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Ranking the closers: Holland No. 1
Santiago Casilla is only 13th. 13th? I have never been so offended in my life. Sure, the guys ahead of him had better "numbers" last year, if you're into that, but do those numbers measure heart? Do they measure grit, and determination, and locking down the closer's spot after Sergio Romo had a tough month? No, they can't, just like they can't measure staring down the heart of the Royals' order in the World Series with the game on the line and shutting them down. I mean, Casilla didn't do that, but he would have, and that counts for a lot.
Speaking of the World Series, where the hell is Bumgarner? He's converted 100% of his save opportunities in the majors, you know. That's an unforgivable oversight.
Last piece Dodgers need: Giants-like class
In Bruce Jenkins's opinion, the reason that the Dodgers didn't win in the postseason was a lack of class, so acquiring more class was their primary offseason strategy. This ranges from getting rid of malcontents like Hanley Ramirez and Matt Kemp to picking up Howie Kendrick and Jimmy Rollins. Kemp, obviously, was a bad clubhouse presence because he didn't like Yasiel Puig, who was also not very classy, but Kemp was even more uncouth for being vocally against that attitude. Hanley, meanwhile, is said by Jenkins to have been thinking more of his next contract than his current team, which explains his poor postseason performance, hitting only .429/.500/.500 in the Dodgers' four games. And Puig says he's going to try to be classy now too, which totally solves that problem.
Meanwhile, Rollins spent most of last year in a feud with Ryne Sandberg, while Kendrick doesn't seem to have ever done anything bad in his life that shows up on the first page of a Google search, so he's making me do work to make him look bad, which is pretty uncool too.
But none of this addresses the least classy guy in the playoffs (from the Dodgers' perspective): Clayton Kershaw. Remember all the runs he gave up? They mean there's no class at all with that guy. Can't believe they're keeping him around.
Ranking the National League Ballparks in 2015
A panel of sportswriters got together to rank the best parks in the NL, and guess who came out on top? Yes, that's right, the team that many of us here root for! It's just so satisfying that 10 people I've never met got together to agree that a ballpark I had no hand in building has better qualities than other parks that I also bear no responsibility for in any way. That satisfaction seems incredibly rational.
Monterey Bay Aquarium, Otter Twins!!!
Baby otters are everything. EVERYTHING.
I mean, just sea otters, of course. River otters are replacement level cute. Sea otters are 2003-2004 Jason Schmidt. HUGE difference.