2024 MLB Thread

[1776]

2 hours ago, casimir said:

This is my uneducated impression of it.  There was one or two options for a new stadium in Oakland that seem to have fallen by the wayside a while ago.  Was one of them a “Howard’s Terminal” location or something of that sort?  Whatever.  It seems like that came and went and when there was no traction there, it just kind of felt like a matter of to where else and when rather than staying in Oakland.

How long has Oakland had a poor baseball stadium?  It started with renovating it for the Raiders to come back to town way back when and has just deteriorated since then.  Honest question, will they be able to finish the season there or will they need to play on the road permanently at some point?  The Tigers play there in early September, which seems kind of crazy given the fact that the Athletics are in Detroit now.  Might those games end up in Sacramento (the River Cats are on the road that week), San Jose (on the road), or elsewhere?

Yes, the Howard’s Terminal thing morphed into a political fiasco. Someone could write a book on the Howard’s Terminal saga alone. But hey, the renderings were cool to look at 😁

To me, the most difficult part of following the A’s saga was that you never knew who was serious about things accomplished and who wasn’t. Between the owner and the city, there was a ton of political posturing for the media and critics. Too much gamesmanship.Even to this day the mayor of Oakland claims the door is still open for serious negotiations. Clearly, that ship has sailed. 
We’ve never attended a game in Sacramento but in 2016 we attended a game in San Jose. There is no way an MLB team will play there unless there have been major changes there. It is currently the Low A affiliate of the Giants.

[1776]

2 hours ago, casimir said:

This is my uneducated impression of it.  There was one or two options for a new stadium in Oakland that seem to have fallen by the wayside a while ago.  Was one of them a “Howard’s Terminal” location or something of that sort?  Whatever.  It seems like that came and went and when there was no traction there, it just kind of felt like a matter of to where else and when rather than staying in Oakland.

How long has Oakland had a poor baseball stadium?  It started with renovating it for the Raiders to come back to town way back when and has just deteriorated since then.  Honest question, will they be able to finish the season there or will they need to play on the road permanently at some point?  The Tigers play there in early September, which seems kind of crazy given the fact that the Athletics are in Detroit now.  Might those games end up in Sacramento (the River Cats are on the road that week), San Jose (on the road), or elsewhere?

Yes, the Howard’s Terminal thing morphed into a political fiasco. Someone could write a book on the Howard’s Terminal saga alone. But hey, the renderings were cool to look at 😁

To me, the most difficult part of following the A’s saga was that you never knew who was serious about things accomplished and who wasn’t. Between the owner and the city, there was a ton of political posturing for the media and critics. Too much gamesmanship.Even to this day the mayor of Oakland claims the door is still open for serious negotiations. Clearly, that ship has sailed. 
We’ve never attended a game in Sacramento but in 2016 we attended a game in San Jose. There is no way an MLB team will play there unless there have been major changes there. It is currently the Low A affiliate of the Giants.

[Tenacious D]

Lot of **** going on.

Bieber is getting Tommy John surgery.  Spencer Strider looks like he’s heading that way, too.

Pat Zachry passed away.  Pretty nice little career—RIP

 

 

[oblong]

 

[casimir]

12 minutes ago, oblong said:

 

It ain’t the pitch clock.  The abundance of pitching injuries been going on since before the pitch clock.

Deaden the ball, allow pitchers to pitch with reduced torque on their arms.  Keep the ball in play, the three true outcome brand of baseball disappears, more action on the field,…. 

[oblong]

I’m not smart enough to say one way or the other. I see replies like “we didn’t have TJ before the clock” and roll my eyes though.  That’s not how you do medical analysis. All I will say is I don’t trust any of the sports leagues when it comes to players health. They will always put profits over that. If the players had concerns, no matter how valid, then why not keep the clock as it was a while longer?  Why the need to rush things?

[gehringer_2]

I can understand the players perception - which is going to be driven by recency bias. 

OTOH, I think physiologically, I could easily believe shorter outings (time wise) my be less damaging because tissue gets to start recovering sooner. I'm not espousing that view, just saying the effect of fatigue, exertion level and time span probably all interact. Those of us who have been watching the game over many years would probably all agree that pitcher injuries have increased in parallel with game time length. While I believe that is certainly objectively true, that doesn't mean there is any causal relationship at all - there could be dozens of other more significant factors.

[casimir]

29 minutes ago, oblong said:

I’m not smart enough to say one way or the other. I see replies like “we didn’t have TJ before the clock” and roll my eyes though.  That’s not how you do medical analysis. All I will say is I don’t trust any of the sports leagues when it comes to players health. They will always put profits over that. If the players had concerns, no matter how valid, then why not keep the clock as it was a while longer?  Why the need to rush things?

They reduced from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base?  Is that all?  It does seem like an unusual move.  The “reduced recovery time” that Clark is referring to is solely in game recovery?

One of the oddities with the pitch clock is that it reduces the in game betting opportunities.  It just strikes me given MLB’s googly eyes with betting these days.

[oblong]

28 minutes ago, casimir said:

One of the oddities with the pitch clock is that it reduces the in game betting opportunities.  It just strikes me given MLB’s googly eyes with betting these days.

Maybe it increases it due to making the impulse stronger?  2 seconds to talk yourself out of it. 
 

I am just spitballing. I’m not an expert and my extent on knowledge of pitching injuries is that Passan book a few years ago, which i probably forgot 90% of what I read.  I’m not trying to speak with authority.  The only thing I feel strong about is not trusting MLB, and the others, with having the player’s interests in mind, above that of a business consideration.   And absent more medical information I am inclined to listen to the players since it is their body and actions that are affected.  I just don’t see the need to change the clock again after one year. 

[casimir]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Maybe it increases it due to making the impulse stronger?  2 seconds to talk yourself out of it. 
 

I am just spitballing. I’m not an expert and my extent on knowledge of pitching injuries is that Passan book a few years ago, which i probably forgot 90% of what I read.  I’m not trying to speak with authority.  The only thing I feel strong about is not trusting MLB, and the others, with having the player’s interests in mind, above that of a business consideration.   And absent more medical information I am inclined to listen to the players since it is their body and actions that are affected.  I just don’t see the need to change the clock again after one year. 

Have any players’ unions commissioned any similar studies before?  I’m curious, I have no idea.

The two seconds seems ridiculous either way during the game.  By making the change, what is MLB gaining from it?  What’s the reward in exchange of the risk here?  The clock was needed and I think it has helped the game flow.  But what are we doing with the two seconds?

[1776]

Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg has officially retired, according to an update from MLB’s transaction log. Strasburg reached a settlement with the team after months of negotiation, an MLB source confirmed to The Athletic on Saturday. There will be no reduction in the value of Strasburg’s total contract.

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, 1776 said:

Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg has officially retired, according to an update from MLB’s transaction log. Strasburg reached a settlement with the team after months of negotiation, an MLB source confirmed to The Athletic on Saturday. There will be no reduction in the value of Strasburg’s total contract.

If the Nats had to pay off the full amount of the the 2020 contract,  Strasburg will be paid ~$7.8M per *inning* pitched under it.

Edited April 7 by gehringer_2

[Tenacious D]

Both Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert on the DL.  
Paging, Jake Marisnick 

Edited April 7 by Tenacious D

[Toddwert]

all this injury news   has me wondering when the axe is going to start fall on the home 9..  every pitcher adding extra velocity has me concerned

Edited April 7 by Toddwert

[chasfh]

I used to wonder how long it’s going take for Baseball to realize that deadening the ball will go a long way toward reducing injuries, among other ways to improve the game.

Now I wonder at what point they already figured out that deadening the ball will do all that, but rejected it because they saw right away doing so would reduce home runs and strikeouts, both of which they need to feed the Quick Pitch marketing machine.

Yes, I am cynical about the good faith of Major League Baseball.

[Motor City Sonics]

The MLBPA is blaming the pitch clock on pitcher injuries, but I seem to recall that a couple of years ago, before the pitch clock, there were still a lot of pitcher injuries.        We know about that around here, don't we?    Remember 2022.  Every one of our Opening Day rotation got hurt.   What did we use, 16 different starters that year?   

[Hongbit]

The biggest issue for the MLBPA is Tony Clark’s dumb ass Santa beard.  Not sure how anyone can trust a guy to make good decisions who wakes up everyday thinking that’s a proper style.  

[SoCalTiger]

Is it correct to assume that deadening the baseball will stop pitchers from throwing with maximum effort? Won’t they continue to spin and stress to prevent hits ? The cows are out of the barn. Teams have huge pitching staffs with technology to maximize velocity and spin and there are lots of private companies as well. I don’t see any pitchers taking it easy because home runs go down. I

[SoCalTiger]

I mean which pitcher wants to surrender their competitive edge?

[oblong]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

I mean which pitcher wants to surrender their competitive edge?

Right. How do you legislate that?  Ban pitches?  

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, SoCalTiger said:

Is it correct to assume that deadening the baseball will stop pitchers from throwing with maximum effort? Won’t they continue to spin and stress to prevent hits ? The cows are out of the barn. Teams have huge pitching staffs with technology to maximize velocity and spin and there are lots of private companies as well. I don’t see any pitchers taking it easy because home runs go down. I

This is my take on the issue.

Why do pitchers throw at max velocity with max movement on literally every pitch? Because they want to induce swing and miss. Why induce swing and miss? Because any hitter in a lineup today can jack bombs, and giving up bombs is the worst outcome a pitcher can experience.

Part of that is due to the increased size and more powerful swings of hitters. Part of it is because of shorter fences. But the biggest, most controllable part of that equation is the live baseball.

So, to me, the easy answer is: deaden the baseball.

If the home run becomes less of a threat, pitchers won’t have to induce swing and miss on every pitch. Sure, they’ll still have to throw max effort to get swing and miss out of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But they could actually pitch to contact to down-the-order hitters. That would mean less need to throw at max velocity and max movement. For the lesser hitters, it can be more like “here you go—hit it and get yourself out.”

Less velocity/movement means less stress on elbows and shoulders. Less stress means less injury. Less injury means better careers, longer careers, and more engagement by fans with players across their careers than is possible in the current “next man up” era. And bonus: more pitching to contact means fewer strikeouts, more balls in play, more action, and a better, more aesthetic game overall. 

One counter argument to this is: chicks dig the long ball, and dudes dig strikeouts. That’s why they make up 60% of all highlights on the Quick Pitch clip show, and Quick Pitch is nothing if not a marketing tool. And longer careers also mean higher salaries that the owners—who own the whole game, including how the game will be played—would have to pay. And they definitely don’t want that.

Another counterargument, which you brought up, is that pitchers will not necessarily want to … ahem … lay down their arms. And I can see this point. If the ball were deadened today, pitchers would not change their pitching approach tomorrow, or next month, or maybe even next year. Certain pitchers today would never change and would keeping maxing out until they limp away from the game.

But eventually, pitchers coming up to the majors would figure out, probably in concert with their data science coaches, that maxing out indiscriminately is a bad long term strategy, even if it’s the right thing to do in certain situations, or to certain hitters. Max effort wouldn’t go away completely. But if a #9 hitter comes up who’s slugging barely .300, pitcher could lay up on the guy and invite him to put the ball in play, if he can. 

So who knows what Baseball will do. I don’t know, I’m not psychic, man. All I know—all I think I know, anyway—is that deadening the ball would eventually make a big dent in the problem of way too many pitcher injuries.

[SoCalTiger]

22 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This is my take on the issue.

Why do pitchers throw at max velocity with max movement on literally every pitch? Because they want to induce swing and miss. Why induce swing and miss? Because any hitter in a lineup today can jack bombs, and giving up bombs is the worst outcome a pitcher can experience.

Part of that is due to the increased size and more powerful swings of hitters. Part of it is because of shorter fences. But the biggest, most controllable part of that equation is the live baseball.

So, to me, the easy answer is: deaden the baseball.

If the home run becomes less of a threat, pitchers won’t have to induce swing and miss on every pitch. Sure, they’ll still have to throw max effort to get swing and miss out of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But they could actually pitch to contact to down-the-order hitters. That would mean less need to throw at max velocity and max movement. For the lesser hitters, it can be more like “here you go—hit it and get yourself out.”

Less velocity/movement means less stress on elbows and shoulders. Less stress means less injury. Less injury means better careers, longer careers, and more engagement by fans with players across their careers than is possible in the current “next man up” era. And bonus: more pitching to contact means fewer strikeouts, more balls in play, more action, and a better, more aesthetic game overall. 

One counter argument to this is: chicks dig the long ball, and dudes dig strikeouts. That’s why they make up 60% of all highlights on the Quick Pitch clip show, and Quick Pitch is nothing if not a marketing tool. And longer careers also mean higher salaries that the owners—who own the whole game, including how the game will be played—would have to pay. And they definitely don’t want that.

Another counterargument, which you brought up, is that pitchers will not necessarily want to … ahem … lay down their arms. And I can see this point. If the ball were deadened today, pitchers would not change their pitching approach tomorrow, or next month, or maybe even next year. Certain pitchers today would never change and would keeping maxing out until they limp away from the game.

But eventually, pitchers coming up to the majors would figure out, probably in concert with their data science coaches, that maxing out indiscriminately is a bad long term strategy, even if it’s the right thing to do in certain situations, or to certain hitters. Max effort wouldn’t go away completely. But if a #9 hitter comes up who’s slugging barely .300, pitcher could lay up on the guy and invite him to put the ball in play, if he can. 

So who knows what Baseball will do. I don’t know, I’m not psychic, man. All I know—all I think I know, anyway—is that deadening the ball would eventually make a big dent in the problem of way too many pitcher injuries.

All valid points but most probably we will never know since the Home Run is too vital to the game and if pitchers blow out their arms MLB snd owners will just see it as an incentive to not pay high salaries for stating pitchers. If I was an owner I would be very hesitant to pay top dollar over many years for pitching and I think that's beginning to  play out and will become the norm soon. Look what the Tigers are doing under Harris. Low one and two year deals, develop a bullpen of "multi inning" relievers, Avoid "Closers" who command big $$, develop your draft picks and work the waiver wire and have bullpen days. Forget about multi year big dollar deals. Arod signed for 4 years 80 million. Harris could have added one year and done that easily but refused, same with Friedman and LA at the trade deadline refusing to add one year to ok the trade. Baltimore which is loaded passed on all the big names and traded for Burnes for one year. Sure there are outliers, Yamamoto and Nola for a couple but one brings huge gate receipts and promotional money to LA and the other is a retuning star. Starting pitchers are targeting 5  innings / twice through the lineup  now so why pay huge dollars for that ? 

[oblong]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

This is my take on the issue.

Why do pitchers throw at max velocity with max movement on literally every pitch? Because they want to induce swing and miss. Why induce swing and miss? Because any hitter in a lineup today can jack bombs, and giving up bombs is the worst outcome a pitcher can experience.

Part of that is due to the increased size and more powerful swings of hitters. Part of it is because of shorter fences. But the biggest, most controllable part of that equation is the live baseball.

So, to me, the easy answer is: deaden the baseball.

If the home run becomes less of a threat, pitchers won’t have to induce swing and miss on every pitch. Sure, they’ll still have to throw max effort to get swing and miss out of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But they could actually pitch to contact to down-the-order hitters. That would mean less need to throw at max velocity and max movement. For the lesser hitters, it can be more like “here you go—hit it and get yourself out.”

Less velocity/movement means less stress on elbows and shoulders. Less stress means less injury. Less injury means better careers, longer careers, and more engagement by fans with players across their careers than is possible in the current “next man up” era. And bonus: more pitching to contact means fewer strikeouts, more balls in play, more action, and a better, more aesthetic game overall. 

One counter argument to this is: chicks dig the long ball, and dudes dig strikeouts. That’s why they make up 60% of all highlights on the Quick Pitch clip show, and Quick Pitch is nothing if not a marketing tool. And longer careers also mean higher salaries that the owners—who own the whole game, including how the game will be played—would have to pay. And they definitely don’t want that.

Another counterargument, which you brought up, is that pitchers will not necessarily want to … ahem … lay down their arms. And I can see this point. If the ball were deadened today, pitchers would not change their pitching approach tomorrow, or next month, or maybe even next year. Certain pitchers today would never change and would keeping maxing out until they limp away from the game.

But eventually, pitchers coming up to the majors would figure out, probably in concert with their data science coaches, that maxing out indiscriminately is a bad long term strategy, even if it’s the right thing to do in certain situations, or to certain hitters. Max effort wouldn’t go away completely. But if a #9 hitter comes up who’s slugging barely .300, pitcher could lay up on the guy and invite him to put the ball in play, if he can. 

So who knows what Baseball will do. I don’t know, I’m not psychic, man. All I know—all I think I know, anyway—is that deadening the ball would eventually make a big dent in the problem of way too many pitcher injuries.

Wouldnt deadening the ball mean…. They admit to making them livelier?  Can they pull a Vince McMahon and admit something they long denied. 

[casimir]

9 hours ago, chasfh said:

the good faith of Major League Baseball.

This phrase does not compute.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

Wouldnt deadening the ball mean…. They admit to making them livelier?  Can they pull a Vince McMahon and admit something they long denied. 

I don't think changing the composition of the ball is necessarily a de facto confession to all prior accusations of doctoring the ball. But they defintiely do admit doing it in 1920 gto make the ball livelier, and I think they could admit it this time as a once-in-a-century sea change, as that was.

The debate is all hypothetical, of course, because ain't no way they're gonna change it. The economic incentives to maintain the status quo of massive homers, wipeout strikeouts, and next-man-up pitching staffs are too compelling to give up.