2022 MLB General Season Chatter: Ghost Runners On The Half-Billion Dollar Infield

props to former top yankees prospect manny banuelos earning his first W since 2019

so two of the front runners for the AL cy young both got injured within a day of each other (COINCIDENCE?!). unclear when either will return, but I wonder if this will make it Cease's to lose?!

it doesn't sound like verlander will be out long so i think he's still in the running

hader in this jersey looks like when i create a team / player in mlb the show

https://i.imgur.com/EpzVIrM.png

lmao now this is an entrance

This is incredible.

(🎥 @SNYtv)

pic.twitter.com/jp1YjAb5JT

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) September 1, 2022

they should change the song based on his performance, throughout this season but also into his older years as he gets worse. go more minor key, more adagio

ngl i thought that was scherz playing trumpet and nodded agreeably to myself

'timmy trumpet' is a good new york name

spencer strider with the god-mode pitching performance of 2022. 8 IP 16 K

16 K and no walks. Early in his career, Clemens had a 15 K/0 BB game, and James wrote a long piece in one of the abstracts about how no one flukes into a game like that; you can have a fluky 15 K/2 BB game, or a 13 K/1 BB game, but the only pitchers who'd ever had 15 K/O BB games were legitimately great.

94 game score, nice. I had the game on where I tend bar but was too busy tonight to catch any of Strider's K's. Every time I looked up the Braves were up. I love watching him pitch, his delivery is very Kimbrel-esque.

This was the Clemens game ('84, his rookie season):

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198408210.shtml

i only caught the last inning he pitched but his composure through that, hitting the spots when it counted, was impressive

He’s pitched for nearly a year so where’s his 10 year $230 million extension

I might be wrong but i imagine those massive extensions will mainly be for position players. Too much injury risk with any pitcher

The Rays now officially residing in the Yankees' collective head.

down to a three-game lead in the loss column

i actually kind of like aaron boone and i don't think he's a bad manager, but i have to love all the stories that are like 'boone furious as yankees hit bottom' despite, you know, still being in first place

Boone is a p lousy in game bullpen manager ime. I also think he (via front office, surely) tinker too much w lineups and matchups

idk i don't think it's boone's fault that judge is carrying the entire offense, or that they traded away a legitimate MLB starting pitcher for a guy who's been in a walking cast for 12 weeks

christ the twins are utterly useless

pitch clock is coming and infield shifts are going

A pitch clock, a ban on shifts, and larger bases are about to become permanently part of Major League Baseball when a joint committee votes Friday to approve the rules for use starting next season, according to a person familiar with the committee’s schedule.

MLB is pushing for the changes, which league officials hope will rejuvenate what many believe has become a stodgy sport in the age of data. They hope the pitch clock will bring game times down from record highs. They hope banning the shift will allow more hits and therefore more action. They hope larger bases will induce more stealing, and therefore more havoc on the bases. They hope, in other words, that these changes will yank baseball out of its modern-day slog.

And though the competition committee, which was created as part of the new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players’ union, is meant to ensure player input on any major rule changes, it was not built to give them veto power: Six of the 11 members of the committee are MLB representatives. Four are players. One is an umpire. What MLB wants, one would think, MLB will get.

Minor league baseball players take a step toward unionization

So the sport long treasured as the one without a clock is about to get one. And after seeing the results of a test run in the minor leagues, as well as the noticeable effect it has had on young pitchers just arriving in MLB, everyone from once-skeptical players to old-school executives are growing comfortable with the idea — or so the conversation in clubhouses around the league for the last month would suggest.

The first two changes are somewhat self-explanatory. As tested in the minors this season, the shift rule would require four infielders to have their feet on the dirt, with two fielders on each side of second base, as the pitch is delivered. As tested in the minors — though hardly visible from the stands — bases will grow from 15 inches square to 18 inches square.

As for the pitch clock, the specifics of the rule on which the committee will vote Friday were not immediately available. But in Class AAA this season, pitchers were allotted 19 seconds to deliver a pitch with a runner on base, 15 seconds without. If they failed to deliver the ball in that time, the umpire called a ball. Pitchers could step off the rubber (or, as the a new baseball jargon will say it, “disengage from the rubber”) no more than twice per at-bat. If they stepped off a third time, they were called for a balk — unless they recorded an out by doing so. In other words, a third pickoff attempt is permitted as long as it works.

MLB is overdue for a female umpire. One may be on the way.

In Class AAA, hitters could call timeout just once per at-bat. If they were not in the box with nine seconds to go, the umpire penalizes him with a strike. By the end of the minor league season, teams were rarely combining for more than one violation per game.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/09/08/mlb-rules-pitch-clock-infield-shift/

They hope larger bases will induce more stealing, and therefore more havoc on the bases.

Saw a minor league game with a pitch clock and it seemed just fine, really unobtrusive

Is there a pitcher lobby? Seems like all these new rules favor the batter way more.

Banning the shift feels a little odd because it’s basically the hitters admitting they can’t make the adjustment.

Over the last three months, the Braves are 62-24, which is a .721 winning percentage. I keep thinking they are going to falter a little bit but they don’t.

banning the shift is boneheaded because the shift is a reaction to dead pull hitters who strike out all the time - this is just going to encourage that behavior!! why are these people so dumb???? just push the rubber back a foot. make the games 7 innings long. honestly ALL the problems would be solved.

People have been saying the exact same things about the shift for 15 years and absolutely nothing has changed. Lefty power hitters still get drafted, lefty power hitters still pull instead of mastering the opposite field bunt or whatever because they still offer more value pulling the ball every time. So yeah, let's ban the shift because watching them hit into the shift is boring as shit and only reinforces that they need to be swinging for the fences every AB.

The smartest team in baseball traded for Joey Gallo this year, clearly baseball has decided that slaying this dragon isn't worth it.

if it wasn't so difficult to hit for average this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm excited that they're finally bringing in the pitch clock. Game times were reduced by 20-25 minutes in the minors I think?

I don't mind them banning the shift. It will also help in speeding up the games and raise batting averages (making the game less one dimensional). Other sports have illegal defenses and formations too, it's not an unprecedented change in sports.

Also a big fan of the pitch clock.

Banning the shift will apparently be good for about 500 singles a year, spread out over 185,000 PAs. Mainly from lefties who don't run so great. Sorry i just think it's dumb. You're going to force somebody to stand near third base, when Travis Shaw never hits it there? So that Travis Shaw can get more hits? Maybe if Travis Shaw can't hit the curve we should tell pitchers they have to throw him fastballs??

It shouldn't be as simple as "nine players on the field". If you play third base, then that's where you stand on the field, it's not "forcing" anyone to do anything.

It also comes down to aesthetics. There was nothing inherently unfair about changing pitchers for each batter either. It made for good strategy but also dragged out games and made them less fun to watch, especially for casual viewers.

shd make players get rid of their crib sheets they carry around before they ban the shift

yes! i would be in favor of that 100%. learn signs like you did in the old days you fuckin mooks.

I hate those crib sheets. Also not big on all the players in the dugouts watching their previous AB on a device, rather than watching the game in front of them.

but won't all these singles that normally would go into the shift slow the game down?! check mate mlb!

so – if the rules say infielders need to be on the dirt (is dirt location/shape standard?) does that exclude the infield grass? i could imagine watching that many hitters bunt would get incredibly tedious.

on the infield grass is legal. and i guess they have to require infielders to be on the dirt lest the third baseman run out to left, the other outfielders shift around, and the right fielder becomes an 'infielder'

i can't wait until a team (probably the rays) finds a way around the shift rules that is even more annoying for the old-school cranks of baseball

I mean you can still line the SS/2B adjacent to 2B and get a huge advantage* vs the up the middle single

*maths needed

Yes I can imagine the “two people on each side of second base” rule will make the shift a thing where the SS is one step to the left of 2B and the 3B is a little closer to the SS hole.

…or vacate LF and put the LF in the 2B shift spot

tbh i’d love to have seen them institute like a 5 foot halo rule or something around second base before the pitch. i hate seeing a hard hit ball up the middle go directly into the glove of a fielder waiting right behind second base

They were considering a pie wedge shaped marker behind 2B to account for this at one point iirc. Also 5’ is not a lot when ur SS is 6’4” and a Total Athlete

Banning the shift will apparently be good for about 500 singles a year, spread out over 185,000 PAs. Mainly from lefties who don't run so great. Sorry i just think it's dumb. You're going to force somebody to stand near third base, when Travis Shaw never hits it there? So that Travis Shaw can get more hits? Maybe if Travis Shaw can't hit the curve we should tell pitchers they have to throw him fastballs??

― Tracer Hand, Friday, September 9, 2022 5:54 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

so we should lower the mound just because cookie rojas can't hit bob gibson's heater? we're gonna do all that? for COOKIE ROJAS???

Mixed feelings. I think the shift has been bad for the game, but I also feel like the hitters--95% of whom refuse to make any kind of adjustment--are getting off easy here.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: “Everyone’s like, ‘Just hit the ball the other way.’ Um, so I’m trying to cover five pitches. They’re all moving. One is like 98 mph. And I’m just going to be able to do whatever I want and hit a ball to the left side? It’s not that easy. I wish it was, or I’d do it more often.”

MORGAN ENSBERG: “A lot of times, the arguments are: ‘Well, why don’t you let the ball get a little bit deeper and then hit it the other way?’ And the simple answer is, it’s too difficult. Your swing is based on how your body organizes. And your contact point is really what it’s been probably for your whole life, because that’s what’s found you success. Your arms are always going to be as long as they are. And you’re going to be holding the bat the same way. So it’s very difficult to all of a sudden become a spray hitter.”

so then the question becomes how does baseball naturally evolve to react to this? if you can't get your current MLB lefty power pull hitters to adapt, you would expect that type of hitter to become devalued over time by teams, right? you'd think that teams would start overvaluing players who hit to all fields, start picking those players higher in the draft, and with the shift dominating the minors as well, you'd think those types of players would naturally rise through the ranks much easier than lefty power pull hitters. it's been 15 years, that's more than enough time for the sport to adapt to the new reality, and it never happened. lefty power pull hitters still get drafted, they still fly through the minors, and they still provide enough value to major league teams to stick on a roster. another value judgment made, the shift simply isn't a big enough deal to completely alter the makeup of major league teams.

but the shift is a big enough deal to make the sport more boring and more annoying for viewers, which is the reason to ban it. the last time the shift seemed like a novel and interesting and praiseworthy strategy to me was when maddon started going nuts with it in like 2008. good for joe maddon in 2008, smart move joe. every shift since then can fuck off, time to kill it dead.

a) i think there are a lot of hitters who simply can't make a significant adjustment. none of these guys are tony gwynn, and tony gwynn wasn't facing 95+ with movement in all of his at-bats

b) the fact remains that dinger guys get paid better than OBP guys

none of this will change the incentives to go gallo

(lol when i was 8 my dad told me he'd give me a quarter every time i pulled the ball to the left of second base -- he wanted me to hit for power, which to him meant pulling. by the time i reached high school the only time i ever hit the ball to right was if i was overpowered -- except for one single beautiful time when i somehow recognized an off-speed pitch and waited and jetered it into right. that one moment was the closest i ever came to understanding baseball)

xp ✖ otm

Hitters regularly cut down on their swing with two strikes and go to the opposite field. Some do it well, some don't--but you don't have to be Tony Gwynn to make it work now and again.

And yet Ted Williams couldn’t/wouldn’t do it either, iirc? Hence the Williams shift

lol okay guys sure i see all that. i still think pitching is just too strong and if you solve that the other stuff goes away. but these are good points you’re making.