Baseball thoughts without threads

[getfoul]

Eliminate divisions. Reduce the season to 160 games--still 52 series/26 weeks.

Play the four teams from your former division 11 games over 4 series
Play your 10 other league opponents 10 games over 3 series.
Play 16 interleague games, all in same time zone.

Top 3 get in. 4th and 5th best teams play 1 game to get in.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

If y'all want to talk about revamping the playoff system yet again, please start a new thread.

 

[InsideTheParker]

This is sorta about baseball, i.e., mascots. Someone new to despise, as he makes Raymond, the loathsome Rays mascot, among many others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/sports/the-man-behind-the-mascots-is-a-character-too.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
 

 
American sports fans might be surprised to learn that some of their favorite mascots are, in fact, French Canadian. The factory’s alumni include Blue, the potbellied, crowd-pleasing mascot of the Indianapolis Colts, and Raymond, the resident prankster of the Tampa Bay Rays. Countless others have graduated from Creations JCT to take jobs everywhere from Switzerland to Staten Island.
 
 
“Scooter is a pretty central piece of what we do,” said John D’Agostino, the director of game entertainment and event presentation for the Staten Island Yankees, whose aforementioned mascot — a 7-foot-tall cow in a stars-and-stripes top hat — was actually born here in Quebec. “Scooter’s always running into the stands, shaking his cowbell and causing a ruckus.”

 

[Leather]

I heard on NPR last night that it was the 27th anniversary of Canseco being the first MLB player to join the 40hr/40sb club.  
 
I recall that chase so well.  I was in 4th grade, and all of a sudden 40/40 seemed like the biggest achievement in baseball history.  
 
It's been done 3 times since, and as far as I can tell, nobody gives the remotest of shits.

 

[nvalvo]

This is sorta about baseball, i.e., mascots. 

 
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/la-mascotte/

 

[The Gray Eagle]

Won-lost records really are a good statistic in a certain context. They're useless for relievers; they're unreliable for starting pitchers in one or two seasons. But over the course of a career, the won-lost record is a better stat than ERA or strikeout to walk ratio, because the scale is anchored in place over time, which gives it a huge advantage over stats like ERA and strikeout/walk ratio, in which the standards change from decade to decade.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

There just aren't very many good ground ball pitchers. Most GOOD pitchers are Randy Johnson/Roger Clemens guys who throw high fastballs as their bread and butter, or else they are Move the Ball Up and Down and In and Out guys like Maddux, Kershaw, Greinke, etc. who mix their pitches up. There are very few guys who try to live on the Ground Ball and are actually good at it. . .about one a generation. Kevin Brown was really good, Tommie John late in his career, Roy Halladay.
 
Part of the problem with ground ball pitchers is the good ones almost always get hurt after a couple of good years. Randy Jones was going to be great, but then he got hurt. Wayne Garland was going to be great, but then he got hurt. Scott Erickson was going to be great, but then he got hurt. Mark Fidrych was going to be great, but then he got hurt. Rick Langford was going to be great, but then he got hurt. Chien-Ming Wang was going to be tremendously sensationally great, but then he got hurt. They all get hurt. . .not literally ALL of them; Derek Lowe was great one year and pretty good for a long time, Halladay, Kevin Brown. Mostly they just get hurt.

 

[tomdeplonty]

Why do they get hurt? It's the thing about splitters hurting the elbow?

 

[foulkehampshire]

Let's not forget Brandon Webb. He was as good of a sinkerballer as there ever was.

 

[mikeford]

How about young Josh Beckett on that same tip? He had to completely abandon the sinker IIRC because of his blister problems. 

 

[The Gray Eagle]

By the way, those thoughts weren't MY thoughts, they were from Bill James. I thought they were interesting thoughts, worth talking about. Especially the W-L thing, as most people mock pitcher wins these days.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Pitching stats and milestones that combine National League with American League after 1973 need to be stopped.
 
300 K's: How many pitchers did Kershaw Strike Out (say 2.5/game x 33 games= 80+)? Others in the 300-club?
 
Waddell (pre-DH)
Walter Johnson (pre-DH)
Lolich (pre-DH)
Koufax (pre-DH)
Scott (pre-DH)
Feller (pre-DH)
McDowell (pre-DH)
Carlton (pre-DH)
Blue (pre-DH)
Schilling (NL)
Richard (NL)
Kershaw (NL)
 
Nolan Ryan
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
 
the last three faced a DH 3-4 times/game or something greater than 100 times a season.
 
Same with Earned Runs which are League sensitive...do the ERA/FIP (+/-) stats account for pitching around the #8 (or even #7) hitter and stranding him...versus needing to pitch right through the order? More bunting?
 
Keep the stats separate. Ryan, Martinez and Johnson are in a different league.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

List of largest contract for each franchise: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/10/mlb-team-largest-contract.html

It's been 15 years since the Red Sox re-set the team record for largest contract. Only two other teams have gone longer. 10 teams have signed players to bigger contracts than Manny's.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

Pitching stats and milestones that combine National League with American League after 1973 need to be stopped.
 
300 K's: How many pitchers did Kershaw Strike Out (say 2.5/game x 33 games= 80+)? Others in the 300-club?
 
Waddell (pre-DH)
Walter Johnson (pre-DH)
Lolich (pre-DH)
Koufax (pre-DH)
Scott (pre-DH)
Feller (pre-DH)
McDowell (pre-DH)
Carlton (pre-DH)
Blue (pre-DH)
Schilling (NL)
Richard (NL)
Kershaw (NL)
 
Nolan Ryan
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
 
the last three faced a DH 3-4 times/game or something greater than 100 times a season.
 
Same with Earned Runs which are League sensitive...do the ERA/FIP (+/-) stats account for pitching around the #8 (or even #7) hitter and stranding him...versus needing to pitch right through the order? More bunting?
 
Keep the stats separate. Ryan, Martinez and Johnson are in a different league.

You realize that Johnson only once struck out 300 while playing in the AL, right?

 

[Toe Nash]

Pitching stats and milestones that combine National League with American League after 1973 need to be stopped.
 
 

Hitting stats and milestones that combine hitters who played in Colorado pre-humidor with the rest of the league need to be stopped.
 
See how this is a silly statement? Fortunately people who are smart can adjust for context.

 

[DanoooME]

Pitching stats and milestones that combine National League with American League after 1973 need to be stopped.
 
300 K's: How many pitchers did Kershaw Strike Out (say 2.5/game x 33 games= 80+)? Others in the 300-club?
 
Waddell (pre-DH)
Walter Johnson (pre-DH)
Lolich (pre-DH)
Koufax (pre-DH)
Scott (pre-DH)
Feller (pre-DH)
McDowell (pre-DH)
Carlton (pre-DH)
Blue (pre-DH)
Schilling (NL)
Richard (NL)
Kershaw (NL)
 
Nolan Ryan
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
 
the last three faced a DH 3-4 times/game or something greater than 100 times a season.
 
Same with Earned Runs which are League sensitive...do the ERA/FIP (+/-) stats account for pitching around the #8 (or even #7) hitter and stranding him...versus needing to pitch right through the order? More bunting?
 
Keep the stats separate. Ryan, Martinez and Johnson are in a different league.

 
 
Kershaw only struck out 22 pitchers this season.  Too bad it's not easy to accumulate the data on B-Ref or I would have done the whole list for you.

 

[santadevil]

 
 
Kershaw only struck out 22 pitchers this season.  Too bad it's not easy to accumulate the data on B-Ref or I would have done the whole list for you.

Can't we just take this out of context and say he should have done better? This must make him a worse pitcher.

 

[DJnVa]

 
 
Kershaw only struck out 22 pitchers this season.  Too bad it's not easy to accumulate the data on B-Ref or I would have done the whole list for you.

 
 
I came up with 25 strikeouts of pitchers for Kershaw, but yeah, thinking it happens 2.5 times a game? SP average maybe 2 PAs a game, so thinking they strike out 2.5 times every game is a bit far-fetched.
 
Dodger pitchers struck out 131 times this year hitting--I would assume other NL teams are in that ballpark. Seems similar to what a DH will strikeout, albeit in a lot fewer ABs.
 

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

 
 
Kershaw only struck out 22 pitchers this season.  Too bad it's not easy to accumulate the data on B-Ref or I would have done the whole list for you.

 
It's listed as a split (vs. Pitcher / non-Pitcher). Kershaw struck out pitchers 26 times in 58 PAs.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Yeh, I fucked up in assuming every pitcher an NL pitcher faces strikes out.
 
The problem with context is that Ryan, Johnson and Martinez are judged as being in the same 300+ strikeout category as the NL pitchers, so - if a good NL pitcher strikes out (say) 25 non-hitters a year, and assuming they would have struck out (guessing) 10 DH's a year, there would probably be a collection of pitchers with a theoretical 285 strikeouts that would be comparable. Also, very few pitchers get walked.
 
You know what?
 
It's a bullshit argument anyway.  We all know a good pitcher when we see him, regardless of league.
 
I defer.