Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 02:06:39 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Baseball 2021 - we defy you to care

Started by Famous Mortimer, January 22, 2021, 05:41:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ferris

They will have to enforce the pine tar rules, I don't see how they can ignore it much longer. Every scrub can get elite spin rates by cheating in a way MLB allows.

We're at what, 8 no hitters already? Plus a complete game no hitter for Bumgarner that was 7 innings because it was the second half of a double header[nb]MLB after these rule changes: yes, 7 innings is a full game so you should pay full price to watch it, also no it doesn't count as a full game in the scoring record for [insert reason here][/nb]. As you say, league batting average is in the .230s and an entire team is hitting below the Mendoza Line. That's absurd, even if it is the Mariners.

Lower the mound, increase the distance to HP, or just enforce the rules that are there already (and they made a big song and dance about enforcing before conveniently forgetting, putting fingers in their ears, and hoping the very visible issue would just resolve itself. See also: steroids in the '90s).

Still, Vlad looks good this year eh?

Famous Mortimer

It seems this is going to snowball - more and more active players are calling out the open cheating, and if MLB do nothing about it, it's going to look absolutely terrible for them. I get the feeling we're going to have a situation where a batter at the plate openly complains about it, or picks up a ball and demonstrates to the cameras what's happening, and fairly soon. I'd say it's been an open secret but it's not even been a secret.

Marcell Ozuna, who I enjoyed as a Cardinal, was arrested on Friday for allegedly choking his wife and throwing her against a wall (the second thing was witnessed by the cops that responded to the call, apparently). She was arrested for assaulting him last year, too, to add a cherry to the top of this shit sundae. This sort of assault on a spouse is guaranteed jail time, too, so looks like Ozuna's time in organised baseball is at an end.

Famous Mortimer

Looks like the pitchers are now complaining about the foreign substance challenges, without seeming to understand it's their actions that caused all this in the first place.

Anyway. The Cardinals are in free-fall, it seems like, with their normally great players doing terribly, their pitchers aiming for some all-time record for walks, and them losing at such a rate that trading for guys to help them this season seems more and more pointless. I shall ignore the hyperbole of the fanbase, but this feels like the worst team they've had since the 90s. Someone in the front office of this team is not going to make it to the end of the season.

Ferris

Meanwhile the jays are on the up and up!

Ludicrous offensive numbers not helped by the worst bullpen by WAR in the league, with a few nice trades we could be in wild card territory this year and after that who knows?

Ferris

We got the nipper a tiny basketball net that came with half a dozen of those plastic ball-pit balls. Out of interest, I threw a couple and they're excellent for pitching. If you snap you wrist at the release point your slider can get insane movement, and fastballs with enough backspin travel in ruler-straight lines. Still can't throw a decent curveball to save me life but it was really interesting to see the spin impact each throw. I even worked out the grip/release for a screwball and can see how they'd mess up your shoulder.

Fun little diversion if you get the opportunity.

Dex Sawash


NC State baseball team sent home from college world series semi-finals for too many players testing positive for banned substances (COVID virus). The university didn't require vax.

Ferris

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on June 25, 2021, 06:52:05 PM
Meanwhile the jays are on the up and up!

Ludicrous offensive numbers not helped by the worst bullpen by WAR in the league, with a few nice trades we could be in wild card territory this year and after that who knows?

Jays traded for a decent reliever and Dickerson, who'd be the 5th (?) outfielder but currently unable to walk with no timeline for a return from injury. I'm pretty sure the Marlins just traded him to avoid his salary because they're a joke franchise, but a veteran left handed bench bat (I think he's league average?) and a desperately needed bullpen addition in Cimber (who pitches submarine style! My favourite!) is alright by me.

Quote from: Dex Sawash on June 30, 2021, 12:07:37 AM
NC State baseball team sent home from college world series semi-finals for too many players testing positive for banned substances (COVID virus). The university didn't require vax.

The framing of vaccines in the US seems to be about "personal choice", but it's like your personal choice to text while driving or have a few martinis before operating heavy machinery on a construction site. From a hyper-libertarian view I suppose you could make a case for it, but it is a baffling position from the outside.

The uptake is now so poor, American-made vaccines are being exported at much higher than anticipated volumes and the Canadian vaccine timeline has moved up dramatically. I'm getting my second Moderna shot on Friday instead of early September as a result so thank you NC State baseball team, I guess.

I assumed the Research Triangle area would be heavily vaccinated as it tends to skew by education and socio-economic lines. Shows what I know.

Dex Sawash


At the kids level, baseball (and softball) seems to attract a high participation level of families of fuckwits. That probably trickles up to higher levels of sport. Baseball may be the most individual of team sports but I haven't really paused to think that through. Astonishing that NCSU only had 13 vaxxed on the squad.

Famous Mortimer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=demRwn71yl8

Jomboy goes to Savannah, watches the Bananas, and tells everyone about the brilliant new game of banana ball. I have a Savannah Bananas shirt from when they first started, and am delighted they seem to have turned into the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.

Famous Mortimer

Well, how did your team make out at the trade deadline? The Cardinals traded for JA Happ, who's the worst starter in baseball this season (per bWAR) and Jon Lester, who was good five years ago.

Both of them (along with dumpster pickup Wade LeBlanc, who I'll be going to Busch Stadium to watch start tonight) will probably be retiring at the end of the season. Add in Adam Wainwright, who's older than all of them, and the Cardinals might be close to having the oldest rotation of all time. These are not the moves of a team that wants to win, and not the moves of a team who wants to get better in the future. They're nothing moves, and every media outlet is rightly mocking them for it.

Ferris

Jays have picked up Brad Hand as part of the Nationals' fire sale, and José Berríos from the twins for 1.5 very legit prospects.

Suspect that's a massive overpay (we're not even getting a lottery ticket type prospect back) and although I'm not as massively hyped as some on Austin Martin who was never going to play the infield for the Jays anyway because of the existing roster, I still feel like we should have gotten more.

Other than that, nothing outside of small-time players (think we just picked up a reliever or two?) so there you go. Semien will go after this season (my preddo: Yankees) so we will clear some of the logjam in the infield and the Jays can focus on pitching and a solid third baseman (Bryant?). Overall not massively impressed, but pleased we aren't making knee jerk moves on rentals when this season is already a bit of a write off.

Famous Mortimer

I'm not sure if the Cardinals broke a single game record tonight, but they managed to walk in 4 runs in a row with the bases loaded. They are, though, two bases loaded walks away from the all-time single season record.

I've thought the Cardinals have been bad before, but this is the first time I've been embarrassed for them. It's pathetic, a bunch of has-beens, underperforming young guys, and the only real star having an average season.

Ferris

I saw the Cards were trading for some ridiculously past-it pitchers. I don't know the depth of the farm but I can't think of any highly touted prospects in that system.

I think this is the beginning of a 5 year rebuild unfortunately. It means tickets will be cheap! When the Jays stunk I could go watch a game on a whim for like $3.

Ferris

I've mentioned it before, but one of the things I love about baseball is due to the sheer number of games played, very unlikely things happen all the time.

Here is a fly ball that bounced, hit a door handle and unlatched it right at the moment a player was running at it so he literally ran off the field (without meaning to).

https://gfycat.com/acceptablehappygoluckyharborporpoise

Gurke and Hare

Mets have Metsed it. They'll probably finish third if they're lucky, and won't finish about .500.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on August 06, 2021, 01:25:14 PM
I've mentioned it before, but one of the things I love about baseball is due to the sheer number of games played, very unlikely things happen all the time.

Here is a fly ball that bounced, hit a door handle and unlatched it right at the moment a player was running at it so he literally ran off the field (without meaning to).

https://gfycat.com/acceptablehappygoluckyharborporpoise
The link you linked to is a perfectly reasonable (but not very exciting) groundout.

The most common feeling among Cardinals fans at the moment is just...boredom. They're not good and going for the pennant, they're not bad and trying out a bunch of new guys, they're just there, with their slightly better than replacement players, in mid table obscurity.

I'm already getting "hey, come see a game for $6, with $6 worth of credit to spend inside the ballpark" emails, but it's so fucking hot and humid in St Louis, I'm not going outside til late September.

Ferris

Yeah I saw the link went to a default thing and I couldn't work out how to fix it. Lazy lazy ferris. Apologies.

Anyone see the Dinger-gate at the Rockies/Marlins game? Larry David type stuff.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on August 10, 2021, 11:18:13 PM

Anyone see the Dinger-gate at the Rockies/Marlins game? Larry David type stuff.

Reverse Milkshake Duck

Ferris

I can see him trying to explain it to Suzie after the game

LD: I was yelling at the dinosaur! The mascot! I wanted a picture!

SG: Larry why the fuck does a grown man get photos with a mascot?

Famous Mortimer

That was a very weird thing. Now, of course, "I was saying dinger" will be the first excuse every racist uses.

The Cardinals, freed from the chance of qualifying for the post season, have been beating up on a terrible team like they're supposed to (well, their chances are 1.9%, but they're not going to do it). Adam Wainwright pitched a complete game shutout on just 88 pitches last night, a few weeks before his 40th birthday, and the lovely stats people told us he's the oldest person to ever do that (the 88 pitches or less thing).

sevendaughters

rewatched Moneyball and then had a poke around on Baseball Reference to see how true it is. complete pack of lies. The 2002 As five best players by WAR: Zito, Hudson, Tejada, Chavez, Mulder. None mentioned in the film at all.

Ferris

Quote from: sevendaughters on August 15, 2021, 12:15:16 PM
rewatched Moneyball and then had a poke around on Baseball Reference to see how true it is. complete pack of lies. The 2002 As five best players by WAR: Zito, Hudson, Tejada, Chavez, Mulder. None mentioned in the film at all.

Zito won a Cy Young that year too. I think the analytics (as rudimentary as it looks today) helped get an extra few points of OPS out of the offence (and that's not nothing) but it was definitely not as crucial as it's made out to be. Some of the thinking was genuinely novel at the time though.

I've read the book and I remember it is more all-encompassing, but it still focuses on the fringe players in a way that is (to be fair) more narratively interesting rather than wholly accurate. A single crocked reliever and a first baseman who gets on base 30 points higher than the next guy won't win it all.

Anyway, still my favourite baseball film.

Dex Sawash


Was expecting a textwall of Moneyball defense. 9/10

Ferris

Quote from: Dex Sawash on August 15, 2021, 02:30:02 PM
Was expecting a textwall of Moneyball defense. 9/10

I held myself to "some of the thinking was genuinely novel" which deserves some sort of medal for restraint.

sevendaughters

I like that it presents a different view of reality other than the prevailing one, but I think acknowledging some of the larger realities would have made for a stronger film.

Famous Mortimer

I read the book about 10 years ago, and it was pretty interesting. It made a bunch of also-ran As players into famous names, which was quite nice too.

I feel bad for any actual As fans, though. They're the absolute definition of cheering on laundry (along with the Rays, in recent years). If a player gets good, they'll trade him for someone slightly less good but a lot cheaper.

It's maybe slightly out of date now, but if you can find it cheap, "Baseball Between The Numbers" by the staff of Baseball Prospectus is a really interesting book. Talks about how stats, for instance, would try to accurately compare Bonds to Ruth, taking into account the vastly different environments both guys played in, and so on. Slightly more up to date is Brian Kenny's "Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution", which is a "traditional" journalist proselytising for the advanced use of stats.

Too many recent books on baseball, especially from people who used to be employed by Fangraphs or whoever, are faintly psychopathic odes to billionaire owners getting even richer by screwing their players. There was one a year or so ago which heavily featured Trevor Bauer, a decision I presume the authors now regret.

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on August 15, 2021, 02:24:18 PM


Anyway, still my favourite baseball film.

I'd have it a close second behind Major League. There are actually quite a lot of good baseball films, at least compared to movies about other sports.

EOLAN

Quote from: Dex Sawash on August 15, 2021, 02:30:02 PM
Was expecting a textwall of Moneyball defense. 9/10

The book was great. The film was meh.

Famous Mortimer

Blue Jays put 22 runs past Baltimore today. Damn.

Ferris

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on September 13, 2021, 12:13:04 AM
Blue Jays put 22 runs past Baltimore today. Damn.

And scored 22 against them yesterday too (albeit across 2 games or a double header) including 11 runs in one half inning.

Officially in a wild card spot now too.