Click to Read an Important Member Update Regarding Our Comment System
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.
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First time writer here giving this a try. This might not be a popular topic as many Nats fans have dug in deep with their stances on Papelbon.
I am thinking that the Papelbon Issue should now be a non-topic or should be a non-issue, but I can’t get over how many people are still upset. The stories about Papelbon continued on Sunday afternoon in an article by Tom Bowell (clickhere) and this time he will be judged on his choice of music and his political t-shirt. Papelbon has met with the media, apologized, made it clear he would not be taking anymore questions on the matter and everyone on the team has now moved on to more important things like trying to win the NL East, but it probably won’t stop the media from continuing to hold on to this as this is click-bait material if you can come up with anything controversial.
To understand how a Bryce Harper ‘social media’ bat became the motivation behind a dedicated article on TalkNats is to understand that this is less about a baseball bat and more about Bryce Harper “the person”, and certainly to put everything about Bryce Harper into perspective from the beginning.
The making of Bryce Harper started at birth with an incredible genetic make-up that was nurtured by his family at an early age. His family unit has shaped him as a child and into a man. Bryce’s father, Ron Harper, was a union card-holder in the Reinforcing Ironworkers Local 416, and Bryce’s mom Sheri has always been the glue that holds the Harper family together. At 3 years old, Bryce was playing T-Ball on his older brothers team, and followed his brother to play with him on teams that challenged Bryce at every level until Bryce began playing better than boys years older than him. This continued until Bryce was the best amateur in the USA winning the Golden Spikes award.
Ron and Sheri Harper attending a practice. Photo by Andrew Lang
Bryce had his father Ron Harper who was role model as well as his personal instructor and BP pitcher, and
together they made Bryce into a player who became an amateur baseball player known in the travel baseball circuit nationwide even before Bryce graced the cover of Sports Illustrated as a 16 year old.
When Bryce Harper accepted his NL MVP trophy in January during that blizzard that shut down NYC, Bryce gave his acceptance speech and thanked the Lerners, his teammates and then broke down with some tears as he thanked his family and in particular his father:
“My pops sacrificed everything to help me fulfill my dream. Countless hours of BP. Groundballs. … The thing I loved the most, on the hot summer days, that we’d always get Slurpees and have fun. No matter what. That or our strawberry shakes. He always made it fun no matter what. If he could get up at three a.m. in the blazing heat or freezing cold, then I would give anything in this world to thank him every single day and tell him how much I love him. I appreciate you Pops.”
Mike Rizzo was interviewed on SXMSports by Jim Bowden and Craig Mish on Thursday. Rizzo says there will be a shortstop and a centerfield competition. Bowden says Werth will be the 4th outfielder on Opening Day, and Bowden made that prediction when Rizzo was not on the phone.
SXM: Tell us about West Palm Beach and the proximity to other teams?
Rizzo: “That’s the key to the whole thing Jim. You have access to other teams. It’s not only for big league spring training which is for 6 weeks but we are constantly playing games with our Minor League guys. We are using it as our year round rehab facility, there’s instructional ball, there’s all sorts of things going on and it just makes it so convenient to have 4 teams within 15 minutes of you—it really saves the wear and tear on your players and allows them to play more baseball and to develop better just because they’re getting more repetition as they aren’t sitting on a bus all day.”
Today is the first official day of Spring Training as Pitchers & Catchers report later today! Yesterday, we talked about the Nats MVP, ROY, & CY & MOY, and today we talk about potential CPOY candidates. You may ask, what is CPOY? That is the acronym for Comeback Player Of the Year, and the Nats have several candidates who will compete for that award. The success of the 2016 Nats could hinge on potential CPOY players stepping up for the Nats!
Last years winners of the CPOY were Matt Harvey (NL) and Prince Fielder (AL) and the only Nat to ever win it was none other than Dmitri Young in 2007.
Tomorrow is the start of Spring Training, and when these 2016 Nats are fully assembled, they boast a group of major award winners. Bryce Harper is the reigning NL MVP and was the 2012 Rookie of the Year, Max Scherzer has won a Cy Young, and Dusty Baker has 3 Manager of the Year awards.
When you build around Bryce Harper in the middle of your order, you surround him with players with excellent resumés such as Anthony Rendon who was #5 in the 2014 MVP and Silver Slugger winner, Ryan Zimmerman who was #2 in the ROY and an All-Star as well as Silver Slugger and Gold Glove, Jayson Werth who was an All-Star and owns a World Series ring, Daniel Murphy was also an All-Star and just played in the World Series last year and set a post-season record for the most HRs in consecutive games, Ben Revere has been the NL Hits Leader, Wilson Ramos was a runner-up for the Gold Glove, Stephen Strasburg was an All-Star and Top 10 in the Cy Young, and Gio Gonzalez was an All-Star and Top 3 in Cy Young.
Let us hope that each player spent their off-season working on their goals to accomplish as well as what they needed to improve for 2016. As Bryce Harper said, “If they’re not laughing at your dreams, you’re not dreaming big enough.”
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Last December the Nats acquired four new relievers in rapid succession. I quickly read about each of them but remembered almost nothing as it was in the middle of the “You like that” craze. So with the Nats spring training quickly approaching I did some research to learn about the new guys.
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.