MLB 2021

[unclevlad]

Youch...Phillies-Braves, Acuna Jr hitting.  Fastball runs a bit high and inside...dead straight into Acuna's hand as it moves forward.

 

So the hand is tensed, and with the bat on the other side, there was no possible way the impact could be dissipated.

 

Acuna went straight down the tunnel.  From the looks of it, 1 or even 2 broken fingers seems almost certain.  EDIT:  FORTUNATELY, X rays are negative.

[unclevlad]

A note dropped by Michael Kay during the Yankee game just now.

 

Josh Hader became the fastest pitcher to reach 400 strikeouts.  He only needed 234+ innings.

 

The mind boggles........

[Cancer]

Plate discipline is for punch-and-judy hitters.

[Pariah]

I feel like maybe it's inevitable at this point:

Oakland Athletics to start looking at relocating elsewhere

 

Potential relocation destinations include Portland, Vancouver, Nashville, Charlotte, and Montreal.

[unclevlad]

One can never be too sure of things in these disputes.  Is the club trying to squeeze the city above and beyond anything reasonable, or is the city being tightwads?  There's a middle ground, sure, but obviously when things have been stalemated for so long, that's not the case here.

 

My gut feeling is, the city doesn't have, or doesn't want to commit to spend, the money.  The place is in poor shape.  The location is also fairly miserable;  it's COLD there.  MLB Network has shown more games from Oakland in the last few years, and even day games in September has most fans (and broadcasters) bundled up.  One factor:  that part of the Bay has COLD water, and that has a big effect on the climate in the area.

 

Tampa Bay has largely the same situation.  Here, my take's always been that it's simply not a baseball city.  The team had the worst attendance in the AL from 2015-2019...every year.  From 2001-2019, they had the lowest attendance in the AL *14 times*.  And everyone knows that stadium's a joke, with the rings.

 

So, yeah, MLB is pretty much telling both cities to cooperate or they will probably *help* those teams to relocate.  It's raising the heat on the cities.  We'll see how it plays out.

[unclevlad]

So 2 more no hitters.  6 official, 7 practical.  And it's not even Memorial Day.  Major league batting average has gone up a few points, so perhaps the warmer weather will help...but it's still about 10 points below last year, which was historically low.

 

Too many games really are BORING these days.  Padres beat the Rockies...couldn't watch because of blackout rules that made NO sense, but that's separate.  Just as well.  Rockies manage 2 hits.  <ZZZZZZZZ>  Padres get 3 runs...2 on solo HRs.  OK, one was inside the park, those are cool, but still.  8 hits.  2 walks by the Rockies, none by the Pads.  But all that means is NO ACTION.

 

And it happens way too often.  It's not like baseball 20 years ago was particularly exciting, either;  but now, it's often just a total snooze fest. 

[Pariah]

Just touch the bag! WTAH?

 

Javy Baez fools Pirates into the dumbest baseball play of the season

[unclevlad]

Oh, please.  That wasn't the dumbest play of the season.

It was the dumbest play EVER.

And quite possibly not simply in baseball, but in any high-end professional sports.

 

Even had there been less than 2 outs, the play would be to just tag the first base bag ASAP and prepare to throw...not chase Baez down.  

 

One of the writer-types who's a regular on MLB Network said flat-out, some of the players on the Pirates needed to be sent down to AAA, as a form of message...if they're that unfocused, they don't belong.  It also suggests the Pirates' minor league system is a bust...and suggesting that the minor league shutdown was responsible may be *partially* true but it feels to me to be too much of a cop-out.

 

I think baseball in particular would've been MUCH better off using the soccer model of promotion and relegation.  And, probably, it shows that the fundamentals need far more work than they're given, or perhaps that the failure to execute...how many times do you see, for example, pitchers standing and twiddling their thumbs rather than backing up...isn't criticized harshly enough?

[archer]

That one definitely displaced the dumbest one I'd seen so far:

 

The Rangers have a runner on third and first and I think no outs vs Seattle.

 

Batter hits a ground ball to the infield. The runner on third goes for home. The fielder throws it to the catcher who tags home then throws the ball to second...but too late.

 

Only after the play was over did the catcher appear to realize that he didn't have a force out at home so tagging home plate before throwing to second didn't accomplish anything.

[unclevlad]

Yeah....if the Baez play rates a 100, that's a good 97 or so.  Found the story...the catcher actually threw to first, and got the out, from the story
(https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/mariners-find-some-offense-and-several-ways-to-lose-game-against-the-rangers/)
but the key point to me is, either way...there's no error on the play, by the scoring rules.  

 

Players weren't allowed to skate on ability only before, but they are now, at least somewhat.  I think *a lot* of this is roster construction...I doubt any team is using less than a 12 man pitching staff, and I'd bet 13 is more common this year.  Combine that with slugging position players, and there's much less room for the smart, flexible utility player.

 

 

[archer]

Just now, unclevlad said:

Yeah....if the Baez play rates a 100, that's a good 97 or so.  Found the story...the catcher actually threw to first, and got the out, from the story
(https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/mariners-find-some-offense-and-several-ways-to-lose-game-against-the-rangers/)
but the key point to me is, either way...there's no error on the play, by the scoring rules.  

 

 

Yeah, my memory thinks 22 days ago is 1000 years ago.  

 

Ironically, I can remember things I learned about what happened thousands of years ago easier than I can remember what happened recently.

[unclevlad]

I know the feeling.  I frequently double check the details before I post because I've been messing up the little details WAY too often in the last few years.

[archer]

Just now, unclevlad said:

I know the feeling.  I frequently double check the details before I post because I've been messing up the little details WAY too often in the last few years.

 

I do that all the time on important stuff.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Was just looking over the attendance data on ESPN and the average attendance numbers are way down, almost half what they were in 2019 and previous years.  How much that hurts the owners I don't know, but I am certain losing on average 15k or more ticket buyers a game has to be painful.  In good news for MLB, streaming numbers are up about 40% from 2019 on MLB.com, so that helps offset things a bit, but I doubt each team makes as much from MLB.Com revenue sharing as they get from ticket sales.   However, the data is limited: its only up to April, so no telling if the idiotic All-Star game move has had an impact.

[Pariah]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

I know the feeling.  I frequently double check the details before I post because I've been messing up the little details WAY too often in the last few years.

 

2 hours ago, archer said:

I do that all the time on important stuff.

 

I do as well, but since I work primarily with teenagers, hardly anyone ever notices.

[unclevlad]

Whereas we have to deal with each other.

 

Wonder who has it worse....

[Pariah]

My students, probably.

 

Anyhoo, back to baseball. The Rockies scored two runs late to pull out a 4-3 win against the Pirates in the last game of the series. They won the first and last games of the road trip while losing the five games in between. I think the announcers said that they had tied the franchise record for fewest runs scored in a seven-game road trip. The Rockies are currently on pace to finish with the worst season road record in Major League Baseball history.

[Pariah]

The Job Creators Network, a conservative group, is seeking over $1 billion in damages.

 

MLB, players union sued over moving All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado

[archer]

17 minutes ago, Pariah said:

The Job Creators Network, a conservative group, is seeking over $1 billion in damages.

 

MLB, players union sued over moving All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado

 

That's a publicity stunt, IMO.

 

That group doesn't have standing for a lawsuit since it wasn't that group which experienced the damage.

[Pariah]

29 minutes ago, archer said:

That's a publicity stunt, IMO.

 

That group doesn't have standing for a lawsuit since it wasn't that group which experienced the damage.

 

You're almost certainly right. Fundraising, maybe?

[archer]

29 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

You're almost certainly right. Fundraising, maybe?

 

Yeah, probably membership drive (since I don't recall hearing of the group before) plus general fundraising.

 

It's pretty trivial to get a sympathetic lawyer to volunteer his time to file a lawsuit.

 

I'd be shocked if the case even went forward far enough that it went to court and a judge had to summarily dismiss it. 

 

edit:

 

Their recent claim to fame seems to be that they were agitating to put hydroxychloroquine out to doctors for use against COVID without having to go through all of that pesky FDA approval stuff.

[unclevlad]

There is something to the claim that Atlanta local businesses probably did sustain losses, but yeah, I don't believe for a second that has anything to do with this.

 

It's also worth noting that the game itself is 6 weeks from today.  There's no way this can make it onto a trial calendar within 6 weeks.  I'm not sure you could even get a preliminary hearing in that time frame.  

 

From NBC News:

Quote

Jim Masteralexis, who teaches sports law at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, said local businesses near the Braves ballpark might have the most slim claim to injury by MLB — but not the plaintiff in this lawsuit.

 

"There's no constitutional or statutory right to profit from an All-Star Game that's played in the vicinity of your business," Masteralexis told NBC News. "No one has breached a contract with you. No one has violated federal law."

 

And under the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, Masteralexis said defendants were well within their right to take baseball's business away from Georgia: "Major League Baseball was actually exercising their constitutional right to speak on an important issue."

 

So yeah, I can potentially see it being tossed because the plaintiffs have no standing...but I think I'll stop on that, as we're drifting into the politics of all of this....

 

[archer]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

There is something to the claim that Atlanta local businesses probably did sustain losses, but yeah, I don't believe for a second that has anything to do with this.

 

 

Well, the businesses didn't make the gain that they'd anticipated making based on what they expected someone else to do. That's different legally than taking a loss (unless there was a contract directly between that business and the other entity which didn't take the expected action).

 

The only way to prove that there was a loss would be if they'd spent money already to prepare for the event then had to eat the loss of the money that they'd spent (and that's way tougher to do than it sounds).

 

The cancellation was far enough in advance that taking a loss wouldn't be the case for the vast majority of businesses in the area in any case. 

[unclevlad]

51 minutes ago, archer said:

 

Well, the businesses didn't make the gain that they'd anticipated making based on what they expected someone else to do. That's different legally than taking a loss (unless there was a contract directly between that business and the other entity which didn't take the expected action).

 

The only way to prove that there was a loss would be if they'd spent money already to prepare for the event then had to eat the loss of the money that they'd spent (and that's way tougher to do than it sounds).

 

The cancellation was far enough in advance that taking a loss wouldn't be the case for the vast majority of businesses in the area in any case. 

 

However, some would have placed merchandise orders, and things like cancellation fees could easily apply.  From an ordering standpoint, 4 months is not necessarily a lot of lead time.  A lot of this would've been custom.  But you're right in that most of the 'losses' were in sales that would have been made, and legally that's something quite different.  

[Pariah]

Last night Minnesota's Griffin Jax became the first graduate of the United States Air Force Academy to play in the major leagues.