gunnarthor
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Everything posted by gunnarthor
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What is Behind Pitcher's Increased Velocity The Last 10 Years?
gunnarthor replied to Doug Y's topic in Other Baseball
Better PEDs. -
Since they are so rare, why are we pushing for a rule change? If you want a Japanese version where double plays aren't broken up, fine. I think you're wrong but so what? Some people view things differently. There will probably be some minor wording change in the rules next year and sometime in the year something will happen where a runner is called out where the shortstop never even threw the ball b/c of interference and the internet will explode again as we all argue about the intent of the slide. It'll be fun and thought provoking.
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Yes, Massachusetts game! Thank you. I actually just finished reading about it on wikipedia. That sounds like a lot of fun to try at least once.
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http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/the-pre-integration-committee/ Obviously, Poz loves the HOF and he's done a pretty good job of pointing out the problems of baseball's racist history. He points out that 127 of the 217 players in the HOF played during the "pre-integration" era. So while we may complain that Jim Rice or Jack Morris or Tim Raines don't belong in the HOF, there sure are a lot of players in the HOF that they were better than.
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Actually, the main reason they slide is so they don't die. The short stop or second baseman can throw the ball through a runner and then both runners would be out. Cal Ripkin was great at that. The obvious reason for the take out slide is to prevent a second out (as opposed to your other instances). If you want MLB to adopt a Japanese version, fine. That's what you'd like. I think that would be boring but to each his own. This is off topic but when baseball was being created their were a lot of different rules and versions and one version - I believe it was the Boston version - allowed runners to be hit with the ball (it was a softer one) while running the bases to get the out. Obviously that didn't end up being the version we played with but I read a fun story (maybe by Jim Caple?) who played a game under those old rules.
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Really? http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/5248882/Steve-Harvey-Family-Feud-Shocked.jpg
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Without clicking on the link, I am sure that that article will express contempt for Utley's slide, bemoan the health of injured players and rip on dinosaurs whose opinions on the game don't matter.
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http://deadspin.com/replay-is-turning-baseball-into-football-and-i-hate-it-1736111661 Kind of a fun rant. KC runner was called out after his momentum slightly carried him off the bag for a brief second. "This isn’t really the kind of mistake instant replay was meant to rectify. There are certainly moments in which replay is a very good thing to have—determining if a home run really cleared the top of the fence or whether a ball is fair or foul come to mind—but the game is not served well when it’s used as a tool to reverse plays based on a base runner’s momentum popping his foot off the bag for a fraction of a second. Bases are hard, and I bet that if you looked at every slide in super slo-mo, you’d see a lot of feet popping a few millimeters off the bag for a split second. When a guy who’s functionally safe—and would be called such in most circumstances—gets called out like this, it makes the game more arbitrary, not less."
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Houston gave up a lot to get him.
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Let's flip it. Why shouldn't we tolerate this? If we're actually interested in player safety, this is pretty low on the list. We should be advocating for fewer games - esp the 2 game series - and more off days. Or more drug testing. Or uniform stadiums so outfielders don't have to learn new stadium dimensions. But I don't think most complaints are really about player safety, per se. It's about attacking a way of playing the game that some people don't care about and using player safety as the instrument of change. I suppose any rule change will depend on the new rule. I don't want MLB turning into the Japanese leagues where take outs aren't done but if the players do collectively bargain for it, it should be accepted.
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Oh, right.
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I think it just goes to what you want in baseball. Utley was going to blow up the double play. He knew it before the play (which is why he had such a big second lead) and the Dodger's MI's should have known it. As fans we're always saying we want players to bust their asses and hustle. We want the guys who would tackle their own grandma to win a game. I don't like the idea that we (as fans up on high) suddenly moving the goalposts during a playoff game. I think you're focusing too much on the aftermath - Utley didn't intend the injury and it was a bit of a freak occurrence. (In fact, i was a bit surprised he himself didn't have a concussion). Now, b/c of the injury, we're getting these sermons that I loathe. 99% of the time, it's a hard slide. This was the 1% b/c of the bad throw. It happens. I'd rather we didn't make rule changes based on freak accidents that pissed off the NY market.
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I'm not sure the first part is that correct. Certainly, bat-flipping is seen differently depending on where you grew up but, outside of Japan, I think pretty much everyone does the take-out slide. Certainly, Eddie Rosario has taken it to heart already. But a look at what is acceptable and not acceptable in different parts of the world in baseball would actually be pretty interesting to see. (DHs, take out slides, fan behavior, treatment of the umpires, HBP, different codes - I'd read that book).
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Sounds like Cleveland is willing to move Danny Salazar or Carlos Carrasco for hitting help. I don't know a lot about their farm system but they didn't get much production from CF or RF this year. There are also rumors that they might shop Carlos Santana but would prefer to add a bat to help him. Michael Bourn is their CFer and he's been a trainwreck for them since he signed his contract. I think Danny Salazar is sort of what we're all hoping Jose Berrios becomes although he might have some durability concerns. But he's under team control for a long time yet.
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Well, I guess if it makes you feel better, you seem to be preaching to the choir.
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"Ugley" - cause his play was ugly. Cute.
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I very much enjoyed Mr. Turbow's book on the Baseball Codes and thought his views on it were worth sharing, even if I generally disagree with him on this one. It also has a lot of other slides for comparison. Hello, Hal McRae. http://thebaseballcodes.com/2015/10/12/sanity-vs-reality-on-the-basepaths-time-to-embrace-the-new-school/ And this has developed into two issues - 1) should this kind of slide be legal? (I think yes) and 2) should Utley have been suspended (I think no). I think you could think the opposite of me on #1 and still think Utley should not be suspended, as Turbow does.
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I couldn't disagree more with either of this sentences. They are both so wrong it actually makes my head spin that anyone can watch baseball and think like this. But this is just going to end up more of the BS that we have in the unwritten rules thread so it's not worth talking about it. At the end of the day, it's likely that Utley's slide won the game for the Dodgers which is why it was the right play.
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I'm not so sure. I'm sure every year a player or two get banged up at slides into second (that are clean or dirty depending on the fan watching) but injuries like this are pretty rare. I think earlier this year the Royals got ticked off at the Blue Jays over something similar and we got a bunch of sky is falling comments then, too. But real injuries like Tejada got are pretty rare.
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Because it's NL baseball, I didn't watch it. It's boring. And I read all this about Utley and thought, man, this must be the worst thing ever. It wasn't. He shouldn't have been suspended. It wasn't a dirty play and the rules don't need to be changed. The second baseman made a bad feed and the short stop didn't protect himself. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/11493214/v521658783/dodgers-chase-utleys-slide-injures-mets-ruben-tejada Bottom of the 7th, one out and down a run and people think Utley should go in soft? He did what hundreds of players - Michael Cuddyer especially - have done a thousand times. Once every four or five years, a player gets hurt. There's no need to get up on soapboxes and cry about the destruction of a beautiful game.
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With Sano playing Third Base in winter ball, I think the Twins are clearly thinking about moving Plouffe. I would expect that the Twins are watching Sano and deciding whether or not he can play third. If he gets hurt or his hamstring tightens up, they won't risk it and Plouffe stays. If they think he can, they'll move Plouffe for a prospect or two. I do think Plouffe has some solid trade value and some good teams are looking for a guy at the hot corner.
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I think his cost is still pretty high. A year ago, they'd never consider trading him. If they did move him, they'd start by asking for Buxton.
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WARNE: A Eulogy For The 2015 Minnesota Twins
gunnarthor replied to Brandon Warne's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I do think some team will pay him more based on defense than other teams will. I'd love to have him (and I think defensive stats aren't good - which isn't the same as saying defense isn't important). But how you view stats is really going to affect how you view Heyward. -
WARNE: A Eulogy For The 2015 Minnesota Twins
gunnarthor replied to Brandon Warne's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Heyward is interesting. His on-base skills are pretty awesome (even though they probably fall a bit going from the NL to AL). But he's going to get paid by someone based on defensive valuations and that team better hope they are measuring defense accurately. This article from the WSJ suggests they aren't. "Inside-Edge, a baseball analytics company that provides data to major-league teams, brings a big-data approach to scouting. Instead of just using a spray chart to calculate a player’s defensive value, their scouts watch every single play from every single team—twice. And by taking positioning into account in grading the difficulty of plays, Inside-Edge scouts not only found that the range of many players was being overstated, but so too was the overall importance of defense in preventing runs. The major revelation: The quality of a fielder doesn’t matter on most plays. Inside-Edge partner Kenny Kendrena says 24% of plays are almost always hits and 62% are almost always outs. The remaining plays where defenders can really distinguish themselves are so infrequent, he said, that the success in converting them can distort a fielder’s true skill." We saw this play out a lot this year with the Hunter debate, since the defensive stats hated him. Now the stats love Heyward. If they are right, Heyward is a consistent 6+ WAR player. If not, he's a 4 WAR player. That's still a really good player but not a guy who is going to turn your team around. -
http://www.federalbaseball.com/2015/10/6/9460313/washington-nationals-fire-matt-williams-what-theyre-saying Tons of links on it but that's from the Nats SBNation page. Obviously, the Nats were a pretty common pick to make the WS this year yet they finished with the same record as the Twins. They had a lot of injuries and their starting pitching failed to meet expectations. Much of the blame has been put on Williams. Articles reported that he lost his clubhouse and his in-game managing was dubious, to say the least. Joe Posnanski had an article about how Williams is getting too much of the blame (can't find the link, sorry) and the main problems were the starting pitchers underperforming. That wasn't to suggest Williams was blameless and I do think the ability to keep a clubhouse intact is a much more important ability than we normally give it credit for. Apparently, Williams was pretty rigid in his thinking - reports said that Williams would plan out ST schedules months in advance but lacked the ability to change his plans despite what was happening. The common example has been showing his bad bullpen use but it also seemed that he was unable to get players to buy into his programs and it got worse as the season went along. But Black seems to be the leading candidate to replace him.
