2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

You are both right.

 

How many 10-day bans can a guy get?

 

They aren't irrelevant. They're just not great determinants of a player's worth when it comes time for GMs to pay players.

It's not all or nothing. Getting to 300 wins in a career is a big deal. A pitcher being 10-0 is impressive this early. A player logging 10-straight RBI seasons is impressive, even though the RBI is not a very telling factor of someone's true ability. Still you can't just plug any player into that spot and expect them to do the same thing for 10 seasons in a row.

HRs, RBIs, pitching wins ... they may not tell enough of the story to get a good grip of their complete value when it comes time to call them MVP or to give them their contract. ... But it doesn't make them irrelevant, either.

I say this believing more and more in Sabermetrics every day. I think it'll be interesting to see where we are with this in 30 years. Still, it doesn't make the old stats completely irrelevant for fans. Maybe for GMs.

 

To me, it's painfully obvious who should move to the Braves bullpen when Beachy returns from the DL. That pitcher is Tim Hudson, who is clearly having the worst season of the rotation. Can't see them doing that, though.

 

He's pitched pretty good tonight against the Mets. I'd like to see them stay healthy, but I don't see it. Who knows when Beachy returns. He continues to have setbacks.

Hudson and Maholm are both free agents I believe. Maholm will be gone for sure, they may try and get something for him at the deadline if Alex Wood turns out OK for the rotation. Not sure what'll happen to Huddy after this season.

 

I figure they have to let him go. It makes all the sense in the world to use that money to go after bullpen/offensive upgrades. I could see a rotation next year of, in some order:

Teheran, Medlen, Beachy, Minor, Wood/Gilmartin

 

Unreal finish in Atlanta. Dillon Gee looks brilliant through 100 pitches. Then gives up a walk-off two-run bomb to Freddie Freeman.

 

Padres just took a 4-3 lead on the Giants in the 13th. Seagulls circling like the good ol' days at Candlestick. Don't they know there's sewage in Oakland? Or with the arms in both team's outfielders, one is liable to go all Winfield?

 

A 37-year-old veteran with no history of ever pitching out of the bullpen? Yeah, it ain't happening. Great analysis there.

Trade Maholm and try to get what you can, if they decide to trade anyone.

 

It is certainly true that the slider's emergence wasn't the birth of something new. Grove, as you mentioned, threw it, as did Red Ruffing, Chief Bender, George Uhle, and possibly Clark Griffith. Cy Young threw two curves, one standard and one more side-armed that swept across the plate (though this was probably a slurve). Dozens of pitchers must have thrown it before "slider" entered the baseball dictionary. However, my point is that the acknowledgment of the pitch, by itself superior to the standard curve, leveled the playing field. Pitchers who caught on to it (Feller, Lemon, Sain, Harder, etc.) gained an advantage. Grove and Ruffing and Bender were able to achieve Hall of Fame careers because they featured a great slider baffling to others. They had a distinct advantage because they used a pitch generally regarded as just another breaking ball, therefore not pursued. Babe Ruth said George Uhle was the toughest pitcher he faced. George Blaeholder, who injured himself in his first season, came back to mediocrity using the slider exclusively.

My point isn't to nit-pick individual noteworthy careers to. What I'm trying to say: these pitchers, who had an advantage (a modern slider) over the competition maintained steady if not dominant careers. Sure there were plenty of guys who didn't use the "outcurve" or "outshoot" to healthy careers, but their versions were probably the typical out curve/outshoot of the day: a curve thrown from a three-quarters or side-armed delivery (i.e. Cy Young) to achieve a more sweeping motion. Bender, Grove, etc. on the other hand have had their "sailers" and "out curves" and whatnot described more akin to the modern slider.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. My idea isn't to argue whether or not Grove and the others had an advantage because their slider was more "modern." I wish to convey that the slider, along with pioneer relievers and the pitching advantages in place, swung the pendulum. By the time the 1950s came along, the slider had been perfected and was part of the default repertoire. By itself, it is a harder pitch to hit (even Ted Williams admitted to it). Buck, you mention that hitting strategy changed in the 40s-50s. It did not. The Ruthian swing came about immediately upon Ruth's arrival. The only guys who didn't adopt it were the straggling remnants of the dead-ball era who either played or matured to their teens before Ruth. The Ruthian swing was nothing new to the 40s and home runs increased primarily because parks became smaller. http://www.andrewclem.com/Baseball/Dimensions.html Also, hitters inevitably figured out the slider.

Lastly, the pendulum swing was gradual, as you mention, from the 30-50s. This is because the slider wasn't perfect nor introduced overnight. Pitchers slowly got a handle on it, to the point where the 1950s had just about everyone throwing one instead of the fastball-curve-change featured in the 1930s. As the pitchers caught on to it, the pendulum swung towards them (with the addition of relief pitching and advantages already in place). The run decline could not have simply happened by itself; it needed locomotion. The slider, in place before relief pitching caught on a bit more, provided that fuel.

 

I think you have to factor in the change in which night baseball went from novelty to baseball's default scheduling mode for weekdays in that time period, too.

 

Last time I was at the old Stadium to watch my cousin, David Newhan (when he was on the O's).

Now I'll be in the new Stadium to watch my team play in the Bronx for the first time in 32 years.



Here's about where the seat is:

http://yankees.io-media.com/#/vr/Section/203/5/11