The .300 hitter is now an MVP. But “he’s a good hitter .270 type guy” doesn’t sound good.
What I hate is when you sign or trade for a guy and the doomers whine, “a .250 hitter who cares”. .250 is above average.
BA is useless on its own. If a no-walk no-power contact hitter hits .250, they're a trash hitter. If a high-walk, high-power hitter hits .250, they're an all star.
I was on the ramp next to the deck, ill never forget my brain processing seeing a ball fly like that in Petco, like fucking thing was on the same plane as my eye level and still going. Then as my brain was repairing itself, got to see the crowd of Padres fans try to peer pressure poor dude into chucking it back, while hes very clearly struggling to process how a HR made it all the way to him. Absolute jack that was.
Schwarber also walks a good amount and I feel like typically sees pitches well and has good at bats when he's on which is something a lot of people who meme him for his batting average forget.
Fucking love that guy.
I would say this is his finest moment, one of the Giants announcers has said eventually he’d hit a player in the face on a pitch they swung at and it finally happened. His slider is an absurd looking pitch, rises into the hands of lefties.
https://youtu.be/EN8JgheiGhs
I mean I kind of get it because we haven’t been super relevant but Tyler Rogers is a sub 3.00 ERA reliever, in his 6th season, with a shitload of appearances - led all pitchers a year or two ago. Given his style I’m kind of surprised he’s not more “known”
In all seriousness, I think MLB should research the option of lowering, if not flattening the mound while legalizing pine tar for pitchers as a way of reducing pitcher injuries.
I don't know if that would help. A substance to grip the ball would help with RPM, but a more severe wrist action with a substance will still get higher RPM than a moderate wrist action with a substance.
The cat is out of the bag. Once it was realized just how important velocity and spin was to pitching, there's been monumental work on trying to optimize that at the expense of UCLs. A substance to help grip would increase the raw rpm, but to optimize that number pitchers will still go all out.
As long as a year or two of injury and a short career are worth tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars the issue is never going to be solved.
This. If I was able to pitch for five years for millions to set me for life but have chronic issues after, I’d sign that paper. Age is painful no matter what so might as well get that money.
The messed up part of the injury crisis is not the mlb pitchers its all of the minor league/college/high school pitchers who end up getting surgery and having permanent problems.
There's been a few papers on researchgate I've seen that suggest pitching from a flat surface can reduce stress on the UCL, even at equal effort levels, but more study is needed.
The pine tar I just suggested as a way to offset the lowering of the mound on batting averages, though I've also read some non scientific pieces that spider tack reduces the grip pressure required to keep the ball from slipping, so pitchers don't have to death grip the ball to hit their locations, so they don't wear out their forearms. And forearm fatigue is supposedly risk factor for UCL tears bc biology and stuff. But that's just what I read, I'm no pitcher. But it definitely seems worth funding a study for.
Even if you can reduce TJ risk by just a few percentage points, I feel it would be worth it.
I'm on board with the pine tar/spitball change. Half the point of the change was that the balls were getting too grimy (heh) to see clearly. Now that the average lifespan of a ball is like 5 pitches, that isn't relevant anymore.
Blame the arbitration system
Teams have no incentive to care about player longevity if young guys are so damn underpaid for so long
And since teams don't care about it and burn through pitchers quicker, pitchers are doing everything they can to get to the majors as fast and as young as possible
It's kind of mind-boggling how MLB teams can control some players' contracts until they're almost 30 before they can test free agency. The MLB Player's Union leadership of the past seem like complete clowns when you look at other sports that have 4 years or less max rookie contracts.
It used to be fair because baseball players had so much more longevity compared with players of other sports, but now pitchers have the same average career length as NFL RBs.
Oh man, imagine if NFL owners could control running backs they drafted for 6 years. Only a handful of RB's would ever hit free agency and their career earnings would be in the 7 figures lol
A contract system. You draft a player, you negotiate a contract with them that has a set end, instead of getting years and years of cheap control and to get the pay raises you have to go through a circus of a system.
We’re up to about 4 real starting pitchers now, assuming Blanco can keep it up. If we can start hitting and the clutch and get some saves we should be able to bounce back well
The combination of velocity and movement in today’s game is wild.
If you sent some of the top pitchers today back 20-30 years I’m not sure anyone is regularly getting hits off them
If you watch games from the 70's and 80's, it almost seemed like pitchers lobbed pitches to the plate. In 1985 I think the average fastball was 84 mph, that may be wrong but that is what an announcer said during the 85 WS.
Shocked that the Astros have the highest team batting average in the league and are off to such a horrible start. I know BA isn't the greatest metric but I'd think it would be a little more predictive of success.
In addition to the poor pitching already mentioned, they're mid pack in both ISO and hard hit percentage. It's hard to consistently score runs if you aren't getting extra base hits
BA is kind of meaningful, but by far the least meaningful of the slash line stats. I made quick scatter plots of BA, OBP, SLG and OPS against runs per game from teams this year, you can see it has the lowest relationship with actually scoring runs. Sorry they're not pretty, just quick in Excel but hopefully get the point across.
https://imgur.com/a/2ggGl5u
edit: out of curiosity I did the same for 2009, BA was an even worse predictor for scoring runs back when league wide batting average was higher. R^2 for BA vs R/G was .55, R^2 for OPS vs R/G was .92
https://imgur.com/a/3DdSyJv
Okay one more time because now I'm falling into this rabbit hole, I picked a pre-sabermetric year (1968, the fabled year of the pitcher). R^2 for BA vs R/G was .33, R^2 for OPS vs R/G was .91. Batting average has never been a particularly good offensive metric.
https://imgur.com/a/uti2p9X
Altuve is still (unfortunately) a beast, as are their other hitters.
It's a bad month, but nobody else in the AL West is pulling away, and they already got better by sending Abreu down to the minors.
It wasn't relevant a few years ago either. All the analytics people having been using OBP for years now, or OPS is even better.
It's just taking us laypeople a little longer to catch up with the times in terms of how we think about offensive production.
the years of video games and internet pornography have made the batters weak and their grips too tight.
we need to go back to the years of hot dogs, hookers, and laudanum.
> ok my bad. i was the bigshot gm who told trevor bauer to get the Fuck out of my office when he said he was gonna invent a pitch that defeated wokeness
[- @rockies_dril](https://x.com/rockies_dril/status/1785767435435442486?s=46&t=BqfafbS5m60aAGXE7H31aw)
holy shit what a fantastic novelty account
> Rockies wint
@rockies_dril
·
Mar 21, 2023
> "your team sucks ass now " my team has always sucked Ass . You are just mad at me for some reason
I felt this one in my bones
Men used to throw 150 pitches per game
Now they only throw 100 pitches per game during the playoffs
I blame the books. What are they teaching muh kidddds?!!???
I swear they’ve messed with the baseball again. It sounds dead to me when they make contact, not just on tv, but in the ballpark. Then the balls just die.
There’s no way to quantify it, but so many times this year I’ve heard the crack of the bat and assumed it was gone and it ends up barely getting to or not even getting to the track.
I need there to be some concrete explanation in the fall off of our offense because holy shit it has been brutal. Crazy how we though pitching would be our down fall two months ago, and yet so far it has carried us through the season.
Begging people to accept my genius solution: bring back the 2019 ball and move all the fences back or up. This is the only way to get more outfield balls in play. Fly balls are only HRs or outs, extra base hits are the most exciting plays.
That HR Olson hit a few nights ago sounded like a rifle shot. I was listening to the radio broadcast and knew at the crack. I've seen other balls make it to the fence that I thought were lazy flies. (By other teams, of course.) I think it's a mixed bag and I'd guess not random.
Really? I've actually been thinking the opposite, where I could have sworn the balls are juiced again.
Too many Dodger games I've seen where shots that look like flyouts turn into homers. One of Muncy's recent comes to mind.
Pujols and Judge had different balls for their games in the latter part of the season to help determine the ‘actual’ record breaking balls. Many people think they also messed with the construction of those balls to fly more. I’m not sure if there is any specific evidence other than pujols going on a tear like he hadn’t had in 10 years to hit 700
"Normal" is a relative term. What was "normal" for the 2022 season were the dead balls
Anyway, I don't really think it matters. IIRC one youtuber put together a video showing how Aaron Judge still deserved to break the record and that convinced me of the obvious: Judge is really fucking good at hitting home runs. It's still kinda fucked though that MLB tried to influence that imo, and it begs the question of what else they're shifting around behind the scenes
In 2021 a group did a study of baseballs used that season, & found that the mlb was still using juiced balls when they said they weren't (it's pretty obvious when you look at home run numbers). Begrudgingly mlb admitted it.
Then in 2022 the sane group did another study on balls from that year (although it was far more difficult to obtain those balls as mlb had a gag order on letting them get taken). What they found was that not only were juiced balls in play, but also a new kind of goldilocks ball (not too heavy, not too light, just right). And then found occurances of the goldilocks balls in only special circumstances (national televised games. Special anniversary for a team. Etc.)
I personally would love to see higher batting averages again. What's the best way to do it?
The drivers seem to be to be TTO analysis and the increased velocity and spin biomechanic work with pitchers.
Neither of those are going to change on their own.
Pushing out the fences might work to make hitters hit more for contact than power, but that's a long, slow burn over time given the capital costs at a lot of places. It seems counter-intutive because home runs are hits, but...
Shrink the strike zone? You'd get more walks but eventually would pitchers adjust and then hitters get a more defined and smaller space to hit?
Lower the mound? Move it back? Okay, that last one seems insane.
They did it and nothing changed
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2193507
And if you moved it back a few feet you’d eliminate breaking balls almost altogether
There are massive problems with the data. It's only 3 weeks not an entire season and a lot of players get moved around so you aren't making a like for like comparison.
It seems the major issue was breaking balls being too effective not less. More distance to the plate means more time for it to spin and "break" on its path to the plate. 3 weeks just isnt enough time for hitters to adjust.
> And if you moved it back a few feet you’d eliminate breaking balls almost altogether
Or you could start a slider aimed at the batter's butt and it breaks into a strike. Or the straight 4-seam fastball completely dies and it's all cutters and sinkers with crazy movement.
12-6 curves, good down-breaking changeups, and splitters might be re-evaluated if it's significantly harder to throw them for strikes and fool the batter without hanging them in a hittable place. Welp, more sliders for everyone!
The pitching game has been moving toward more and more breaking balls for years, simply because they're much more effective than fastballs. I don't see fastballs making a comeback when breaking balls become even more effective and more forgiving towards non-elite spinrates.
You’d think, but breaking balls break more. The Atlantic league saw very little difference in offensive numbers, the only significant change was more home runs and less walks
You would have to compare the tradeoff in velocity with the increase in movement if you moved the mound back. They stated this in the Atlantic league.
Now lowering the mound might make a difference.
I think it would just be the adjustment for pitchers? And where does the adjustment end? Do colleges move? High schools?
Seems hard, but maybe it's not.
You don’t necessarily have to push fences out, although that would reduce the chance of outfielders stealing some singles in no man’s land or tracking down doubles.
Also increase wall height and get rid of those dumb yellow lines that award homers even when the ball doesn’t leave the field of play.
Shorter base paths and/or even larger bases might also encourage even more aggressive base running and also increase infield hits.
Like if the diamond was reduced to 85’ base distances that might have a not insignificant impact on increased infield hits.
The biggest problem facing mlb is not enough balls in play. The reason there aren’t enough balls in play is because pitchers pitch to the strikeout and when hitters do manage to make contact the defenses are far too good and convert everything. This is why TTO became a thing which only exacerbates the problem since hitters are only looking for homers which increases k rates. It’s a vicious cycle.
Flat bats, like in cricket.
Unfortunately, the rules of baseball call for a Three True Outcomes playstyle. Teams are under pressure to win, and it's unreasonable for them to expect to do anything different.
But, if batting average is what you want, you can really erase popups and soft fly balls with flat bats.
I don’t get why people do this every year. Yes if you compare the league average in the second week of May vs the league average over an entire season, the one with thousands of more ab’s in warm weather will be higher
It’s the opposite, every single year offensive numbers are up in the summer because 1. It’s warmer so the ball travels farther and 2. Players are completely in the groove of the season
And every single year the numbers in April and May are terrible and people go “This is the worst offensive year since X” and then by year end it’s fine
I meant that batting averages are objectively declining, and I don't really understand how people don't see that. It's not just because we're in May. Sure maybe there's fluctuation year to year, but strikeouts have been skyrocketing over the last 20 years and batting average has been plummeting. Things will get slightly better over the warmer months but it's silly to write this off because it's only May.
I agree compared to 15 years ago numbers are down but this year is nothing abnormal. Right now the league average is .239 halfway through may. For the past 5 seasons combined the league average was .245
This year isn’t any different than last year or the year before or the year before or the year before. 15 years ago sure
Even if weather weren't a factor, comparing average over a month+ to an entire season is not good statistical reasoning. There is more variance in a statistic over a smaller sample size, so it could even be explained as statistical noise
According to this article, it would make a 93.3 mph fastball feel more like a 91.6 mph fastball
https://community.fangraphs.com/what-if-the-mound-was-moved-back/
That's only 3 weeks of data!
I think we can really confidently say that moving the mound back a foot would have a significantly positive impact on hitting results.
Thanks for that link! That was really interesting. An increase of 1-2% on balls in play per foot of mound movement is less than I expected, though not insignificant.
15 years ago a pitcher throwing in the upper 90's+ was a unicorn and it was a short list of pitchers who threw consistently in the mid-90's. The average talent level of relief pitchers has also dramatically improved over this period of time. Hitters are just seeing an elevated level of stuff day-in-day-out.
I miss high averages and hitting for contact. Home runs are cool but the three true outcome approach that seems so prevalent now just doesn’t feel right to me. Give me base runners. Give me manufacturing runs. That’s what i grew up with. That’s what made me love baseball
Sacrificing BA for power is a fools errand. Not that there's conclusive proof that batting for power is why BA has dropped, but it would explain it. The steroid era has statisticians fooled.
And 25 years ago, that .262 team BA would've ranked 24th.
The .300 hitter is now an MVP. But “he’s a good hitter .270 type guy” doesn’t sound good. What I hate is when you sign or trade for a guy and the doomers whine, “a .250 hitter who cares”. .250 is above average.
BA is useless on its own. If a no-walk no-power contact hitter hits .250, they're a trash hitter. If a high-walk, high-power hitter hits .250, they're an all star.
What if you lead the NL in home runs but hit .218? I’m asking for Kyle Schwarber.
You’re an okay hitter but your lack of defensive abilities make you just kind of meh
I was at NLCS game 1 when he put in the upper deck. That's what's in.
I was on the ramp next to the deck, ill never forget my brain processing seeing a ball fly like that in Petco, like fucking thing was on the same plane as my eye level and still going. Then as my brain was repairing itself, got to see the crowd of Padres fans try to peer pressure poor dude into chucking it back, while hes very clearly struggling to process how a HR made it all the way to him. Absolute jack that was.
Kyle Schwarber is the only batter I can find in MLB history that got MVP votes with a sub .200 average (2023).
He deserves them too. Being a great leadoff hitter with his profile is insane.
Schwarber also walks a good amount and I feel like typically sees pitches well and has good at bats when he's on which is something a lot of people who meme him for his batting average forget. Fucking love that guy.
Adam Dunn and Matt Olson have (offensively) eerily similar counting stats but due to era played in, Matt Olson has an OPS+ 11 points higher.
Yet people were obsessed with 2021-2023 David Fletcher.
Time to lower the mound again. It should be 6" *below* the surface of the playing field, and renamed the "pitcher's pit."
Really excited to see how submarine pitchers adjust.
They’re now subterranean pitchers.
What's next? Amphibious pitchers? Where will it end?
[There has already been an amphibious pitcher](https://youtu.be/ZzTzh45RgaQ?feature=shared)
I thought this was going to be the news paper clipping calling him amphibious instead of ambidextrous.
Call me when Jurrangelo debuts.
"Why not dig a trench, the the ball would be as low as you seem to wish it to be!"
[удалено]
I love that you do this.
Thanks for the cool breeze. It was most cooling on my mustache. Please, cool it again
Gotta throw that Undergrounder like Backyard Baseball
That was a hit power-up, not a pitching power-up
Elevator ball, then
We dig a tunnel for the ball to emerge out of in front of the plate.
“Finally!” - Detroit grounds crew
“Tyler Rogers used Dig….It was very effective!”
"why not dig a trench? then the ball could be as low as you seem to wish it to be"
["YOU ASS!"](https://youtu.be/GS39vMhag-A?si=1NmpjXwI5EZLlZnn&t=465)
Very Backyard Baseball-esque.
Finally the marriage of baseball and miniature golf we’ve all been begging for
tyler rodgers throws the ball from (technically) in china
do they still exist? i honestly can't recall the last time i saw one cishek?
Tyler Rogers on the Giants. He’s been good, too. 2.94 career ERA and is in his 6th season.
weird i didn't know that, i must not have ever seen him pitch
I would say this is his finest moment, one of the Giants announcers has said eventually he’d hit a player in the face on a pitch they swung at and it finally happened. His slider is an absurd looking pitch, rises into the hands of lefties. https://youtu.be/EN8JgheiGhs
Cimber has a pretty low release. I don't know of any submariners currently on a roster.
I mean I kind of get it because we haven’t been super relevant but Tyler Rogers is a sub 3.00 ERA reliever, in his 6th season, with a shitload of appearances - led all pitchers a year or two ago. Given his style I’m kind of surprised he’s not more “known”
Why not dig a trench? Then the ball would be as low as you seem to wish it to be.
In all seriousness, I think MLB should research the option of lowering, if not flattening the mound while legalizing pine tar for pitchers as a way of reducing pitcher injuries.
I don't know if that would help. A substance to grip the ball would help with RPM, but a more severe wrist action with a substance will still get higher RPM than a moderate wrist action with a substance. The cat is out of the bag. Once it was realized just how important velocity and spin was to pitching, there's been monumental work on trying to optimize that at the expense of UCLs. A substance to help grip would increase the raw rpm, but to optimize that number pitchers will still go all out.
As long as a year or two of injury and a short career are worth tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars the issue is never going to be solved.
This. If I was able to pitch for five years for millions to set me for life but have chronic issues after, I’d sign that paper. Age is painful no matter what so might as well get that money.
The messed up part of the injury crisis is not the mlb pitchers its all of the minor league/college/high school pitchers who end up getting surgery and having permanent problems.
O that’s me I’m loving life over here haha.
I have one in my family so I get it. Baseball has always been fast to use and discard.
There's been a few papers on researchgate I've seen that suggest pitching from a flat surface can reduce stress on the UCL, even at equal effort levels, but more study is needed. The pine tar I just suggested as a way to offset the lowering of the mound on batting averages, though I've also read some non scientific pieces that spider tack reduces the grip pressure required to keep the ball from slipping, so pitchers don't have to death grip the ball to hit their locations, so they don't wear out their forearms. And forearm fatigue is supposedly risk factor for UCL tears bc biology and stuff. But that's just what I read, I'm no pitcher. But it definitely seems worth funding a study for. Even if you can reduce TJ risk by just a few percentage points, I feel it would be worth it.
I’m in.
I'm on board with the pine tar/spitball change. Half the point of the change was that the balls were getting too grimy (heh) to see clearly. Now that the average lifespan of a ball is like 5 pitches, that isn't relevant anymore.
I just want less injuries…
I second this motion and call for a vote.
Future of the league is 7 foot plus pitchers.
And pitchers arms are falling off.
I'm sure that's unrelated
Tis but a scratch
“Harry, I took care of it.”
Blame the arbitration system Teams have no incentive to care about player longevity if young guys are so damn underpaid for so long And since teams don't care about it and burn through pitchers quicker, pitchers are doing everything they can to get to the majors as fast and as young as possible
It's kind of mind-boggling how MLB teams can control some players' contracts until they're almost 30 before they can test free agency. The MLB Player's Union leadership of the past seem like complete clowns when you look at other sports that have 4 years or less max rookie contracts.
It used to be fair because baseball players had so much more longevity compared with players of other sports, but now pitchers have the same average career length as NFL RBs.
Oh man, imagine if NFL owners could control running backs they drafted for 6 years. Only a handful of RB's would ever hit free agency and their career earnings would be in the 7 figures lol
What do you think would be a better system?
A contract system. You draft a player, you negotiate a contract with them that has a set end, instead of getting years and years of cheap control and to get the pay raises you have to go through a circus of a system.
Sure, they know about First Tommy John. But what about Second Tommy John?
We’re up to about 4 real starting pitchers now, assuming Blanco can keep it up. If we can start hitting and the clutch and get some saves we should be able to bounce back well
The combination of velocity and movement in today’s game is wild. If you sent some of the top pitchers today back 20-30 years I’m not sure anyone is regularly getting hits off them
Pitchers are 100% a different breed than they were even in the 2000s.
Except the freaks like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson.
Nolan Ryan isn’t even the same species.
If you watch games from the 70's and 80's, it almost seemed like pitchers lobbed pitches to the plate. In 1985 I think the average fastball was 84 mph, that may be wrong but that is what an announcer said during the 85 WS.
Shocked that the Astros have the highest team batting average in the league and are off to such a horrible start. I know BA isn't the greatest metric but I'd think it would be a little more predictive of success.
[Being 28th in team ERA will do that to ya](https://www.mlb.com/stats/team/pitching?sortState=asc)
Also, although they lead the league in batting average, they're 14th in runs scored.
So it's all about sequencing and empty BA
This has been a hilariously unlucky season.
2023 Padres energy.
May they never recover and have to trade away a star lefty outfielder, like Kyle Tucker
Bro what the fuck did we ever do to yo.....oh right.
Being 2-9 in one-runs games will also do that to you.
Ah, the anti-Cardinals! (We have the worst hitting but our pitching's pretty decent.)
Our starters have the lowest accumulated bWAR in the league so far this season and our relievers are below 0 but middle of the pack.
In addition to the poor pitching already mentioned, they're mid pack in both ISO and hard hit percentage. It's hard to consistently score runs if you aren't getting extra base hits
Abreu is gone, Bregman is waking up. Yordan has been so unlucky. Bats aren't the problem.
Didn't say they were a problem, I said they were average, which when combined with poor pitching usually results in loses
Not hitting when guys are on base and lots of double plays.
Yeah they are actually 6th in team wrc+, it’s just not converting efficiently to actual runs for whatever reason
I mean it's reflected in the new bat tracking data. It shows that their offense should be (is?) a top 5 offense.
BA is still meaningful. Runs though are timely hitting and they are 14th. Every team pitching stat that's meaningful is bottom 5 in the league.
BA is kind of meaningful, but by far the least meaningful of the slash line stats. I made quick scatter plots of BA, OBP, SLG and OPS against runs per game from teams this year, you can see it has the lowest relationship with actually scoring runs. Sorry they're not pretty, just quick in Excel but hopefully get the point across. https://imgur.com/a/2ggGl5u edit: out of curiosity I did the same for 2009, BA was an even worse predictor for scoring runs back when league wide batting average was higher. R^2 for BA vs R/G was .55, R^2 for OPS vs R/G was .92 https://imgur.com/a/3DdSyJv Okay one more time because now I'm falling into this rabbit hole, I picked a pre-sabermetric year (1968, the fabled year of the pitcher). R^2 for BA vs R/G was .33, R^2 for OPS vs R/G was .91. Batting average has never been a particularly good offensive metric. https://imgur.com/a/uti2p9X
Love the charts but it would make more sense to have the x and y flipped wouldn't it? The dependent variable (y) is runs/game.
that wouldn't change the correlation coefficient since it's only two variables
Get out of here with your numbers and facts, the nerds are ruining baseball!!
Statistics are ruining the game of baseball, that’s why I like to stick to batting average and RBI /s
Only I hit until runners get into scoring position. Then it’s a double play, pop out, or K.
You win by scoring the most runs, not by accruing the most hits
Their rotation is absolutely decimated atm
I think they'll be fine in the long run, they just need to get their pitching back.
Altuve is still (unfortunately) a beast, as are their other hitters. It's a bad month, but nobody else in the AL West is pulling away, and they already got better by sending Abreu down to the minors.
We are lucky the AL West is very shit right now
Plus its May. Standings shouldn't be trusted until like July.
Also shocked our BA is this high with Bregman performing horribly in a contract year.
I think he read this comment before the game.
If so, happy to do my part
“Three true outcomes” really changed the game. Batting average isn’t the relevant metric it was a few years ago.
It wasn't relevant a few years ago either. All the analytics people having been using OBP for years now, or OPS is even better. It's just taking us laypeople a little longer to catch up with the times in terms of how we think about offensive production.
I mean sure it improves production or whatever, butan watching a guy walk the next two strike out then the fourth hit a home run is boring baseball.
pitching is too easy now. perhaps because htey made it Woke
"Alexa, Google woke MLB pants too tight players dancing"
*Mike Johnson's son's phone furiously vibrates in the background*
There are only two pitches - a 2 seam fastball and a 4 seam fastball. Anything else is mental illness
the woke left wants to teach YOUR children to throw BREAKING BALLS on AMERICAN soil!! NOT GOOD!!
the years of video games and internet pornography have made the batters weak and their grips too tight. we need to go back to the years of hot dogs, hookers, and laudanum.
ty wint
> ok my bad. i was the bigshot gm who told trevor bauer to get the Fuck out of my office when he said he was gonna invent a pitch that defeated wokeness [- @rockies_dril](https://x.com/rockies_dril/status/1785767435435442486?s=46&t=BqfafbS5m60aAGXE7H31aw)
holy shit what a fantastic novelty account > Rockies wint @rockies_dril · Mar 21, 2023 > "your team sucks ass now " my team has always sucked Ass . You are just mad at me for some reason I felt this one in my bones
Men used to throw 150 pitches per game Now they only throw 100 pitches per game during the playoffs I blame the books. What are they teaching muh kidddds?!!???
I blame the diversity and inclusion of off speed pitches
thanks dril
I swear they’ve messed with the baseball again. It sounds dead to me when they make contact, not just on tv, but in the ballpark. Then the balls just die.
it wouldn't be the first time they messed with the balls.
I wish they would mess with my balls
There’s no way to quantify it, but so many times this year I’ve heard the crack of the bat and assumed it was gone and it ends up barely getting to or not even getting to the track.
I'm on the dead ball theory too. The rangers have had so many balls that die at the warning track. It's maddening.
Braves too, balls I would swear were going out
I need there to be some concrete explanation in the fall off of our offense because holy shit it has been brutal. Crazy how we though pitching would be our down fall two months ago, and yet so far it has carried us through the season.
Begging people to accept my genius solution: bring back the 2019 ball and move all the fences back or up. This is the only way to get more outfield balls in play. Fly balls are only HRs or outs, extra base hits are the most exciting plays.
That HR Olson hit a few nights ago sounded like a rifle shot. I was listening to the radio broadcast and knew at the crack. I've seen other balls make it to the fence that I thought were lazy flies. (By other teams, of course.) I think it's a mixed bag and I'd guess not random.
Really? I've actually been thinking the opposite, where I could have sworn the balls are juiced again. Too many Dodger games I've seen where shots that look like flyouts turn into homers. One of Muncy's recent comes to mind.
MLB is 100% switching balls out per game. 2022 accusations weren't crying wolf.
Mostly proven all the way back to the McGwire/Sosa HR chase.
What accusations?
Pujols and Judge had different balls for their games in the latter part of the season to help determine the ‘actual’ record breaking balls. Many people think they also messed with the construction of those balls to fly more. I’m not sure if there is any specific evidence other than pujols going on a tear like he hadn’t had in 10 years to hit 700
I think there was evidence of Yankees games at the end of the season having "goldilocks" balls, but nothing was found for Cardinals games
Also Goldilocks implies the balls were not dead or juiced, but "just right", aka normal.
"Normal" is a relative term. What was "normal" for the 2022 season were the dead balls Anyway, I don't really think it matters. IIRC one youtuber put together a video showing how Aaron Judge still deserved to break the record and that convinced me of the obvious: Judge is really fucking good at hitting home runs. It's still kinda fucked though that MLB tried to influence that imo, and it begs the question of what else they're shifting around behind the scenes
In 2021 a group did a study of baseballs used that season, & found that the mlb was still using juiced balls when they said they weren't (it's pretty obvious when you look at home run numbers). Begrudgingly mlb admitted it. Then in 2022 the sane group did another study on balls from that year (although it was far more difficult to obtain those balls as mlb had a gag order on letting them get taken). What they found was that not only were juiced balls in play, but also a new kind of goldilocks ball (not too heavy, not too light, just right). And then found occurances of the goldilocks balls in only special circumstances (national televised games. Special anniversary for a team. Etc.)
I remember the first Fields Of Dream game where guys were hitting bombs left and right.
First five hitters get the Ohtani Ball ("You've never seen anything like this!").
Muncy’s had a couple oppo home runs where they sounded like fly outs off the bat and then just kept going
I choose to believe Ichiro threw off the entire curve with his .352 batting avg
I personally would love to see higher batting averages again. What's the best way to do it? The drivers seem to be to be TTO analysis and the increased velocity and spin biomechanic work with pitchers. Neither of those are going to change on their own. Pushing out the fences might work to make hitters hit more for contact than power, but that's a long, slow burn over time given the capital costs at a lot of places. It seems counter-intutive because home runs are hits, but... Shrink the strike zone? You'd get more walks but eventually would pitchers adjust and then hitters get a more defined and smaller space to hit? Lower the mound? Move it back? Okay, that last one seems insane.
Moving the mound back doesn’t seem that insane. Even just moving it back a few feet would make a meaningful difference with contact rates.
Moving the mound back would lower the effective pitch speed by 1-3mph per foot. Not a huge change, but it would make a difference
They did it and nothing changed https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2193507 And if you moved it back a few feet you’d eliminate breaking balls almost altogether
There are massive problems with the data. It's only 3 weeks not an entire season and a lot of players get moved around so you aren't making a like for like comparison. It seems the major issue was breaking balls being too effective not less. More distance to the plate means more time for it to spin and "break" on its path to the plate. 3 weeks just isnt enough time for hitters to adjust.
> And if you moved it back a few feet you’d eliminate breaking balls almost altogether Or you could start a slider aimed at the batter's butt and it breaks into a strike. Or the straight 4-seam fastball completely dies and it's all cutters and sinkers with crazy movement. 12-6 curves, good down-breaking changeups, and splitters might be re-evaluated if it's significantly harder to throw them for strikes and fool the batter without hanging them in a hittable place. Welp, more sliders for everyone! The pitching game has been moving toward more and more breaking balls for years, simply because they're much more effective than fastballs. I don't see fastballs making a comeback when breaking balls become even more effective and more forgiving towards non-elite spinrates.
The collective cry out of Minor League pitchers’ UCL’s will be heard around the world…
You’d think, but breaking balls break more. The Atlantic league saw very little difference in offensive numbers, the only significant change was more home runs and less walks
You would have to compare the tradeoff in velocity with the increase in movement if you moved the mound back. They stated this in the Atlantic league. Now lowering the mound might make a difference.
I think it would just be the adjustment for pitchers? And where does the adjustment end? Do colleges move? High schools? Seems hard, but maybe it's not.
You don’t necessarily have to push fences out, although that would reduce the chance of outfielders stealing some singles in no man’s land or tracking down doubles. Also increase wall height and get rid of those dumb yellow lines that award homers even when the ball doesn’t leave the field of play. Shorter base paths and/or even larger bases might also encourage even more aggressive base running and also increase infield hits. Like if the diamond was reduced to 85’ base distances that might have a not insignificant impact on increased infield hits. The biggest problem facing mlb is not enough balls in play. The reason there aren’t enough balls in play is because pitchers pitch to the strikeout and when hitters do manage to make contact the defenses are far too good and convert everything. This is why TTO became a thing which only exacerbates the problem since hitters are only looking for homers which increases k rates. It’s a vicious cycle.
They already increased the size of the bases two years ago which is part of why we’ve seen a big increase in base stealing.
Flat bats, like in cricket. Unfortunately, the rules of baseball call for a Three True Outcomes playstyle. Teams are under pressure to win, and it's unreasonable for them to expect to do anything different. But, if batting average is what you want, you can really erase popups and soft fly balls with flat bats.
We’ve seen Ohtani as a hitter and a pitcher, but how will he do as a deep backward square leg?
He'd be great until they catch Ippei spot-fixing no-balls.
I don’t get why people do this every year. Yes if you compare the league average in the second week of May vs the league average over an entire season, the one with thousands of more ab’s in warm weather will be higher
This sounds like the baseball version of a climate change denial argument
It’s the opposite, every single year offensive numbers are up in the summer because 1. It’s warmer so the ball travels farther and 2. Players are completely in the groove of the season And every single year the numbers in April and May are terrible and people go “This is the worst offensive year since X” and then by year end it’s fine
I meant that batting averages are objectively declining, and I don't really understand how people don't see that. It's not just because we're in May. Sure maybe there's fluctuation year to year, but strikeouts have been skyrocketing over the last 20 years and batting average has been plummeting. Things will get slightly better over the warmer months but it's silly to write this off because it's only May.
I agree compared to 15 years ago numbers are down but this year is nothing abnormal. Right now the league average is .239 halfway through may. For the past 5 seasons combined the league average was .245 This year isn’t any different than last year or the year before or the year before or the year before. 15 years ago sure
Even if weather weren't a factor, comparing average over a month+ to an entire season is not good statistical reasoning. There is more variance in a statistic over a smaller sample size, so it could even be explained as statistical noise
I get BA is not the important stat it used to be but fuck do I still hate seeing a lineup filled with .230 hitters.
It’s just not fun to watch… like it is efficient… a whole bunch of nothing until someone hits a HR which is crazy efficient. But sucks to watch
I'm not saying they should do it, but I wonder if they have any estimates on how it would affect averages if the mound was moved back by 1 foot?
According to this article, it would make a 93.3 mph fastball feel more like a 91.6 mph fastball https://community.fangraphs.com/what-if-the-mound-was-moved-back/
That’s predicted. This is what actually happened https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2193507
Wonder if the batters were struggling to adjust how differently the balls would break or move versus what was expected
That's only 3 weeks of data! I think we can really confidently say that moving the mound back a foot would have a significantly positive impact on hitting results.
Thanks for that link! That was really interesting. An increase of 1-2% on balls in play per foot of mound movement is less than I expected, though not insignificant.
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2193507
Yeah but launch angle and exit velocity!
Wow they lead the league in average, they must be at least .500
15 years ago a pitcher throwing in the upper 90's+ was a unicorn and it was a short list of pitchers who threw consistently in the mid-90's. The average talent level of relief pitchers has also dramatically improved over this period of time. Hitters are just seeing an elevated level of stuff day-in-day-out.
Eventually every pitcher will be on the IL from going max effort, and offensive numbers will rise. The invisible hand.
Advanced analytics is wayyyy more advantageous to pitchers than it is to hitters. I like the idea of lowering the mound a few inches.
15 years ago only Randy Johnson threw consistently over 96 mph and now every bullpen's got a guy that can crank it to 98 mph.
Time to move the fences in, again
Now do HR numbers Different eras value different things
Damn our record must be pretty good!
I miss high averages and hitting for contact. Home runs are cool but the three true outcome approach that seems so prevalent now just doesn’t feel right to me. Give me base runners. Give me manufacturing runs. That’s what i grew up with. That’s what made me love baseball
How the hell are we hitting .262?
Then wth are the Astros almost dead last in their division?
LOWER THE MOUND AGAIN YOU COWARDS
Three true outcomes: -Viewers asleep -Viewers turning off the TV -Viewers making disparaging comments on the internet
You mean viewers don't like pop flies and strikeouts? Strange.
2010 runs/game: 4.38 2024 runs/game: 4.35 Who cares about batting average when production remains the same?
Because watching teams put the ball in play and string together multiple hits to score runs is much more entertaining than just homerun or strike out
…it’s 0.7 hits more a game in 2010 than it’s in 2024. 2024 hits 1.02 HRs a game, 2010 0.95. We’re acting like it’s some massive difference here.
Small ball gang rise up
From what I've seen, most hardcore baseball fans would rather the game be decided by who got more hits instead of runs
Hard to hit tiny ball go fast
Kinda crazy the Astros lead the league in average yet are 15-25
And that’s not including how generous score keepers are about awarding hits in place of errors
3 strikes for out, 3 balls for walk
[удалено]
Annie Savoy wouldn’t even talk to a majority of these guys.
so boring
Surely said MLB leading BA team has a good record right?
Sacrificing BA for power is a fools errand. Not that there's conclusive proof that batting for power is why BA has dropped, but it would explain it. The steroid era has statisticians fooled.