Everyone is overstating the advantage of seeing a pitcher multiple times. The main reason pitchers are easier to hit later in the game is because they get tired and start missing location.
Hoyt wilhelm is a pretty famous pitcher, IMO. At least was well known to me but I was a huge baseball stat nerd who spent my formative years pouring over old time baseball stats and playing simulations with old time players.
That being said I wouldn’t have likely guessed him for the question.
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Teams will often line up their rotations so their best pitchers will match up against their biggest rivals more often, so you’ll see their ace 4-5 times.
This video has a great visualization of Rivera’s pitches, at ~1:45 it shows just how difficult it would be to try to practice against his cutter.
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Thanks - that’s a fantastic video that boils it down really effectively.
When I pitched in high school, my (lefty) fastball had a natural cut on it, tailing in to righties, away from lefties. If I wanted a straighter fastball, I went four-seam. But since it was high school and hitters are obviously umpteen times worse than pro hitters, I just pounded the shit out of righties with the tailing fastball and they could never hit it. I went with more 6-12 curves against lefties, but I mixed in everything to everyone.
This is all to say that if I could regularly shutdown (high school, admittedly) hitters with an 80-ish MPH fastball with just a normal cut, I cannot imagine how insane it must have been to try to hit Rivera, even for the best hitters of all time. Thing is, even if you know it’s coming, you can’t square it up.
The tidbit in the video about Rivera seeming effortless is interesting, too. I bet to a lot of people, his stuff doesn’t look all that impressive. He’s not intimidating looking, he never through unusually hard, and even his cutter didn’t look, to the casual viewer, as anything that dramatic.
Here are the youtube subscriber counts for MLB, NFL, and NBA.
Do you think these sub counts reflect total viewers? If so, NBA has about 6x as many views as MLB. Or is this more so a failure on MLB’s part to be good at social media?
No idea, but I would think NBA videos would naturally be more fun/exciting to watch, so I’m not surprised the NBA has more subscribers. I feel like there are a lot more people who eat and breathe NBA than there are MLB, as well, though that’s based on nothing but me thinking about it.
Another clue might be the number of videos. 279,000 for MLB and 33,000 for the NBA. The MLB channel is completely flooded with game recaps and other low-interest videos every single day. They should probably learn from other channels and break things down into several channels that deliver more specific content. If you want to see MLB highlights from the past week, you have to sort through 50-100 videos from the same time period that you don’t care about.
Dustin May is an incredible pitcher. Last night was the first time I had seen a performance from him. His 2 seamer comes in at 98-99mph and breaks almost like a slider. Absolutely unhittable when that shit is working. He kind of reminds me of Randy Johnson.
Very excited about the dodgers this year - if this season weren’t inevitably going to be cancelled 
Agreed. I just think the NBA lends itself to more highlights per second than other sports.
The season isn’t going to be cancelled. Disneyland is open. MLB isn’t going anywhere. Miami playing today instead of throwing in the towel seems like good evidence.
Actually, Disneyland is still closed
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How can a 2 seamer break like a slider? Dont they move on opposite directions?
I’m oddly sort of glad that my team looks a little shitty so far. I can’t imagine getting excited and looking back on this season with delight if my team won the World Series. It’s such a throw away season.
I was one of the few people on the Brewers message board before the season started that was like, “wtf I don’t even care it’s a 60 fucking game season” when everyone else was excited as shit for baseball.
The best my team has to hope for is making it to September 1 which I believe is the date that counts for the purpose of resetting the luxury tax.
Yeah, I already mourned for this season when opening day came and went. That day is normally like a national holiday to me.
it IS a holiday in Cincinnati. Most places give people the day off.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/03/26/opening-day-2020-cincinnati
(if you’re a fan of baseball history, that article is worth a read)
*Disneyworld.
:D
Crazy inning for the Dbacks here. 13 men have batted, 9 runs in including an ITP HR for Kole Calhoun. Still batting.
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My favorite part about Mo is Chipper Jones, a future 1st Ballot Hall of Famer himself, laughing in the dugout at the helplessness of winning the WS while the GOAT is on the mound.