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MLB 2019 - SPRING TRAINING~!


Dolfan in NYC

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18 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

To also go along with this - supposedly the agreement will limit # of pitchers a team can carry to 13 and will put in some sort of 3 batter minimum for pitchers

There is some bullshit about All Star Game voting which really amuses me since THAT's the part that ESPN is making a big deal out of

Yeah.  THIS is the alleged changes to the AS starters.

In a nutshell - top 3 vote-getters at a position then go in for an ELECTION DAY~~~!!! vote-off to see who becomes the starter.

As if Democracy works.

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Because life fucking sucks - Tom Seaver has dementia and will be retiring from public life

They Mets have already acknowledged that he will be unable to attend the celebration they have planned for the 1969 World Series team later this year

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2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Because life fucking sucks - Tom Seaver has dementia and will be retiring from public life

They Mets have already acknowledged that he will be unable to attend the celebration they have planned for the 1969 World Series team later this year

This is a damn shame. Seaver has always seemed like a total class act. I would say something snarky about why doesn't this happen to Steve Carlton and Curt Schilling instead, but the obvious answer would be "How could you tell?"

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2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Because life fucking sucks - Tom Seaver has dementia and will be retiring from public life

They Mets have already acknowledged that he will be unable to attend the celebration they have planned for the 1969 World Series team later this year

I am likely the only one here old enough to have put together a team set of the 1969 Mets. Ah, Ron Swoboda, Ed Kranepool, Cleon Jones, Tommy Agee... And of course, my favorite manager of all-time, Gil Hodges. Talk about a team that played light-years over their heads.

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The specific experimental rules that MLB is having tested in the independent Atlantic League this season have been announced:

  • Home plate umpire assisted in calling balls and strikes by a TrackMan radar tracking system.
  • No mound visits permitted by players or coaches other than for pitching changes of medical issues.
  • Pitchers must face a minimum of three batters, or reach the end of an inning before they exit the game, unless the pitcher becomes injured.
  • Increase the size of 1st, 2nd and 3rd base from 15 inches square to 18 inches square.
  • Require two infielders to be on each side of second base when a pitch is released (if not, the ball is dead and the umpire shall call a ball).
  • Time between innings and pitching changes reduced from 2:05 to 1:45.
  • Distance from pitching rubber to home plate extended 24 inches, in the second half of the season only; with no change to mound height or shape.
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17 minutes ago, Hamhock said:

The specific experimental rules that MLB is having tested in the independent Atlantic League this season have been announced:

  •  
  • Require two infielders to be on each side of second base when a pitch is released (if not, the ball is dead and the umpire shall call a ball).
  •  

I hate the shift as a strategy, but I despise this rule.  The shift exists because batting coaches seemed to stop teaching batters how to use the field, and since every MLB park in existance shortens right field for da long ball, every friggin left hand batter pulls right.  You want to stop the shift, teach your fucking batters to use the whole field.

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I think I hate most of these rules. Some of them are real WTF worthy. Like this one -

Quote
  • Distance from pitching rubber to home plate extended 24 inches, in the second half of the season only; with no change to mound height or shape.

Seriously, WTF? Why just the second half of the season? 

The rule to combat the shift is fucking dumb and like Raziel said, teach batters to beat the shift.

Increasing the size of the bases seems equally dumb and pointless.

No mound visits is fucking bullshit. If your pitcher is rattled and you have a catcher who can go out there, calm them the fuck down, and get you through the next few pitches, then that should be allowed.

The only one I'm on the fence about is that pitchers need to face three batters before the next change. I could actually see this one happening in the big leagues and if it does, it would at least stop someone like Joe Maddon from acting on his worst impulses. On the other hand, I really like the LOOGY role and I would miss that.

At the end of the day, I doubt many of these changes make their way to the majors. I'll be interested to see what my friend who is a scorekeeper for MLB thinks of all of this. 

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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

I think I hate most of these rules. Some of them are real WTF worthy. Like this one -

Seriously, WTF? Why just the second half of the season? 

The rule to combat the shift is fucking dumb and like Raziel said, teach batters to beat the shift.

Increasing the size of the bases seems equally dumb and pointless.

No mound visits is fucking bullshit. If your pitcher is rattled and you have a catcher who can go out there, calm them the fuck down, and get you through the next few pitches, then that should be allowed.

The only one I'm on the fence about is that pitchers need to face three batters before the next change. I could actually see this one happening in the big leagues and if it does, it would at least stop someone like Joe Maddon from acting on his worst impulses. On the other hand, I really like the LOOGY role and I would miss that.

At the end of the day, I doubt many of these changes make their way to the majors. I'll be interested to see what my friend who is a scorekeeper for MLB thinks of all of this. 

Not defending these things but they are EXPERIMENTS.  In the Atlantic League.  So...shrug.  It's the Internet, everyone proceeds with outrage.

- I'd guess the increase of the mound to 62 feet in the second half is to introduce it after the pitchers arms are stretched out v. rolling it out it at the beginning of the season.  Just a guess.

- And I am with everyone on the shift thing.  Hitters need to adapt or die.

- Mound visits...ehh.  I've seen enough Yankees-Red Sox games in my life that I never need to see another catcher ever talk to a pitcher again.  But maybe cold turkey is a touch extreme.

- Loogy's need to just go away.  Forever.  I'm quite OK with the 3 batter rule.

- I'm kinda more intrigued by the TrackMan thing than anything.  I can see the tech not working well at all at that level.  But I'd love to see how they are going to try to work it.

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My thoughts:

1) Don't care about the base size

2) Love the 3-batter minimum

3) Love the elimination of mound visits

4) Not sure on the mound distance change.  Seems like a change just to make a change.

5) I am open to electronic ball/strike calls.  Will be curious to see how well that works.

6) I am in favor of banning the shift.  I don't like a ban in theory but the reality is that hard ground balls and line drives for base hits have been eliminated for a large percentage of hitters.  If we simply eliminate second basemen playing 50 feet out into RF, that would be a good thing.

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Everything would be fixed if they had a rule where for every five team strikeouts everyone on the team gets a very strong electrical shock to the testicles.

It would also help sort out who is juicing because those guys wouldn't flinch.

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May I propose an amendment to your suggestion? Those five strike-outs all need to come from the same pitcher, so that there's no incentive to waste time messing about changing pitchers every few batters.

A lot of these other rules seem like some old men yelling at clouds. Sports evolve as tactical thinking changes, as technology changes. It's the nature of the beast.  However, I do say this as someone who is totally in favour of making pitchers bat, so take whatever I say with a pinch of salt.

EDIT: I think part of it is that I don't think sports should ban tactics that "ruin" the game, as much as reward tactics that "make it better." I've put those in quotation marks because a lot of them are subjective. In the jokey example I've put up with the help of my esteemed colleague Piranesi, keeping pitchers in the game is rewarded by potentially zapping the other team's balls.

Edited by DangerMark
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11 hours ago, Tabe said:

My thoughts:

1) Don't care about the base size

2) Love the 3-batter minimum

3) Love the elimination of mound visits

4) Not sure on the mound distance change.  Seems like a change just to make a change.

5) I am open to electronic ball/strike calls.  Will be curious to see how well that works.

6) I am in favor of banning the shift.  I don't like a ban in theory but the reality is that hard ground balls and line drives for base hits have been eliminated for a large percentage of hitters.  If we simply eliminate second basemen playing 50 feet out into RF, that would be a good thing.

1.) Agreed

2.) I like this a LOT!

3.) This is why we can't have nice things. There is nothing in baseball that is abused quite as badly as mound visits. A universal gesture for STFU and throw strikes goes a long ways to solving this problem. FWIW: I have no problem with the testicle shocks either.

4.) This is just silliness that should be quashed and quashed quickly.

5.) If it can be proven that the technology is accurate enough I'd be very interested in seeing this put into actual practice. I, for one am sick to death of umpires arbitrarily defining their own strike zone, or worse; varying it from player to player as they see fit. The strike zone is the strike zone, it doesn't change just because you happen to think that the batter is an asshat.

6.) Screw all that, in the hundred years that have passed since he said it, no one has improved on Wee Willie Keeler's maxim: "Hit 'em where they ain't!" If you're not prepared to do this, stay in AA and leave the Big Show to the guys that actually come to play. 

7.) Something still needs to be done about batters preening and prancing about between every pitch. Yes, I know everyone likes to get shown on ESPN but if we're going to eliminate mound visits, it needs to go both ways. The Mike Hargrove-like human rain delay shit needs to cease like yesterday. If you really must make all these minor adjustments to your uniform it isn't properly fitted. Wear a fucking dress at your next AB. 

I think everyone can agree that a huge part of the charm of baseball is the wide variety of things that can happen on every single pitch. That said, there is a fine line between strategic planning and wasting everyone's time. We don't need to speed the game up so much as we need to eliminate time-wasting foolishness. Say that you're the #5 or #6 batter, you've had plenty of time to make sure that everything is hunky-dory with your uniform. Coming up to bat and fidgeting with your batting gloves, helmet, whathaveyou is simply unacceptable. There's a ticking clock in every major sport, just because you don't see it being invoked doesn't mean it isn't there. 

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On 3/9/2019 at 2:18 AM, OSJ said:

7.) Something still needs to be done about batters preening and prancing about between every pitch. Yes, I know everyone likes to get shown on ESPN but if we're going to eliminate mound visits, it needs to go both ways. The Mike Hargrove-like human rain delay shit needs to cease like yesterday. If you really must make all these minor adjustments to your uniform it isn't properly fitted. Wear a fucking dress at your next AB. 

A million times, yes! This annoys the shit out of me. Dude steps out of the box, re-adjusts his gloves, knocks dirt off his shoes, etc.... the rule should be once both feet are in the batters box you remain there until the at bat is over. 

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2 hours ago, BrianS81177 said:

A million times, yes! This annoys the shit out of me. Dude steps out of the box, re-adjusts his gloves, knocks dirt off his shoes, etc.... the rule should be once both feet are in the batters box you remain there until the at bat is over. 

Either that, or the equal viewpoint:

Once one foot is in the batter's box (not even both feet, or players like this will do the Shawn Michaels rule of "only one of my feet was in the batter's box!"), then any ball the pitcher throws is a legal pitch.

You're out of the batter's box when the ball touches the catcher's mitt, it's counted as a strike.

(Related as well: Since every team will inevitably have "take a small lead so the pitcher has to throw and he can readjust" signals, a "You get two chances to take a lead on the basepaths, then you MUST attempt to steal" rule would help.) 

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4 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

?

Does it come with the deductible for the heart bypass? (Although I can't talk with my eating habits) Depending on the price, and if your party all have the same taste buds, it might be a good thing to share. . . 

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