24 MLB Season Thread

[LMU]

The ghost of Dollar Bill Wirtz paying a visit to Guaranteed Rate.

[The_Admiral]

[PittsburghSucks]

Absolute gut punch.

[infrared41]

6 hours ago, PittsburghSucks said:

Absolute gut punch.

 

Tough break for the Clevelands. In one week, Bieber goes from allowing no runs in two starts to done for the year.

[infrared41]

It ain't the pitch clock, kids. It's trying to throw 130mph on every pitch.

 

 

[GDAWG]

1 hour ago, infrared41 said:

It ain't the pitch clock, kids. It's trying to throw 130mph on every pitch.

 

 

 

that's nice Tony, but when are you going to release a statement about the A's move to Sacramento for 3 years?  

[TrueYankee26]

 

[LMU]

15 hours ago, infrared41 said:

It ain't the pitch clock, kids. It's trying to throw 130mph on every pitch.

 

 

130 MPH with a spin rate of 56,789 rotations per millisecond.

[FrutigerAero]

And apparently the death grip.

[BBTV]

Is "pre-emptive Tommy John" a thing?  And if so, is it just because it helps reduce the current inevitability of needing it during their career, or that (anecdotally) people come back even stronger from it?

 

If the latter (which might not be the case), shouldn't that be considered like a performance enhancer?  IF it's used as a way of making yourself a better/faster pitcher with increased longevity, it seems like a little shady.

 

Might not be a thing, but if it is... 

[FrutigerAero]

Trevor May talked about using orangutan UCLs or something like that.

[The_Admiral]

12 hours ago, BBTV said:

Is "pre-emptive Tommy John" a thing?  And if so, is it just because it helps reduce the current inevitability of needing it during their career, or that (anecdotally) people come back even stronger from it?

 

There are now teenagers who undergo Tommy John surgery, so it's preemptive in the sense that it happens before they've ever been signed to a major-league contract. We're doing something wrong if we're making kids throw so hard and so often that they need to switch out a tendon by age 17.

[LMU]

17 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

There are now teenagers who undergo Tommy John surgery, so it's preemptive in the sense that it happens before they've ever been signed to a major-league contract. We're doing something wrong if we're making kids throw so hard and so often that they need to switch out a tendon by age 17.

It’s also a product of early specialization. Kids no longer are jumping from baseball to basketball to soccer. Now they jump from high school season to travel ball season.

[infrared41]

24 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

We're doing something wrong if we're making kids throw so hard and so often that they need to switch out a tendon by age 17.

 

I'm not entirely sure it's as much about  throwing too hard or too often as it is the idiotic "spin rate" that LMU mentioned earlier in the thread. A 15 year old kid's arm isn't developed enough work on nerd stats like spin rate. It's no wonder pitching is basically putting your throwing arm in a meat grinder these days.

[BBTV]

The solution is AI pitching machines.  They can read the sign from the catcher and make the right pitch, but the programming would tell them to randomly miss a spot here or there, and some days the machine just "doesn't have it", and you have to "swap it out" by selecting a different program (like have it throw from the left side, or specialize in off speed pitches, etc), and you can press the button 4 times a game.

 

Not like a human-looking bot, but it could just be a machine, with a guy standing there to field the position.

 

Then teams could employ a hacking staff to tweak Pitch Bot's (not to be confused with Hitch Bot) programming to add a couple MPH to it or reduce the randomness of its misses.

 

 

[Lights Out]

Could be that pitchers are the new running backs, and we'll start to see the position devalued in both draft stock and money because you can't count on them to have any longevity anymore. I think a comparison can already be made between the use of openers and strict pitch counts and the "RB by committee" approach.

 

It's not fair since a lot of this has to do with the unnatural pressure on prospects to throw 100 MPH at 3000 RPM from a young age to even get glanced at by MLB scouts. But front offices have gotten so in over their heads with analytics that they aren't likely to change anytime soon, so it'll be future pitchers getting screwed because the current ones keep needing Tommy John surgeries every year.

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, Lights Out said:

Could be that pitchers are the new running backs, and we'll start to see the position devalued in both draft stock and money because you can't count on them to have any longevity anymore. I think a comparison can already be made between the use of openers and strict pitch counts and the "RB by committee" approach.

 

It's not fair since a lot of this has to do with the unnatural pressure on prospects to throw 100 MPH at 3000 RPM from a young age to even get glanced at by MLB scouts. But front offices have gotten so in over their heads with analytics that they aren't likely to change anytime soon, so it'll be future pitchers getting screwed because the current ones keep needing Tommy John surgeries every year.

IDK, there’s been plenty of great hard-throwing pitchers that never needed TJ. I’m leaning towards the “spin rate” argument* since that’s a relatively-recent fascination, while there’s been guys throwing high 90s for a while without issue. 
 

I think what’s more likely to happen is the rebirth of Greg Maddox-ish pitchers, who have outstanding command and can be amazing without needing to throw 100. I would imagine that there’s kids now that are discouraged from being pitchers because throwing 100 is almost a pre-req for the job, but maybe more doors will open for guys who aren’t overpowering but are still effective. 
 

*the pushing of guys to blow their arms out and hit 100 on every pitch can’t help matters either, and there’s certainly more of that - seemingly the Latin American pitchers, but that’s just an observation that’s unsupported by actual numbers. 

[infrared41]

4 hours ago, BBTV said:

I think what’s more likely to happen is the rebirth of Greg Maddox-ish pitchers, who have outstanding command and can be amazing without needing to throw 100.

 

From your keyboard to the Baseball God's ears.

[The_Admiral]

Before Mike Marshall died, I wish more pitchers had taken him up on his unconventional pitching mechanics. I wanted to see if it would work.

[LMU]

And Pete Rose appears to remain in a class of his own.

 

Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Is Said to Be Negotiating a Guilty Plea

 

Quote

A guilty plea from Mizuhara before a federal judge — likely to include an admission of a range of facts related to any illegal conduct — could confirm the account that Ohtani gave to reporters two weeks ago, in which he said he had no knowledge of what happened to the money. 
 

Those briefed on the matter claim that prosecutors have uncovered evidence that Mizuhara may have stolen more money from Ohtani than the $4.5 million he was initially accused of pilfering, the people said. In particular, the authorities think they have evidence that Mizuhara was able to change the settings on Ohtani’s bank account so Ohtani would not receive alerts and confirmations about transactions, the three people said.

 

Ohtani’s lawyers initially alerted the federal authorities about the alleged theft, and Ohtani pledged publicly to cooperate with the federal investigation and one being conducted by Major League Baseball. According to one of the people briefed on the investigation, the federal authorities interviewed Ohtani in recent weeks to learn more about his relationship with Mizuhara.