Are you watching, Bob? It just happened again. Judge got hit by a Gleyber Torres grounder.
Aroldis’ fastball was notably slow all spring, and has been the topic of a lot of closer watches on fantasy baseball sites. He touched 100 yesterday, so it looks like he’s picking up speed. I think he still has a lot left in the tank, but is certainly in the tail end of a great run.
The Royals’ offense is looking really good - they have a lot of good pieces with a ton of potential. And it’s looking like those pieces will be on the optimistic side of the projections. But the bullpen is disastrous - possibly even worse than last year. I think it’d be a big mistake to go out and trade for a bunch of pieces, or even pay for Kimbrel - but good God this squad is the dregs.
Nationals beat the Mets, 4-0. The season isn’t decided in a week.
I did! Never saw it happen once in well over 50 years watching baseball, then twice in one week!
So the Dodgers are averaging 2.5 homeruns per game coming into their first trip to Coors field. The weather is supposed to be nice with maybe some showers all weekend. I think the weekend over under should stay at 7.5 homeruns but I’d bet the over.
The Dodgers are averaging 2.5 home runs a game, and the Astros aren’t even averaging 2 runs per game. 160 million a year doesn’t buy what it used to. And here I thought it’d be the 3/5 of the starting rotation getting replaced that might be a problem. That’s pretty impressive for the Dodgers though.
As dale wrote just above, the season isn’t decided in a week.
Only 10? Amateurs.
– Mets fan
We’re up to 11 now, but yes, conceded.
The Cubs are off to an ugly 1-5 start, and their pitching has been atrocious so far: they currently have seven pitchers whose ERAs are above 8.
And, now, they play three against the Brewers, who are 6-1. Cubs fans around here are already getting anxious.
Hey they’ve already won the World Series three times in the past 112 seasons. They need to be patient.
So far this year,
- Strikeouts are 14% more common than hits. There is more than a strikeout per inning.
- Strikeouts are 2.5 times more common than walks, which is an extremely high ratio.
- MLB teams are averaging about one stolen base every two games.
This is just not great baseball.
The Cubs will stagger home from Milwaukee after having opened their season with nine straight games on the road. I can’t remember ever seeing any team begin the season with such a long road trip, and it sure hasn’t done them any favors. After their first six games, they are an amazing 5 1/2 games behind the Brewers, and could very well be 8 1/2 come Monday morning.
How does this compare to previous seasons?
The rate of strikeouts, strikeouts to hits, and the strikeout-to-walk ratio are unprecedented in major league history. The strikeout rate is up 7% from last year and last year was the highest it had ever been. Those numbers are much higher even than in 1968, the Year of the Pitcher.
In 1968, BOB GIBSON - the guy with the 1.12 ERA - did not strike out as many men per nine innings as the average major league pitcher does today. Not even close.
The stolen base total is nowhere near as low as it was back in the 1930s or 1950s where there pretty much wasn’t any basestealing, but it’s not very high.
These are the real problems facing the sport, more so than pace-of-play and overall game length. The games only seem interminable because nothing ever happens. The three true outcomes provide very little excitement on the basepaths.
Baseball is back to where it was 20 years ago in the total number of home runs: 5528 in 1999 and 5585 last year*. Unfortunately, batting averages and on-base percentage have cratered over the same period. And let’s not forget that there were more strikeouts than hits for the first time ever in 2018.
I don’t know the answer. I know MLB is experimenting with moving the pitching rubber back two feet in one of the independent minor leagues. It’s hard to imagine that wouldn’t screw up a generation of established MLB pitchers, but lowering the mound after 1968 didn’t lead to disaster.
- I came across a startling stat just now: the overall number home runs plummeted to 4186 in 2014. Three years later, in 2017, it peaked at 6105 (a 46% increase.)
I totally agree, Blank Slate. Since I am a fan of both hockey and baseball, this is the time of year when I am switching back and forth. In the past, I would click over to baseball and find I had missed something. Now, I click over and find that nothing has happened. If I actually watch a baseball game all the way through, it seems to be moving with the speed of grass growing. In the past it did seem that watching hockey made baseball slow down, but now it’s like everyone playing baseball is on quaaludes.
I used to think that MLB should stop tinkering with the game and just play ball. I don’t think that works any more. I don’t know what should be done but I think something needs to change.
Well, any speculations as to what’s been causing the changes noted by RickJay and Blank Slate? Is the way players are being selected, or incentivized, or trained, or coached, nowadays favoring certain aspects of the game over others?
Are hitters bulking up, or being encouraged to swing for the fences rather than just get on base, leading to more strikeouts?
Are pitchers pitching, or being utilized, in a different way, perhaps one that makes them more effective but less durable?
Are umpires calling games differently?
Pitchers are throwing faster and batters have gone over to swinging with an upwards arc to try for the home runs. Elevating leads to mode home runs and more strike outs.
Pitchers are throwing faster, and teams are changing pitchers more often (not just this year, it’s been a trend for years). Generally speaking, hitters are far more likely to get a hit against a pitcher on the second or third time that they face him during a game, and so, the current conventional wisdom is to limit that as much as possible – it’s now very common to pull a starter after he goes through the batting order twice, and the idea of a starter pitching into the late innings (unless he’s working a no-hitter) is virtually dead in MLB.
And, as What Exit? notes, increasing use of the defensive shift has made it increasingly difficult for many batters to get hits on ground balls. Hence, the focus on the “angle of attack” for batters’ swings, trying to get the ball in the air – this leads to home runs (or doubles off the wall, perhaps) if it’s successful, but not many other positive results.
Too late to edit: another factor in how teams use pitchers is their (admittedly imperfect) attempts to limit overusing and over-stressing the arms of their pitchers, especially their younger pitchers, and thus, trying to limit injuries.
Starting pitchers (especially those with any history of arm injuries) are often on strict pitch counts, which also leads to managers pulling starters earlier in games than they did a generation ago.