Remember that Players weekend with the silly nicknames on the jerseys? Interesting how the Cubs are showing them on Instagram tonight. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the upcoming holiday shopping season.
The pitching is absolutely better. There’s just no doubt about it, IMHO. Ludicrously better, and that is, to my mind, clearly (at least in part) the doing of sabermetrics.
The quality of baseball being played today, in terms of skill level, is the highest it’s ever been. To my eyes, baseball players today are visibly, obviously better than they were, say, in the 1980s. Whether you like the playstyle - high strikeouts, home runs, a moderate amount of basestealing, excellent relief pitching but less emphasis on starters - is another matter. Personally, I am not a fan of this many strikeouts, but I love defensive shifts. But the talent level is sky high, and the athleticism the best it has ever been. They’re just sensational.
I’m not sure that the talent rate is any higher but the way pitchers are taught to pitch is different. Pitchers today are required to throw as hard as possible from the get go. Sure there are more strikeours, but there are also more pitcher injuries. Also there are fitness and diet improvements.
Bolding mine.
I haven’t been participating much in the baseball threads lately, and it’s because my interest in baseball is lower than I can remember in…well, since about 1969, when I was eight, the first (full) season I paid attention. It’s very weird, because baseball has been such an important part of my life for so much of my life. But it’s just not on my radar in the way it used to be.
There are a number of reasons for my waning interest, but one of the big ones is certainly the astonishing number of strikeouts. I don’t have any moral objection to strikeouts–I don’t go around saying “Well, you know, Player from the Early Seventies only struck out three times in May of 1974”–but damn they’re boring. I really miss balls being, you know, put into play.
And when I read the comment above, “athleticism is the best it has ever been”–it kind of clicked. The way the game is structured these days we have less opportunity to see that athleticism at work than we used to. We live in an era when players are capable of amazing feats in the field, feats that just weren’t so common back when I was a boy, and yet all those Ks remove hundreds and hundreds of opportunities to showcase these talents. --Obviously Kevin Kiermaier and Andrelton Simmons and the rest still can and do make great plays; but there’s no question that tremendous athleticism is most evident on defense, and the style of play limits those opportunities. From where I sit, at least, it’s unfortunate.
I think there is one rule change which would be almost unobservable to most fans that might help. Instead of requiring a pitcher to face one batter (or retire the side or be injured) before being replace, make him face two batters. That would remove those left-handed specialists (I don’t recall any right-handed specialists). I find those back-to-back changes most annoying.
I’d agree. I would guess that the difference between now and 30-40 years ago is about five plays in the field, between both teams, or roughly one play every two innings between both teams. That’s quite a lot, actually.
It also actually reduces the importance of fielding. At least, in theory. Of course guys like Andrelton Simmons are still wildly valuable, and since fielding is much better understood now, I think it might be true (without looking it up) that at least for now fielding is having as much of an impact as it ever did. But if strikeouts keep increasing, it HAS to become less valuable, there’s no way around that. If everyone strikes out the shortstop has very little to do - and I don’t think that is good for baseball as an entertainment product.
It’s not hard to predict the immediate future. Teams are paying attention to the fact that a lot, if not most, starters get hit hard the third time through the batting order. Combine shorter starts with a strategy like Tampa Bay’s “opening” pitcher, and we’re looking at even more pitching changes. Pitchers will be expected to get a fewer number of outs so they’ll be able to expend their arsenal quicker (higher velocity fastballs, nastier sliders.) That should translate to even more strikeouts. Woo-hoo.
There is a theoretical upper limit to the number of strikeouts there can be. I am not sure we’ve reached it.
I think a likely future innovation will be fewer mid-inning pitching changes, and more pre-planned assignments, like Tim will pitch innings 1-2, Miguel will do 3-4, Kevin will do 5-6, etc. Which would slice a few minutes off games, so that would be okay.
Unless the distance between the pitching rubber and home plate is increased, I don’t see any way strikeout rates will ever return anywhere near what they were 5+ years ago. The strike zone would have to be expanded a bit to accommodate that without a spike in walks.
I grew up in the '90s and the pitching committee the 2011 Cardinals team often used in the playoffs was foreign to me and drew my ire because I didn’t understand it at the time. I still think more pitchers used on average makes the game feel more watered down. It’s at a point where bullpen usage of every individual playoff series would be more interesting if there were no off days. Of course, who would want to see more #5 starters and fewer games started by aces in the playoffs…
Do you think it would play out that way? Or would it be: Tim gets in a jam in the 2nd, so they bring Miguel. Poor Miguel loads the bases with one out in the 4th, so in comes Kevin. Kevin can’t get out of the 5th, so…
I just looked at the MLB totals and it’s scary. Strikeouts eclipsed hits for the first time ever, and it’s an aggressive trend. Check out 15 years ago compared to today:
2018
Hits: 41,018
SOs: 41,207
2003
Hits: 44.057
SOs: 30,801
That’s pretty much a crisis for the game, in my book. Interestingly, walks were about the same, with only 200 more in 2018 than 2003.
That’s another thing that slows down the game. Striking out more batters takes more pitches. It seems like a lot of batters just stand there until it’s a full count.
I dunno. For planning purposes, it would make sense to assign a number of pitchers to certain innings and have a couple of guys ready to go if, in fact, Miguel gets the shit kicked out of him and cannot get out of the fourth.
Suppose you carry 12 pitchers; you could assign three men to pitch three innings of each game in a three game rotation, with an additional three pitchers as your stoppers in case someone gets his ass handed to him or you need pitchers in extra innings. It’s no more taxing than being a traditional starter and no one would ever pitch three times through the order, except maybe once in a blue moon.
The numbers are truly shocking. What would have been a really impressive strikeout rate for a pitcher 30 years ago is now normal. Tom Seaver, who could strike out a man or two, struck out 6.8 men per nine innings. Today that is the ratio put up by a control artist. In 1984, Dwight Gooden set an all time major league record when he struck out 11.4 men per nine innings. That season isn’t even in the top twenty anymore, topped by such all time greats as Robbie Ray.
Nolan Ryan struck out 9.5 men per nine innings and when he retired was so far above everyone else in baseball history (except Sandy Koufax, who, of course, never had a decline phase) it was weird. Now he’s tenth. Erik Bedard, if you remember him, struck out more men per nine innings than Steve Carlton. Bud Norris has a higher strikeout rate than Goose Gossage.
I don’t know how they can fix this.
Buster Olney tweets “informed speculation” that Machado goes to Philly and Harper stays with the Nats. Will be interesting to see what the numbers are. I think if Harper really does stay in Washington, it means he’s not getting the 350M or 400M that Scott Boras thought he would.
Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano traded to the Mets for Jay Bruce and prospects.
It looks like a pretty solid deal. Diaz is a very good pickup but Cano will be bad salary soon enough, he is winding down. But if they’re lucky it will only be 2 bad years and 2 very good years up front.
Mets gave up: Jay Bruce, Anthony Swarzak, 1st round picks Jarred Kelenic & Justin Dunn, and righty pitcher Gerson Bautista. None of the kids are close to ready, so it has the chance to work out well for the Mets.
The only way this deal makes sense for the Mets is if they’re gearing up for one big push before loaded contracts come due for their top starting pitchers (or injury hits).
Otherwise they’ll be handing over $$$ to an ineffective Cano on top of the not-yet-ended Bonilla payments (due to end in 2035).
And I think they’ll still be stuck paying David Wright for the next two years of his (non) retirement.
But don’t fret Mets fans - Tim Tebow is bound to be called up from Triple A next year to save the day!
The odds that Cano will be worth his salary to the Mets over all five years remaining probably aren’t one in a hundred. Almost all hitters on huge long term contracts are terrible deals; it’s just a fact. Cano in Seattle was a huge exception to the rule, but he’s five years older now. This deal will only work for New York if Cano helps them win a championship in 2019, and Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz do not turn a 77 win team into a champion.
Edwin Diaz was terrific last year. He also pitched just 73 innings. How many trades for relief aces have ever resulted in championships? Ever? I can think of one.
Didn’t it just help the Cubs break their small dry spell (2016)? The Chapman trade would appear to have helped them a lot. Especially getting past the Giants to move on.
But yes, I think the Mets will be lucky to get 2 good years from Cano before it really goes south. Knowing the Mets track record, he will lose his skills and ability this year.
Maybe. Chapman certainly made no difference in the regular season - he pitched great but they won the division by three weeks - and he was pretty ordinary in the playoffs.
The one I had in mind was Bruce Sutter in 1982, granting the Cardinals traded before him prior to 1981. Andrew Miller was incredible for Cleveland in 2016, and while they just came up short in the World Series, maybe they don’t get there without him; he was MVP of the ALCS and brilliant in the ALDS, too.
Giving up a lot for a relief pitcher, either in trade value or a big buck contract, is one of those moves that is so rarely useful it continues to amaze me that teams do it.
I tend to agree, I can see it as a late season move if you’re a serious contender and your closer has either gone down or stopped being any good. This is not a move to put the Mets over the top, but maybe, just maybe it is one piece of the puzzle before the clock runs out on their starters.
As a Met fan I hate this trade and really just about everything about his off-season thus far. There are plenty of 2b and closers on the market that there is no need to trade prospects to acquire them. 2nd basemen do not age well and it isn’t clear Cano can really still play 2nd anyway. And this is year one of five. Mets have a decent enough 2nd baseman anyway, so Cano isn’t that much of an upgrade even in the short-term. Diaz is great, but counting on long term success of closers is always risky business. Kelenic in particular is a first round pick who has looked great early on and has the highest upside in the system, and the type of guy the Mets can’t be trading, at least not for this.
And don’t get me started on the Thor rumors…