Tiger337

5 hours ago, oblong said:

I remember being sad that I missed 1976 because I was just under 3 years old.  I had 250 marked as something that would be awesome.  Now it's just meh.  That bastard will make it all about himself and show no dignity or grace.

 

 

I remember 1976 being a really big deal.  That is all anybody talked about for a couple of years and I was excited about it.  After that, I remember thinking, I am going to 63 when the next big number comes and that would be really old!  I don't feel THAT old. but I couldn't care less about 250 for the reason you said.    

The injured players are not stars, but the guys replacing them are so bad that it has the same effect as losing stars.  The injuries have mad a big difference.  

This year, they have added a platoon DH silver slugger.  

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Injuries is what happened, and I think it might be more than just the lost WAR of front-line starters going onto the list. I also believe there could be something to idea of a very human response to hopelessness manifesting in lackadaisical play leading to an accelerating downward spiral.

IOW, it looks like they’ve just stopped trying because they can’t win.

That's not an excuse though, especially since they excelled in the same circumstances two years ago.    

1 minute ago, chasfh said:

I don’t think a guy hard-wired for competitiveness would lie to make himself look like he’s working less hard, so I would take Mickey’s word on this.

yeah, It's not like he said he pitched to the score.  

10 hours ago, DTroppens said:

The JV thing was never a huge thing to me. I figured why not try. If it hits, that's great. If what is happening now, happens, that's okay as well. It was a pot luck thing that was only for the season. Really, it was worth the shot to see if it worked. Right now, it hasn't. Maybe in August he ends up a pretty solid arm in the rotation. But even if not, giving it a whirl was never a horrible option in my book.

If they had signed Verlander before they signed Valdez, I would have called it a lazy move.  Since he was signed right after Valdez, I was OK with it.  

1 minute ago, NorthWoods said:

I really don't think you can attribute all of it or even a majority to weaker hitters.    

I attribute it to different times.  If they were pitching today throwing max velocity and max spin on every pitch, they would not be pitching 300+ innings.  Ryan was a freak and would be today so he'd still be leading league in innings every year, but nowhere near the same volume.  

25 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Hinch would take him out after 6 innings to bring in a AAA pitcher...lmao

He would have left him in to pitch complete games the way everybody else did in that period.  If you look around the league, you see that a lot of managers manage the way Hinch does now.  The Tigers are not the only team platooning and pulling pitchers early.  

36 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Think what an outlier Nolan Ryan would be today?  What would a pitcher throwing 100+ for 332 innings with 367 K. 26 complete games and a 2.89ERA be worth? That was the 1974 season.

Lolich threw 376 innings in 1971!

1 hour ago, IdahoBert said:

I’m beginning to think that we may not have six players and our bat boy going to the All-Star game this year. 

Right now, I'd say two. 

20 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

I think Hinch is one of the best managers in baseball and I would not argue if you said he was the best, and I don't think firing him changes the course of this lost season, and I do not think they find a better manager if they let him go

but

the results absolutely suck, and more importantly, they are not putting up much of a fight, and they not playing particularly well in any phase of the game - that's on Hinch

I don't know what happened, but the team seems lost

It's really hard to evaluate managers but I believe he is a good one.  

9 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

There are reports out there that Hinch has lost the locker room, just like he did in Arizona and Houston.  Who would have thought a smug, smartest guy in the room, blames the players when they lose and when they win claims they did so because the players bought into HIS system wouldn't sit well with actual baseball players?

What reports?  

10 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Most of them didn't fight in WWII on the front lines. Most of them primarily played baseball for other military personnel.

A lot of them did.  I don't know if it's most.  Even some of the famous players like Berra, Feller and Spahn saw combat.  

19 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Maybe a dumb question. How far back does the pitching data, such as velocity, spin rates, and movement go back? They had radar guns in the 70s but I don't know what else.

Velocity goes back to 2007 on FanGraphs.  Spin rate and other stuff available back to 2015 on baseball savant.   

According to AI, Military engineers used electric timer and high-speed wire cameras to clock Walter Johnson at 91 MPH in 1917.  Dopplar radar tracked Nolan Ryan's fastball at 100.7 in 1974.

1 minute ago, kdog said:

For Jack standards, that was a decent start.

5 2/3 IP 3 R.  That is almost a Porcello. 

44 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Is different.   But is that from lowered mounds?   Juiced balls?   Smaller ballparks?  Those and many other factors come into play.   The higher rate of HR's would seem to be poking a hole in the earlier argument here that pitching is better today.  If the pitchers are so far superior how are they getting taken deep more often?

I think this is related to Sportsfreak's earlier point about less contact.  There is less contact because players are trying to hit home runs.  Fans love home runs, so the game has evolved to increase the numbers. As you said, the mound is lower, ballparks are getting smaller and I believe balls are juiced.  Players are now hitting more home runs because it's easier to get enough of them to make the sacrifice of less contact worthwhile. 

In response, in order to avoid home runs, pitchers are throwing max velocity, increasing spin rate and throwing more types of pitches than they did in the 60s.  This reduces contact so as to make the home runs less damaging with fewer base runners.  It also makes it more difficult to string hits together which further motivates players to swing for the fences.  The trade off is that pitchers are not able to pitch as many innings and are getting injured at perhaps greater rates despite more advanced training and health care.  

20 minutes ago, chasfh said:

If there were born in a different period, they would be different people.

Exactly.  If you take an average pitcher today and transport him into the 60s, he'll be better than most of the pitchers in the 60s.  Athletes are faster, stronger and better prepared now.  Would we doubt that about any other sport?  

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and there is more to it. An MLB batter makes choices with their set up and approach that can change their susceptibility to the slider away (the big driver of platoon splits). Tell a LHH that LHP is off the table for him and he's going to maximize his approach to hit RHP, at that point he will be less prepared  against any LHP he has to face. That's the self-fulfilling part. Now it's possible  teams have decided that that by having their LLHs optimize to hit RHP combined with RH platoon players further combined with the 3 hitter rule for relievers, they just don't care about having everyday players; they are prepared to just keep switching all the time.  But then you get into a talent constrained situation like the Tigers are in and it's easy to believe that if he had a chance to work at it, a player like Keith would be better hitter against LHP than the pinch hitters the team actually has available to take the other half of his platoon ABs. That's where the potential loss is.

If he started batting against LHP, he might have to go through a whole different approach which might screw him up against RHP which is he already not hitting as well as he should.  I have no idea about that.  Just a theory.  

2 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

Mize and Jansen injured? Sheesh. 

I would say they should have Anderson close, but they probably need him in the rotation now. 

This Hinch platoons everyone argument is getting really ridiculous.  Sure, I'd like to see Keith get a shot at playing every day too, but apparently the Tigers have seen something that makes them think he shouldn't be facing LHP.  They have access to all kinds of technology that we don't have.  Maybe they are wrong in this case, but...the Bonds and McGonogle comparisons are stupid.  Those guys are/were complete players and they would be wanted in the line-up regardless of any platoon disadvantage.  Keith is not Bonds or McGonigle.  He doesn't have a position, he's not fast, he has shown little power.  He's got a 93 OPS+ against the RHP!  Maybe, he needs to learn how to hit RHP consistently before they put him in there vs LHP.

15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think pitchers today transported back in time would put at least 80% of those pitchers in 1968 out of a job in no time flat.

Of course they would, but if they were brought up in the same period as the 1968 pitchers they would not have had all the advantages that made them who they are today.  They wouldn't have had the same training, technology, heath care, etc that they have today.   

Fire Ryne Eubanks!

Just now, monkeytargets39 said:

Walked into the dugout after the last inning and went down to the locker room with the head trainer.  Anderson warming up now.

****, what an awful season.  

What happened to Mize?  I missed it?

Zach Short talking home runs in the dugout with Tork.