BASEBALL 2018---BRING IT ON!

[Polly Ticks]

Happiness is watching a Spring Training ballgame on a Friday afternoon in February!!

[Cyber Liberty]

Happiness is watching a Spring Training ballgame on a Friday afternoon in February!!

Happiness is seeing you back in your Atlanta cap!   

[Polly Ticks]

Happiness is seeing you back in your Atlanta cap!   

I have been restlessly waiting for today so I could put it back on! 

Also my Braves earrings and hair scrunchie, although my avatar doesn't reflect that.  Hmmmm ... maybe I need to work on that a bit one of these days.

[Cyber Liberty]

I have been restlessly waiting for today so I could put it back on! 

Also my Braves earrings and hair scrunchie, although my avatar doesn't reflect that.  Hmmmm ... maybe I need to work on that a bit one of these days.

I'll have to make sure Mrs. Liberty gets in here to see it....

She's not a big fan of Spring Training (the prices in the Cactus League are way too high), so I don't expect much involvement from my better half until March 29.  We're leading off against the Rockies (Who are beating us right now at the top of the 5).

[GrouchoTex]

Yep....We got Cole....without giving up our best prospects.....   Luhnow you magnificent bastard!!!!!!



And Yes.... I made it big on purpose!!!!!!

It has only been 3 days into the spring training schedule, but it looks like the Astros came in pretty well prepared already.

[Machiavelli]

X-ray of baseballs reveals possible cause of home run surge

@EasyAce

[Machiavelli]

This pitch from Shohei Ohtani made the Internet lose its mind

@EasyAce

[EasyAce]

This pitch from Shohei Ohtani made the Internet lose its mind

@EasyAce

@Machiavelli
I saw that pitch on television. If that's any real indication he throws one of the hardest curve balls in the business. That pitch
looked like a fighter pilot rising just a little before diving down to shoot down his enemy.

[EasyAce]

X-ray of baseballs reveals possible cause of home run surge

@EasyAce

@Machiavelli
There'd been suspicions of the core being a little different in the balls since about early 2015. But I think the authors of the original
article have another point---when you have a group of hitters who are being taught to swing up, the chances of hitting one out increase.
I mean, we went how many years before you heard terms like "launch angle" in a discussion of baseball? Of course, with quite
a few hitters the makeup of the ball doesn't mean all that much---they could hit rice pudding over the left field fence.

[Slip18]

@Machiavelli
There'd been suspicions of the core being a little different in the balls since about early 2015. But I think the authors of the original
article have another point---when you have a group of hitters who are being taught to swing up, the chances of hitting one out increase.
I mean, we went how many years before you heard terms like "launch angle" in a discussion of baseball? Of course, with quite
a few hitters the makeup of the ball doesn't mean all that much---they could hit rice pudding over the left field fence.

@EasyAce

The "core" of the baseball has changed???  What?  So are the baseballs getting juiced?

I love this game.  I hope it does not get ruined because home runs do bring in more crowds, ergo, more dollars.


 

[catfish1957]

@EasyAce

The "core" of the baseball has changed???  What?  So are the baseballs getting juiced?

I love this game.  I hope it does not get ruined because home runs do bring in more crowds, ergo, more dollars.


 

Interesting take on what I feel is a disturbing development in the game.   With higher technical abilities, comes the possibility of game manipulation.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/new-study-links-changes-to-the-baseball-to-the-record-number-of-home-runs-in-mlb/

[EasyAce]

Interesting take on what I feel is a disturbing development in the game.   With higher technical abilities, comes the possibility of game manipulation.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/new-study-links-changes-to-the-baseball-to-the-record-number-of-home-runs-in-mlb/

That's what they thought, too, when the original dead-ball era ended in favour of a) baseballs whose yarns around the core
were wound a little tighter and Babe Ruth and company began hitting them for regular distance; and, b) the new rule requiring
fresh, clean baseballs in play at all times, in the wake of the tragedy involving Indians shortstop Ray Chapman and Yankees
pitcher Carl Mays.

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce

The "core" of the baseball has changed???  What?  So are the baseballs getting juiced?

I love this game.  I hope it does not get ruined because home runs do bring in more crowds, ergo, more dollars.


 

@Slip18
Baseball has experimented with the balls themselves for, oh, almost a hundred years. As also with bats, gloves,
and other equipment. Who'd have thought when we were kids that you'd see catchers wearing specialised
mask helmets? Or gloves large enough to catch volleyballs, almost? And assorted and sundry game purists talk
in ways that suggest that, if they had their way, we'd be back to the era when a baseball had as much life as
a corpse, a fielder might as well have worn an oven mitt to play his position, a catcher had nothing more than
the next best thing to a piece of fence in front of his face, and batting statistics would be inflated because by
cracky nobody will come to a night game . . . ;)

[Cyber Liberty]

@Slip18
Baseball has experimented with the balls themselves for, oh, almost a hundred years. As also with bats, gloves,
and other equipment. Who'd have thought when we were kids that you'd see catchers wearing specialised
mask helmets? Or gloves large enough to catch volleyballs, almost? And assorted and sundry game purists talk
in ways that suggest that, if they had their way, we'd be back to the era when a baseball had as much life as
a corpse, a fielder might as well have worn an oven mitt to play his position, a catcher had nothing more than
the next best thing to a piece of fence in front of his face, and batting statistics would be inflated because by
cracky nobody will come to a night game . . . ;)

Or they'd get clever and try to encourage more hits by shaving down the pitcher's mound and shortening the field?

(That last bit, to create the question, "Howcome hardly anybody hits triples anymore?" "Because the distance to hit a triple would now go over the fence.")

[EasyAce]

Or they'd get clever and try to encourage more hits by shaving down the pitcher's mound and shortening the field?

(That last bit, to create the question, "Howcome hardly anybody hits triples anymore?" "Because the distance to hit a triple would now go over the fence.")

@Cyber Liberty
Depends on the ballpark. Some parks have deep enough power alleys to make triples possible, but it's not like the original Yankee Stadium with its
left-center field and center field depth. Babe Ruth could pick up triples there hitting the opposite way. (He would have had to hit the other way to pick
up triples, since he ran like a dump truck with a flat tire but the distances to those regions meant even he could pick up a few triples.) The down side
---it probably cost Joe DiMaggio enough home runs to keep him from hitting at least 400 in his career, that and DiMaggio's stubborn insistence that
the only "legitimate" hitting was pull hitting.

The Polo Grounds was even crazier. You needed to call a cab to reach its center field and left- and right-center field alleys:



Straightaway center field was 483 feet including a patch of it that ran under the elevated building that housed the home and visiting clubhouses and
the Giants' (and for two years the Mets') park offices. The bisected bleachers sat 463 feet from the plate. (Now does anyone understand what
was so amazing about Willie Mays's catch in front of the bleachers, on the track, in Game One of the 1954 World Series?) The foul lines went 279 feet
to left and 258 feet to right.

Guess who played his first three Yankee seasons with the Polo Grounds as his home park? Babe Ruth. The Yankees played in the Polo Grounds as
tenants until John McGraw decided he was simply fed up with the arrangement and ordered the Yankees to find another place to play as soon as
possible---which they did, Yankee Stadium opening for the 1923 season. The Polo Grounds fitted Ruth's lefthanded power when the Yankees became
tenants there in 1920; the Yankees built Yankee Stadium to favour it. I'm convinced based on all available evidence that no matter what else you
might have read the real reason why Babe Ruth went from hitting 29 home runs in 1919 to 54 in 1920 is that he moved into a park (the Polo Grounds)
that was just too delicious for him---he didn't have to give a savage yank to pull balls to right field, and he didn't have to be intimidated by that
deep spread from left to right center. If he could hit 29 home runs with Fenway Park as his home park in 1919, it had to be cake for him to almost
double that number with the Polo Grounds as his home park.

But a funny thing happened to him on the way to Yankee Stadium: he hit 59 home runs in his second season with the Polo Grounds as his home park,
but fell back to 35 in his final year playing at home in the Polo Grounds. When the Yankees moved into Yankee Stadium, Ruth's home run totals for
his first four seasons in Yankee Stadium were: 41, 46, 25, 47. Except for 1927 (60) and 1928 (54), Ruth never again hit more than 49 home runs
in any season.

Suppose Ruth had gotten to play in the night ball era? I've seen several analyses of the prospect and it boils down to one thing: If he'd played in the
night ball era, Ruth would probably have finished with a slash line comparable to that of Willie Mays: .305 batting average; .384 on-base percentage;
.557 slugging percentage. He also might have hit about 600 home runs . . . but then, if you restore the two years Willie Mays lost to military service
in the early 1950s, Mays would probably have retired with 700+ home runs. Concurrently, if Ralph Kiner had gotten to play strictly in the day-ball-only
era, his own batting average might have spiked to something approximating Willie Mays's average . . . and he might have had a .400+ on-base
percentage. (Kiner's OBP when he retired was actually a little higher than Mays's: .398. And you can imagine how many more home runs he might
have hit than the 369 he did hit in a back injury-abbreviated ten-season career. Kiner's back probably kept him out of the 500 home run club, too.)

[Slip18]

@Slip18
Baseball has experimented with the balls themselves for, oh, almost a hundred years. As also with bats, gloves,
and other equipment. Who'd have thought when we were kids that you'd see catchers wearing specialised
mask helmets? Or gloves large enough to catch volleyballs, almost? And assorted and sundry game purists talk
in ways that suggest that, if they had their way, we'd be back to the era when a baseball had as much life as
a corpse, a fielder might as well have worn an oven mitt to play his position, a catcher had nothing more than
the next best thing to a piece of fence in front of his face, and batting statistics would be inflated because by
cracky nobody will come to a night game . . . ;)

Wrigley Field comes to mind.  Oh, I also thought that was just terrible.  LOL!

We are in another new, and, hopefully, improved era.  I get a bit emotional about baseball.

I do not want to see anyone get injured.  That is why I don't watch Spring Training.  There are a few (?) more injuries on the field.  It is heartbreaking for me.

You are correct, as usual!

 

[Slip18]

Happiness is watching a Spring Training ballgame on a Friday afternoon in February!!

I love your Yogi Berra quote!  Wheeee!

 

[Polly Ticks]

I love your Yogi Berra quote!  Wheeee!

 

Me, too!! 
 

[EasyAce]

My personal favourite Yogi Berra quote is still the crack he made to a group of American League pitchers,
huddling before an All-Star Game, discussing ways to pitch to Stan Musial. "Forget it," Yogi said. "You guys
are trying to figure out in fifteen minutes what nobody's figured out in fifteen years."

[Polly Ticks]

My personal favourite Yogi Berra quote is still the crack he made to a group of American League pitchers,
huddling before an All-Star Game, discussing ways to pitch to Stan Musial. "Forget it," Yogi said. "You guys
are trying to figure out in fifteen minutes what nobody's figured out in fifteen years."

Yes, that was a good one, too!

[Polly Ticks]

Baseball is a team game -- and an unpredictable one, at that. So the idea that a single player can swing a team's fortune one way or another can be faulty. Last year, the Angels were a game under .500 (19-20) in the six weeks Mike Trout was on the disabled list and a game under .500 while he was on the active roster (61-62). The Dodgers are an incredible 74-25 over the past two seasons when Clayton Kershaw has been on the shelf with back issues.

Everything written below, then, is not to be treated as gospel (and if it were treated as gospel, that would be an unusual religion).

Still, there's no denying that there are certain players whose long-term absence or major performance decline would have their clubs scrambling, if not stumbling. With a tip of the cap to the New York Post's Ken Davidoff, whose recent column on Noah Syndergaard as the Mets' linchpin inspired this piece, here are my picks for the most indispensable player on each team for 2018.

Most indispensable players for all 30 teams in 2018

[EasyAce]

Most indispensable players for all 30 teams in 2018

@Polly Ticks
This is a good piece. Very smart observations. And it is going to be very interesting to see what the Rays
do with a four-man starting rotation. Not to mention . . .

* How much the Mets really did re-tool their team medical thinking (they overhauled their entire medical staff, just about)
and whether they can keep the team's key men on the field or the mound.

* How much Freddie Freeman might have left after all these seasons trying to carry a team that's been rebuilding longer
than they care to admit.

* Whether Felix Hernandez's 2017 was an aberration or the beginning of his downslope.

* Whether the Orioles can keep Manny Machado healthy enough not to wreck his trade value. (Unless the impossible happens
and they decide he's the guy to rebuild around, the worst kept secret in baseball this year is likely to be Machado on the
non-waiver trade deadline market as he finishes his walk year.)

* Whether the Nationals, who have some money to burn, will hammer out an extension with Bryce Harper. And, whether
they can keep him healthy for a full season.

* Whether the Indians find a couple of sound bullpen pieces to shore it up after losing a couple of key parts to free agency,
and thus whether they overwork and possibly burn out an Andrew Miller who can already do enough different things as it is.

* Whether Madison Bumgarner comes back to full form for the Giants, who still seem to think they have one more run in
them as they are now.

* Whether the Cubs really did get to and help correct the flaw that got Yu Darvish murdered in Game Seven---pitch tipping.
If they've fixed it, Darvish is big for them with Jake Arrieta gone . . . and bad news for the rest of the NL Central.

* Whether an aging Adam Wainwright has enough left in the tank for the Cardinals.

* Whether Arrieta's veteran leadership with the Phillies' pitching staff will be enough to compensate for his apparent hitting
the downslope . . . or whether he has a surprise in store in his tank.

[Cyber Liberty]

I could have done the D-Backs entry in that article while blindfolded and swinging a stick at a Papier-mâché donkey hanging from the ceiling.  It's been the same for the last 2-3 Seasons.   

[al_c]

Hoping for a better showing from my Rangers this year. But the Stros are gonna be tough to beat.

[EasyAce]

I could have done the D-Backs entry in that article while blindfolded and swinging a stick at a Papier-mâché donkey hanging from the ceiling.  It's been the same for the last 2-3 Seasons.   

My big question involving Paul Goldschmidt might actually be how long he remains a Diamondback. There've been trade rumours
around him in the past, and if the Snakes don't make a good showing this season after getting shoved out early last postseason,
who knows if they decide to push the reset button and cash Goldschmidt in for a small haul of prospects or younger major leaguers?