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Comments
The only reason statistics favor power over fundamentals now is because we're back to a wink and a nod ginned up power era. MLB decided HRs = patronage so they juiced the ball and softened their pursuit of drug free play. For a few years after the 90s and early 2000s PEDs fueled bashathon there was an attempt to clean up the game. Power numbers went down and fundamentals had a brief period where they were in favor.
It is what it is. If you love 10-8 scores and don't mind knowing there is cheating and old records that were achieved honestly mean nothing to you, congratulations.
You still manage to the game as it stands today. If a juiced ball means it is better to hit away than bunt runners over, then you hit away. That can’t always be the case. Surely Ender would be asked to bunt the runner over.
I am skeptical of the juiced ball theory Someone would talk There are owners who are traditionalists, plus not everyone in a hitter friendly park appears to be benefitting - see the orioles
Bank. The juiced ball has been confirmed.
The juiced ball is real but implying steroids are a big part of the game is unfounded @WCDawg.
And yeah bunting in that situation would have been really dumb. Stealing in that situation was probably kind of dumb too.
@GeorgiaGirl have you noticed Snit actually managing the bullpen differently/better lately? It’s like he doesn’t have a 7/8/9 inning guy, and is playing matchups and leverages. You’re right that the old game is dead if even a guy like Snit can learn. Glad AA finally got to him.
Another great start by Freid and some great bullpen work tonite.
I definitely think he got a little talking to about how to use the pen recently.
I do swear Snitker used to bunt more often with position players. Just like with what he was shown with the shifts when AA came in, he was likely made aware of the stats at some point about how the bunt decreases your probability at a big inning (although I want to say him decreasing the usage of the bunt came even before 2018).
I also think honestly that they changed the ball, then changed it again. Power was down some last year, but this year you have guys like La Stella with 7 HR in a month and you're pacing for the most HRs ever.
Kirbstoomper. PEDs are without a doubt in my mind prevalent in MLB today. Calling them ''steroids'' is probably inaccurate in many cases. PEDs is a broader term, many of the substances constantly being developed to get around rules and tests are precursors and other devices to stimulate the body to produce muscle mass, energy and stamina.
I don't think it's just PEDs/steroids....I'd include all the platelet therapy and that sort of stuff...obviously to recover from injury but I'm sure there's all sorts of uses. NBA players have been doing it for years like Kobe.
Something I learned about a while back I found really interesting. As much as steroids became synonymous with doping in baseball and connected to Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, etc. it was the elimination of amphetamines that slowed the game down so much. These guys have to play a marathon of a season, and amphetamines were to the players a couple decades ago what coffee is to you or I at our regular jobs. I think that has played just as big a role as much pitcher specialization and analytics to why position players have become disadvantaged.
Ok No...... they won’t.
Shane Carle is bad long live Shane Carle
Tighter wound ball and Peds. The rest is a cover story. Therapies have not made much difference in the few short years since we were in the last low homer period.
Today's game showed command vs. control. Folty had an 0-2 count on Kinsler and was blowing it by him. Tried to throw a slider down and away. It was a spinner over the heart and went for a double. Several catastrophes later the game was out of hand.
Folty either was struggling through dead arm or is ded for the year because he only ever succeeded through 1 way, and that one way is taken away if he can't get back to it.
This is the summary of how he's looked so far:
Folty’s velocity is down, he couldn’t get any whiffs on it, and his slider has lost bite (downward movement) from last year and was even more ter.rible than his diminished fastball.
If he's not struggling through dead arm, then he's ded for the year no matter what. He needs the fastball to be faster so he can get whiffs off it, and if he's not getting whiffs on it, teams can just ignore his slider unless it's a hanger even if he gets back the 2018 slider, and it just spirals. There's no other option for him other than grip it and rip it on the fastball because his other secondaries outside the slider have only merely been decent in his career, and he's never had to junkball it through games or tried, so he doesn't know how there.
If he can't get back to sustaining 96, then he's ded no matter when that is realized.
The current dependency on sustained hyper velocity will shorten many if not most careers of starting pitchers. It's hard to imagine we'll see another career like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine had.
Even power pitchers used to pick their spots to throw mid-90s and the rare upper-90s pitch was held in reserve for big spots. Arms can strengthen muscles, but connective tissue has limited response to training. For the most part we have the cartilage and ligaments we were given by our DNA.
It would be in players' interest to discuss easing back on the throttle through collective bargaining, but the need to compete might not allow it to happen.