Frayed Knot

Verducci isn't going to like this game anymore than the Dodger game from last week.

We still need five or six more runs.

I don't think the shorts were as bad a fashion statement as were those oversized faux collars.

Pirates are already several mound conferences over my newly imposed limit of one per inning. When I'm king, the remote laser gun comes out when this happens and somebody's gettin tased.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: The Tigers have started to fill the gaps between innings with assorted on and off-field fan contests and activities -- like I see in the minors. The team has always had some between-inning things, but it is spilling on the field more and more. They added car races recently -- think a Motown version of the sausages and presidents. That all has to add to the time. Teams can have cow milking or midget tossing contests between innings for all I care, I just want whatever they do to be wrapped up and the pitcher on the mound with his warmups over by the time the 2:05 proscribed limit is up. And if pitchers start taking too long to get out there that they don't have their eight throws in then they should have their warmups truncated.

First PH up: Jacob deGrom

Another angle I thought of to add to Verducci's list: - I haven't gone so nerdy to the point where I've been timing this (although i may start) so I don't KNOW that this is the case, but it seems to me that the between-innings gap isn't as strictly enforced as it should be and may be another thing that's been getting worse over time. The gaps--another job that's supposed to be enforced by the umps--are supposed to be 2:05 for local games, 2:25 for GotWs (which I assume includes FOX Saturday & ESPN Sunday) and 2:55 for post-season games, allowing the stations to fill their commercial obligations and still have a few seconds of set-up time before the first pitch of the following half-inning. In a perfect world I'd like to see those times reduced but I understand the world we're in here. But even with those gaps strictly laid out, I increasingly seem to find the broadcast coming back to the air only to find the pitcher still warming up, between-innings music still playing, the batter still in the circle and the first pitch still a half-minute or more in the future.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: And while fans will crank up their interest when their team contends, as Ceetar suggests, there's still the issue of watching games that your team isn't involved in. ... I may be a minority here on this forum, but I think a lot more of the general public has fallen into this pattern. Baseball has always been a game where the local interest trumps the national. The time required to watch, follow, or attend a game now has probably just added to the gap.

Ceetar wrote: I agree about the newcomer stuff, but I'm not sure it's that dire either. Turning off newcomers IS ALWAYS DIRE, no matter what your product or business.

Verducci's solutions: * Deputize the umpires to actually enforce the rules. MLB has to let them know they have their full backing when it comes to getting batters in the box and pitchers on the rubber. -- this rule already exists, just enforce it and stop the year after year implications that THIS TIME you're actually going to enforce it. � Keep the ball "live" as much as possible. If the pitcher has the ball and is ready to go, the umpire should not wait for the batter to dally. He should assume time is "in." Batters should not dictate when time is in. -- Same as above. It seems like the league either doesn't want to make the umpires the heavy here or that the umps themselves are reluctant to take on the role and the league bows to them for some reason. � Fine players for slow play and announce those infractions. -- OK sure, But getting them to stop ahead of time would be even better. Use whips and chains in the minor leagues (where there are fewer prima donnas and none of that union stuff to worry about) to keep them from ever developing those habits in the first place. � Here's one suggestion from Detroit pitcher Max Scherzer: "The pitcher cannot leave the dirt area of the mound between pitches except for after a foul ball." -- One trend I've noticed recently are pitchers who continue their pitching momentum and eventually wind up five to ten feet in front of the mound (not the rubber, the mound) to take the throw back from the catcher. At this point they have to walk back to where they started before they can even begin to think about throwing the next pitch, in some cases (maybe they don't want to walk on their landing area) a pitcher will do so via a great circle route and re-climb the mound from the 1st base side. There's no such thing as a catcher who can't throw guys (at least since Mackey Sasser's retirement) Stay on the fucking mound? � And another one from Scherzer: "The batter cannot call timeout after the pitcher comes set on the rubber." -- I'd hate to say 'Never' on this (esp since it would encourage pitchers to hold their set position forever in hopes of getting the batter all tensed up) but, yeah, umps should be less lenient with batter's requests. � Install a 12-second pitch clock to enforce the 12-second rule. -- Clock/no clock, I don't care. Just enforce the fucking thing � Give each team a limited number of timeouts to use over the course of the game. Baseball is the only sport that gives teams an unlimited number of timeouts. Catchers visiting the mound, pitching coaches stalling for time, infielders conferring with the pitcher . . . it's gotten way out of hand. Whatever the number -- say it's 10 timeouts -- you can divide them up any way you want. But no more stopping the game literally as many times as you want. -- Certainly mound visits should/could be capped. Maybe EACH visit after the first requires a pitching change rather than the current second one per inning. � Relief pitchers get two warmup pitches on the game mound, not eight. Imagine if when the backup quarterback comes into the game everybody stops and stands there to allow him to throw eight practice throws to his receivers on the field after he's been warming up on the sideline for the previous 15 minutes. Absurd, right? That's what baseball does. The average pitching change takes about three minutes (but that's not including the typical stalling for time that precedes it). We need to limit warmup pitches because a) the bullpen mounds today, unlike years ago, are virtually identical to the game mound, and the number of pitching changes continues to rise. Pitching changes have increased 27 percent in the past 20 years and 78 percent in the past 30 years. -- This seems so easy to do and so pointless not to. � Streamline the replay system. Get rid of the charade of managers walking slowly on the field, buddying up to the umpire and waiting for a signal from the dugout on whether to challenge or not. (By the way, this farce is not included in the "official time" MLB keeps on replay challenges.) If the manager leaves the dugout, a challenge declaration is assumed. -- Gee, who possibly could have foreseen the promises of 'but it'll only take ___ seconds per review' not working out as promised? � Also, get rid of those 20th century wired headphones -- you know, the ones that make Joe West look as if he's digging him some Glenn Campbell. Nobody wants to see the crew chief take that long slow walk from second base to behind home plate to put on a headset. Join the 21st century: go wireless, including a wireless microphone on the crew chief to actually explain the call. -- Sure, whatever. But I'll believe the promises that ANY review system will get more streamlined as they use and improve on it as soon as I see the NFL's three decade old system begin to get more efficient and streamlined. * Create an "illegal defense" rule. Shifts work. They are killing hitters who pull groundballs. It is harder to get a single today than at any time in the history of the game. Just as basketball defines illegal defenses and football defines illegal formations, baseball could diminish the effectiveness of offense-stifling shifts by limiting them, such as requiring two infielders on each side of second base. -- I don't see this as a problem. Better, or simply riskier, defenses aren't making the games longer. You don't like shifts? ... fine, then hit away from them!

"But the core of the issue Verducci is getting at is that MLB just doesn't care about the pacing." -- They better start. I'd honestly be reluctant to introduce a newcomer to baseball today because of the amount of dead time. And with everyone agreeing that the sport's biggest problem being its poor national TV ratings, they might want to consider reasons as to why that might be. "Neither does the NFL." -- The NFL is even worse in some respects (and the college game even moreso) but it's a tough comparison here. Football is almost all dead time interspersed with seconds of action in between, but the 17 different angles of replay seems to keep the masses entertained between plays and, being a timed game, there's simply less variation of how long a game is going to take and helps keep each one (reasonably) close to fitting into it's pre-determined TV window. Besides, football games, being on usually during times when fans have dedicated themselves to watching the game (winter weekend afternoons), are an escape from life; baseball occurs as life is going on. "I don't watch enough NBA to know but it does seem like the last 2 minutes of the game take 45 minutes. at least that's the exciting part of the game." -- Again here, the college version is even worse, but basketball in general is a much shorter game so the extra time takes you beyond two hours not beyond three or four. "The pace of hockey is awesome of course. The one time out definitely helps with that. -- One TEAM timeout although multiple TV timeouts. You could tell the difference while watching Olympic hockey how much less chopped-up watching can be and once was.

From Verducci's piece: Everybody complains about the pace of play in today's game, what with all the strikeouts, pitching changes, mound conferences and so much time between pitches. But it occurred to me that the players and managers don't even realize how much they have slowed the game in such a short period of time. They don't know and they don't care. In their minds, and I've heard numerous players and managers quoted on this, they don't hear the complaints, and with money / salaries /attendance figures all looking good, they simply don't think there is a problem. Both Torre & Girardi, since the Yanx were for years seen as the worst offenders, explained it all away by saying that 'you have to let these guys do their jobs', i.e.. if they want to take 45 seconds between pitches you have to allow them 45 seconds between pitches. But this is total horse-shit. Brain surgeons can take as much time as they need, but there's a long history of players managing to hit and pitch quite nicely without allowing me time to fill-in four crossword answers between pitches. Some hi-light show I was watching last week even took the time to show a Joey Votto AB in total in which he never left the box or adjusted anything for a full six or seven pitch AB as if this was a never before seen phenomenon or part of a blooper reel. The whole AB (it finished as a walk) took less time than others use to throw two pitches.

In fairness to Verducci, he's merely saying that he didn't enjoy watching THAT Met game. And, really, who can disagree? But he's ABSOLUTELY right about the topic and it's good to see someone with a louder voice than mine screaming it from a more visible pulpit than the CPF.

Vic Sage wrote: I would have hoped an intelligent fellow like Gary Cohen would at least make it interesting by playing devil's advocate, so there was some debate on the issue. But no; he's just a jock sniffer happy to cozy up to whatever view Ron and Keith are spouting at any given moment. Yeah, don't hold your breath waiting for Gary to bail you out here, he's more anti-Sabermetric than any of them -- not that this is a pure stats-vs-not argument, but he's as likely as anyone to cast a skeptical eye on 'the ways things are done these days' and see a stats-savvy front office as the root of the problem whether it fits in that case or not.

deGrom - 4.3 Familia - 0.2 Duda - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0 Abreu - 1.0 Lagares - 0.5

Double to LF by Todd Fraizer leading off the 8th First hit given up by the Dodgers since sometime on Saturday (56 straight batters)

�I think [Hudgens] understood the circumstances,� Alderson explained. �This is in response to a specific situation, and nothing else should be read into it,� Sounds like Sandy is trying to NOT classify this as doing something just to do something or as the first step of several more to come.

Oooooh, locked in a pitchers duel with Cueto too. Dodgers up 1-0 in the 7th but threatening for more.

Nymr83 wrote: Hits don't worry me if you are striking people out and not walking people, the babip will even out. The guys with all te walks worry m e, but I would rather see if they can turn it around than keep throwing an older guy who I feel won't out there. Maybe, especially since Walters (the only guy where I mentioned hits) isn't striking guys out either (10 in 17 innings). The only good sign is that there are only 2 HRs among those hits. But, still, 2.25 base runners per/inning is a recipe for disaster no matter how you slice it and there'd have to be a shitload of regression to the mean before that line begins to even get close to smelling good.

Here's the problem when looking for reasons not to have to carry guys like Farnsworth & Valverde Vic Black - 17 games, all in relief: 17 walks in 18.2 innings pitched in AAA Vegas Joel Carreno - 14 games, 2 starts: 13 walks in 28 innings Josh Edgin - 17 games, all in relief: 11 / 12.2 Erik Goeddel - 17 games, all in relief: 16 / 18.1 Carlos Alvarado - 8 games, 3 starts: 16 / 23.1 Ryan Reid - 13 games, all in relief: 11 / 20 Jeff Walters - 20 games all in relief: [u:3ruy5vpu]31 hits[/u:3ruy5vpu] in 17.1 IP Zack Thornton (acquired in the Ike deal) is looking better: 14 games, 17.1 IP; 2.60 ERA; 1.21 WHIP; 13/4 K/BB as is Miguel Socolovich: 19 games; 25.2 IP; 3.86 ERA; 1.48 WHiP; 25/8 and (36 y/o) Buddy Carlyle: 15 games; 17.1 IP; 1.56 ERA; 1.10 WHIP; 20/5

Ashie62 wrote: I misread this as Lance Johnson... So did I initially.

Valverde released - Black to be called (back) up. Wonder if he even left town? I held out little hope for this one from the very beginning. He had played his way off of the Tiggers twice within a year, and the answer to the debate we had about two weeks ago over whom to release, Farnsworth or Valverde, turns out to be: Both! I think this probably would have been done earlier except that the ugly BB/IP numbers that most of the Las Vegas staff is putting up made a likely replacement hard to find. Also, Hudgens out as hitting coach, Lamar Johnson is the replacement. Who? ... Yeah, the name is vaguely familiar but I have virtually no memory of his career. That's what happens with those AL West guys. I tend to think of these moves as more of a 'Don't Just Stand there, DO SOMETHING' kind of deal than they are actual strategy, but 31 runs scored over the last dozen games simply isn't cutting it.

I'd like to see Grandy run here.

Lefty Specialist wrote: When Keith sighs, I usually agree with the reasons, and I don't even have dinner reservations in Sag Harbor. We've had an amazing amount of low-scoring, yet three-hour plus, games this season.

dinosaur jesus wrote: Since this was techically an umpire's review, not a manager's challenge. How do we know this wasn't a Terry challenge? He was certainly out there making a case prior to them going to the headphones.