MLB 2025 Season

HesCalledDyer said:

Lucky for her it was a White Sox game, so no one was there to witness it.

All-star game voting so far.  Who you got?

Trout should be a backup this year, not a starter.

I'm going Meadows, Brantley and Mancini.

Mancini is doing great for a crap team so he has my vote.

SooChoo is a nice surprise too.

https://www.mlb.com/news/bunt-ends-no-hitter-in-minors-causes-controversy

Some "unwritten laws" are just dumb.

When a bunt is outlawed from baseball I'll take issue with this, until then, tough.

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

So I am all about calling out dumb stats.  Found my favorite so far in this article
http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2019/06/04/dj-lemahieu-has-been-highway-robbery-for-the-new-york-yankees/

To keep you from suspense I took the obvious egregious stat out for you all to ponder on.

At the plate, he’s raking. Hitting .311 while totaling over twice as many hits as strikeouts (65:31) and 34 RBIs, he has been a machine in manager Aaron Boone‘s lineup. Meanwhile, he owns career highs in average exit velocity (91.5 percent), barrel percentage (5.5), and hard-hit percentage (47.5).

If those 3 things start adding up to bigger paydays come contract negotiations or recommendations for HOF admittance I would love to know...

Stupid ass stats...

I don't think those things play into awards, but I think those stats are a big reason the Yankees signed him and it looks like they told them the correct things, although it is obviously early.

I'm sorry but "exit velocity" and the like doesn't mean anything if you don't "hit the ball where they ain't..."  If the ball leaves the stadium at 75mph it is still a Homerun.  No extra bonus points are given for a harder hit ball.  You only need a certain number of feet to get it over the wall.

I was being facetious about awards too.

#StupidAssStats

Cliffy6745 said:

The harder someone hits the ball the better.  Has always been this way and always will be this way.

You can hit the ball really hard at someone for an out every time too... or be Dave Kingman.

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

The harder someone hits the ball the better.  Has always been this way and always will be this way.

You can hit the ball really hard at someone for an out every time too... or be Dave Kingman.

Can you name a baseball player who hit the ball really hard and wasn't good because he only hit it at people?

Kevin Maas.

Next question?

tempo_n_groove said:

https://www.mlb.com/news/bunt-ends-no-hitter-in-minors-causes-controversy

Some "unwritten laws" are just dumb.

When a bunt is outlawed from baseball I'll take issue with this, until then, tough.

With the score 3-0 i have no problem with this. Plus, it wasn't the starting pitcher either.

 Now if the score was a blowout then i would have a problem with a Bunt. 

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

The harder someone hits the ball the better.  Has always been this way and always will be this way.

You can hit the ball really hard at someone for an out every time too... or be Dave Kingman.

Can you name a baseball player who hit the ball really hard and wasn't good because he only hit it at people?

Kevin Maas.

Next question?

Fine.  But I think exit velocity and BABIP are good statistics to get a sense for what a player is.  As with any stat, they are not the end all be all, but hitting the ball hard in baseball is good.  This is a fact.

A player like Ichiro wouldn't be able to play today with stats like this.

I understand the thinking behind it but it is flawed.

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

The harder someone hits the ball the better.  Has always been this way and always will be this way.

You can hit the ball really hard at someone for an out every time too... or be Dave Kingman.

Can you name a baseball player who hit the ball really hard and wasn't good because he only hit it at people?

Kevin Maas.

Next question?

Fine.  But I think exit velocity and BABIP are good statistics to get a sense for what a player is.  As with any stat, they are not the end all be all, but hitting the ball hard in baseball is good.  This is a fact.

A player like Ichiro wouldn't be able to play today with stats like this.

I understand the thinking behind it but it is flawed.

No metric is perfect by it's self. One of my main clients always talks about buddy metrics.  Every metric by it's self is essentially flawed so you have to have a buddy metric, something that supports or contradicts it.  Ichiro would be just fine because he had a .300 BA and even higher OBP.  Those things are still valued, especially OBP.

Yankees found Voit, who is not a perfect player but they gave up peanuts for him, and signed DJLM largely because of exit velo.  Both have worked well for them so far.

They signed LeMahieu for his glove(which they needed) and he was cheap.  He was an absolute steal.

Here is my thing about exit velocity and things like that.

In 1997 Mark McGwire was facing Randy Johnson at the Kingdome.  Johnson was the hardest thrower in the game at the time and Mark was the hardest hitter in the game at the time.

Mcgwire got a hold of a Johnson fastball and tattooed the ball off the dome, not the upper deck, the wall of the dome!

After the game Mcgwire said that "when someone throws that hard, if you get a hold of it, it's gonna go far".

Everyone throws 95+ now.  Of course the ball is going to leave the bat with a high rate of speed.  I don't take much stock in how hard a person hits the ball, everyone hits the ball hard because all the pitchers are throwing harder.

With these "launch angles" that batters are being taught now, watch the knuckleball and placement pitchers that throw 85mph make a huge comeback soon.  Pitchers will be pitching up in the strike zone again taking those uppercut swings out of service.

Thoughts?

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Cliffy6745 said:

The harder someone hits the ball the better.  Has always been this way and always will be this way.

You can hit the ball really hard at someone for an out every time too... or be Dave Kingman.

Can you name a baseball player who hit the ball really hard and wasn't good because he only hit it at people?

Kevin Maas.

Next question?

Fine.  But I think exit velocity and BABIP are good statistics to get a sense for what a player is.  As with any stat, they are not the end all be all, but hitting the ball hard in baseball is good.  This is a fact.

A player like Ichiro wouldn't be able to play today with stats like this.

I understand the thinking behind it but it is flawed.

No metric is perfect by it's self. One of my main clients always talks about buddy metrics.  Every metric by it's self is essentially flawed so you have to have a buddy metric, something that supports or contradicts it.  Ichiro would be just fine because he had a .300 BA and even higher OBP.  Those things are still valued, especially OBP.

Yankees found Voit, who is not a perfect player but they gave up peanuts for him, and signed DJLM largely because of exit velo.  Both have worked well for them so far.

They signed LeMahieu for his glove(which they needed) and he was cheap.  He was an absolute steal.

Here is my thing about exit velocity and things like that.

In 1997 Mark McGwire was facing Randy Johnson at the Kingdome.  Johnson was the hardest thrower in the game at the time and Mark was the hardest hitter in the game at the time.

Mcgwire got a hold of a Johnson fastball and tattooed the ball off the dome, not the upper deck, the wall of the dome!

After the game Mcgwire said that "when someone throws that hard, if you get a hold of it, it's gonna go far".

Everyone throws 95+ now.  Of course the ball is going to leave the bat with a high rate of speed.  I don't take much stock in how hard a person hits the ball, everyone hits the ball hard because all the pitchers are throwing harder.

With these "launch angles" that batters are being taught now, watch the knuckleball and placement pitchers that throw 85mph make a huge comeback soon.  Pitchers will be pitching up in the strike zone again taking those uppercut swings out of service.

Thoughts?

They also got DJ also because he can put the ball in play. After last year's playoffs they changed their plans to only be a homerun or nothing team