Somewhat surprised the Astros are picked to have the best pitching/run prevention in the AL even though they didn’t add much of consequence in the off-season. Hopefully they meet expectations this year unlike last year’s April bellyflop.
Well you can prove that velocity has a positive correlation with FIP/ERA, so yeah I think you can pretty much prove pitchers are better. It isn’t just pitchers though. Hitters are making less contact, but hitting for as much power as ever, including the steroid era. Improved defense and defensive strategy has lowered BABIPs. The problem all of these thing lessen the amount of balls in play. I think this is problem, and getting worse, but it is tricky to fix. I’m happy that they are trying something, though I’d probably tinker with the mound height first.
That type of pitcher hasn’t really existed for a while now.
Sure they can The problem is these rules have all sorts of unintended consequences. Say your a pitcher who tweaks something after one batter. Do you pitch through it potentially causing much more significant damage, or take a week off over something that might be nothing in a day or two.
How bout if you had a starter you would normally pull in favor of a lefty. However you don’t want the lefty to pitch to a righty after that, so you leave the starter in driving up his pitch counts to potentially dangerous levels.
Keeping pitchers healthy is really really hard. I see no reason to add degrees of difficulty.
They added Reddick, Mccaan, and Beltran, all filling significant holes. I’d say they had a nice offseason.
Yes, but not on the pitching side.
I see all that, but that’s what makes the new rule so good, it involves more strategy with your pitchers. It actually makes the managers manage a bit more.
I’ve always haaaated righty/lefty. I understand it, but if you’re a professional pitcher, you should be able to get anyone out. Is it an unfavorable matchup? Maybe. But too bad, figure it out. Hell, you can just IBB the guy if you’re so scared of him.
At the end of the day, the problem is that the number of pitching changes often borderlines on the absurd. Pitchers are brought in to face one guy, then bringing another guy to face one guy, then another to face two. It’s just tiresome. Keeping with this strategy, what’s the worst that will happen? High scoring games and dramatic finishes?
Replacing players with players more suited for the situation is a strategy that goes back to the days when Ed Delahanty wasn’t dead yet. If you can’t have a pitcher come in to face a tough lefty, why not also ban pinch hitters, pinch runners, and late game defensive replacements?
Like the implied reason behind the automatic IBB rule, I think people are exaggerrating how much LOOGYs are used and slow the game down. Most games don’t have this and even leftanded relievers are usually used for more than one guy. I don’t have numbers for 2016, but in 2014 the most one batter appearances made by any pitcher in the major leagues was 23. I do not doubt that pitching changes are slowing the game down, but the LOOGY is not the reason this is happening; all pitchers are being pulled faster. Starting pitchers basically don’t complete games anymore; last year only one MLB team had 10 complete games and four teams had none at all; just 20 years ago, Pat Hentgen personally pitched ten complete games. On top of that, one the starter is yanked, most all relief pitchers, righty or lefty, are very limited in how long they can pitch. If a starter is yanked after five you can pretty much bet money you’re going to see at least four relievers.
This just doesn’t make any sense. There is no evidence that the wildly reduced workload is preventing injury, and it simply does not make sense to take innings from your better pitchers and give them to the 12th or 13th best pitcher on your team. It’s precisely akin to taking minutes away from LeBron James when he’s feeling fine because you just feel obliged to send out some guy who’s usually in street clothes.
I suspect that Darwinian forces will convince MLB teams to reduce the appearances given to shitty pitchers. Of course, I do realize that:
- Managers don’t manage to win, they manage to keep their jobs, and so strategy can change very slowly, and
- Even today people talk seriously about how *starting rotations *need a lefty or two, even though that just doesn’t make any sense at all.
Nonetheless, sooner or later someone is going to notice that keeping Jose, the good pitcher, in for an extra batter outweighs the platoon advantage of bringing in Steve, the crappy pitcher.
It seems to me that the second half of your paragraph is key here. While it’s true that starters don’t finish games anymore, the average number of relief innings pitched per game has not actually increased that much over the past fifty years. The big increase is in the number of pitchers used to complete those relief innings.
According to this piece on FiveThirtyEight.com, in 1964 relief pitchers pitched an average of 2.64 innings per game. That number rose to a tiny bit over 3.00 innings per game by 2010. Not exactly a huge increase.
But in 1964, those 2.64 innings were thrown by 1.58 pitchers; these days, the 3.00 innings of relief work are thrown by 2.92 pitchers. This means that, in 1964, the average relief pitcher got five outs, while the modern relief pitcher typically gets three.
The article notes a significant increase in pitch velocity among relief pitchers, just in the last decade or so. In 2002, fewer than 4% of relief pitchers had fastballs over 95mph; in 2010 it was closer to 12%. And the batter OPS+ allowed by relief pitchers has, over the past few decades, declined markedly. As late as the 1970s, starters and relievers has pretty similar OPS+ numbers, but then relievers began to produce better stats than starters, and the gap between the two has widened considerably since the 1990s.
I’m not really sure what all of this SHOULD mean for rules about pitching changes, but it seems to me, at the very least, that it would be POSSIBLE to restrict pitching changes somehow, without necessarily exposing relievers to greater injury risk. Starting pitchers already exercise a certain control over their pitches in order to last longer into games; very few throw as absolutely hard as they can for every pitch, because they know there’s a balance between velocity and endurance. As long as you allow essentially unlimited pitching changes, relievers have little incentive to manage themselves this way. If your 100-mph guy throws at 92 a bit more often, or develops a better change-up, he might be able to get five outs instead of three on a more regular basis. But fans also like to see the 100-mph pitch.
In terms of time, it’s clear that within-innings pitching changes are the real time grabber. If pitchers are changed between innings, it has basically no impact on game time, because the new pitcher gets his warm-up pitches in during the commercial break. But changes, and especially multiple changes, within innings really eat up the time. I’m not sure if changing the rule will help too much, though, and any change that had a significant effect on game time would probably also reshape the dynamics of the game in ways that many fans would not be happy with.
I agree with your interpretation but I find the article’s numbers really weird:
“In ’64, relievers tossed an average of 2.64 innings per game; today, they’re throwing an eyelash more than three innings per game. Starters are getting yanked much earlier now than they did during Willie Mays’s heyday…”
Wait, what? The difference between 2.64 innings and 3 innings is literally one batter, one third of an inning. That’s not “much earlier,” that is quite literally the lowest discrete amount it can be.
Detroit Tigers owner Mike Illitch has died at 87. He was a great owner (both Red Wings and Tigers) who wasn’t afraid to spend his money for his city and his teams. Sad he didn’t get to see his beloved Tigers win the big one.
It’s one out but not necessarily one batter. The average number of plate appearances per team per game is 38. The average number of outs per game is lets say 27. It’s probably a touch less as the home team doesn’t bat in the ninth about half the time, but then there are extra inning games and walk-off wins so 0.36 innings (or outs) is 0.36*38/9 = 1.5 batters. But you’re basically right.
That’s a fucking horrible idea
In keeping with their trend of trying to acquire every player in the league, the Braves have acquired Brandon Phillips for P Andrew McKirahan and minor league P Carlos Portuondo
We have this rule in my slow pitch league. That’s not a terrific endorsement, and I say that a guy who thinks the softball “safety base” at first is a good idea MLB should consider.
I don’t really understand, again, what problem is being solved by such a rule. Yes, a 17-inning game is hard on a pitching staff and it is inconvenient to the spectators, but how often does this happen? That’s a rhetorical question; it’s very rare.
So the Reds and Brandon Phillips each got their wish. And apparently the Reds only have to pay $14M of his remaining $15M. And the guys they got back are apparently nothing special. Not that Phillips is really worth anything special, but it sure feels a deal just for the sake of making a deal.
As for the runner on 2nd base in extra innings, I agree with opinions already posted. But to be honest, I could live with it if the rule is effective in the top of the 19th.
There are probably other ways to increase the odds of scoring, like making it four outs in extra innings. Or limiting the defense to two outfielders.
Or, just leave it the fuck alone.
On average, just under 10% of all games go to extra innings. This percentage hasn’t changed very much in over a century. In fact, if anything, the general trend has been towards slightly fewer extra-inning games, according to this Hardball Times article.
I just downloaded the Retrosheet stats for 2016. Of the 2428 regular-season games played last year, 185 went to extra innings. Of those, 72 were decided by the end of the 10th inning, and another 49 by the end of the 11th. So, about 65 games out of 2428, or under 3 percent, lasted more than 11 innings.
Is this really a problem that needs fixing?
Fucking rule changes. Just stop it!
While you’re at it, dump the DH, lights at Wrigley and beer that costs more than a buck.
In real news, the Dodgers resign Chase Utley to a 1 year deal as a back-up 2nd baseman, pinch-hitter and general good guy.
At least it wasn’t the newly-signed Travis Wood.
MLB Is Reportedly Introducing An Automatic Intentional Walk. - If true, I will now only attend Little League games… Or maybe only T-Ball.