#freejame

There’s maybe 25 pitchers tops in the league who have the ability to go through the order 3 times with regularity. Teams want to win. The differences in batting averages between the first trip through the order and the third trip through the order is astounding. wOBA goes up 26 points, k% go down, BABIP and hard hit balls all go up, velocity goes down, swing strike% goes down. Bad managing is bad managing and unless you’re a handful of guys, leaving someone in three times through is bad managing. If you’ve got the bullpen to come in, you do it every time (not counting Blake Snell in the WS, but managerial tactics and analytics play a significantly different role on post-season baseball). Montoya was some bad baseball the other day, no doubt about that. But man, how freaking good did Manoah look?!

Since this is a hockey board after all, there has been some recent studies/success on the impacts of pitch tunneling. For those that don’t know, pitch tunneling is where, regardless of what pitch or where you are aiming, you are releasing the ball from the same arm slot. The more proficient you are at tunneling, the longer time is takes to differentiate pitchers. Jacob Degrom last night is a great example. Alex Wood really started keying on of this a few years back and it really helped him rebound, especially after losing some velocity. My question as it pertains to hockey is, is there really any way to tunnel a shot? Obviously pucks don’t move nearly the way baseball do, but outside of looking off a target, what kind of advancements might be had and perfected in shot deception, if any? Regardless, I can’t wait for the new NHL statcast system. It’s been amazing for baseball. I can’t wait to see what it does for hockey.

There’s a lot of great articles on the baseball conspiracy that I plan to link once I’m on my computer because that’s really been the biggest change year over year on the quality of the game. Some of the changes (runner starting on second in the 10th, 7 inning double headers) have definitely lowered game times by a very minute amount but at the same time they are alienating actual baseball fans. The minor leagues use a pitch count and the MLB has always had rules in the book related to time between pitches. The only change baseball needs to make is enforce its own rule. Basically every player less than 25 has played under pitch clocks. I have never once noticed it at a minor league game nor saw a ball (or strike) called due to the time. I believe it is 20 seconds between pitches from the time the batter toes the rubber. Between 2007-2017 over 2.3 seconds were added between every pitches. The data I am looking at is from 2018 and has Pedro Baez clocking in at 31.2 seconds between pitches. I can’t find the data right this second but I believe Kennedy Jansen was clocking in close to forty seconds this last season. And quite frankly, what baseball does not want the outside world to know is that broadcast time has increased significantly as ad time increases. There’s twenty-two minutes of ad time during every local game and and 45.5 minutes of ads for nationally televised games. The MLB did recently take steps to shorten the time, but it still makes up a good portion of the broadcast.

This is going to be a mess and all over the place, but yes. Very glossed over TLDR: Manfred wanted more offense by secretly implementing a more lively ball->lively led to increase home runs and strikeouts but fewer balls in play->Manfred wanted more balls in so he secretly implemented a dead baseball with raised seams->home runs decrease, strikeouts increase, BA decreases, balls in play decrease Manfred is largely alienating baseball’s lifelong fans is attempts to create a game that he believes will please the masses. Disregarding various time of play rules such as batter limits, extra inning rules, expanded playoffs, new pickoff limitations, etc, he is hellbent on creating a game that he deems is “more exciting.” Manfred’s first true attempt to make baseball more exciting was to increase runs. The simplest way of doing so was to add something like 1/8” of diameter to the core of the baseball while simultaneously wrapping the ball tighter with its yarn. There has also been evidence that an additional new piece a fabric was also included in this yarn. Lastly, to decrease air friction, the seams of the ball were also significantly decreased. All of this resulted in consecutive records being broken league wide for total home runs hit and a slight increase in scoring, but game time has not decreased. Pitchers rapidly began to complain, particularly about the seams, and began to change from their typical mix of rosin and sunscreen to a whole bevy of “sticky stuff.” While “sticky stuff” (and rosin combined with sunscreen) have always been illegal, batters never had any issue with pitchers increasing their grip because in theory it keeps them safe. Even before the advent of the newer gripping products, you would occasional see players ejected for pine tar use, but even then, few players cared and no manager wanted to protest because they knew their pitchers were doing the same. There was also no way to police rosin/sunscreen mixes because both are legal substances (no umpire can eject a player for wearing sunscreen and no umpire can eject a pitcher for using rosin). Right during the middle of the home run surge, Trevor Bauer started releasing data on spin rates, both their effects of contact rates, ball-movements, giving “rise” to fastball, etc. He was using a developmental center call driveline sports and basically tweeted out that he can has found that the only way he has been able to increase his spin rate was through artificial means (sticky stuff). He then complied a list of players with jumps in RPM and more or less concluded that these pitchers (all of whom were now having increased success) cheated. To prove this hypothesis, for a single game while on the Indians, Bauer loaded up with a mixture of melted coca-cola, pinetar, and another substance that is escaping me. His performance was one of the best and he was essentially saying to the MLB “DO SOMETHING.” Shortly thereafter, Bauer tweeted something along the lines of “its simple, load up with illegal substances, increase your spin rate, you will be a better pitcher, and you can sign a larger contract.” The very next season, Bauer did exactly that. He threw with the highest level of spin during his career, put up career bests in WHIP, ERA, and strikeouts, won the Cy Young and signed a 3 year, $105m contract. The off-season that followed, the MLB once again decided to alter the baseball (once again without proper testing or any sort of public eye). The raised the seams significantly, spun the yarn surrounding the core looser, and created an effect that essentially deadened that ball by approximately 10ft. However, while all of these changes go to benefit the pitcher, they chose not to stop using “sticky” stuff. That’s resulting in movement like never before seen from players who have never been seen throwing it. The idea that the decrease of ten feet would eliminate many of the home runs, resulting in more balls in player and therefore more action. Instead, what we have seen, is the fewest balls out in play in decades, the lowest league wide batting average in decades, and continuous loss of fan interest. Launch angles were briefly discussed up-thread, but I am not so much convinced they are responsible what has become of MLB offense. Yes, three true outcomes are on the rise, and yes, fans would rather see a nice snag down the third baseline for an out than swinging strikes, but an out is an out. There are many fans (myself included) who are huge fans of small ball. Give me a good station to station inning and some sharp fielding and I’m over the moon. But with the advents of scoring charts, small ball is proving to be significantly less effective over the course of 162 games. It’s seen a lot more in the playoffs, but it’s a different baseball game. It’s these same scoring charts that are ruining bunting, hit and runs, and steals. It never made any sense to have a close play at 3rd with three down because it jeopardizes your chances of scoring. Baseball has the math in place for every scenario of base runners and outs, again negatively impacting the things us fans find fun. As for the shift, I understand the arguments against it but there is a certain “where is the line?” point. If, say, you want the left side of the infield to only stay on the left side of the infield, whatever I get it. That eliminates maybe 25% of the shifts seen. Shifts are a crucial part of infield defense, even if everyone is on “their” side of second base. Where is gets even more difficult is outfield shifts. There are plenty of pros making comments about how being perfectly positioned in the outfield nearly every at-bat takes about the fun of the game. But what should be done? Force all outfields inside 5*5 circles before every AB? There are a lot of issues in baseball right now. Fan growth is down because a lack of MLB sponsored youth programs, MLB has the most restrictive blackout policy of any major sport, and baseball finds an incredibly difficult time becoming a national sport rather than a local sport. Manfred is currently driving away the sports lifelong fans, and doing nothing to create new fans. MLB will release commercials and tweets and television segments to players having fun and showing emotion and acting like kids playing a kids game and then the commissions office will suspend them. Oh and after all of the changes to increase game time, nothing has changed except for pissing people off. The average baseball fan is something like 54 years old. They are driving away those people and telling the young people of you want to have fun and have a personality you should play a different sport instead.

I have a theory that those who hate Hall also believed we would be competing for a playoff spot this year and since we didn’t, he is catching a good deal of blame and animosity.

There is still a lot of mixed feelings about Kelly at least among those I hang around. I’m too young to comment on their media blitz, but that almost proves a point. It’s been 30 years that Buffalo has craved for a Josh Allen.

I don’t. Toronto fans come down to Buffalo and are loud, obnoxious, the most intoxicated, rude, and constantly litter. It wouldn’t surprise me if half the people who dislike Toronto dislike them solely because of arena interactions and sports media. Toronto, historically, has never been anything more than a punching bag for Buffalo. Many in Buffalo just want to treat there fans as such as well.

There I made the wording even clearer for you. Nothing here asks if Eichel will be traded. It’s what do YOU think he’s worth and what do you think the LEAGUE thinks he’s worth. If your answer is Eichel is worthless, then I don’t know what to tell you. You should know what you want in return for Jack Eichel and should be able to form an opinion on how much of that he will receive. Obviously nobody knows, I am gauging Eichel’s value among people on the board.

I think it’s more likely they added milk instead

This is more along the line of proof that good teams lock up their star players early to team Friendly deals. Tampa, Colorado, Carolina, and Boston all fit this mold. Not only do they all have multiple star players better than our unhealthy Eichel (and arguably out healthy Eichel) but each and every one of them comes with a cap hit less than Kyle Okposo (dont fact check that statement). It’s what teams would have said about Reinhart if we had half a brain anytime in the last five years.

Colorado has continuously refuted this. The only difference between the amount of skill in Colorado and the amount of skill in Toronto, at least up front, is Colorado is massive and skilled whereas Toronto is simply skilled. Colorado also has a backend that is lightyears better but too much skills and too many stars are not the issue.

These are just bad takes that don’t follow the sport enough. Batting averages are lower this season due to a variety of factors primarily related to the physical ball itself. Three true outcomes have increased strikeout rate, it that is so far down the list of actual issues facing the game. The issues created by Manfred are far more damaging and occur far more often.

Pretty self-explanitory.

We aren't nearly good enough of a team to have Martin or Clutterbuck. I don't mind Cizikas though.

Strongsville, Ohio has (used to have?) an annual rib fest and it was probably the best ribs I've ever had in my life. Other than that, it's hard to disagree.

Lot's on the bold . Coming from deep Appalachia, I'm not sure anyone would consider PIttsburgh Appalachia, yet alone the capital (regardless of the fact is technically is). The New (recently designated with the park services!), Smokies (most visiting national park), Blue Ridge, and even Springer Mountain are all much more associated. Asheville is also more or less the "new age" cultural hub of the Appalachians as well. The beer was nothing to write home about, at least concerning the locals. I will say that I went to quite a few different bars that served beers that I typically had to scour the earth for, which was nice. PNC is amazing and everything you said perfectly encapsulates it. One of the best ballparks I have ever step-foot in by far. And I don't even remember having to pay to park! The outside stadium atmosphere was second to none. Pittsburgh driving is ***** nuts. It's fast, its constant lane changes, and it's exciting. I enjoyed it a lot more when I has a smaller sedan, but it's one of my favorite spots to drive. I'm not much of a speeder, but I'll maintain the flow of traffic and i remember a caravan of probably 15 cars all going 90 plus with a cop following us just minding his own business. The curves are also a blast. Every time I drive through Pittsburgh it always slightly reminds me of the excitement of driving into DC.

Let's say hypothetically the LA deal of Turcotte and Vilardi (not Kaliyev) for Reinhart were to do though. And the Leafs off Marner and Sandin/Roberston for Eichel. How does this alter the next season in Buffalo? Skinner (meh)--nobody--Marner Roberston-- Mitts/Villardi/Turcotte--Cozens Olofsson-Mitts/Villardi/Turcotte--Tage Gigs--Mitts/Villardi/Turcotte-R2 To me that looks no better. Neither Villardi or Turcotte or Mitts should be slotted next year any higher than top six. There's an off-chance our bottom-9 in improved, but we are going to be left with a gapping hole at 1C. I don't see how a TO trade works. We need a Byfield, Newhook, Zegras coming back or we need to anticipate another top-5 pick. Just for the record, I think Turcotte tops as a strong 2C, Vilardi as a strong 3C (assuming his back hold ups) and Robertson a top-6 wiger. Byfield has 1C potential but I worry he will top out at as a strong 2C. Newhook I have somewhere better Byfield and Turcotte. Marner's cap hit is higher than Jack's so no money is being saved. The Reinhart money could go to Danault, but all you're getting there is a strong 2C. The bottom-9 just isn't capable enough to make up for the lack of first line.

When was the last time the Sabres has a Josh Allen? Hasek? Even then I don't remember anything nearly as crazy as everything going on with Allen. Honestly, I can't think of anyone who Buffalo has embraced as wholeheartedly as Josh. Hell, I can't even remember a Sabre as well-loved and respected as the new and improved Jerry Hughes, and he probably doesn't even rank in the top five for the Bills anymore.

Marner makes $11m, sounds like a cap dump to me.

Leafs fans are all over reddit wanting to move Marner ASAP.

FTFY

Yeah I’m off Dorchester right on the border of N. Charleston and Summerville. Did they have you at the Air Force base?

Baseball isn’t destroying itself with analytics. Rob Manfred is destroying baseball. Analytics are why there’s all the great young talent there is today.

I know it wasn’t. Your point was what they were saying isn’t applicable. I agree with you. I am saying that understanding baseball analytics and hiring from their front office can be worthwhile for a variety of reasons, none of which were mentioned.

I haven’t lived in an NHL city in eleven years and the StingraySpace forum just doesn’t do it for me.