half-tick after he releases Chalmers before returning to its normal, gleeful disposition, and it all just works.nfl jerseys cheap from china

New York Giants

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The Pick: QB Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State nfl jersey shops

This might take a trade up in the draft for the Giants if it becomes a league-wide belief that they want Dwayne Haskins. In this mock draft that doesn’t have trades, the Giants are able to sit at No. 6 overall and still get their guy.cheap nfl jersey shop

Haskins is the top quarterback on my board this season. He’s smart, tough, physical and can beat defenses from inside the pocket. He’s accurate and poised, having shown that this year with monster games against good defenses like Michigan, Northwestern and Washington.774c7657c9c417e65499abfd464861e7_crop_exact

The Giants have long been known for telegraphing their moves in the first round. Can they keep their interest in Haskins quiet enough to land him here?

The Pick: OT Jawaan Taylor, Florida nfl shop online

The Jacksonville Jaguars got their quarterback by signing Nick Foles as soon as free agency opened. With the 2019 NFL draft, the front office must get this team back onto their recent playoff footing by adding talented pieces around him.

Florida’s Jawaan Taylor played right tackle for the Gators and that’s where he’ll play in Jacksonville. Taylor’s movement and power game are phenomenal for a gap/power scheme. He’ll be immediately tasked with keeping Foles upright and opening up big holes for running back Leonard Fournette.nfl jersey online shop

With a roster full of talented young players, the addition of Foles and Taylor could get Jacksonville back in competition for the AFC South.nfl jerseys wholesale china

The Pick: EDGE Rashan Gary, Michigan shop cheap nfl jerseys

The Detroit Lions signed Trey Flowers in one of the first big-money free agent deals this offseason. You might think they’d be done adding pass-rushers after that, but with Rashan Gary on the board and the Lions still in need of a defensive end opposite Flowers, the Lions stay local and get Gary.wholesale nfl jerseys china

The beauty of this selection is that the Lions can play Gary inside or outside depending on the down-and-distance. He worked at defensive end and defensive tackle for the Wolverines and, at 277 pounds, he has the size and athleticism to thrive in either situation.

Gary is an elite athlete, but his production at Michigan doesn’t scream top-10 pick. This is a bit of an upside gamble, but with Flowers drawing the attention of offenses and a defensive-minded head coach in Matt Patricia in place, the Lions are in a great position to maximize Gary’s talent.nfl jerseys china wholesale

New York Jets

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The Pick: EDGE Josh Allen, Kentucky nfl shop free shipping

The New York Jets swung hard on free agent edge-rusher Anthony Barr and thought they had a grand slam, but it went foul as Barr returned to the Minnesota Vikings.

The Jets do have a much-improved roster after spending to sign C.J. Mosley, Jamison Crowder and Le’Veon Bell, but the hole on the edge of Gregg Williams’ 3-4 defense is notable. With the No. 3 overall selection—and barring a trade back to a quarterback-needy team—the nfl shop the Jets can fill that hole.

Josh Allen is very similar to Barr was coming out of UCLA. He’s a big (6’5″, 260 lbs) edge who has experience playing off-ball linebacker. The versatility he brings to the table is perfect for Williams’ scheme.

If the Jets can’t get a trade offer for No. 3 overall, Allen should be the pick.  nfl jersey shop china4f916ebe124d203ea27492f77d2f7c26_crop_exact

The Pick: LB Devin White, LSU official nfl shop

Here is where things get interesting. The Oakland Raiders have gone wild this offseason by trading for Antonio Brown, signing Trent Brown, Tyrell Williams and Lamarcus Joyner and bringing in Vontaze Burfict after the Cincinnati Bengals released him.

So where do they go with three first-round picks?nfl football shop

Speed at linebacker is still a need. Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden know they’re too slow in the middle of the field. Adding Devin White and passing on Quinnen Williams is possible because the Raiders are so strong at defensive tackle with 2018 draft picks P.J. Hall and Maurice Hurst playing good ball. shop nfl jersey

White is close to perfect at middle linebacker and could have a monster impact from day one. nfl sport shop

The Pick: DL Quinnen Williams, Alabama

The mini slide for Quinnen Williams ends at No. 5 overall.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hired Bruce Arians to remake the team’s offense and get Jameis Winston playing franchise-quarterback football. But the biggest weakness on the roster is on defense, which former New York Jets’ head coach Todd Bowles was hired to run.nfl shop jerseys authentic

With a 3-4 scheme likely coming to Tampa, the team needs to shuffle up front and get talented big men. Last year’s first-rounder Vita Vea likely plays nose tackle with Gerald McCoy in one defensive end spot. Another defensive end is needed. That’s Williams’ best profile in a shop nfl jerseys online 3-4 scheme, where he has the tools to be a Fletcher Cox- or Chris Jones-type player.

2019 NFL Mock Draft: Matt Miller’s Latest 3-Round Picks with One Month to Go

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Major changes to the mock draft should surprise long-time readers as quarterbacks, offensive tackles and defensive linemen dominate the top 20 selections. And we didn’t leave you out Bears, Browns and Cowboys fans—this mock draft goes three rounds deep.nike nfl throwback jersey

What causes the big shift in this edition of the mock draft? Free agency.

Teams went into the legal tampering period and started spending money like crazy. The Jets signed Le’Veon Bell and C.J. Mosley, adding clarity to the team’s possible direction at No. 3 overall. The 49ers brought in Kwon Alexander and Dee Ford, but could still go with the best defensive player available at No. 2.98bc83502acb3e0e4d18f6a80c53c4c0_crop_exact

Throughout the draft order, team needs were heavily affected by free agents gained, lost or recruited. That means a mock draft unlike anything you’ve seen under my byline all year long.

The Pick: QB Kyler Murray, Oklahoma throwback nfl jersey

You were promised changes in the mock draft, but this won’t be one of them. If anything, since our last mock draft was published, this pick has become even more likely. Everyone in the NFL was shouting it from the rooftops in Indianapolis: Murray is the Cardinals’ guy. shop nfl jerseys All that’s left is for the team to officially put Josh Rosen on the trade block.

Until NFL sources stop talking about Murray to the Cardinals, that’s where he will end up in mock drafts. These are articles based on what analysts think will happen, not what we would do as individuals running the teams. nfl shop jerseys

If the Cardinals are going all-in on Kliff Kingsbury, they have to do so by letting him choose his own quarterback.

The Pick: EDGE Nick Bosa, Ohio State

If Kyler Murray is drafted No. 1 overall then the happiest team in the NFL will be the San Francisco 49ers. Simply because Ohio State’s edge-rusher Nick Bosa will be on the board.nfl jersey shop

Bosa, teamed with free agent signees Dee Ford and Kwon Alexander, could give the 49ers a dangerous defense. With Richard Sherman, DeForest Buckner and last year’s breakout rookie Fred Warner coming back as marquee starters, this group looks playoff-caliber on paper.nfl jerseys shop

There will be some conversation about Quinnen Williams here, there has to be based on his strength and talent, but the best move for the 49ers is to select Bosa here. This allows for a defensive line of Bosa, Buckner, Arik Armstead and Ford with former first nfl jerseys cheap shop -rounder Solomon Thomas in place for sub-package interior rushing roles.  nike nfl shop

Atlanta Falcons

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What they needed to do

The Atlanta Falcons weren’t flush with salary-cap space entering free agency, so the goal should have been to keep as many key in-house free agents as possible. In a perfect world, they’d also bolster an offensive line that was weak at both guard spots.nfl authentic nike jerseys

What they did right nike nfl jerseys authentic

They hit key defensive tackle Grady Jarrett with the franchise tag and brhi-res-dcb12475711142ee35008965d02aa635_crop_exactought in veterans James Carpenter and Jamon Brown to compete with Brandon Fusco, Wes Schweitzer and Sean Harlow. That’s better than nothing when you can’t afford someone like Rodger Saffold. cheap authentic nike nfl jerseys free shipping The Falcons checked the most important boxes this month.

Where they went wrong

They lost Robert Alford as well as Bruce Irvin, Brooks Reed and Brian Poole on defense, and they could miss departed running back Tevin Coleman. They might have been able to land a better guard had they been able to work out a long-term deal with Jarrett. authentic nfl nike jersey And they also might have been smart to capitalize on the emergence of Calvin Ridley at wide receiver by shopping veteran Mohamed Sanu, but we’re nitpicking.

What they should do now nfl nike authentic jerseys

Shop Sanu as well as the disappointing Vic Beasley, and use early draft picks on an offensive lineman and one of the many superb pass-rushers in this class.