MLB 2019

Happy Opening Day!!! Hope springs eternal. My Halos maybe can challenge for the second Wildcard, but at least the dark cloud of Mike Trout’s free agency has been lifted. The Astros will win the division, but the Angels have rebuilt the farm system and help is finally on the way for the best player in the game.

 

Spring has sprung! My one baseball hope is that the Indians rotation, arguably one of the best rotations in baseball, falters enough to leave a crack in the door to a relatively weak division for my Twins. Oh, and that Buxton and Sano actually stay healthy and finally play to their potential. I won't be holding my breath on either one of those though. Sigh, another season in the life of a Twins fan.

 

The addition of Goldschmidt and a full season without Mike Matheny should earn the Cardinals a ticket to the post-season.

 

Giants 0-162!!

 

Somehow my Orioles, who've been playing for 5 days and were supposed to be terrible, almost have as many wins as Fulham, who've been playing since August and were supposed to be okay!

 

RIP Bill Buckner, dang good hitter (over 2700 hits). I remember him from when my family just moved to Chicago in the early 80’s and he was the Cubs first baseman. Sadly he’s remembered for something else (even though the Mets had already tied the game before his error). His return to Fenway over 20 years later to throw out the first pitch was powerful. There is an E60 story that is also a great watch (talks about forgiving the media).

 

I'm not a baseball fan, I don't know what WAR is, but I think I'm catching your drift...

 

I, too, like the fine gentleman from South Texas @HatterDon , know what WAR is but to say I have a complete understanding of it would be a lie. In theory, WAR should capture Yadi's defensive prowess and ability to throw runners out. I have no idea how they capture that "data" and insert it into the calculation though.

WAR wouldn't, however, capture his ability to call a game, at least to my knowledge...and that's one of Yadi's strong suits. For my money, I'd rather have Yadi behind the dish rather than someone like Gary Sanchez that just hits bombs, strikes out a ton and can't throw anyone out. And this is coming from a guy who's team (Twins) is about to (or already did) demolish the single season home run mark set by the Yankees...they could have 8 players with 20 or more HRs! 8!!

Which leads me to, wholeheartedly agreeing with @HatterDon that something needs to be done about the current direction of baseball, which I blame on trying to "shorten" the game for the waning attention span of people nowadays. Get the most bang for the buck...shorter games with bombs and fastballs...power on power.

One more example from something I read today...we have two pitchers for the same team that might reach 300 strikeouts this season, which hasn't been done since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling did it in the early 2000s. Now don't get me wrong, Verlander and Cole are fantastic pitchers, but the article said Cole is striking out something over 38% of the batters he faces! 38%!! That's absurd! The last one to do something similar to that was Bob Gibson...and Cole is no Gibson.

I could rant on for a while as well, but alas, things won't change until people stop going to the ballparks and by that time, it'll be too late.

 

But people are no longer going to the ball parks. Its when the TV money dries up and Manfred isn't the Commissioner that things will change. Craig Calcaterra had a good piece on this last month.

Also, Another issue that is related to previous points are the three true outcomes. It's been going up every year since about 2010 and is now hovering at 35%. Absurd.

 

Growing up baseball was my second favorite sport behind NCAA basketball. Every morning I would get up and scour the box scores in the newspaper and as I got a little older when I came home from work there was almost always a baseball game on. Typically it was either the Cubs or Braves (thank you WGN and TBS). Now, I don't even watch when my wife is watching baseball. I find something to do on the computer or around the house. It's not the same game I grew up with any more. If someone would reinvent the 80's Cardinals I might find time to watch again. I miss players like Willie McGee and Vince Coleman. By the way, stolen bases was my favorite season stat to follow.

I think this is possibly the first of many "Get off lawn rants" that I so frequently feel coming on.

 

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/09/0...60-this-season-thanks-to-the-juiced-baseball/

I also don't fully understand the WAR statistic. When did baseball get so complicated? There are at least a handful of stats that I don't get. I'm simple. I like to see my team get hits and runs and the other team not. Thankfully I'm an Astros fan, and they are doing good at that these days (though I'll be honest and admit to zoning out for a number of years when they were "rebuilding"). I don't quite get though, the constant shifting on defense. The Astros are one of the teams that shift the most, and I guess it's working - though I feel like I see it backfire at least once per game.

While I realize that things change, like @BarryWhite, I'm starting to feel like the old guy on the block. Though I still enjoy baseball more than most of other American sports.

 

Don, are you asking what the three true outcomes are?

 

No worries! Basically the three true outcomes are a walk, strikeout or home run. Not sure why they are called this, but they're events that do not involve the defensive team (other than the pitcher and catcher).

It dovetails with our lamenting of the rise of home runs and strikeouts. Currently ~35% of all at bats are resulting in either a walk, strikeout, or a home run. It'll be 40% (or 2/5ths) in a few years. Here's a better explanation: https://sabr.org/research/growth-three-true-outcomes-usenet-joke-baseball-flashpoint

 

I was so disgusted by both the players and the owners during the mid-90s baseball strike that I decided to stop watching baseball and watch more soccer instead. The last time I watched a baseball game was Madison Bumgartner's World Series.