Game Thread Twins vs Orioles 12:10pm cdt 5/26/2021 ad

[wsnydes]

I'll take the sweep, but once again, that was far more interesting at the end then it needed to be.

 

This coming from a guy who just spent the last handful of comments commenting on how there's no action and the game has become boring...

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, AceWrigley said:

We don't have a closer, its just the last man throwing.

Coincidentally, the last man throwing also appears to be the last person to say "NOT IT" when the bullpen phone rings in the eighth inning.

[jimbo92107]

That reminds me...go to Costco, pick up some chicken. 

[SwainZag]

Not to be too optimistic as the O's are terrible.....but that's 6 outta 7

[AceWrigley]

20-29 looks so much better than 19-30.

[Cap'n Piranha]

38 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

This isn't a trend that will likely cycle out of fashion, though... it's an inherent change to the strength and advantage of certain players. You can't stop pitchers from throwing triple digit heat and velocity has been on an upward trajectory every year for the past... 20 years? 30 years?

And MLB literally did something about the homeruns... they changed the ball, just as they've done many times throughout baseball history.

The shift was basically non-existent just ten years ago, excepting a few specific players in history (Williams, Ortiz). I see no reason not to rule it out of existence entirely, I don't really care if it has been done before or not. I see MLB's stubbornness about history a bug, not a feature.

When everyone throws harder, it will be easier to adjust to.  It's why the changeup is an effective pitch.  There is a limit to how fast humans can throw a baseball.  This is self-fixing.

So we had too many homeruns, the league intervened to change the game, which made the game worse...and your solution is to ask the league to intervene again?

And it will become non-existent again, if given time.  Players will adapt to hit the other way.  They'll stop selling out for power and go for contact instead.

 

None of this is to say I'm opposed to rule changes--I actually think they make a lot of sense.  I simply think we need to be careful about what we decide to change, as every change will undoubtedly have unintended consequences.

[bighat]

1 minute ago, SwainZag said:

Not to be too optimistic as the O's are terrible.....but that's 6 outta 7

KC will be a much more realistic litmus test for this team.

We'll know if the Twins resurgence is for real if they can go 2-and-1 over the weekend.

[German zwilling]

Just now, AceWrigley said:

20-29 looks so much better than 19-30.

I would rather say 19-30 looks even worse than 20-29...

[sampleSizeOfOne]

59 minutes ago, wavedog said:

OK, Sano - just a soft single - make contact and go the other way

Well done.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

When everyone throws harder, it will be easier to adjust to.  It's why the changeup is an effective pitch.  There is a limit to how fast humans can throw a baseball.  This is self-fixing.

So we had too many homeruns, the league intervened to change the game, which made the game worse...and your solution is to ask the league to intervene again?

And it will become non-existent again, if given time.  Players will adapt to hit the other way.  They'll stop selling out for power and go for contact instead.

None of this is to say I'm opposed to rule changes--I actually think they make a lot of sense.  I simply think we need to be careful about what we decide to change, as every change will undoubtedly have unintended consequences.

Changes absolutely have unintended consequences, the deadened ball is proof of that. MLB thought "homers will turn into doubles" but didn't seem to use data to show that home runs and doubles aren't the same batted ball profiles. Instead, homers turn into fly ball outs.

I'm not in favor of making changes willy-nilly but things like the shift aren't going to drastically impact the game either direction... but it does move the needle in an undesirable direction, if only slightly (particularly against LHB). And it's hard to argue there will be a real negative consequence to eliminating it, as it simply means baseball will return just a little back to the way it was played until 2015 or so.

[wsnydes]

10 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

When everyone throws harder, it will be easier to adjust to.  It's why the changeup is an effective pitch.  There is a limit to how fast humans can throw a baseball.  This is self-fixing.

So we had too many homeruns, the league intervened to change the game, which made the game worse...and your solution is to ask the league to intervene again?

And it will become non-existent again, if given time.  Players will adapt to hit the other way.  They'll stop selling out for power and go for contact instead.

 

None of this is to say I'm opposed to rule changes--I actually think they make a lot of sense.  I simply think we need to be careful about what we decide to change, as every change will undoubtedly have unintended consequences.

As odd as it is for me to say, I'd actually argue that the league not intervening earlier is how we got here in the first place.  They didn't do anything when the extreme shifts became en vogue.  The game evolved naturally by hitting over the shift.  The added emphasis on launch angles, exit velo and HRs turned the game into what it is now.  And it is true that once the league finally did intervene, they made it worse.  The pitching evolution isn't much different, except the league hasn't stepped in yet.

I was hoping that the game would evolve to hit opposite the shift, but that clearly didn't happen.  I'm not convinced that it will at this point.  I like that the league tests new rules in the minors to see the real world impacts of them.  That's the way it should be.  They didn't do that with deadened baseball and see what happened.  

[sampleSizeOfOne]

 

Sorry i'm a little late with this...

 

But i figured it was apropos.

 

Thank you, xkcd.