things I learned about in baseball this week/how i learned to stop worrying and love baseball

good posts, good thread

Baseball on radio is the best. I remember my grandfather's deep trance as he listened to the Twins on his transistor radio's earbud, lying on the couch with his eyes closed. Was he asleep? Following the game? Dreaming about it? All I could tell was that he had attained a state of contentment too deep to be disturbed by small children playing in the same room.

Born in 1900, Grandpa would probably be a little disoriented if he could be presented with a 2023 Vikings game televised in 4K, but I don't think he'd detect many changes in baseball on the radio. Some things are timeless.

Unordered list of less common baseball terminology that have made the jump into my daily usage. NB some of these might not be baseball exclusive/might be American sports twitter terminology but I learned them through baseball, so.

Lit up (which I pronounce as per the people of my region “li’up”) - everyone knows this one, I don’t need to explain it.

Glazed/to glaze - you see this on the comments of the official mlb Instagram and Twitter all the time. Refers to lavishing positive attention on someone that really doesn’t need it for a minor achievement. Usually used for stuff like MLB posting six times about Shohei in an hour or something.
https://i.postimg.cc/sf5qZyRF/IMG-9832.jpg

Inverted commas (pejorative) - I have no idea of the etymology of this but it’s incredibly rude. Basically used to disrespect a player, eg:

I can’t believe we’re getting no-hit by “Chris Flexen”

Nice piece of hitting, a - broadcasters use this all the time and it’s such a weird little phrase I use this all the time now approvingly. I used it in a voice note to my mother and she was like, “what the fuck are you talking about”.

Man knows ball (pejorative?) - usually in reference to someone who generally does NOT know ball but who has had a rare good take. Kind of like a tip of the cap but less sincere. The most famous example of this is:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1727DVakAIomQg?format=jpg&name=small

Playing backyard ball with my kid, I used the terms "duck snort" and "can of corn" and when I explained I learned them from listening to "hawk" on TV it didn't help his mystification.

YES! Can of corn I hear a lot!

"Bag of balls" has always been one of my favorites, as in, "they traded him for a couple of prospects and a bag of balls."

Those prospects, of course, are inevitably slapdick.

I always loved "worm-burner" for that particular type of grounder

A buddy of mine played golf once with Jim Rice, who explained what a "slump buster" was.

I knew that term already. I did not expect it from the cranky old man who’s on every Red Sox broadcast!

Oh yeah, he was quite effusive about it.

eyewash is a good one

I read the article about that the other day!

maybe not strictly a baseball thing but I associate it with pre 80s baseball: calling cigarettes/cigars “schmegs”, “heaters”, etc

Keith Hernandez used to call sucking down a cig as fast as possible in the dugout tunnel a “heater”.

I think they use “heater” for fastballs.

that too.

I also like “cookie”

Throw him the dark one.

“Spits on it” in reference to a batter taking a ball. “Max muncy spits on that ball”.

Ribeye is a favourite too.

I feel well at home as an Aussie with Baseballs need to shorten absolutely everything.

Replacement level ______ is good for any given schmuck you have been assigned to work with

• (Daniel Stern) "So, do you hate baseball?"
• (Helen Slater) "No, I like baseball. I just never understood how you guys could spend so much time discussing it. I mean, I've been to games, but I don't memorize who played third base for Pittsburgh in 1960."
• (Billy Crystal) "Don Hoak."

me: so what exactly are your dad’s thoughts on Wilyer Abreu?

"looks like the real deal"

yknow dad stuff

Does he mean like as a player or he’s a big thicc boy who can swing it

Please also tell me any players your dad doesn’t like

Side note, have we discussed the way scouting reports talk about players?! I never could have guessed how accurate the old guys were in Moneyball.

TH you should be able to guess who most of these guys are on the current RS roster:

1.

Run: Average speed. Moves very well for a catcher and could steal a handful of bases.

Well-built with a large lower half. Young face, but physically mature for his age. Room to fill out in his upper body. Not a great athlete, although surprisingly athletic for his size. Will need to watch his conditioning as he matures.

Dual United States and Mexican citizen. Drafted in the 26th round in 2014. Spent time in the Mexican League in 2019-2021. Also spent time with the independent Winnipeg Goldeyes of the American Association and Tigres de Aragua of the Venezuelan Winter League. Drove an Uber to make ends meet. Made his MLB debut with Seattle in 2022.

Strong, imposing frame. Thick, fully developed lower half. Will have to work to maintain body and athleticism, but has a strong work ethic and long-term concerns on that issue are minimal. Very long limbs. Has done a good job with conditioning early in his career. Arrived at 2020 Alternate Training Site with a more toned physique.

Small, athletic. Very twitchy. Has grown since he entered the organization, but still is relatively slight of frame. Does not have a frame to add significant weight, but is sneaky strong for his size.

Tall, strong frame. Quick-twitch athlete. Athleticism stands out on the field. Has added significant strength in his upper body since he joined the system, and specifically was noticeably stronger when he reported to the Alternate Training Site in 2020.

And their thick, fully-developed lower halves.

Lolllll, I know, I read that, and I was like…What the actual fuck

I was looking for an old Buster Posey scouting report that criticised the size of his ass but alas can’t find it now

1. Wong
2. Casas
3. Duran
4. Bello
5. Rafaela
6. Duran

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HB1xDGlJ14

I'd say Wong has above average speed tho

How did you guess Duran for two of them 😭 1,5 & 6 are all correct, 2 is Devers and 3 is Bernie

4, ofc, is
https://i.postimg.cc/T2C6nH9R/IMG-7046.jpg

Bello’s scouting report is hilariously wrong for your guess

Physical Description: Lanky right-hander with an athletic frame. Still somewhat on the skinny side, but has added noticeable muscle. Some projection remaining, but will always be on the thin side.

Ah whoops

It's late

Damn that picture should come with matching oven mitts cause Casas is SMOKIN

xpost Bello is decidedly not on the thin side imo. His forearms are bigger than Pedro's ever were. But I'm going to stop there otherwise I'm going to sound like these fuckin horse trader scouts.

https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/ds/

Bello is pretty lean and muscular, he’s not like Sale but he still looks relatively slim for an SP I guess? He’s bigger than Pedro for sure

Thank you Jimmy!

I like how they backhandedly compliment/insult catchers

Runs well…For a catcher

Moves well…For a catcher

Unique athleticism for a catcher.

99% chance my first MLB park I visit is pnc in April 🤗

^Mookie 2 thred

that is very exciting - are u just in pit or do u have time to do like, cleveland too

I messaged him about it already and will be taking all his recommendations!

Pittsburgh has aiui a lot of museums with dinosaurs which is like top of my list visiting a city so I don’t think Cleveland this time, but if you want to sell me on it I’m all ears.

The Science of Hitting:

There is one very important side effect—a team effect, actually —of an individual exercising this kind of discipline his first time up, and the point seems to be lost on so many people in baseball. If you’ve made that pitcher pitch, if you’ve made him throw four or five or maybe six or seven times, right away, and if the batter behind you does the same thing, and all nine guys in the lineup do it, the pitcher will have pitched the equivalent of half a game in three or four innings. The effect should be telling: He will probably be out of there, worn out, by the sixth or seventh inning.

Compound the situation and say it’s a real hot day, and he’s a little wild and he walks a couple guys. He could be on the ropes even sooner.

But how often do you see it happen? A guy starts off wild, throws a couple in the dirt, then the batter swings at the first strike and pops up. Then the next guy does the same thing: two or three bad pitches, and then a ground-out, then a couple more bad pitches, and the batter swings at the nearest pitch available and fouls out. Instead of wearing him out, you’ve helped him out. A pitcher is lucky to face such dumb hitters. Too many hitters boot the ball in just this manner: They don’t make the pitcher pitch.

I’ve heard batters try to argue the point. They say, “Well, I can’t do that, I can’t be that selective because I miss too many balls.” A perfect example is Frank Howard. Frank says he can’t hit well with two strikes because he misses too many. Well, the ones he is missing are the ones in a tough spot or the ones he has been fooled on and shouldn’t even try to hit before two strikes anyway.

The fact is that when a Howard gets his pitch he does just about as good a job on it as anybody in the American League—when he gets his pitch. He might not be able to handle as big an area as, say, Frank Robinson, but in his area he is as good as anybody. The best hitters can take care of the whole strike zone, but then all have certain spots they hit better in. If you start going out of your area, you’re just helping the pitcher. The very best pitchers would have a hard time throwing the ball consistently in a foot square. That’s about their limit. You make them work, make them throw curves, fast balls, sliders, and they will eventually miss and give you the opening you want.

So: Make the pitcher pitch.

99% chance my first MLB park I visit is pnc in April 🤗

A man so fiercely modest and private that while at the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship, he didn't tell his parents back in Brooklyn that he was also on the baseball team. The man whose mother requested one of the first copies of his 1966 autobiography, Koufax, so she could find out something about her son. ("You never told me anything," she said to him.)

"When Hideo Nomo was getting really, really big, Sandy told me, 'He'd better learn to like room service,'" O'Malley says. "That's how Sandy handled the attention." Koufax almost never left his hotel room in his final two seasons for the Dodgers. It wasn't enough that he move to a creaky, charmingly flawed farmhouse in Maine with a leaky basement, he quickly bought up almost 300 acres adjacent to it.

It was this bad: Koufax couldn't straighten his left arm--it was curved like a parenthesis. He had to have a tailor shorten the left sleeve on all his coats. Use of his left arm was severely limited when he wasn't pitching. On bad days he'd have to bend his neck to get his face closer to his left hand so that he could shave. And on the worst days he had to shave with his right hand. He still held his fork in his left hand, but sometimes he had to bend closer to the plate to get the food into his mouth.

His elbow was shot full of cortisone several times a season. His stomach was always queasy from the cocktail of anti-inflammatories he swallowed before and after games, which he once said made him "half-high on the mound." He soaked his elbow in an ice bath for 30 minutes after each game, his arm encased in an inner tube to protect against frostbite. And even then his arm would swell an inch. He couldn't go on like this, not when his doctors could not rule out the possibility that he was risking permanent damage to his arm.

if you foresee visiting more parks in your future i think ballpark stamping is really fun - https://mlbballparkpassport.com/

$76 + shipping for the passport is kind of steep but they sell a more modest one without bells and whistles for $22. it's a one man passion project so part of the high cost is to cover licensing fees from MLB. also in the grand scheme of how much souvenirs and concessions cost at a park it's not a terrible price... also apparently if you buy one at a stadium teams put their own markup on it, i hear it costs like $100 at fenway.

other souvenirs to get - customer service at parks will give you a 'first game certificate' for free, generally. scorecards. souvenir team baseballs, mini baseball bats, pins. soft serve in a collectible hat. collectible beer cup. unfortunately parks don't really do ticket stubs or programs anymore...

Yeah I don’t know, it might be a bit of an ask with not living in the US. It’s a really nice idea though, if you went to games regularly it would be really worth doing.

Happy you're going to get to a game, gyac!

Finished The Science of Hitting! Ok, it’s not very long but I’m very distracted by Mario Wonder and sleeping.

Things I learned about Ted Williams & his thoughts on hitting:

- good hitters “guess” the pitch coming - based on previous experience. You see this all the time during games now - they’ll say “he was waiting on that fastball” or similar. This was apparently not widely accepted at the time.
- “75% of an outfielders job is to hit.” Is this because Teddy was an ordinary fielder at best?
- DON’T SWING AT THE FIRST PITCH. He says even if you take a strike first time out, you learn by that strike how the pitcher is throwing and how his stuff is looking and can adjust accordingly…If you’re a good hitter, that is.
- a good swing should be from the hips up. I think a lot of guys must do this nowadays going by how big some of their thighs are and how hard they hit the ball, but Teddy knew about torque!
- he could not hit the knuckleball, at all.
- he was like, I respected Ty Cobb but he was a slap hitter and his swing was about half the size of mine
- (related to previous): Ty Cobb was trying to give him advice on how to hit with a shift on, Ted in addition to the above is like staring into the distance and thinking of all the Boston baseball writers who hated on him for not going oppo, and like the meme, Ted is like “none of these people knew I couldn’t hit the opposite way!!!!”
- anyway he did eventually learn to hit oppo
- his most crank opinion is SWITCH HITTING ISN’T REAL, USE YOUR DOMINANT HAND
- to which I reply: watch these swings, frozen head Ted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRa-ir8mpw8
- make good use of time outs!

But yeah, a good read, I think I mentioned that the impetus for me to look into this book was this very good Fangraphs article with redacted player name. It made me wonder how much of modern hitting is based on his approach.

re t. ballgame’s fielding, i’ve seen him referred to as ‘a statue’ in left

i don’t think he’s wrong though

Yeah you’re obviously not going to give too much of a shit about the glove when he can hit like that

it's amazing how he lost almost five peak-era seasons to military service and never missed a beat upon his return from both wars. i think if anything TW is vastly underrated vs what his accomplishments were. you'd be looking at a player with 700+ HR and 2500+ rbi if he'd never gone to war, which is probably a fairly accurate extrapolation.

Not sure if you saw it, but NTBT had a good post upthread about this!

things I learned about in baseball this week/how i learned to stop worrying and love baseball