2018 Baseball Thread (MLB and whatever)

[Pariah]

On 5/16/2018 at 1:32 PM, Pariah said:

The local MiLB team (the Bees) has Teacher Appreciation night tomorrow, which means I can get two free tickets and as many more at half price as I'd like. 

 

The fact that it falls on my birthday is a delightful coincidence.

 

We went to the game last night with my brother-in-law and son-in-law, along with the nephew who's down from Canada, eh?

 

The final tally: 23 runs, 33 hits, and I lost track of how many pitching changes.

 

There's a reason these guys aren't pitching in The Bigs, I suppose.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well everyone has bad days, but yeah they aren't ready for prime time

 

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Meanwhile, Robinson Cano of the Mariners got his sorry a$$ suspended for 80 games on testing positive for performance-enhancing drug use.  So much for Seattle's run.

 

So much for his Hall of Fame hopes.  The guy was busted for a masking drug: it hides PE chemicals, and apparently they found signs in his past tests that it was hiding something.  Honestly this doesn't surprise me at all, about Cano.

[Michael Hopcroft]

There are certain other players (including some young rising stars) about whom I have my suspicions. I'm not going to name them here.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

In my opinion, steroids for medicinal uses (to heal faster from injury or to maintain health through stress and wear of a 162+ game season) should be legal.  Highly regulated and controlled, but legal.

[Pariah]

...which would be just fine, if they can work it into the next CBA.

[Badger]

Well, at my dad's house my bad luck with no-hitters and viewing them continues.  Broke up 2 today, Sonny Gray (only 4 2/3 in his case) and Franciso Liriano (though 6).

 

Interestingly, a week or 2 ago, I turned on the Nationals, Hellickson no0-hitter through 6, the very next pitch through the infield, single.

 

To this day I can only claim to have seen one (Jake Arrieta) and my attention was only peripheral though 8 innings.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

I've never seen a no-hitter live, but I've seen several on TV.  I did see Randy Johnson strike out 20 in a game in the Kingdome against the White Sox.  That was super exciting.

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I've never seen a no-hitter live, but I've seen several on TV.  I did see Randy Johnson strike out 20 in a game in the Kingdome against the White Sox.  That was super exciting.

 

Yeah, I saw Kerry Wood 20-K on TV.  

[slikmar]

on MLB a week or so ago, they were talking about a pitcher being removed from a no-hitter after 6 innings and 80 pitches and whether it was a big deal or not. One of the other guys said he didn't really care, because, in the modern Home Run or Strikeout mentality of hitters now, there are 3-4 no-hitters in the 6th watches every week now. Kind of a sad statement on baseball, to me. Watching hitters REFUSE to hit a ground ball the other way with a man on second and the entire apparent infield pulled over to the right or left side of the infield and 1 guy left on the opposite side who has to stay close to a base due to a base runner is insane.

[Badger]

My dad's reply to the shift.

 

 

BUNT!!!!!!

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm actually seeing people bunt into the shift a lot this year.  Its hilarious, its pretty much a guaranteed hit and it annoys the announcers.  The more they do it, the less often those idiotic exaggerated shifts will be used.

[Armory]

On 5/22/2018 at 1:46 AM, Badger said:

My dad's reply to the shift.

 

 

BUNT!!!!!!

 

I generally hate bunting except in very specific circumstances (runner on 1B, 0 outs, 8th or later; and even then it depends on the score...you only have 27 outs, don't give them any free ones!) but yeah, if more guys bunted for base hits against the shift they'd stop shifting so much.  It seems that instead of going to the opposite field to beat the shift they're trying to muscle it over the shift.

[slikmar]

2 hours ago, Armory said:

 

I generally hate bunting except in very specific circumstances (runner on 1B, 0 outs, 8th or later; and even then it depends on the score...you only have 27 outs, don't give them any free ones!) but yeah, if more guys bunted for base hits against the shift they'd stop shifting so much.  It seems that instead of going to the opposite field to beat the shift they're trying to muscle it over the shift.

I agree with hating bunting for the most part. I think you bunt against the Shift. I would not bunt with man on 1st and 0 outs. I prefer he be on second. If he has any speed, might as well try to steal. But if you can get him to third with 1 out, then you have a shot at scoring without getting a hit.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like the bunt as a strategic device: sacrificing a runner on 1st to score someone on 3rd (suicide squeeze) is brilliant baseball, particularly against a tough pitcher.  Bunting to ruin the exaggerated shift is proper and just; if nobody is within 30 feet of 3rd base, its basically giving up a hit.  If they are going to give it to you, it would be rude to not take it.

[Badger]

RIP Ohtani's arm.

 

 

[slikmar]

According to Ken Rosenthal, the main office, including the Commissioner, are shocked after 5 years of shifts that there hasn't been an adjustment at the plate - hitting other way and bunting. Course, when contracts seem to be all about how many HRs did you hit, I almost understand it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm seeing a lot more bunts this year than before, hitting into the shift.  But as much as I like baseball -- and of course there are exceptions -- most batters are kinda dumb and when they get locked into a certain way of doing things, don't adjust well to the situation.  The absolute best ones of course do.  You do a shift like that on, say, Barry Bonds or Tony Gwynn and he's going to laugh in your face then hit the ball through the gargantuan hole you left open.  But most of them seem pretty set in their ways and unwilling or unable to change.  Plus there's the arrogance that made pitchers keep throwing to Bonds: I can beat your best.

 

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RIP Ohtani's arm.

 

strained it trying to carry the whole team.

[slikmar]

I was so annoyed with Luis Valbuena the other night for the Angels. Up by 1 run, top 9th leading off, the entire infield pretty much shifted with the shortstop playing at normal position shading toward 2nd. He had bunted earlier in a game (like a few games earlier) and was leading off the 9th. Get on base, it changes a lot. nope, grounded out into shift trying to hit a HR.

no surgery yet on Ohtani, and apparently this was already a known possible injury before anyone went to sign him, as he had the PRP this summer. Here is hoping.

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I'm seeing a lot more bunts this year than before, hitting into the shift.  But as much as I like baseball -- and of course there are exceptions -- most batters are kinda dumb and when they get locked into a certain way of doing things, don't adjust well to the situation.  The absolute best ones of course do.  You do a shift like that on, say, Barry Bonds or Tony Gwynn and he's going to laugh in your face then hit the ball through the gargantuan hole you left open.  But most of them seem pretty set in their ways and unwilling or unable to change.  Plus there's the arrogance that made pitchers keep throwing to Bonds: I can beat your best.

 

 

strained it trying to carry the whole team.

 

Heh, yeah,  I remember the old what would Cobb in today's game question.

 

Well, in 2018, he'd about .800 the first couple of weeks mostly on bunts until the other teams figured out  "You know while he is a left handed hitter, maybe shifting on him is a bad idea"

 

Of course, a hitter like Cobb would be completely uncomprehensible today.  For example, I've head it mentioned that last year Adrelton Simmons as the hardest to strike out, "only" striking out 9% of the time.  Cobb was below 2% some years.  9% was strikeout prone in his day, or at best higher than average.  

 

Though, overall I don't do the comparison over different eras.  It always goes to "players today would beat them because they have better equipment, diet and training".  And ironically, nobody takes into consideration that if transplanted to today's game, those old players would have access to that same stuff and be presumably better, but somehow the players of today wouldn't have complications in 1930.   (throwing 130 pitches in July heat on 2 days rest after spending most of the in-between time on a train without air conditioning, I don't see many pitchers today doing that in all likelihood-so it was 2 different eras with different things to overcome and leave it at that)

 

Edit: though with Bonds, after his knees went gimpy, I walk him as a rule,  make him run the bases, and besides after Jeff Kent left, he literally had no protection in the order.  Make the rest of the team come through, and make Bonds knees ache, so he'll have to take tomorrow off.  But, then, NL pitchers are historically dumb.  Watching so many Braves games back in the day and not liking them, I can say:  If not for the fact that Andruw Jones was one of the best inside fastball hitters of his generation, and half the other teams pitching to him like that was his weak spot, then Jones would have been a .220 hitter with some pop (which with his defense would still be enough to have a career for him, but it still frustrates me to this day how they pitched to him)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah Ty Cobb would absolutely murder pitchers, and I doubt they'd ever figure him out.  It would take him a few ab's to get used to the release point and velocity of the 7 foot mutants these days but he'd figure them out and tear the cover off the ball.  And he was so fast, and so smart on the basepaths.  Imagine him being able to watch the pitchers today; they wore those wool uniforms back in his day, today they're practically naked out there, he could see their muscles twitch.

[Badger]

The ultimate for today's game would be Ted Williams, given his obsessive-compulsive nature for improvement, he'd love all the video footage he could parse through on pitchers' tendencies.

[Armory]

13 hours ago, slikmar said:

According to Ken Rosenthal, the main office, including the Commissioner, are shocked after 5 years of shifts that there hasn't been an adjustment at the plate - hitting other way and bunting. Course, when contracts seem to be all about how many HRs did you hit, I almost understand it.

 

The contract thing is one part of it.  The other, I think, is that baseball is hard.  Even for the best-of-the-best, it's a difficult game.  I don't think it's all that easy for guys to completely change their game plans (their process, as Brian Kenny says).  For a guy who's never bunted, it's not an easy skill to learn.

 

OTOH, baseball is a game of constant adjustments and if more of them started bunting against the shift and succeeding, the shift would die.

[Michael Hopcroft]

There are some other issues in question. Ty Cobb was viciously racist. His attitudes, and those of other players who emulated him, are part of the reason baseball was segregated so long. I refer to the period before 1947 as a different age of baseball, run in a completely different and inferior way. If you have the talent and drive, you deserve an opportunity to play in the major leagues -- regardless of the color of your skin and where you came from.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Ty Cobb was viciously racist. His attitudes, and those of other players who emulated him, are part of the reason baseball was segregated so long.

 

Almost all support for this notion comes from a single biography (the film made from that) by a reporter who despised Cobb and painted him in the worst possible light.  As more information and historical data comes out the picture about him is changing significantly.  He was no more racist than the average person at the time, not some leader of the Klan, and no more vicious than other players then.  He was just not a guy who got along well with the press and they treated him accordingly.

 

In any case, how much a jerk some player may or may not have been has absolutely nothing to do with how well he'd bat today or do against the shift.  Its utterly irrelevant to the discussion or the topic of baseball.

[slikmar]

Well, as my brother pointed out when I talked about Gwynn or Boggs in this era, teams wouldn't shift against them. The shift is against players who absolutely will NOT try to hit singles, but try to hit a HR on every pitch. Usually what you see is infield shifts one way and outfield shifts the other, thereby countering the flyballs off the end of the bat. As for Williams, they apparently did shift for him, and he still hit into it, but still got hits, go figure.