Baseball 2019

Bigdawg said:
The second thing (Why?) is the MLB home run derby the other day. This season the Minnesota Twins set the MLB all time HR record (pre all star break) and yet had not one representative in the home run derby. Hmmm....
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Many players don't want to participate in the HR derby, in part because they don't want to mess with their swing. And yet, you would think that with the emphasis on "launch angles" today, the average player's *usual* swing is a lot closer to a HR derby swing.
 
Bigdawg said:
first of all regarding one of the new rules:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ml...ll-history/ar-AAEhOut?return-to-referrer=true

"During the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs’ game against the Lancaster Barnstormers, Tony Thomas became the first player to ever steal first."
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The Atlantic League is an independent league not affiliated with Major League Baseball, though MLB has an agreement with them to receive data from them. They are trying all kinds of wacky new rules, including the "stealing" of first base rule (which I kinda like.)

They are also having robot umpires call balls and strikes, increasing the size of the bases, banning defensive shifts, and in a weird twist moving the pitching mound back two feet--starting in the 2nd half of the season. To me that is mind blowing. Moving the mound back two feet in the middle of the season? What?

The interesting (to me) thing about this event is that I was (almost) the third base umpire for this game. I umpire as a side gig. Mostly highschool and legion ball. I also get some college summer leagues. Every once in awhile guys from one of my organizations get called over to fill in for Blue Crabs games (45 miles away). I am on the list and got the call for those weekend games. At the last minute one of the regular Atlantic league umpires took the assignment. Oh well, almost famous. LOL
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That would have been a great experience for you. I'm sure you'll get other chances, but to be in on the first steal of first base would have been a story you could tell for years.

As long as we are discussing rules, can we get the DH in the national league, already? Nobody wants to see a pitcher swing a bat. There's only a couple of competent hitting pitchers in the league and if they bat .200 it's considered glorious. Enough of this. (And I used to oppose the DH.)
 
Qs Laptop said:
As long as we are discussing rules, can we get the DH in the national league, already? Nobody wants to see a pitcher swing a bat. There's only a couple of competent hitting pitchers in the league and if they bat .200 it's considered glorious. Enough of this. (And I used to oppose the DH.)
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I agree. I have recently become a convert. My hope was that teams would eventually again discover the advantage you have by actually letting the pitchers work on their hitting a little bit rather than being an automatic out. But it's clear that GMs and field managers don't care if a pitcher goes 0-for-50 with 47 strikeouts, and as long as that is the attitude, well, I'm sorry to pitchers like Madison Bumgarner who can hit -- it's time for pitchers to stop "hitting". It is beyond painful to watch 90% of pitchers try to hit.
 
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ziggy29 said:
And hitters all want to be Hank Aaron. Or maybe like Barry Bonds, because they want to walk a lot, too. It's all about power these days, with the arm and the bat.

I saw a class A game earlier this year and there were four stolen bases. I was shocked. I guess their parent clubs haven't finished telling them that the analytics say stolen bases are a bad bet. What's next, a sacrifice? Or maybe a hit and run?
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Besides HRs, Aaron hit 0.305 and Bonds 0.298 lifetime.
 
The growth of power hitting has me watching fewer games and wishing for fewer HRs, not more, hence I'd prefer the removal of the DH.
 
GrayHare said:
The growth of power hitting has me watching fewer games and wishing for fewer HRs, not more, hence I'd prefer the removal of the DH.
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Yes, I think HRs are more boring and commonplace these days. But even more than that, I am tired of all the strikeouts. Nolan Ryan was considered incredible when he'd average about 10 strikeouts per 9 innings. Now the *average* mediocrity out of the bullpen is doing more than that. Strikeouts are more common than hits now, and the rate rises every year.

I am so sick of watching situations where there is a runner on 3rd and less than two outs and the hitter strikes out because they are going for a HR rather than a sac fly or ground ball to the right side, or even just focusing on making contact. It drives me crazy.

Since I am growing more tired of strikeouts than home runs, I'd go the other way on the DH, since most pitchers are an almost sure thing K these days. But your weariness of the home run making it feel more like beer league slow pitch softball is noted and shared.
 
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aja8888 said:
Wait until "they" take the strike zone call away from the home plate umpire....:rolleyes:
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I haven't heard any reviews concerning the "electronic strike zone" this weekend in the Atlantic League - have you? The home plate umpire wore an ear piece connected to an iPhone in his pocket. The system relays balls and strikes to the umpire, who then signals the call. I also had never heard of "stealing first base" or the talk about "juicing" the new baseballs.

Hope the Astros win the Sliver Boot this year but aggravated that I cannot see many of the games here in Central Texas. I can see most of the Ranger games but have to have ATT SportsNet, Uverse, or MLB to get the Stros.
 
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As long as there isn't a baseball strike, I think by season's end, there's no getting around the topic of are the baseballs "juiced". With several players around 30 HRs by all star break, they may be on their way to close to a 60 HR season.

There was a good discussion about if balls are juiced or not during the all star game by Joe Buck and John Smoltz. Smoltz compared why so many home runs similar to why so many three pointers in the NBA. The game has changed (like the NBA a three point shooters game) in that so many players are trying for home runs. At the same time, he mentioned there is more to just HR attempts but home runs are traveling farther. So, just trying for more home runs alone doesn't explain why there are so many hit this year.
 
easysurfer said:
As long as there isn't a baseball strike, I think by season's end, there's no getting around the topic of are the baseballs "juiced". With several players around 30 HRs by all star break, they may be on their way to close to a 60 HR season.

There was a good discussion about if balls are juiced or not during the all star game by Joe Buck and John Smoltz. Smoltz compared why so many home runs similar to why so many three pointers in the NBA. The game has changed (like the NBA a three point shooters game) in that so many players are trying for home runs. At the same time, he mentioned there is more to just HR attempts but home runs are traveling farther. So, just trying for more home runs alone doesn't explain why there are so many hit this year.
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Ball
Is
Juiced.

AAA minor leagues went to using the MLB baseballs this year. The home run rate at the Class AAA level has leaped by nearly 50% –from 1.74 homers a game last year to 2.56 this year. This was through April, before the weather has warmed up and baseballs fly even more.
 
Pitchers are throwing harder than ever, too. Almost everyone throws well into the 90s now and many into the upper 90s. So it's a combination of batters swinging for the fences almost every time, a juiced ball, and pitchers supplying more of the power with velocity. It's pretty nearly a perfect storm.
 
I'm old fashioned in liking a pitchers dual and strategy more than balls flying out everywhere. All the HRs is starting to resemble area football.
 
I almost don't care what rule changes baseball makes, because they've lost me. The pay, the steroids, the strikes, the ticket prices all took their toll. Pace of play and all the pitching changes people mentioned here definitely apply as well, and the homers and strikeouts are tiring with fewer and fewer balls in play. I looked up to verify what I remembered about the Cubs in the 2017 NLCS--8 runs total in 5 games, on 7 home runs (one of them being a 2-run HR). There's so much to fix about the game that I don't know if they can do enough to recapture my interest.
 
aja8888 said:
Verlander - pitches no hitter against Toronto. :cool:

Go Astros!!:dance:
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Saw that he is 3rd on list with 3...


Nolan Ryan is 1st with 7 and second has 4... so Nolan has as many as the 2nd and 3rd place pitchers...
 
I can confidently say Nolan Ryan's record of 7 will never be broken.

Of course, unless the commissioner changes to baseball rules to make the game shorter by only playing 6 innings a game (note the sarcasm). Then all bets are off.

I heard there was about a 12 year gap between Verlander's first no-no and the most recent. Which is pretty amazing. There was even a bigger gap between Ryan's 1st and last no-no.
 
easysurfer said:
I can confidently say Nolan Ryan's record of 7 will never be broken.

Of course, unless the commissioner changes to baseball rules to make the game shorter by only playing 6 innings a game (note the sarcasm). Then all bets are off.

I heard there was about a 12 year gap between Verlander's first no-no and the most recent. Which is pretty amazing. There was even a bigger gap between Ryan's 1st and last no-no.
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Also his total of strike outs will never be broken... pitchers just do not pitch enough innings in a year... only a few pitcher got over 200 innings last year and the high was 220... Nolan beat that 12 times of his 27 years pitching... 6 times he had more than the high of 300 strikeouts of last season..


Was looking... Verlander has started 448 games and has 22 complete games... Ryan started 773 and has 222 complete games... 9 shut outs vs 61 (Ryan had 9 in one season!!)...
 
I try to stay humble, but if you want to see how I made $2,245.45, see post #50 of this thread.
 
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