Baseball

And they're off . . .
Simple Minded

Re: Baseball

Post by Simple Minded »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Perhaps Harrison is forgetting to compensate for the rotation of the earth.
Maybe his batting coach was a Dao-ist.... and he misunderstood the lesson of "be the bat."
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:Josh Harrison of the Pittsburgh Pirates may have experienced something never before seen in major league baseball: in four consecutive at-bats, he was hit by a pitch.

Records for hit-by-pitches is a bit spotty when sussing out when they occurred in a game (or games as in this case), so it can't be said for certain; but it hasn't happened in the last 40 years and there is only one other recorded occurrence of a batter getting hit four times in the span of two games-- and that was in the mid 1920s and considering the first game was a rather wild extra-inning affair, the player's last at-bat was likely not when he got hit.

Getting hit by a pitching (and being rewarded first base) is a rarer occurrence than hitting a home run. But even so, some players, due to crowding the plate or diving into the strike zone, do get hit at higher clips. Brandon Guyer is the leading "hitman" among active players, he has been hit in 6.15% of his career at bats. That itself is unusual as it exponentially higher than the average which hovers under 1% of all at bats. But Guyer stands on the very border of the batter's box, straddling the line between uncomfortably close to the plate and technically (though seldom enforce) a violation of the rules. Harrison too stands rather close in, but his is more of dive "into&over" the plate that usually leaves him right on the line itself. Even then it has amounted to him getting hit in a little over 1% of his at-bats for his career.

So it was quite bit of random luck to be hit in 4 consecutive at bats; against two different teams, three different pitchers, all in the general spot of his lower left leg and none of it intentional.
its funny how peoples luck goes in bat and ball sports but this is one aspect of baseball that is completely different to cricket.

aiming at the body is encouraged because the main strike zone is behind the batsmans legs.

if you have enough skill and speed as a bowler to get away with it (and not get smashed out of the park) then aiming at their chest and head to scare them into making mistakes is a legitimate approach.

the only restriction is going for the head is limited to 2 out of every 6 deliveries.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Simple Minded wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Perhaps Harrison is forgetting to compensate for the rotation of the earth.
Maybe his batting coach was a Dao-ist.... and he misunderstood the lesson of "be the bat."
Maybe because of the way he was teaching it- players aren't so clever, saying, "let yourself become one with the ball" is a recipe for disaster. ;)
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Yankees are off unexpectedly to a scorching 17-9 start with a +45 run differential. (For those of you following who are not bat&ball game enthusiasts; the run differential doesn't count towards the record but is a decent measure on true talent of a team and will generally comport to what the final win-loss record over the full 162 game season.)

They trail the National League Washington Nationals by 1/2 a game for best record in baseball and they have the best run differential over all.

It is likely they will be falling back to earth a bit-- the starting rotation is not that great and has been showing signs of correction with poorer starts through the last two times through the rotation-- and the hitters, even the good ones, aren't all twice as good as the league average.

Right now they have a handful of hitters who are <150 +WRC [where +100 WRC is average], a starting rotation keeping them in games, and a true talent shut-down bullpen.

They do not need to play out of their minds the whole season, but a few more weeks of this and they could cruise at a mediocre .500% pace the rest of the way and right into the playoffs.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Yu Darvish & Masahario Tanaka's First MLB Meeting Was One for the Ages

It was quite a marvelous pitching match-up, though I'm not sure where it would rank on my own personal list.

This was only the 2nd game in a century where both starting pitchers allowed zero runs, held the opponents to under 3 hits and had over 9 strikeouts on the evening.

This was also the first time in Major League history where two Japanese starters squared up with neither allowing a run.

Both Darvish and Tanaka have not been the same top 20-world class type pitchers of years past. Both have suffered arm injuries and it has sapped them a bit; this year both have been inconsistent (Tanaka has been downright awful in several outings) but they seemed to pull it together for this game.

It was the fourth time in their careers that they have faced off but the first since moving to the Major Leagues.

In three games for the Nippon Professional League, Darvish won all three match-ups between the two by pitching ever so slightly better.

Neither guy lasted long enough to get the win in this one. Tanaka went one inning longer by going 8 innings to Darvish's 7, with all the runs scoring in the game starting in 9th inning.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

As for my personal favorite pitching matchup?

That's a real tough one to answer but two games come to mind, especially within their context.

The first in Game 5 of the 1996 World Series:

Andy Petite vs (now hall of famer) John Smoltz

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It was one of the most tense games I've ever seen. World Series, improbably tied two apiece after the Yankees got off to an awful start and lost the first two games; the game was so critical to handing the series to the Yankees.

The game was 1-0 and tense to the very final out; with a hobbled Paul O'Neill (who had an injured hamstring) barely making the catch for the final out.

It's a game that is worth seeing, if you have the approx 2 hours and 40 mins (give or take) to watch it.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

But the game which really pops out is almost perfect

This is one of the best pitched games I have ever seen, with two pitchers at very different parts of their career putting on quite a show.

It is only enhanced by the Boston-New York rivalry and the fact that David Cone, nearing the very end of his career was a New York City guy- he was a star pitcher and ace for both the Yankees and Mets right before he lost his stuff and steeply declined.

So it was a last hurrah sort of deal for him. And if I remember correctly, he takes a no-hitter fairly deep into this game.

Meanwhile, on the mound for New York was an in-his-prime Mike Mussina who will be going into the hall of fame sooner or later. He is one of the most unappreciated pitchers who was that dominate on the pitcher's mound.

The knock on him was that he was always the also-ran, the "almost" guy. He almost won the Cy Young Award; he almost won 20 games several times [he would not actually accomplish it until his final season in the big leagues]; he almost was the best pitcher in the league but just behind Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux; he almost pitched his team to a championship several times....

...and he almost pitched a perfect game on several separate occasions; taking a few into the ninth- in this game, he actually took a perfect game right up to the very last strike.

It was so disappointing to see him not get it but it was such a beautifully pitched game, I appreciate seeing it.

So you had one pitcher pitching a perfect game and another pitching a no-hitter in the biggest rivalry in the sport on a nationally televised game.

...and it would almost be remembered as one of the greatest pitched games ever if not for the fact that it happened about 9 days before September 11th, 2001.

If you want to see a great baseball game and a masterclass in pitching- watch this game:

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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

John Smoltz was known as a big game pitcher

but interestedly, the two biggest "big games" of his career ended up in loses.

Though I wouldn't attribute the loss in either to him. Both times he was ever barely outpitched. In the 1996 game I posted above and the very very very famous 1991 World Series Game 7 between the Twins and Braves.

That game went tied into extra innings in a best of seven series, so the winner ended up winning the championship [with at least one of the starters pitching into those extra innings].

Jack Morris outpitched a rookie (or maybe his second year?) John Smoltz in a game [and series] which is usually ranked among the best ever.

BT_MODis138
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

suddenly i want a collection of American League West caps.

Image
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Re: Baseball

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


Iran against Thailand .. 2017 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship



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.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Pro pulls off schoolyard trick

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

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“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Image

The Great Ohtani, for weeks all but assuredly to sign with the New York Yankees, have eliminated them from the list of landing spots. It's sent a shockwave through the baseball world (as everyone expected him to go to the Yankees) and the New York media (like above) is having a field day.

From hero to villain without even stepping foot in town. :)

The gossip is that Ohtani would now prefer not to play in a large market like New York, remain on the West Coast of the US, and be the biggest star on the team from day one.

His agents allegedly pleaded with Ohtani to change his mind about eliminating the Yankees right away, but they are out, and while basically every West Coast team, plus the Chicago Cubs, remain in the running; it is being reported that the front runners are (in no particular order)

the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants.
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Re: Baseball

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Off topic, but that headline about Levine really should say, "Maestro Accused of Kiddie Fiddling".
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Off topic, but that headline about Levine really should say, "Maestro Accused of Kiddie Fiddling".
That is definitely a NY Post specialty:

The most famous being:

Image

though, the months of juvenile headlines generated by Anthony Weiner, collectively, may have topped them all:

Image
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Back on topic:

Evaluating Talent Distribution on Rosters
Put another way, take all the teams since 1988 who gave between 13.8 and 20.35 percent of their playing time to stars, between 45 and 51.8 percent to depth players, and between 25 and 36.3 percent to scrub players. Of all of those teams, 75 percent of them were better by Pythagorean winning percentage than a World Series runner-up. The top of the second quartile is the 1989 Giants, another World Series runner-up, this time with a Pythagorean winning percentage of .569 (92 wins). Other categories have single outliers that outperform the maximum of the Deep with Stars group, but there’s so much quality packed into the Depth with Stars set that the outliers are completely moot.

It’s also worth noting that this group doesn’t even represent the best possible version of a Deep with Stars model. The list of teams reaching the top quartile of Star playing time and the top quartile of Depth playing time (not listed in the graph) is a who’s who of juggernauts and World Series participants. Their collective pythagorean winning percentage is .570, a 92-win pace. Depending on the degree with which teams can collect stars and depth, it’s worth nine to 14 more wins than a Stars and Scrubs team, and three to eight more than a Deep team.

An interesting pattern emerges when we infuse the Deep teams with more playing time from star-quality players and remove slight playing time from scrubs from Stars and Scrubs teams. The Deep teams receive a pythagorean bump of .012, or 1.9 wins. The Stars and Scrubs teams, however, leap all the way up from .481 to .520 in their collective pythagorean winning percentage. That’s an increase of .039, or 6.3 wins. The bottom of the third quartile for Stars and Scrubs Plus is higher than the top of the regular Stars and Scrubs model. That’s a significant jump.

When the Depth teams become Depth Plus teams (slightly more playing time for star-quality players), the collective bump isn’t that significant. However, the floor rises considerably. Five of the 41 Deep teams had lower pythagorean records than the worst team in the Deep Plus group. And the second- worst team in the Deep Plus group–the 2004 Tigers and their .491 pythagorean winning percentage–fared better than nine of the 41 Deep teams.

There’s a lesson to be learned from the way the Depth and Stars and Scrubs groups reacted to their adjustments. The Depth adjustment to Depth Plus involved adding star-quality players. The Stars and Scrubs adjustment to Stars and Scrubs Plus involved decreasing the playing time contribution of scrubs.
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Re: Baseball/Cricket....Bat and Ball Play

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

As this thread has a lot of general bat&ball chatter:

It's my understanding that Rohit Sharma now has his third double ton, the rest of the world has: 4



--------------------------------------------------

And in MLB news, the Yankees have acquired reigning National League MVP Giancarlo Stanton for a bag of balls:

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The Yankee lineup just went from one of the best in baseball to a nightmare for any non-ace pitcher.

They now have the three guys who hit the ball the hardest in the whole of the sport, 5 guys capable of 30+ home run seasons, and a whole lineup where it shouldn't be difficult to reach 20+ 1 through 9.

In other words, Murder's Row 2.0
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

in cricket their is a phenomena called FTB (flat track bully) who in his home conditions, can feast upon non top line bowling in a way a normal professional batsmen can not.

rohit is the king of the FTB''s and noone takes him very seriously - the indian player who is amazing is virat kohli, that guy can score against even the best and is fast becoming a true legend.

in modern stats terms its because the FTB's go all out on the low percentage shots and only get away with it due to substandard bowling or pitch conditions - they tend to always fail against high skilled bowlers - a normal pro has learned to put those shots away as a survival strategy.

im not sure if baseball has a simmilar thing going on.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

well, I had to think about that some...

This is usually no longer a topic of conversation, doesn't have a specific name; and when it is mentioned, it usually falls under the intense debates on "clutch" hitting and whether it exists. The sabermetric crowd has effectively cast off all talk about clutch hitting, bad ball hitters, and hitters who feast on bad/mediocre pitchers because they cannot quantify it. So its gone the way of the RBI as a topic of conversation. Not without reason I suppose, as there is less variety in baseball pitching and so probably harder to differentiate the quality at the top levels.

As traditional contact hitting has been de-emphasized for Three True Outcome players (home run, walk or strikeout) and (almost) everyone is encouraged to swing for the fences on every pitch, its just accepted that mediocre and bad pitching will get hit hard and good pitching is combated by protecting the strike zone, working a walk and occasionally getting lucky and running into one x amount of times over the course of a game.

I remember not too long ago this used to be a greater topic of debate as some people don't pass the eye test against certain pitchers (and of course have trouble with certain pitches) but less and less players develop these reputations in...folk/fan memory/chatter as more and more teams operate on the idea that all numbers will even out to talent level given large enough samples.
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

in cricket it is highly quantifiable - the FTB's have shocking averages against the good attacks.

rohit averages 45 overall but only 28 in australia, yet he gets 60 against sri lanka - a team with a very ordinary bowlers right now.

a batsmen who doesnt average 40+ is usually sacked and 50 is preferable, so he doesnt rate in games against us.

all makes sense tho - besides the myriad of bouncing ball variations and skill in applying them, the main difference is that in cricket you bat until they get you out.

this makes choosing to bunt and stealing a base on the good pitches and then swinging for the fence on the bad ones a skill that pro's need to sort out quickly.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Well, hit-and-runs, bunting, stealing bases...just more things disappearing from the game of baseball.

The reasoning being that those things are only valuable in low-scoring environments. When everyone (who makes it to the major leagues at least) can hit it over the fence consistently- runs are both not a premium but at-bats/outs certainly are. So it becomes a negative value to risk an out for a single base.

Unless your as incredibly fast as someone like Billy Hamilton:

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That's to a degree, 'cause a guy like Hamilton (who is done a disservice by tv, it doesn't really display how fast he is) is capable of 100+ steals a year; but (like last year) was held to 72 attempts- with 59 successful steals on the year.

And, by all publicly used metrics, he's by f/WAR, a below average player.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

It's starting to be derisively called Bashball.

Now, these are long term trends and the outcome of rule changes at the end of the 19th century-- strike outs and home runs have been on a steady, persistent rise.

And teams love it, home runs are very marketable and exciting for the casual fan. And if everyone can hit home runs, teams no longer have to pay players exorbitant contracts for that skill. It's a reason why I think the MLB doctored the baseballs last year, inducing a major shift back to hitting.

It's not just an MLB problem, the same trends are found in the NPB, the Korean league and Mexican league...probably elsewhere- which are all based off the turn of the century standards set by the MLB....

so it's a sport evolution into a real hitter-and-pitcher focused game (as opposed to being, as initially played, a running/fielding focused branch of the bat&ball games).

Which may be a problem- as brought up, however enjoyable that aspect is in baseball, it is more limited in that regard than cricket. Homogeneity of play-styles, limited as it is, is doing harm to long term prospects of the game, whatever the short term benefits. Radical changes need to be considered to save the spirit of the game.
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

this same evolution has recently hit cricket very hard and fast.

the longform is ~250 x 6 deliveries per team per game, the 1980's introduced a shortform with 50 x 6 deliveries per team, the latest is 20 x 6 deliveries per team.

each time they reduced the length of the game the emphasis shifts from defensive play to attacking play so in this new 120 delivery game the stats folks pretty much judge each of the 10 players by their ability to hit 12 balls into the fences.

lots of subtleties and play styles are being destroyed.

on the plus side its easier to slot into a busy TV schedule and the highlights package is more obvious to the casuals.....
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Re: Baseball

Post by noddy »

the problem with losing defensive play is you lose the spectacle of bowlers so good they make 100% defense still fail.

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90+ mph, swinging in then cutting away - only a handful of people in history have the ability to deliver these.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Well, in other changes to America's past time, word is that the commissioner's office will be implementing pace-of-play rule changes to baseball. They will be along the lines of the proposal submitted and rejected by the MLBPA (the player's union) last year. According to the agreed upon terms, the commissioner can unilaterally impose any pace of play rules he likes but, he will be submitting proposals a year in advance for the players to accept or reject as a matter of deference.

After the players' rejected this year's proposals, it looks like the commish will go forward with last year's rejected rules, which are as follows:

1)There will be a 20 second pitch clock on all pitches thrown during a game. The first violation for each pitcher will receive a warning, and any subsequent violation will result in a called ball on the present batter.

2)Batters will be set in the batter's box within 30 seconds of the last play. Once in the box, they will not be able to leave it and must keep a foot inside at all times until a ball is actually struck, foul or fair. The first violation for each batter will be a warning, followed by called strikes against the batter.

3)All locally televised games will have a 2 min and 20 second break between innings, nationally televised games will be 2 mins and 40 seconds and this will not be succeeded for any reason. Pitchers will get no more than 6 warm up tosses between the start of half-innings.

4)Mound visits will be curtailed severely. No matter who visits the mound during a half-inning now, whether it is the pitching coach, 2nd basemen, catcher, manager; it will be counted as a "mound visit" and the 2nd mound visit will necessitate an automatic pitching change. So catchers/infielders will no longer be able to approach the mound and talk to the pitcher will on the field. The way it's being talked about, the umpire will have full discretion to call any conversation a pitcher has with someone on the field from his team a "mount visit."


Players are not happy about this coupled with a lot of strife about the dead free agent market and a growing sense the union has lost a lot of power since the steroid scandal...people are actually talkin' strike when the next collective bargaining agreement comes up.

While I'm not thrilled about the rule changes, if these are indeed the ones being implemented, the player's screwed up by not taking the more lenient ones (overall) presented to them this year, nor understanding how seriously the commissioner is about shortening the length of games. After letting the players police themselves about it a few years ago only to see the length of play shoot back up over 3 hours last year, they had to know this was coming.
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Re: Baseball

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Rob Manfred truly believes they can get the pace of the average MLB game down to 2 hours and 40 minutes (down from this year's 3 hours and 5 minutes. He would settle for somewhere in the 2:40 to 2:50 time range. Anything above that, to him, is a problem.

It goes without saying that the biggest time waster is the one paying for everyone- the long commercial breaks between innings and pitcher changes. But as it's the money supply, the players are going to have to hustle faster.
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