2026 MLB (Non-Tigers) Thread

[monkeytargets39]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

Can they go 9?

Not with AJ managing

[NorthWoods]

34 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Not with AJ managing

We could bring back Mayo Smith

[chasfh]

8 hours ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Not with AJ managing

Not with anybody managing.

[Sports_Freak]

6 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Not with anybody managing.

To he fair, it seems like Hinch is letting Mize go deeper into games now. He does seem to have a quick hook, at least he did, it seems like, with Mize and Montero. He was letting Flaherty go a bit too long...again...it seemed like. And just a few innings of Valdez is too much...🤣🤣

[casimir]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Not with anybody managing.

This.  It’s more than just an in game decision.  The players aren’t conditioned to go 9.  They simply have not been trained to have the stamina as in the past.  It’s tough to blame them when they are performing as deployed to in the machine of the current era.

[monkeytargets39]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Not with anybody managing.

Where’s Dusty Baker?

[chasfh]

12 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Where’s Dusty Baker?

Not managing today. Out of 4,860 starting pitchers in 2,430 games last year, there were only 29 complete games thrown, or roughly one per week throughout the entirety of baseball. The Reds had the most complete games, with four. They are the most friendly to allowing a pitching go all nine innings, and it was still only once every 40 games, or about every six weeks. Thirteen teams did not allow any of their pitchers to toss even one complete game—and AJ and the Tigers were not one of those thirteen.

Feel free to slam AJ for anything you like, but if you're going to slam him for not allowing something practically nobody else allows, people will reasonably question that.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

This.  It’s more than just an in game decision.  The players aren’t conditioned to go 9.  They simply have not been trained to have the stamina as in the past.  It’s tough to blame them when they are performing as deployed to in the machine of the current era.

Do you mean stamina as in physical conditioning, meaning old-timey pitchers were in better shape than pitchers today? Or do you mean stamina in another way?

[Tiger337]

Jack Taylor started 175 games between August 27, 1901 and August 6, 1905.  He completed every one of them.  https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tayloja02.shtml 

Edited July 7 by Tiger337

[casimir]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Do you mean stamina as in physical conditioning, meaning old-timey pitchers were in better shape than pitchers today? Or do you mean stamina in another way?

I’m talking arm stamina and effort per pitch.  My theory is that there’s more effort (velocity, torque, spin, etc) per pitch in today’s game than there was in yesteryears.  I would guess that’s in response to offense and the specialization of bullpens and analysis of the 3rd time through the lineup and beyond.

These guys are better athletes these days, no doubt about it.  Nobody has to peddle shoes or typewriters or washing machines in the offseason.  Training and nutrition are better.  Players these days could run circles around long retired players, prime vs prime.

[Sports_Freak]

1 minute ago, casimir said:

I’m talking arm stamina and effort per pitch.  My theory is that there’s more effort (velocity, torque, spin, etc) per pitch in today’s game than there was in yesteryears.  I would guess that’s in response to offense and the specialization of bullpens and analysis of the 3rd time through the lineup and beyond.

These guys are better athletes these days, no doubt about it.  Nobody has to peddle shoes or typewriters or washing machines in the offseason.  Training and nutrition are better.  Players these days could run circles around long retired players, prime vs prime.

Medical is also better, much better. The injuries that destroyed many players (pitchers) is now correctable. And while today's players are bigger and stronger, the old time stars would still be great players. They would just benefit from all the advancements.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, casimir said:

This.  It’s more than just an in game decision.  The players aren’t conditioned to go 9.  They simply have not been trained to have the stamina as in the past.  It’s tough to blame them when they are performing as deployed to in the machine of the current era.

I don't believe it's stamina as in aerobic capacity you can train for, because teams have tried to do that and had zero success. When Nolan Ryan took over in Tex, this was his big idea, it went nowhere. It's more a matter of reaching the point where the local musculature can't take anymore and also the point where tissue destruction is greater than can be recovered in 5 days of rest for most guys and so starts accumulating. I think there are good number of pitchers who could stay out there past the 100 or 105 they are allowed, but the teams believe they are inviting injury/ineffectiveness down the road to allow it.

Edited July 7 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

25 minutes ago, casimir said:

 Nobody has to peddle shoes or typewriters or washing machines in the offseason.

There is also a counter argument that a real, deep offseason would allow some of these guys to fully heal from some things they can never full shake with year 'round training. The all year training absolutely produces higher performance but I doubt it's a totally unmixed blessing. There usually are no free lunches in physiology.

[chasfh]

47 minutes ago, casimir said:

I’m talking arm stamina and effort per pitch.  My theory is that there’s more effort (velocity, torque, spin, etc) per pitch in today’s game than there was in yesteryears.  I would guess that’s in response to offense and the specialization of bullpens and analysis of the 3rd time through the lineup and beyond.

These guys are better athletes these days, no doubt about it.  Nobody has to peddle shoes or typewriters or washing machines in the offseason.  Training and nutrition are better.  Players these days could run circles around long retired players, prime vs prime.

Agree on all counts.

The only thing just about every pitcher wants is swing and miss, because any time they let a batter hit a ball, they can give up hits and runs. That can't happen if they strike the guy out instead. And so pitchers do everything they can to elicit swing and miss on every pitch, from pitch one of the game, and they've figured out that overpowering velocity is the best way to get swing and miss, and unpredictable movement is the second best way. So they optimize their delivery to achieve that, minimally at the expense of going deep into games, and maximally at the risk and expense of permanently damaging their elbows and shoulders, because it's totally worth it. And so we get this state of affairs.

The only way out of this—the only way to get pitchers to pitch substantially deeper into games on average, and perhaps reduce injury along the way—is to figure out how to incentivize pitchers to give in and allow hitters to hit the ball.

[NorthWoods]

4 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

To he fair, it seems like Hinch is letting Mize go deeper into games now. 

He's still no Jack Taylor.

[AlaskanTigersFan]

Luis Lara getting the call for the Brewers. Would be cool to watch him stay up a while. 

[monkeytargets39]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Not managing today. Out of 4,860 starting pitchers in 2,430 games last year, there were only 29 complete games thrown, or roughly one per week throughout the entirety of baseball. The Reds had the most complete games, with four. They are the most friendly to allowing a pitching go all nine innings, and it was still only once every 40 games, or about every six weeks. Thirteen teams did not allow any of their pitchers to toss even one complete game—and AJ and the Tigers were not one of those thirteen.

Feel free to slam AJ for anything you like, but if you're going to slam him for not allowing something practically nobody else allows, people will reasonably question that.

Oh I’m not slamming AJ for that.  I’m just messing around because of how quick he kept yanking Casey Mize out of playoff games last year.  He’s closer to Sparky than Dusty

[chasfh]

12 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Oh I’m not slamming AJ for that.  I’m just messing around because of how quick he kept yanking Casey Mize out of playoff games last year.  He’s closer to Sparky than Dusty

Fair.

[casimir]

5 hours ago, chasfh said:

Agree on all counts.

The only thing just about every pitcher wants is swing and miss, because any time they let a batter hit a ball, they can give up hits and runs. That can't happen if they strike the guy out instead. And so pitchers do everything they can to elicit swing and miss on every pitch, from pitch one of the game, and they've figured out that overpowering velocity is the best way to get swing and miss, and unpredictable movement is the second best way. So they optimize their delivery to achieve that, minimally at the expense of going deep into games, and maximally at the risk and expense of permanently damaging their elbows and shoulders, because it's totally worth it. And so we get this state of affairs.

The only way out of this—the only way to get pitchers to pitch substantially deeper into games on average, and perhaps reduce injury along the way—is to figure out how to incentivize pitchers to give in and allow hitters to hit the ball.

I’d like to see the baseball be deadened.  We’ve talked about that.  I think less reliance on instant offense via home run would enhance the game.  More action on baseballs in play because, hopefully, teams would see the reward of home run reduction would need to be offset by the risk of swing and miss.  But the more I think of it, the more I wonder if / how long that culture change would take.

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, casimir said:

I’d like to see the baseball be deadened.  We’ve talked about that.  I think less reliance on instant offense via home run would enhance the game.  More action on baseballs in play because, hopefully, teams would see the reward of home run reduction would need to be offset by the risk of swing and miss.  But the more I think of it, the more I wonder if / how long that culture change would take.

but it will be hard to put the genie back into the bottle without some strong incentive to keep guys in games longer and hard to imagine how to do that without messing up the game in some major way. I can't see an idea like giving a team a run for every inning after 5 completed by a starter getting off the ground!

[casimir]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't believe it's stamina as in aerobic capacity you can train for, because teams have tried to do that and had zero success. When Nolan Ryan took over in Tex, this was his big idea, it went nowhere. It's more a matter of reaching the point where the local musculature can't take anymore and also the point where tissue destruction is greater than can be recovered in 5 days of rest for most guys and so starts accumulating. I think there are good number of pitchers who could stay out there past the 100 or 105 they are allowed, but the teams believe they are inviting injury/ineffectiveness down the road to allow it.

I’m sure I was being too generic with my stamina comment.

You bring up the pitch count, and I think there’s something to it and maybe something I need to amend.  I’m not suggesting all SP should be ramped back to over 200 IP per season.  We will likely never see another season like 1984 where the Tigers used only 15 different P for the entire season.  I think a good mix of SP would see top 2 or 3 SP in a rotation get through 7 IP with some regularity.  Those types of arms should have no problems putting up a quality start.  But maybe baseball has tipped too much in favor of the hitters that the 4th PA between an upper end of the rotation SP vs higher up hitter in a lineup is just too much.

[casimir]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

but it will be hard to put the genie back into the bottle without some strong incentive to keep guys in games longer and hard to imagine how to do that without messing up the game in some major way. I can't see an idea like giving a team a run for every inning after 5 completed by a starter getting off the ground!

Is that an idea that has been discussed or are you pulling that idea from out of LF?

[gehringer_2]

33 minutes ago, casimir said:

Is that an idea that has been discussed or are you pulling that idea from out of LF?

LOL - pure invention - but the point being that the incentive level needed to change things might be disfiguring to the game, that idea being an example.

[Tiger337]

53 minutes ago, casimir said:

I’d like to see the baseball be deadened.  We’ve talked about that.  I think less reliance on instant offense via home run would enhance the game.  More action on baseballs in play because, hopefully, teams would see the reward of home run reduction would need to be offset by the risk of swing and miss.  But the more I think of it, the more I wonder if / how long that culture change would take.

I agree fully, but I think it has near zero chance of happened.  Most fans love home runs.  

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - pure invention - but the point being that the incentive level needed to change things might be disfiguring to the game, that idea being an example.

That won't necessarily deter Manfred