Brownie19

My favourite commenter is The Busta, who claims he is out because his knee made contact with the catcher while the catcher had the ball. The Busta is a middle aged man with kids who's a free thinker, gun toting Democrat, gear head! Sleep, eat, an s*** MMA. Religion...is control - according to The Busta. The Busta had no idea the guy with the ball actually had to tag the runner - yet he spends his time replying to baseball tweets. People - FFS - please don't be like The Busta.

I think you're underestimating the impact of facing replacement hitters. It would make a lot of replacement pitchers look like aces. It's all relative.

Where the hell is Joneivy Polonia from Todd? you're slipping.

Let's....let's not encourage Grant please.

I'll respectably disagree. Cole, Severino, Nola, Marquez, Clevinger, Freeland, Wheeler, Foltynewicz, Taillon and Berrios all threw over 180 inning last year. But you're right - they don't make guys like Buehrle anymore. They don't make 4-5 K/9 starters who throw 200+ innings...

Those types of pitchers stopped throwing 200 innings years ago. But - I do hear what you're saying. The opener actually gives that type of pitcher an opportunity to be more effective and throw more innings - so that role won't disappear - he just starts the 2nd inning instead of the 1st. Thank god we're now allowing FO and coaching staffs to use their brains instead of following unwritten rules and simply following tradition. What a concept.

The risk is they take at bats away from their best hitters - so I doubt we'll see too much of it besides moving some platoon splits around.

When do teams have to release their starting pitchers and lineups? Could we soon see team counter the opener by moving platoon guy up to the top of the order or say move their 2nd best hitter from the 1st or 2nd spot, down to the 4th spot to avoid the opener?

the Fireman of the Year award? It was discontinued in 2011. edit - f*** me, they gave it to Joe Borowski in 2007 when he finished with 45 saves an ERA of 5.07 (4.12 FIP/xFIP). Good lord baseball has changed a lot.

I'd like to see baseball scrap gold glove winners at every position and just go with 1 winner in the AL and 1 winner in the NL. We don't give out awards for the best starter, middle reliever, LOOGY and closer - we give out an award for the best pitcher. When there's 18 winners of an award each year, it becomes a little meaningless.

I'll take "irrelevant information" for $500 Alex.

For me, the alternative was to trade him for a lottery ticket prospect in a salary dump move. I guess they decided they couldn't trade Smyly at $7M for anything.

I'm a bit confused. When Hamels was traded, the Rangers agreed to cover Hamel's $6M buyout (if he was bought out). Now the Cubs want to keep him, so the Rangers have agreed to "take" Smyly and his $7M contract (instead of having to pay the $6M buyout)? Smyly has potential to be really good - he was throwing flames before needing TJS. Instead of just gifting the Cubs $6M in cash, they now get Smyly? That's a huge win for them IMO. The medicals on Smyly must be s*** or something and nobody thinks he'll be of any value...

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-we-all-saw-in-the-playoffs/ A little summary of the playoffs - I thought it was interesting if nothing else. I found it interesting that BABIP in the regular season hasn't dropped as much as I would have thought with the implementation of the shift.

That's his glove hand too! Can you imagine how sticky his pitching hand must be?

jesus christ.

That's actually a fair point. +1

Hold "old" are old fans? I'm 37 - I'm old. I want to hear about advanced stats. To be honest, I don't know many 50+ year olds that watch baseball regularly.

I completely agree. Maybe it's just me, but I find Buck typically delivers it in a negative tone like "Koufax didn't need all that advanced information - he would use his eyes to read the batter" - suggesting that all the advanced stats are gobbledygook and great players didn't need all that nonsense. Instead - he could say "Boy I wonder whether all the advanced statistics and defensive alignments would have made someone like Koufax even better. He has to rely on his eyes to read the batter and he developed an incredible feel for what adjustments the batters were making. There's no doubt that advanced stats and shifts have changed the game - the question I might pose is how much better could an all-time great like Koufax have been?

I was thinking the same thing. This sure seems like the best FA crop in recent years no?

http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/mlb/83462/2/top-111-free-agents JD is 5th on this list!

I suspect you're right (as bizarre as that seems to me). I wonder why that is? Every time I hear Buck tell a story about the old days, it just sounds like an attempt to prove new age strategies wrong. Instead of embracing change, the old broadcasters sounds bitter that the game has changed and tell you about how it used to be in a tone that suggests it used to be "better" in the old days. "Back in the old days, before there were shifts, that ground ball would have been an out." "Imagine how good Sandy Koufax would have been if he had spin rates and all the advanced metrics on these batters? Yeah, but Sandy didn't need all that stuff. He relied on reading the batters and how they were reacting to his pitches. He as the best." "Back in the old days, a starting pitcher didn't have a good bullpen to rely on. They had to navigate through the order 3, sometimes 4 times. It took a lot more skill. Those guys were savy back in the day. They used to setup the batter in the first so they could get him out in the 8th." Who the f*** wants to listen to that s***? Seriously. All it does is put a negative spin on how baseball has evolved. It's terrible for the sport IMO.

I find it funny that most MLB teams are turning to younger leadership teams that implement and embrace new analysis and technologies....yet those same teams don't turn to younger broadcasters that are able to keep up with the ever changing game of baseball. Broadcasters that could educate the viewers in a captivating manner as to why some teams are using "openers" or why they don't bunt much anymore or why average starting pitchers are pulled after 6 inning even while tossing a shutout. Instead of having fans question the moves of teams - educate them so they understand.

how are the robot umpires going to do this??? Has AI come that far?