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2020 MLB Spring Training (7 Viewers)

TheIronSheik said:
This isn't true.  You can't lay on the ground and take a walk every time.  SZ only changes for height of player.  And that box on the screen is adjusted to each batter's height.
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This purports to be the official MLB rule (https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/mlb/ub08blsefk8wkkd2oemz.pdf )

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. (For diagram of STRIKE ZONE see Appendix 5.)
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Is this really the rule?  It looks like it, but I honestly don't know.  This is obviously extremely vague.  Check out the diagram at Appendix 5.  You've first got to find the midpoint between the top of the batter's shoulders and the top of his uniform pants.  This means that the strike zone changes if the batter hikes his pants up between pitches.  Then, you've got to find "the hollow beneath the kneecap."  If you want to know WTF that is, look at the diagram in Appendix 5.  This determination is all made when the batter is in his stance, prepared to swing.  This means the official or "true" strike zone changes not only from batter to batter, but can also change between pitches to a batter if he alters his stance.

As terrible as this rule is, it is nonetheless one of the cool things about baseball.  

 
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Todem said:
His point is the box is not 100% full proof.
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This is also true - the box we see on television is a gimmick.  Its obviously not reliable because it is 2D, whereas a strikezone is a 3D box and the ball is moving up/down and left/right as it travels over the plate.  The Robo-ump would have to involve multiple cameras that track the ball from different angles. The controversial Grienke pitch is a a perfect example of that -- a curveball that is moving down and away.  From the television angle behind the pitcher, there's no way to know with any certainty whether that ball was in the strike zone.

 
NREC34 said:
I bet Hinch would literally give back his salary for a year if he could go back in time and just trot out Cole to start the 7th and let the chips fall where they may. 

8 outs away with the best pitcher on the planet warmed up in the pen. Astro die hard fans will never get over this. 

Not quite to the level of Buckner or Mazeroski but still very painful. 
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TheIronSheik said:
Bringing in a starter does not guarantee anything.  Ask the Dodgers about bringing in Kershaw.  Or ask the 2017 Astros how bringing in Verlander went in the ALDS.
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falguy said:
Also, Greinke had thrown < 70 pitches and given up 1 hit. This isn't a rookie. He's got pedigree.  Would be really ballsy to remove him at that point.  Sure it may have worked, or it may have backfired, but I don't think Hinch would regret the non-move at that point, at least not any more than any other little moves he made or did not make.  
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I would more second guess taking Greinke out.  To that point he gave up 2 hits and 1 walk and was low on pitches.  I think I would have left him in.  

Essentially it's a result driven argument.  If Harris gets Kendrick to hit into a double play everyone says how that was a great call to wait on Cole.  Since Harris gave up a dinger (on a good pitch that Kendrick just beat him on) everyone second guesses and says it was the wrong call.  Sometimes it is the right decision and the other guy just beats you.  That is just as likely here as it was that bringing in Harris was a bad decision.

 
I initially read it as Cole showed up to his interview in a Borat hat.

I wanted to know where to get one of those.

 
Royals sign Matheny for manager. Not a fan of this move at all. Nor are most Royals fans. We shall see. 

 
You can sign a contract extension and get paid what you want by the team you play for.  Or you can opt out, which is basically telling the team you play for, "I'm leaving you for someone better."  Better meaning money.  He is basically saying "No home town discount."  And Washington won't have money to sign both or either.  

So, yeah, it might be an easy decision in the sense to get more money.  But look at Chapman.  It's a surprise that Strasburg has not allegiance to the Nats.

 
TheIronSheik said:
You can sign a contract extension and get paid what you want by the team you play for.  Or you can opt out, which is basically telling the team you play for, "I'm leaving you for someone better."  Better meaning money.  He is basically saying "No home town discount."  And Washington won't have money to sign both or either.  

So, yeah, it might be an easy decision in the sense to get more money.  But look at Chapman.  It's a surprise that Strasburg has not allegiance to the Nats.
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Their owner is a 90 something year old worth 5+ billion. 

That’s a load of 🙂 saying they don’t have the money. 

 
NREC34 said:
Their owner is a 90 something year old worth 5+ billion. 

That’s a load of 🙂 saying they don’t have the money. 
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Everyone has the money.  But it's a matter of spending over the cap.  Is it worth it to just throw money away for no guaranteed return?  

 
TheIronSheik said:
Everyone has the money.  But it's a matter of spending over the cap.  Is it worth it to just throw money away for no guaranteed return?  
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If I was their owner I would re-sign everyone and probably sign more free agents.  

Might as well win again. He can’t take it with him.

 
Capella said:
No player should ever give a team a home town discount. Get that money. 
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It doesn't have to be so much a "discount."  Look at Mike Trout as an example.  He could have made more money as a Phillie.  But he reupped before the end of his contract.

 
NREC34 said:
Their owner is a 90 something year old worth 5+ billion. 

That’s a load of 🙂 saying they don’t have the money. 
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His son has been the "managing principal owner" for a years now.  I'm not sure how the share split looks now, but the team is expected to stay in the hands of the Lerner family.

 
I think the Phillies should sign Rendon and Strasburg and change the name to the Washington Nationals of Philadelphia.

 
TheIronSheik said:
You can sign a contract extension and get paid what you want by the team you play for.  Or you can opt out, which is basically telling the team you play for, "I'm leaving you for someone better."  Better meaning money.  He is basically saying "No home town discount."  And Washington won't have money to sign both or either.  

So, yeah, it might be an easy decision in the sense to get more money.  But look at Chapman.  It's a surprise that Strasburg has not allegiance to the Nats.
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Who knows how it will end up but Strasburg doesn't live in San Diego anymore and has moved his family to DC.  From all accounts, he loves the city and the area.   And he would be a moron to stay at $100M if he can get $150M or $200M.   

I don't get the sense Rendon is going strictly to the highest bidder either.  Neither of these guys are Bryce Harper.  That doesn't mean they won't leave but Strasburg didn't opt out because he wants to leave.  That's nonsense

 
Ramblin Wreck said:
Who knows how it will end up but Strasburg doesn't live in San Diego anymore and has moved his family to DC.  From all accounts, he loves the city and the area.   And he would be a moron to stay at $100M if he can get $150M or $200M.   

I don't get the sense Rendon is going strictly to the highest bidder either.  Neither of these guys are Bryce Harper.  That doesn't mean they won't leave but Strasburg didn't opt out because he wants to leave.  That's nonsense
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Harper took less money to play for the Phillies.

 
Engelberg said:
So he should have slid into 1st base. Only possible way not to interfere. Didn't know the runner isn't entitled to the bag. And he was not out of the baseline. It was a brutally bad call.
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Do you see that second line to the right of the first base line?  That box is where the runner is supposed to be running.  That's his safe spot.  Do you see where Trea Turner is?

 
Engelberg said:
By the time he got to the bag he was dead nuts in the center. Where is he supposed to go?
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He was always to the left of the line.  And again, the rule states that the runner cannot interfere with the catch.  You can say you hate the rule, but the correct call was made.

 
Engelberg said:
So he should have slid into 1st base. Only possible way not to interfere. Didn't know the runner isn't entitled to the bag. And he was not out of the baseline. It was a brutally bad call.
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No.  The running lane (foul territory to the right of the foul line as running towards first) is there to allow the runner to run towards first without being subject to being called out for interference.  Turner did not run in this lane which is why he was called for interference.  The rule was implemented properly and the correct call was made.

 
Capella said:
No player should ever give a team a home town discount. Get that money. 
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None do. It's really only happened a few times. Like, a fraction of a percentage of the time. And never for the truly top tier Free Agents. Not only do players not want to do it, but the union highly frowns upon it since its doing a disservice to all your fellow players.

Yet every year, I hear this argument from people. Just last year, it was Harper is a "West Coast Guy" and Corbin has been a Yankees fan his whole life, and Machado will go to the White Sox because they picked up his brother-in-law. Its all ridiculous. They all take the most money. I'm already hearing Cole will most likely go to the Angels or Dodgers because he's a "California guy". NO HE WONT. He'll go to whichever team offers the most money. Just like every other big name FA in history.

 
So this always confuses me, but Yordan wasn't technically a rookie, right?  He was a call up.  Only played like 1/4 of the season and will most likely win ROY.  But is next season his "rookie season" then?  And if so, is he not eligible to win the ROY in his rookie year?

Also, when was the last guy to win ROY when not playing a full season?

 
TheIronSheik said:
So this always confuses me, but Yordan wasn't technically a rookie, right?  He was a call up.  Only played like 1/4 of the season and will most likely win ROY.  But is next season his "rookie season" then?  And if so, is he not eligible to win the ROY in his rookie year?

Also, when was the last guy to win ROY when not playing a full season?
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Alvarez appeared in 87 games.  If he wins, it would be the least number of games played for a position player RoY since Willie McCovey hit .354/.429/.656 in only 52 games in 1959.  There have been other RoY who have been close to 87 games:  Ryan Howard and Wil Myers 88, Bob Horner 89.

Win or lose, Alvarez won't be considered a rookie next year.

A player shall be considered a rookie unless, during a previous season or seasons, he has (a) exceeded 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues; or (b) accumulated more than 45 days on the active roster of a Major League club or clubs during the period of 25-player limit (excluding time in the military service and time on the disabled list).
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I love Trout.  What's not to love about that guy.  But when I think MVP, I think what guy did the best for his team.  Trout and Bregman have similar numbers, but Bregman's numbers helped his team get to the WS.  Even if Trout had better numbers, I still think getting your team is more of an MVP.  But I don't understand why with similar numbers, Trout would win.  I think he WILL win.  But I think it's dumb.  

 
TheIronSheik said:
I love Trout.  What's not to love about that guy.  But when I think MVP, I think what guy did the best for his team.  Trout and Bregman have similar numbers, but Bregman's numbers helped his team get to the WS.  Even if Trout had better numbers, I still think getting your team is more of an MVP.  But I don't understand why with similar numbers, Trout would win.  I think he WILL win.  But I think it's dumb.  
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Yeah it used to be pretty much what you are saying. The guy who won needed to be on a contender. Now we have this thing called WAR so who knows. 

Someone tell me how Boggs finished 9th here with that stat line. Not even close to winning.

 
NREC34 said:
Yeah it used to be pretty much what you are saying. The guy who won needed to be on a contender. Now we have this thing called WAR so who knows. 

Someone tell me how Boggs finished 9th here with that stat line. Not even close to winning.
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I get WAR, but if you're helping your team win 10 more games and you still come in 4th place in your division, then I don't think you're an MVP.  And I'm not arguing so much with you, but with the idea of how the people vote now.  

 
I think if Trout had been on the Astros the team would have been even better. Bregman doesn’t deserve credit for being on such a loaded team and Trout shouldn’t be knocked for having an incompetent front office. But if it’s super close I can see the winning team being the tiebreaker. 

 
Capella said:
I think if Trout had been on the Astros the team would have been even better. Bregman doesn’t deserve credit for being on such a loaded team and Trout shouldn’t be knocked for having an incompetent front office. But if it’s super close I can see the winning team being the tiebreaker. 
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And I totally get that.  But since the numbers are so close, I lean towards the team that made the playoffs.  

 
MLB Network guys were saying the Astros should let Cole walk for his big money but go after Wheeler.  Apparently he throws the same 4 seamer that Cole did and the Astros turned him into a megastar.  Could do the same for Wheeler at a much cheaper price.

 
TheIronSheik said:
MLB Network guys were saying the Astros should let Cole walk for his big money but go after Wheeler.  Apparently he throws the same 4 seamer that Cole did and the Astros turned him into a megastar.  Could do the same for Wheeler at a much cheaper price.
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I agree. Get someone cheaper and develop him like they did Cole. Let someone else overpay and weaken the rest of their team due to paying one guy too much. 

 
NREC34 said:
Yeah it used to be pretty much what you are saying. The guy who won needed to be on a contender. Now we have this thing called WAR so who knows. 

Someone tell me how Boggs finished 9th here with that stat line. Not even close to winning.
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Here were the numbers for Babe Ruth from 1924 through 1929.

1924: .378 - 46 - 124 - 1.252 - 11.7 WAR
1925: Injured for a big chunk of the season
1926: .372 - 47 - 153 - 1.253 - 11.5 WAR
1927: .356 - 60 - 165 - 1.258 - 12.4 WAR
1928: .323 - 54 - 146 - 1.172 - 10.1 WAR
1929: .345 - 46 - 154 - 1,126 - 8.0 WAR

Why did I bring this up? The Bambino received a grand total across ALL those seasons of 0 MVP votes. Not even a single one. Some years 27 AL players got MVP votes! How was Ruth not one of the Top 27 players in the American League?

For some reason they didn't have MVP awards in the 1930 season. But since then, here are all the players that have had a seasonal WAR of 10+ that did not finish the season in the Top 10 in MVP balloting . . .

Player, WAR, Season, MVP Finish

Code: 
Bob Gibson	11.3	1969	30
Cal Ripken	10	1984	27
Jose Rijo	10.1	1993	21
Zack Greinke	10.4	2009	17
Phil Niekro	10.4	1978	17
Alex Rodriguez	10.4	2000	15
Lefty Grove	10.7	1936	15
Aaron Nola	10	2018	13
 
NREC34 said:
Also, a lot of the voters won’t ever vote for a pitcher since they have the Cy Young for them. 
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Yeah, I have a tough time giving the MVP to the pitcher since they only can affect 1/5 of the games.  Has to be something special for them to win, IMO.

 
TheIronSheik said:
Yeah, I have a tough time giving the MVP to the pitcher since they only can affect 1/5 of the games.  Has to be something special for them to win, IMO.
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Yeah, sort of. A position player impacts roughly 10% of his teams at bats and depending upon the position played, roughly that amount in the field (ie, the number of times a ball might be hit to him). But that fielding contribution probably is inflated, as many outs are recorded by strikeout, and many plays are just routine that any player would be expected to make. So I would say defensively an individual player really only impacts 2% of his team's fielding plays.

But since there is offense and defense, that pretty much means a position player impacts 5% of the game offensively and 1% of the game defensively. So 6% of an individual game. Since starting pitchers pitch every 5 games, a position player over 5 games would score 6-6-6-6-6 = a score of 30. If someone wanted to argue that a really good player would impact a game at a rate of 7% instead, that would get the position player up to a score of 35 over 5 games.

Starting pitchers obviously do nothing in 4 games out of 5. But in the one game they play, they have a huge impact. Say a decent starter pitches 7 innings on average. That's 78% of the game while on defense. Pitchers rarely have much impact on offense, so count that as 0. So the average of those two would be 39%. That starter would then have an impact score of 0-0-0-0-39 = 39 total over 5 games. Adding an average of a third of an inning to the stud pitcher's average workload per game, and the pitcher's score would be almost 41 over 5 games.

Bottom line, even though position players could impact every game, in a five game stretch, there may not be as much difference in the impact between a position player and a top notch starting pitcher (and the pitcher could actually have a greater impact). I realize this is a very simplistic break down and there are other components to the game (base running, throwing, moving runners along, etc.), but as an example to illustrate how much impact there is, I think it's not that far off base.

 
falguy said:
Did Cane or Verlander even average 7 innings?
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Verlander average about 6 2/3. Sadly, with the trend to go match ups and bring bull pens in early, the starting pitchers don't get the innings they used to. But back 10+ years ago when some starters used to pitch 250-300 innings I think work horse pitchers did have more value.

 
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