Frayed Knot

When MLB announced the permanent adoption of the ghost runner it became pretty obvious that the reasons/excuses for using it in the previous few seasons - 2020: it's the Covid year - 2021: it's the post-Covid year and there are still travel restrictions - 2022: we need to use it this year too because of a shorter spring training period due to labor strife!! were nothing more than a lead-up to a decision that had already been made. And while I probably shouldn't have thrown in 'overwhelmingly', Manfred definitely cited fan approval as one of the reasons for permanence despite offering no proof or data. [paraphrasing] 'Fans have told us they love this idea ... take our word for it'

I have nothing that tells me fans don't prefer the challenge system but I always question things when being told that an organization knows what a large group of diverse people think about something, particularly when they could already have a preferred outcome in mind (remember that Manfred also us that fans overwhelmingly wanted the ghost runner). Knowing how players, umps, managers, and execs feel is much easier to discern.

=ashie62 post_id=185738 time=1740177707 user_id=90] If the ABS system is digitally perfect why should there be any challenges at all?

Q is certainly an option. And welcome.

"The answer to all your questions is 'money' " -- longtime TV sports producer Don Ohlmeyer on why television made a particular decision or chose a certain path Of course it comes down to money. Not sure how long the MLB/ESPN package had to run but Manfred, no doubt looking ahead to what happens whenever it was scheduled to end, likely figured 'this partnership isn't doing us much good as it is so why not get out now?' and I suspect that ESPN was only too happy to agree.

I doubt that this is the whole truth as to why this (35 year?) partnership is ending, but good for Manfred for framing it this way. When it first started, the four letter network couldn't get enough baseball: four to five games per week including the Sunday Night exclusive, BB2N every night, and hosts that were at least conversant in the sport. But in recent years, aside from the SN game itself and the lead up to it, the programming on most of the rest of the various ESPN 'platforms' either ignores or insults baseball. The question of what replaces this is going to be interesting and quite possibly not in a good way.

Yeah, the article I read was one in response to Xmas car commercials, 96% of which seem to involve someone being surprised by a brand new car in the driveway on Christmas morning. 'Cute, but not so easily done' was the gist of the piece.

I remember reading one time (likely during Christmas season) that buying a car for someone else as a gift is somewhat difficult. It's certainly legal and possible, but there is a lot of red tape and forms involved.

What happened in the early '90s was that umps started getting complaints from batters over the high strike so they essentially made a compromise and said, 'OK, we'll stop calling that but to compensate we're going to widen the zone and give the pitchers additional room on either side'. Different umps applied that to differing degrees but, in general, the zone started morphing from a vertical rectangle towards a more horizontal one. Livan Hernandez's CG, 3-hit, 15 K game vs Atlanta (and Maddux btw) in the 1997 NLDS, and particularly his final K of Fred McGriff, was the poster child game and pitch for that era. The final strike would maybe have been behind a RH batter and Crime Dog couldn't have hit it with a canoe paddle but that didn't stop HP ump Eric Gregg from calling it. At this time the umpire union had yet to pull their ill-fated mass resignation strategy so were still very powerful and cohesive, some might even say arrogant. They were also pushing back against the gradual merging of the two leagues and so were taking the attitude that MLB couldn't tell them what to do because they weren't hired by MLB they were hired by the NL or the AL so the by then largely toothless League Presidents were the only ones who could. I remember one saying, quite publicly, that 'just because the ML Rule Book defines a strike this way doesn't mean that's My strike zone'. So back to Maddux. He and Glavine (and others) were control pitchers with lateral movement on their pitches (Maddux: cutter, Glavine change-up) who took advantage of the wider zone trend because they would have been fools not to. Would they get those same calls now? No, not with the technology that grades umps on every game, and not with a whole new generation of umps who came up in the post-AL/NL era. But they'd still live on the corners and would undoubtedly still be successful in whatever adjustments they'd make. They weren't getting calls that other pitchers didn't also get back then, they were just better and/or smarter than most about taking advantage of the times. This challenge system, if and when it gets here, isn't going to change much about how pitchers pitch or how hitters react. It's merely going to give the ability to review maybe a half-dozen pitches per game [two for each team plus more for every challenge won] and correct some of them.

The biggest difference with Harrelson is that he took walks. That 100 point difference between his career BA & OBA is well above ML norms in his or in any other era. Just for some perspective, Keith the Met didn't walk that often (90) and even Olerud wasn't much ahead of him (110). Now part of that can be traced to batting 8th and being pitched around in front of the pitcher but those conditions still existed in Rey's time too and his 45 pt BA/OBA gap (65-70 is the typical ML avg) means that he was making outs at a much greater rate than Buddy even if the BA & SLG numbers were similar. That's the biggest factor in the OPS and WAR difference.

Frayed Knot wrote: =MFS62 post_id=185585 time=1739991017 user_id=60] Decent pitcher in blowout games. Nail biter in close games. Wow! A pitcher who was more likely to close out a game with a large lead than with a tight one. Has Mr. Ripley been contacted about this for his book? It was more diplomatic than saying I never trusted the fucker in a close game.

May 16 - Philadelphia - Diaz can't protect a one run lead in bottom 9th and sends it to extras - Mets score twice in Top 11 and turn the bottom half over to Diekman as Quintana, Garrett, Ottavino, Diaz, and Jorge Lopez have already been used - after getting the first out, the Ghost runner scores on an infield single/walk/RBI-GO - a SB puts the tying run on 3rd and the winner on 2nd ... but Diekman sacks up and Ks Schwarber for the win Mets were 4-9 in May prior to that game and would go on to lose 10 of the next 14 after it. A lone bright spot in that month and probably Diekman's best moment* as a Met *unless it was the K of Judge. For whatever reason, I remember the Schwarber one more

=MFS62 post_id=185585 time=1739991017 user_id=60] Decent pitcher in blowout games. Nail biter in close games.

Managers, the honest ones anyway, will admit that they can't tell balls and strikes from the dugout. They get a decent view of high or low but not in and out. It's why arguing B/S calls has long been an automatic ejection for managers, the whole idea of claiming you saw it better from 100 ft away than the ump did while set up behind the catcher is a waste of time. The only exception is when Aaron Boone explains/screams to the HP ump that if his players say it's a ball then it's a ball. They're "savages" in that way. So, yeah, it's good that the dugout won't be involved here. We saw them use this all year up here in the Cuse. It's pretty effective and the decisions are made quickly. Any guesstimate as to percentages of batter challenges vs those from Ps + Cs?

Advantages as I see them - on field and immediate challenges only which eliminates the delay of game as the team makes the decision to challenge the call before you even get to delaying the game for the review itself - elimination of the ticky-tack call as batters/pitchers/catchers have to use their challenges for 'sure' overturns or for late inning/high-leverage situations. Challenging borderline calls in early innings just doesn't make sense.

The now 40 y/o Justin Turner to the Cubs for one season. With the Brewers and Cardinals both losing players and seemingly not spending much money this winter, and the Pirates and Reds both being the Pirates and the Reds. It seems that the 3rd largest market Cubs with the goldmine that is Wrigley Field would be going all out to win the NLC. But apparently this was their backup plan for not getting Alex Bregman. This, btw, was Turner's sixth time signing a FA contract. 3x with the Dodgers, then with the Red Sox in '23 and Toronto in '24

... coming to a Spring Training game near you Where MLB is ultimately heading here is not to full-on Robo Ump but to traditional B/S calls by the HP Ump augmented by limited challenges to be settled by technology. In testing for The Automated Ball Strike system (ABS) in various minor leagues over the past few seasons there was "a clear preference among fans, players, managers and other personnel for the challenge system" over full (completely automated) ABS. There is apparently also a reluctance among players to do away with catchers' ability to frame pitches. So 13 ballparks this spring will have the technology in place covering about 60% of all ST games. This will guarantee all teams access to the system for at least some of their games. The challenge system: - each team gets to challenge just two pitches per game - challenges can be made by the batter, catcher, or pitcher ONLY - challenges must be made immediately and without consultation with dugouts - the 'Hawk-Eye* Technology' will then show the result to those TV viewers and to those in attendance via the video board - teams retain any challenge that is overturned in their favor https://www.mlb.com/news/automated-ball-strike-calls-mlb-spring-gameshttps://www.mlb.com/news/automated-ball-strike-calls-mlb-spring-games * Hawkeye technology has been providing ball/bat/player tracking data for Statcast since 2019. They also tried 'Trapper' technology as a sidekick system but abandoned that after just three seasons

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Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: What's with the AFX track I read somewhere that it was patterned after the NYC Subway map.

DEFENSE!!!!

=metirish post_id=185268 time=1739554520 user_id=72] I bet Ron talks about this is the first SNY ST game, he will try and walk it back and explain it away ...he seems that type of guy

UFT?

Kirk Presley had to be one of those prospect choices based on his draft slot alone [8th overall in 1993] as BA slotted him just outside their top 50 (59th) before he even threw a professional pitch. A RHP from Tupelo Mississippi, and, yes, was supposedly 2nd or 3rd cousin to 'The King', his minor league career started rather unremarkably and never got any better from there. He pitched pieces of five seasons, all in A-ball or lower, before being done in by the old 'injuries and ineffectiveness' double whammy. Turns 50 y/o this Spring. Hope he's doing well.

Hey Frankie ... how 'bout a bit less yapping, some more hitting, and maybe calm down a bit on the tattoos and designer eye black! Hit first, style later. Mm'Kay?

Yeah, Strasburg was the one guy the Nats bet on for a second go-around and it totally blew up on them.