What the heck is going on with the baseball?

[gagliano]

MLB wants more balls in play. I figured deadening the ball would come after banning the shift, but it looks like they are doing it in reverse. We also know pitch clocks are coming to speed up the game. This will also help the offense because they have the research that the pitch clock leads to one or two MPH being lost since pitchers don't have forever in between pitches to recover. If there are still a ton of strikeouts, then they will look at moving the rubber back a foot.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...b-working-plan

Good!!!

[gagliano]

I don't like the idea of any clock in baseball. The sport was not meant to be timed. I spent nine hours at the ole ball orchard once watching a twinight DH. First game went 16 or 18 innings. I was a happy camper!

Manfred is obsessed with making baseball games two hrs. in length. If there's a hell, he deserves a special place there with the hottest seat available.

Thank you

[The Kid]

I always found it ironic for a sport that cares so much about statistics... they mess with the baseball every single year.

Fair playing field from the 1800's to modern day eh?

[westofyou]

I always found it ironic for a sport that cares so much about statistics... they mess with the baseball every single year.

Fair playing field from the 1800's to modern day eh?

More like 1900, but a smart stat guy knows where to break it up

But yeah, not a real litmus test

[RedsManRick]

They're messing with everything that barely matters while more or less ignoring the dynamic that's driving the biggest problems: simply making decent contact with the baseball has gotten so much harder. The increase in pitch velocity, pitch movement, and improvements in techniques like tunneling and sequencing have fundamentally shifted the core batter pitcher dynamic.

Yes, the Moneyball revolution led hitters to (properly) place greater value on both patience and power relative to putting the ball in play. And the swing plane revolution was part of the means for executing on the power end of that strategic shift. But the primary outcome of analytics is that it more quickly reveals and encourages teams to adopt optimal approaches given the existing talent pool, rules, and conditions.

What we're seeing right now is what happens when you take a league where the talent dynamic has robbed hitters of the ability to make high quality contact on the regular and stolen a big chunk of the production they generate when they are able to make high quality contact. Sure, batters can change their approach to marginally improve contact quality at the expense of upside power, but the ceiling for that adjustment is extremely limited and will take years to play out. And while it might lead to higher batting averages, it won't likely produce more runs.

I'm totally fine with a deadened ball. I think HRs should be more rare than they were. But if you don't make changes at the same time which make it easier for batters to make solid contact, this is what you get. Moving the rubber back while deadening the ball strikes me as the obvious solution.

[The Kid]

More like 1900, but a smart stat guy knows where to break it up

But yeah, not a real litmus test

Fair enough... but really the baseball should be the one constant. You just don't mess with it.

[westofyou]

Fair enough... but really the baseball should be the one constant. You just don't mess with it.

I'll offer that It's always changed, strike zones, sac flies... stagnation in the game makes it like baseball in Cincinnati

Dull and disappointing

- - - Updated - - -

They're messing with everything that barely matters while more or less ignoring the dynamic that's driving the biggest problems: simply making decent contact with the baseball has gotten so much harder. The increase in pitch velocity, pitch movement, and improvements in techniques like tunneling and sequencing have fundamentally shifted the core batter pitcher dynamic.

Yes, the Moneyball revolution led hitters to (properly) place greater value on both patience and power relative to putting the ball in play. And the swing plane revolution was part of the means for executing on the power end of that strategic shift. But the primary outcome of analytics is that it more quickly reveals and encourages teams to adopt optimal approaches given the existing talent pool, rules, and conditions.

What we're seeing right now is what happens when you take a league where the talent dynamic has robbed hitters of the ability to make high quality contact on the regular and stolen a big chunk of the production they generate when they are able to make high quality contact. Sure, batters can change their approach to marginally improve contact quality at the expense of upside power, but the ceiling for that adjustment is extremely limited and will take years to play out. And while it might lead to higher batting averages, it won't likely produce more runs.

I'm totally fine with a deadened ball. I think HRs should be more rare than they were. But if you don't make changes at the same time which make it easier for batters to make solid contact, this is what you get. Moving the rubber back while deadening the ball strikes me as the obvious solution.

Put the ball in play

Let the fielders decide

[The Kid]

I'm totally fine with a deadened ball. I think HRs should be more rare than they were. But if you don't make changes at the same time which make it easier for batters to make solid contact, this is what you get. Moving the rubber back while deadening the ball strikes me as the obvious solution.

Essentially you are saying the modern pitchers skills are advanced enough they broke the game. You have to move the mound back to bring it back to an equal playing field?

[westofyou]

Essentially you are saying the modern pitchers skills are advanced enough they broke the game. You have to move the mound back to bring it back to an equal playing field?

Exactly, or make the human mind quicker in picking up visual patterns in 10ths of second.

[Wonderful Monds]

There's been some research released that the pitch clock is causing injuries in the minors. I'll see if I can find where I read that.

Will Carroll has reverenced this article regarding fatigue

https://proplayai.com/pitch-clocks-in-2022/

I have my hands full so I can only skim through at the moment, but did they attribute any particular aspect of the pitch clock to injuries?

If guys are still trying to throw their arms out of the socket every pitch instead of pacing themselves, that’s what’s gonna happen though. Maybe they need to tweak it a bit longer or so, but pitchers taking literal minutes between pitches is a basically new phenomenon. Guys pitching like Wade Miley getting the ball to the plate was more the norm than the Zack Greinkes of the world.

[The Kid]

Exactly, or make the human mind quicker in picking up visual patterns in 10ths of second.

Well that isn't going to happen right! Baseball does need a resurgence.. perhaps giving modern day players chances to be a Babe Ruth or Ted Williams can spawn a generation of fans. Lord knows in the early days they were not facing this heat day in and day out.

[RedsManRick]

Essentially you are saying the modern pitchers skills are advanced enough they broke the game. You have to move the mound back to bring it back to an equal playing field?

Yep. I think pitchers simply had a lot more space for improvement than hitters -- both physically and strategically. The hitting revolution came first and pulled them ahead for a time. But now they've basically fully explored the landscape of strategic possibilities while pushing up closer and closer to the edge of physical limits. Pitchers are slowly catching up and will reach a similar place. But the important point is to recognize that it's not just a question balance between the two. It's about the type of outcomes produced by the particulars of the talent and strategy landscape.

The reality of a game that is more physically and strategically optimized given the current rule set and field setup is one with way more strikeouts and way more homers than in previous eras. You can maintain a given level of overall offensive production through changing how the ball flies or monkeying with the strike zone. But to change the composition of that production to match a certain ideal requires changes to the dynamics of the batter-pitcher matchup. If your goal is more balls put into the field of play, you have two levers to pull -- 1) change the relative value of mediocre contact and superb contact or 2) change the ease of producing said contact. The "problem" with #1 is that short of unrecognizable changes to the way defense works, well-barreled batted balls will always grossly outproduce less well-hit balls. Even if they're not HRs, they're where all other hits come from too, including 2Bs and 3Bs. Unless you deaden the ball to the point that it essentially cannot be hit past the IF in the air, batters will optimize their approach for hard contact on a line. As defenders become more athletic, that becomes even more true.

I don't think any reduction in HR rates due to changes in the ball is going to incentivize hitters to cut back on their swings so much that it cuts the strikeout rate by a 1/3, from the current 21-23% to the broadly preferred 14-16% range of the 60s through mid 90s (save for the dip into the 12-14% range in the late 70s and early 80s). So I say solve for that first. Once you dial that in, then worry about whether or not there's too much power production resulting from the balls put into play.

[RedForLife]

Exactly, or make the human mind quicker in picking up visual patterns in 10ths of second.

Maybe they should look into manufacturing a bunch of Terminators as hitters.

[FlightRick]

A little more fuel to the fire, if Conspiracy Theory be what you like:

https://sports.yahoo.com/mets-hittin...233839087.html

I think, at the end of the day, I can swallow the dead ball as a cost of doing business so long as everybody's using. As soon as not everybody is using it the same number of times, though? MLB can go f right the f off.

[Ron Madden]

A little more fuel to the fire, if Conspiracy Theory be what you like:

https://sports.yahoo.com/mets-hittin...233839087.html

I think, at the end of the day, I can swallow the dead ball as a cost of doing business so long as everybody's using. As soon as not everybody is using it the same number of times, though? MLB can go f right the f off.

Hmmm... Interesting Article!