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March 28, 2024, 02:49:03 PM

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Baseball 2018

Started by Ferris, March 29, 2018, 01:38:39 PM

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Ferris

The Yankees losing, with both Osuna and Chapman blowing saves was just fantastic.

Come home, Agent Encarnación - your mission to sink the Yankees is complete.

Famous Mortimer

Baseball has been in the news, the past few days!

First up, Brandon Taubman, assistant GM for the Astros. He's one of the monstrous tech-bro scumbags who've gotten high-level positions with some clubs recently; he'd previously insulted a female journalist for bringing up the Astros' less-than-stellar attitude towards domestic violence allegations. So, he walks up to the same female journalist, who was stood with other female journalists, and angrily swore in her face about how pleased he was that the team had hired Roberto Osuna, who was suspended (or had just come off suspension) for beating up his girlfriend at the time they traded for him.

The journalist complained on Twitter, the Astros said it was a complete lie, then a bunch of other journalists said "er, no, she's right". Then, the next day, the Astros issued one of those pathetic non-apologies - the guy said "sorry if you were offended, I have a wife and a mother and therefore I can't be a bad person" and the team pointed out they gave the equivalent of about 2 weeks of a reliever's salary to a domestic violence charity. No-one was remotely impressed by this, so today they actually issued a "proper" apology and fired the offending douchebag.

https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-fire-embattled-executive-Brandon-Taubman-14560320.php

Then, news story 2. Rob Drake, an umpire who had a nasty confrontation with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina earlier in the year, decided to tweet this about the impeachment hearings on Donald Trump.

QuoteI will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020
(spelling mistake in original)

He also favourited a bunch of porno tweets, which shows he's too stupid to exist (leave that to your burner account, my man). One would assume he'll never umpire another game again, but honestly who knows? He deleted the tweet pretty much immediately, but it's on all the news sites. MLB Network, of course, didn't mention either thing at any point yesterday (although they'll probably say something bland now the Astros have actually fired Taubman; expect radio silence on Drake, though (the umpires have a good union).

https://deadspin.com/mlb-umpire-rob-drake-is-prepared-to-shoot-people-in-def-1839307670

BlodwynPig

Hope this excitement runs on into the post season. Who's in the final?

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 24, 2019, 10:40:48 PM
Hope this excitement runs on into the post season. Who's in the final?
I'm terrible at spotting sarcasm, so I'll just pretend this is a normal question.

I guess I'd like the Nationals to beat the Astros, as Sean Doolittle, one of my favourite players, is on that team. 2-0 Nationals at the moment, both away from home, meaning they've got to be heavy favourites now too.

BlodwynPig


Ferris

Agree on Doolittle - he went out of his way to stick up for union workers when they were getting screwed by MLB. See also: Soto, Rendón, Zimmerman, Kendrick. They're a likeable team and the Astros have done themselves no favours in the likeability stakes.

Also the Expos connection. Go Nats!

Ferris

#216
This is a cracking game. Nats down by 2 but have loaded the bases once. Think they might still nick this one.

Edit: stranded 8 on the bases. What are you doing guys?!

Dex Sawash


NPR story about minor league salary pooling yesterday, missed a bit of it but you pledge 10% of earnings if you get ML contract in exchange for something or other of value today.

https://www.pandopooling.com/

Plans to expand to more normal jobs mentioned too.

Ferris

Another good game. Urquidy pitching waaaay better than I expected - I had him pegged as a middle/long reliever but he's dominant so far.

Nats down by 2. All together now - this doesn't look good for Corbin.

BlodwynPig

Boooooooooo

Hate the Astros

Ferris

Bottle job. Astros to win it now.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Dex Sawash on October 26, 2019, 02:01:00 PM
NPR story about minor league salary pooling yesterday, missed a bit of it but you pledge 10% of earnings if you get ML contract in exchange for something or other of value today.

https://www.pandopooling.com/

Plans to expand to more normal jobs mentioned too.
That these leech fuckers can exist indicates that minor league baseball players aren't paid enough. A few baseball websites have done stories on this, and one of them even threatened to sue...Fangraphs, I think?...until they were given what amounts to a free advert on there. They prey on the least educated, least well-versed-in-English guys and sometimes get to them before they've even got an agent.

That was a bad few games, though. Looks like the Astros are back to being favourites, and fuck those guys.

Ferris

Nats lose this and they're goosed. Osuna will get the deciding save and Taubman will get a posthumous bonus. Desolation.

Head Gardener



ladies behave, warning vid contains some tits

Ferris

Scherzer and Greinke look on absolutely top form. Have to say I see Greinke and the Astros winning this though - top of the 4th was an absolute masterclass in pitching, and the Nats will need to turn to their bullpen around the 5th or 6th if Max's pitch count increases at the same rate.

Great series, and I'd love the Nats to snatch it. Only 1-0, could all turn around in a few at bats.

Ferris

...ooooh!

Howie fucking Kendrick coming up clutch. Let's fucking go Expos Nats!!

Ferris

Amazing game. One of the greats.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on October 31, 2019, 03:56:24 AM
Amazing game. One of the greats.

You're forgetting 'the comeback' we witnessed. Ah, 'one of', fair enough

Famous Mortimer


BlodwynPig

YES!!!


BLUE JAYS FOR THE CUP NEXT YEAR NEXT

Ferris

Another one for the Doolittle fan club - he has refused the invitation to the White House.

Good lad, Sean.

Via the Washington Post:
Quote"There's a lot of things, policies that I disagree with," Doolittle said, "but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country.

"People say you should go because it's about respecting the office of the president, and I think over the course of his time in office he's done a lot of things that maybe don't respect the office."

"I have a brother-in-law who has autism, and (Trump) is a guy that mocked a disabled reporter," Doolittle said. "How would I explain that to him that I hung out with somebody who mocked the way that he talked, or the way that he moves his hands? I can't get past that stuff.

"At the end of the day" he said, "as much as I wanted to be there with my teammates and share that experience with my teammates, I can't do it ... I just can't do it."

He's also a member of the DSA and posted a 1.74 ERA post season. The guys amazing.

Famous Mortimer

Sean Doolittle is one of my favourite people in baseball. The Nationals visited a Washington hockey game a few days ago to parade the trophy round, and Sean tweeted how excited he was to meet the Capitals' mascot dog (with many pictures of him and said dog).

Head Gardener



BlodwynPig

The look of horror on Elmo's(?) face

Ferris

In fairness, you can see that pitch had some nice 2-seam movement up and in. Still would have missed by 10 feet but at least he has a demonstrably good spin rate.

Sign him up!

Ferris

#236
Oo-err the Astros are in hot water again, this time not for hiring violent abusers (or their defenders) but for stealing signs!

For context, usually a pitcher can throw a number of different pitches - fast ones, slow ones, ones that curve down or to the right etc depending on pitch grip and spin. The batter's job is to guess (or try to recognize) which of these pitches is being thrown, and adjust their swing so they make good contact with the ball. Typically, the catcher will signal to the pitcher what pitch he reckons is the best bet.

It's like poker - we've thrown two curveballs in a row, so the batter will expect a fastball... except the batter knows that you know that, so maybe they'll actually be waiting for you to throw another curveball... unless he knows you know he knows that, in which case a change-up is what he's expecting... etc etc. As a catcher, one of my jobs is to show the pitcher ostensibly impenetrable pre-determined "signs" with my hands to request pitches.

Obviously, it would be really valuable to know what pitch the catcher just asked for - will it be a fastball? Or will it curve down? Or will it be a slower pitch that looks like a fast pitch designed to trick the batter and so forth. If a batter knew, then he'd be able to adjust accordingly and have greater success, but it would require someone looking behind him and feeding him the "stolen" information.

"Stealing" signs has been alleged for years, and to be honest it's part of the game. If there's a runner on 2nd, he can see exactly what pitch the catcher is signalling and can relay it to the batter if they have a pre-agreed system. It's gamesmanship, but within the rules and can give teams the edge if they're smart/cynical enough to use it. Look, here's Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen intentionally balking to move the runner from 2nd to 3rd so that can't happen any more.

But! When does gamesmanship move into actual, 100% cheating? It has been alleged for years that various teams "steal signs" electronically due to the increased availability of screens and technology (Apple watches are officially banned by MLB) - but it looks like it has finally been proven*. The Astros have been using a camera in their ballpark to watch the opposing catcher, then relayed that information to the dugout, where the team has been relaying that information to the batter in real-time. There's no delay, which means it isn't a human and there are no runners on the bases to pass the information along.

Someone in the dugout bangs the roof with a bat - 2 bumps is a breaking ball (not fast and curvy), no bumps is a fastball (fast and straight). Here's a nice breakdown, listen with headphones and it is clear as day:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M2XNW1qHN9w

This at-bat is particularly damning because the batter happens to be "on" every single pitch, there are no runners on the bases to relay the information and it is so quick there's only one way the batter is getting it, the pitcher (one-time Blue Jay!) Danny Farquhar realizes after hearing the banging for the 5th or 6th time, steps off the mound and vocally tells the pitcher what he's going to throw instead, and the batter immediately strikes out next pitch because he's Evan Gattis and not a great hitter when he doesn't know exactly what pitch you're about to throw him.

Full game here, it happens throughout.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=10555&v=SftEFwbpmic

Unfortunately for the Astros, every MLB game is recorded in absurd, obsessive detail for stats nerds like me, so it looks like this has been going on for years, and at least through their 2017 World Series win. What will happen now is anyone's guess, but there's no denying this is happening.

Edit: this one is so bad. 2 bumps = breaking ball, no bumps = fastball, 1 bump = cutter/cut-fastball. I worked that out from watching it once through (now I know to look for it), how has this gone unnoticed for so long?! The commentator even complimented McCann on his plate discipline for going down 0-2 and still watching 4 pitches whizz outside the zone and drawing a walk. Either he's an incredible hitter with nerves of steel and a terrific eye (and he isn't, he's Brian McCann for fucks sake), or he's cheating.

*and also (possibly) the root of the Astros' success in recent years. Buy the absolute best pitching around (Verlander, Cole, Greinke etc etc) and then get some slightly cheaper good (but not great) hitters and feed them information to make them far better than they have any right to be. Some people have pointed out the Astros incredible home winning percentage vs their road percentage where they have to play like any other team. I think that could well be a valid criticism. What a heel turn.

BlodwynPig

Throw them out of MLB, blue jays get their wins

EOLAN

Shouldn't the opponents just have better change up in their code callings. suppose Astros could have someone in a cleearly visible seat with binoculars that could wave three different type of flags or signs in the natural eye-line of the batter. Of course it could be a case that others have figured out a better way of cheating and not being caught.

Dex Sawash


Off topic but I like the way college football calls plays with picture menus