also pulsipher and wilson somehow provided value all along through trades after trades after trades, finally fizzled out when synderrgard left (also todd frazier somehow baseball is hilarious like this).
Interesting stat from Posnanski’s newsletter:
Innings 1-3: Batters are hitting .243/.321/.391.
That’s not great. But …
Innings 4-6: Batters are hitting .230/.310/.367.
That’s worse, isn’t it? And …
Innings 7-9: Batters are hitting .223/.305/.371.
In my childhood memory, the starting pitcher was obviously the gatekeeper, and the best chance for scoring runs would be to get them late in the game - either off a weakened starter or a reliever that wasn’t as good as the starter. But now that situation appears to be flipped - if you don’t get early runs off the starter, you’re in bad shape. It’s really strange - even though the rules of the game haven’t changed like they have for football, baseball feels less recognizable to what I remember 30 years ago than football does.
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makes sense more runs are in inning 1 vs 2 though, top of the lineup.
though I wonder how much switching out the pitcher for the DH is gonna make a difference here. lots of NL games the pitcher got up in inning 2.
8/9 are the worst, you got guys throwing 96+ out of there and just sub one after another so that makes sense
If I remember right, there’s nothing like the drop off in runs scored in the 9th. It’s basically a dead inning.
Yeah, from the same newsletter:
In the ninth inning, batters are hitting .211 and slugging .343.
Brutal. We just watched a rookie break the MLB record throwing 39 pitches over 100 mph which sums up baseball almost perfectly right now. I’m not sure what the answer is.
would have to tweak the ball, but baseball seems to want it livelier, more homeruns, more strikeouts
The cost is higher. I have no data to back this up but at this point it seems that TJ surgery is a rite of passage for starting pitchers these days.
As for home runs, they’re almost as common as doubles nowadays. I wonder what will happen when they become more common than doubles. Will the game stay the same? Could they mandate that fence be moved back? Increase the size of the ball?
One of my favorite video game streamers has been streaming a lot of MLB The Show, and he always chooses Polo Grounds as his stadium. Gotta admit, it’s super entertaining watching games b/c the dimensions are so wacky. Imagine a ball crushed 440 ft that could be nothing more than a can of corn fly out. Tons of inside the park HRs. Kinda wish they allowed for more variation in stadiums, rather than the cookie cutter dimensions.
Not sure why this is the case, and it’s not like the Mets thought so. They made him a QO that most probably thought he was going to accept, and then he signed for $21M instead of $18.4.
I wish him well.
They (as in MLB) do allow for this, right? It’s just the teams that are choosing to make soulless stadiums?
It wasn’t that long ago that Minute Maid Park had a hill and a giant pole in center field.
A lot of the cool old timey stadiums (stadia?) where shaped that way because they were jammed into a city block with those constraints. Modern sports teams are more likely to get what they want in terms of civil planning, and are optimized for revenue instead of coolness.
I’m all for variation, but shit like the Polo Grounds had to have been awful (and I get why it was like that). Minute Maid Park was fucking terrible.
IMO the fundamental physics of baseball have changed a ton over the past 10-20 years.
The players are all in way better shape and way better athletes. The advancements in biomechanics improving form (mostly for pitchers) and players getting paid so much that they can’t afford to get out of shape in the offseason means a few things.
A. All pitchers can throw way harder than they ever could before
B. Hitters have raised their average swing speed to the point where almost everybody has HR power
C. Defenders cover way more ground, and are better at fielding their position than ever before.
The analytics figuring out that home runs are way more valuable than base runners has combined with all of these to mean that hitters are just swinging as hard as they can during basically every plate appearance to maximize their chances of hitting a home run, which is the most valuable thing they can do.
Because of (A), even the best contact hitters have trouble consistently catching up to fastballs that push up to 100 mph. And when they do make contact, they can’t aim for gaps in the defense, the ball just kinda goes wherever it goes.
Combine all that with (C) and basically anything that isn’t a line drive or a hard ground ball is an out now. Any fly ball that stays in the park is almost an automatic out, so you might as well maximize your fly balls by maximizing the chances it leaves the yard.
What are the fixes for this?
In my opinion:
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Move the mound back and expand the strike zone. By giving hitters a little more time, it makes just throwing a straight 100mph fastball less valuable of a skill. Expanding the strike zone will give more room to throw strikes in places that are less desirable pitches to hit, widening the gap between pitchers who can throw with power and command and those that just throw for power. It doesn’t have to be a huge expansion, maybe 0.5 to 1 inch on each side of the plate, and maybe 0.5 to 1 inch lower and 1 to 2 inches higher.
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Expand the dimensions of fair territory. Obviously this is a huge ask, but I honestly think just angling the foul lines wider starting at 1st and 3rd base could have a big impact on hitters having more room to put balls in play that leave the infield. Obviously it’s a tough thing to make all 30 MLB parks push the fences back, but I think a gradual moving back of fences everywhere would help.
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There are some limits. Pretty sure a new ballpark couldn’t do the Green Monster or Pesky Pole as both too short. Not sure if there are limits on fields being too big.
I like your suggestion No 1. There’s even a precedent in baseball history for moving the mound’s distance to home plate and/or elevation. So the “purests” should be able to talk themselves into accepting it.
How has the ump’s calling of the strike zone changed over time? I watched baseball the most in the 1990s, and the strike zone called by the umpires was too wide and not high enough compared to the actual strike zone. Has that been improved?
It’s gotten better - especially for the newer umps. Still some tendencies to expand the outside corner, but the high strike has been called a lot more.
It’s nowhere near perfect, but the days of Eric Gregg are largely over.
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Definitely tough to fuck with dimensions in places like fenway. You can’t angle the LF line any further out because it runs up against the stands, and angling the RF line out would make that short pole even shorter, I think. Can’t really move the monster further from the plate, either. I agree with the idea, though. If we could magically back all fences up by like 10 feet and then lower and/or push back the mound it would probably fix a lot of the issues we see.
Have batters hit from a mound.