You know, I’ll admit I’m obviously a fogey, but if you’d ever tried an infield shift in the 60s all your opponents would happily take advantage of the extra (at least, WAG) .100 increase in batting average. Because they knew how. There’s at least two dozen NLB batters who ought to beat the shift, and don’t care, or don’t know how. Drives me crazy.
I’m actually not convinced that’s true. Many sluggers in the past were just as extreme pull hitters as a lot of guys today. It wasn’t tried because the data wasn’t there. People knew Mel Ott was a pull hitter, but didn’t have numbers in front of them to defend the strategy. Harmon Killebrew was an extreme pull hitter, Ted Williams of course was, and heck Babe Ruth was a pull hitter.
It’s easy to say they should just punch the ball the other way, but in practice that’s not usually very smart. A guy doesn’t really lose THAT many hits to the shift, but changing the way you hit can totally screw you up. When a succession of great big sons of bitches are throwing 96-MPH sliders at you that bend like frisbees, sticking with what you know works is perhaps the best course of action.
Well, I lost this bet. Dodgers only hit 6 home runs over the weekend but scored 29 runs over the three games. I’m still concerned that they’re allowing 4.8 runs per game. The defense needs to improve if we’re going to survive the inevitable slump in the offence.
It’s really just the bullpen, isn’t it? (Assuming we aren’t counting Kíke’s mental blunder last night.) You figure that if we can get Kershaw and Hill back healthy and performing at decent levels, the bullpen automatically improves by leaps and bounds with Urias (and Stripling, I assume) back in it. My guess and hope is that the team ERA drops dramatically then, and Joe Kelly can be held to one-out or mop-up situations until he gets his act together again.
Failure to do so (by Ted Williams) might have helped cost the Red Sox the 1946 World Series.
Williams got advice from Paul Waner later in his career that supposedly helped him defeat the shift without altering his swing that much.
Also if hitters had half-decent bunting skills they could get enough cheap hits to neutralize shifts. Maybe that’s just not manly enough. :dubious:
In the entire seven game series, Williams only grounded out to a middle infielder on the right side of the infield three times. I don’t know if the shift cost him any outs at all. What is noteworthy is that he hit no homers and popped out a lot.
It’s much, much harder than it looks to bunt for a hit, especially if you aren’t very fast. If you bunt it a little too softly the catcher throws you out. A little too hard, the third baseman throws you out. A little too far left, it’s a foul ball and you give away the plan. Too far right, the pitcher throws you out. It requires an excellent bunt - not easy against an MLB pitcher - which is way more difficult than one might think, and the upside is a single. No major league hitter is turning down free hits. They aren’t free.
You think maybe he was overcompensating and trying to hit balls in the air too much?
It probably gets less difficult if the third baseman is shifted way over to short and you have respectable bunting skills.
The latter is the problem, plus the perception that small ball is unworthy and doesn’t look good on the stat sheet, unless you count scoring runs (and think the only acceptable way to do that is hit occasional home runs amid a slew of strikeouts).
yeahh im thinking june and maybe julys gonna be rough unless the bats ate still juiced …… although if these double digit games keep going I wonder when the complaining about the “changed bats and balls” is gonna begin ?
Here’s kind of a nice moment. Manny Machado, representing the go ahead run, is facing flame-throwing Cardinals reliever Taylor Hicks. It’s a pretty hard fought at bat, with Hicks alternating between 101 and 85 mph pitches and getting good movement, and Machado fouling off several pitches. It goes to a full count. Machado eventually chases one, striking out to end the inning.
He tips his helmet to Hicks.
Of course, it’s Jordan Hicks. Not Taylor Hicks the singer. :smack:.
I’ve been away too long…
Also Machado was the tying run, not the go-ahead run. :smack:
Perhaps this 538 article by Nate Silver
The Mariners are supposedly in a rebuilding year, yet they’re batting lights out and have the best record in MLB. They’re averaging 8 runs/game (although giving up 5) and have the most HRs in the majors. There’s only one regular starter who’s batting less than .250 and that’s Jay Bruce, who usually bats cleanup! Their bullpen is probably the weakest part of their game but so far they’ve usually been able to give them enough of a lead that they still win.
Everyone says they’re bound to come back to earth some time, but I’m going to enjoy the run while it lasts.
I think the simplest explanation is that he had a bad week against a terrific pitching staff. I don’t think Ted Williams was dumb enough to stop trying to hit home runs.
Lots of Hall of Famers didn’t play all that well in the World Series.
High batting averages and on base percentages look rather terrific on the stat sheet. On base percentage is the first thing they look at nowadays.
Joe Kelly seems broken to me. Which is sad, sort of. But he needs some time to not play anymore.
I’m starting to wonder if Kike is broken, too. Two very bad mental miscues in consecutive games.
And, of course, just when it was beginning to look like the rotation was too good to be true, Ryu goes down again. <sigh>
I don’t know what to do about Joe Kelly. Maybe a stint in the minors to get him back some confidence, or whatever it is he’s missing?
Did the Dodgers give the closing job to Kelly based entirely on the World Series? Do they have an analytics group? Did anyone maybe just check baseball-reference.com? His career WHIP is 1.394. Were they expecting a lights out, dominant reliever? Hey, Kimbrel is still available.
They still have Kenley Jansen, they don’t need a closer they just need a new set up guy.
If we’re talking about broken players we have to talk about Chris Davis, right?
0 for his last 49, a major league record (and counting) for a non-pitcher. In a sad but funny note, he blew by the old record with an 0-for-5 night in a game in which his teammates went 15 for 32 with two home runs, so it’s not like they were being blown away by a Koufaxesque perrformance.
This year 0 for 28 with 15 strikeouts.
And that coming off his 2018 season, one of the worst a major league player has ever had.
It’s hard not to think there is something physically wrong with him, or maybe that he has a hitter’s version of Steve Blass Disease. Some guys are bad, and some slump, but Davis is setting new standards of MLB ineptitude. If you aren’t an Orioles fan you probably have never in your life seen a player this bad.
I mean, what’s wrong with him? Why are the Orioles still putting him out there? What the hell is going on?
I can’t even wrap my head around someone like Chris Davis going 0 for 49. It’s insane.
My bad. I kept hearing that Kelly blew another game and assumed he was closing.
Are they letting Chris Davis take his Adderall?
Davis is not taking Adderall, he’s now on Vyvance, also an ADD med, generally considered to have a lot of advantages over Adderall.