Edgy MD

Edgy MD wrote: Here you go. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/foul-balls-are-the-pace-of-play-problem-nobodys-talking-about/This 2019 study supports your thesis. I remember reading that now that you posted it. That's scary because the only way baseball can fix that specific development is to go to a three-ball walk. (Or, shudder, two-strike strikeout). I don't think baseball necessarily needs to fix it. I'm not sure if more foul balls are a problem or if it's necessarily a trend that won't be offset by the next adjustment. The game is remarkably self correcting. The main thing baseball needs to do for much of this is to get out of it's own way. Retreat from the ongoing centralization and sublimation of the teams' interest in the league. Let a more competitive atmosphere return and much of much of the game will shine again.

Here you go. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/foul-balls-are-the-pace-of-play-problem-nobodys-talking-about/This 2019 study supports your thesis.

The recording of pitch count data has been relatively neglected through history, but I bet there's enough information to be gleaned where we can test that theory.

I've always been in favor of three balls, but that's a matter for another forum. OHHHHHH!!!

Well, he tries to draw the parallel with detailed points.

Yeah, agreeing that games are too long is one thing. But (and I don't want to jump to the conclusion that Manfred is a terribly informed non-fan), there's not enough real thought or discussion about what the wheat is and what the chaff is, and that's maddening. Let me put one on the table: The first thing you do to compress the action in baseball — stop expanding the roster. I don't care if it's a double-header and I don't care if there's a plague on. Twenty-five men. Second thing to do — end the merry-go-round call-ups. If you call a guy up, he has to stay for a minimum number of games. If you send a guy down, he has to stay for a minimum number of games. First thing you learn in the study of disarmament is that when a person or a nation has weapons, they are psychologically motivated to use those weapons. Give a manager 27 players and three more in a taxi out in the parking lot, he is going to deploy them. This means longer games, with more substitution, wars of attrition taking longer to play themselves out, and shorter workdays by the pitcher who you came to see.

I'm afraid I was too miserly over JdG's abbreviated starts this month and cost him the big prize. If so, I sorry.

Fellow admins, feel free to extract IGT posts about seven-inning slates and magic runners and intentional walks and three-batter minima and such and merge them into this thread.

Three debutantes!

Tell us about that firstbaseman.

Tough pitch too. Loud-ass crowd.

Dumb question on this topic — I assume we still get the magic runner business in the post-season, right?

The Pirates have mostly been a team that has ranged from pretty bad to very bad this season. While they recently helped the Mets in a big way by taking three out of four from the Braves, they lost six in a row before that. On offense, they're a two-man team, carried by slugging centerfielder Bryan Reynolds and slappy secondbaseman Adam Frazier. Both are switch-hitters, both have made the All-Star Team, and they sit fourth and second in the league in batting average, respectively. Clearly the team is rebuilding, and they could well move one of them to that end. The rest of the offense has either been out of their depth, hurt, or both. Currently four players from their regular lineup are on the injured list, so there's a good chance you'll hear some new names this weekend. Also on the DL is Mets castoff Phillip Evans, who had a strong start as their corner utility man before falling off, pulling a hammy, and then returning to the IL after suffering a blow to the head on the basepaths this weekend. You finally get your break and then things start to break. They've had some breaks in staying afloat, in that (like the Mets), some of their replacement players have outplayed the playerz they've replace, and they've gotten contributions from veterans Ben Gamel (currently on a seven-game hit streak) and Wilmer Difo, as well as a breakthrough from second-year player Ke'Bryan Hayes, son of longtime MLB-er and almost-2000-Met Charlie Hayes. Doing the lion's share of the catching has been Jason Stallings, who provided all the runs for the team with a three-run homer as they lost 11-3 to the Braves in the series finale. Jason is the son of Kevin Stallings, a journeyman NCAA basketball coach who was heading the University of Pittsburgh men's team when his son came up with the Bucs back in 2016. That might have made a warm story, but an embattled Stallings was fired a year or two later with pretty much the worst winning percentage in Pitt history. Oh, well, at least he had his son to root for, and Jason took over the starting job last season, and is your typical sluggish, .700-ish OPS catcher with puncher's power and trouble with breaking balls. He's really big (6'5") for a catcher, but I guess that comes with the territory when you're from a basketball family. He's a well-regarded receiver with a strong arm, but his size affects his throwing. Personally, I like anybody who replaces Francisco Cervelli. Anybody want to jump in here with information about what's happening at first, now's your chance!

I don't think that's likely so. I think giving people less for their buck is the sort of change that tends to stick.

Son Glen was actually drafted by the Mets but went to college instead. He was a switch-hitting infielder like his dad, and played some indy ball after graduation. Howard had been disciplined by the Mets in his coaching days for sneaking away from his minor league assignments to watch Glen play prep ball. I know such fundraisers are as much about solidarity as money, but it's a crazy country where we have to pass the hat to pay for an All-Star's grandson being treated for a severed foot.

I have no intention of not letting Dave Stewart get the moral high ground, but holding up the 1981 Dodgers as models is probably going to muddy the subject more than is necessary. Also, I'm not sure hanging today's Dodgers out to dry is the move to make either. Maybe the team let MLB take initiative with disciplinary matters, but that probably was the more expedient way to go. It's not like they pitched him in the interim. What's a more interesting matter than Stew's involvement is that LAPD has indicated that it's turned into an expanding investigation, which leads me to suspect that either a ring has been uncovered or there are other victims or both. I tend to suspect as well that Baueroutage has pitched his last game in 2021 — whether being kept from playing by the Dodgers or by the league. If and when he returns, and if and when he nonetheless collects on his contract are further matters that will keep lawyers busy, as are the potential criminal charges, but I sincerely hope the curtain has fallen on his 2021.

I feel for you, John, but only a little.

It's actually all measurable with data. A dude lands on the team. At that point, there are any number of projection systems which plot out his career from that point onward. Plot his mean projected outcomes as a trend line, and then as he undertakes his career on your team, plot his actual outcomes under Manager X against it. Does that mean that ever performance above and below his projected trend line is 100% the manager's work? Of course not. But when you start to measure the differences over time through the performances of 25, 50, 100 players under his tenure, perhaps patterns can emerge. Players play 17% above their projected career tracks when under the supervision of Manager X, but 11% under their projected career tracks when under the supervision of Manager Y. There are assumptions and luck baked into the pie, but it's data driven, and frankly, luck and assumptions and arbitrary decisions by scorers or stadium builders play into most outcomes. As the data compiles, hopefully most of these factors cancel each other out. You can measure coaches this way as well, minor league managers, scouts, execs. It's not perfect, but we can go back on forth on this manager or that until the end of time. It's about time somebody brought some science to it. [fimg=600]http://people.duke.edu/~rnau/411trend_files/image004.png[/fimg] [FIMG=600]https://1r65612jvqxn8fcup46pve6b-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/baseline-statistics-full-graph-clear-impact.jpg[/FIMG]

Or, certainly, what they should have done.

Thanks, I've refiled. That's a rare game in that there's a case for virtually everybody to get a taste. And I imagine that, apart from McCann, everybody will.

I wouldn't reject a ban dogfighting, say, because I'd anticipate the city would come up with exceptions. I'd anticipate that, certainly.

I jus' scrod up my vote for Game One on July 4. Sadly, my points for Alonso were left out. If you want to delete that, I'll happily vote again.

"You know, the schedule's getting kind of tight. Fuck it. Let's play three quarters of a basketball game and call it a basketball game. Nobody will care." — The NBA, never

I'm totally caught up on June and banging away at July. BANGING!

Also, the rainouts forcing the series to finish with a jerry-rigged doubleheader. Also, both shutdown closers being lefties who clock in at 100 being taken deep for a game-tying solo homer by a righthanded hitter to left-center field, in the seventh-inning-disguised-as-a-ninth-inning in game two of the series/game one of the double-header.