bizaff

Yes, fair enough.. I probably overstate when I say baseball could be more accurate. I think it's even a little more complex - the strike zone in 3 dimensions is made up of 7 planes - 5 being the outline of the plate projected up and down, and then the 2 heights. The point I get at is that tracking a pitch as it comes in, along with lining up on either the inside or outside corner which forces an ump to basically "guess" at the other corner, and paying attention to everything else in the at-bat, and filtering OUT framing.. I just don't think it's worth placing that trust in a human anymore when much more conclusively objective and correct options exist. Trying to think how this would work in practice.. once the heights of the strike zone are set, could a tone simply sound in an earpiece if the ball crosses any part of the zone? Then the ump can use that to signal ball and strike. Ok, I'll stop hijacking now.

There may be no visible line the ball touches, but the technology is very well within our grasp to call correct balls and strikes with MUCH greater accuracy than the human eye. The tennis technology claims accuracy within 2.6mm, or 1/10th of an inch. I see no reason to think baseball would be less accurate - one could claim even more accurate. The strike zone is a well defined 3 dimensional solid that cameras can track. Yes, it's slightly different per batter, but it's not like that can't be adjusted for. You're right, all sports to involve an adjustment to officials, but this particular issue can be cured.

Heh, that's about it. Veteran play by Mauer - give the defense the option to hand you a run - they obliged

Normally I can see them but this one didn't work for some reason.

Is there any video of the Mauer baserunning thing in the 8th? I was listening on the radio when it happened but I want to see it.

I came to this thread to see if anyone else thought this too. I tuned in specifically this series to hear how he would do. I will continue to tune in specifically to series he does for his insight. I'm quite impressed.

I can't remember where I found this link now, but it makes the case Rodney didn't make a bad pitch. I agree. The results don't support it, but that happens. https://imgur.com/a/YoSn7bC I'm not thrilled with the Rodney experience, but in this game he pitched pretty well, all things considered.

I'm still scratching my head at all this. On the surface it just seems like a mistake, but I can't believe it's that simple. Could it be a calculated gamble that they thought they might have more overall depth if the other teams return their Rule 5 picks? And the Twins picked a Rule 5 just to cover the short term loss in depth? The pitchers the Twins didn't protect don't fit into the new pitching approach? If they return their Rule 5 picks, do we really want them back? Are those players developing at another team's expense? I just don't understand. I'd like to understand the thought process.

Originally, I thought the Twins being upset at the bunt was pretty silly, then I read this. What if LaMarre steals when he's not being held on? I'm guessing a lot of Orioles are going to be pretty upset, and I understand why. I'm not a big fan of the unwritten rules, and I don't really support them, but I totally get where Dozier's coming from in context of not holding LaMarre on. I'm not saying I agree with him, but I get it.

The owners are taking pretty much all of the risk. It sure doesn't seem like much of a risk based on how revenues have been increasing over the last couple of decades, but really they're the ones in for hundreds of millions of dollars. If people decide to stop watching (which they probably won't.. but they could), how much would owners lose? If anyone really ISN'T taking a financial risk, it's the players. That being said, I would still like to see more money go to non-owners, specifically minor leaguers and other staff. Not sure how to deal with how much players should get. I do scratch my head when someone makes $30MM a year playing baseball and wonder if that's right. I suppose that's what the CBAs tend to even out over the long term. For all the metrics that baseball operations are digging into, I'd be very interested to see the metrics on business side - how to advertise, how much to spend on players, how much to charge for a beer.. what drives the baseball decisions? Maximizing profit over the long term?

And today I search for 20 seconds and find it. My post in http://twinsdaily.com/blog/536/entry-9070-warne-when-everyone-is-healthy-whats-the-ideal-twins-lineup/ showed what it would be like late last year.. vs Lefties RF Grossman (OBP .402, OPS .732) CF Buxton(OBP .398, OPS .868) 1B Mauer(OBP .376, OPS .747) 2B Dozier(OBP .440, OPS 1.039) 3B Sano(OBP .395, OPS 1.011) DH Escobar (OBP .346, OPS .796) LF Rosario (OBP .299, OPS .715) C Castro (OBP .337, OPS .709) SS Polanco (OBP .287, OPS .682) vs Righties 1B Mauer (OBP .385, OPS .813) DH Grossman (OBP .350, OPS .740) 3B Sano (OBP .343, OPS .826) RF Kepler (OBP .348, OPS .855) LF Rosario (OBP .336, OPS .856) CF Buxton (OBP .290, OPS .684) 2B Dozier (OBP .325, OPS .774) C Gimenez (OBP .353, OPS .693) SS Polanco (OBP .316, OPS .733) Maybe I'll put one together for the current roster based on last year's numbers..

This is the article I keep going back to - https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/3/17/795946/optimizing-your-lineup-by I tried putting together lefty and righty lineups based pretty strictly on this (can't find the post now) and it looked a little weird

I posted this a while ago in another thread (http://twinsdaily.com/topic/26786-automate-the-strike-zone/): For the sake of example, more on the set height/size strike zone: The strike zone of Jose Altuve (5ft 5 in) is smaller than that of Jon Rauch (6ft 11 in) - that's an 18 inch spread.If you center the zone between those two (which isn't average, but it's the probably the best case for batters), a player is up to 9 inches away from the average zone.They don't need to adjust that whole height, since you're only taking the area between the knees and armpits.. let's say that's half (in reality it's worse as it's not at the waist, it's at the armpits and knees).A tall/short player needs to adjust their swing vertically up to 4 inches to deal with a batter-independent strike zone.That seems pretty significant.That moves the strike zone from the knees down to the shins, or the armpits up to the shoulders. Now the pitchers - assume the strike zone is as it is today.If a pitcher releases around 55 feet from home plate and has to adjust 4 inches for different players, they need to adjust the angle of the delivered pitch by about half a degree.That's a pretty tiny adjustment.They need to deal with wind which already affects it in that neighborhood (best source I could find - https://jmcdonaldmedia.com/2011/03/18/how-does-weather-affect-baseball/), and they "calibrate" that out with warmup pitches every inning. A batter-independent strike zone would least affect an average sized batter, but would hamper anyone not of average size, far worse the less "average" the batter is.The adjustment a pitcher has to make today in a batter-dependent strike zone is half a degree, which they already do. I can't see a world I'd ever support a batter-independent strike zone.

I've seen this a few times in the past few months the idea of moving Dozier to 3rd. Isn't his arm why he didn't stick at short?

I think this gets tricky. The average regular at-bat is a "negative play", depending on how you define negative play. I've seen the charts that show you're worse off with 1 out -2- than 0 out 1-- and in general I agree with them. I just wonder if some of the advanced analytics (as in analytics that MLB teams pay for, not stuff we see) show that the bunt is the best possible play for a given batter against a given pitcher, given EV. I'm not sold they have it, but with all the statistics and being able to crunch big data, maybe they really do know more than we think they do. A sacrifice bunt is objectively better than a strikeout. I'm guessing a lot of these calls are much closer to even than we think they are. I do agree that there are WAY too many botched bunts.