Fire alex cora

[Slasher9]

a submarine pitchers FB rises.

[jacksonianmarch]

Fastballs don't rise. But they can stay flat in lieu of the anticipated downward angle. And at 90mph or so, it just isn't where the hitter thinks it will be and gives the appearance that it rose.

 

exactly. It is an optical illusion. Your eyes expect the ball to fall at a certain rate. When it doesn't fall at that rate, your brain makes it appear as if it is rising when it is in fact still falling

[Bellhorn04]

Maybe, or maybe the owners are just waiting for the season to end to clear the decks of Cora and/or the coaching staff.

 

It's certainly possible. But I really can't see them firing Cora.

 

Look at this way:

 

He's been manager two seasons.

 

Season 1 was the best season in franchise history.

Season 2 was s*****.

 

Wouldn't you give another chance to someone who had two seasons like that?

 

It's sort of like a player who has an MVP season in his rookie year and a nasty sophomore slump in his second.

 

Cutting the guy loose would seem to be a bit of an overreaction.

[Bellhorn04]

I can definitely see LeVangie being replaced.

[jacksonianmarch]

I can definitely see LeVangie being replaced.

 

I’m surprised he still roams the dugout. He better have his resume ready

[a700hitter]

a submarine pitchers FB rises.

Softball pitchers. The velocity and trajectory may overcome gravity over the short distance of 45 feet. I'd like to see the calculations on that.

[notin]

a submarine pitchers FB rises.

 

A submariner - a missing pitching style IMO - typically throws from very from a very low angle and throws at an slightly upward trajectory. There is a difference between a ball actually thrown slightly upward and one that rises due to air flow around the ball..

[moonslav59]

I can say from personal experience that I know what he is talking about with a rising fastball. We had a kid on our AAU squad who ended up being the ace at Hartford U for 4 years. The kid threw hard as a 16 yr old (85mph) and when you faced him, his ball seemed to rise. I saw it a few more times later in my career, but I distinctly remember facing his and wondering what the hell he was throwing. He was a small kid but had an incredible arm and actually generated a significant amount of spin on his fastball. This spin kept the ball from falling as much as one would expect and created an optical illusion for the hitter who's eyes expected the ball to fall further. It looked like it was rising

 

Yes, because it is not falling as fast as normal balls do.

[a700hitter]

It's certainly possible. But I really can't see them firing Cora.

 

Look at this way:

 

He's been manager two seasons.

 

Season 1 was the best season in franchise history.

Season 2 was s*****.

 

Wouldn't you give another chance to someone who had two seasons like that?

 

It's sort of like a player who has an MVP season in his rookie year and a nasty sophomore slump in his second.

 

Cutting the guy loose would seem to be a bit of an overreaction.

Some people think that getting fired after 3 Division titles including a World Series and one bad .500+ season was an overreaction. The Yankees fired Girardi after coming up 1 game short of the World Series. We shall see. The owners may just decide to clear the decks. I don't think any of Cora's coaches are highly valued.

[dgalehouse]

It's certainly possible. But I really can't see them firing Cora.

 

Look at this way:

 

He's been manager two seasons.

 

Season 1 was the best season in franchise history.

Season 2 was s*****.

 

Wouldn't you give another chance to someone who had two seasons like that?

 

It's sort of like a player who has an MVP season in his rookie year and a nasty sophomore slump in his second.

 

Cutting the guy loose would seem to be a bit of an overreaction.

 

Fair enough . Shouldn't that have to applied to D.D. as well ?

[notin]

Some people think that getting fired after 3 Division titles including a World Series and one bad .500+ season was an overreaction. The Yankees fired Girardi after coming up 1 game short of the World Series. We shall see. The owners may just decide to clear the decks. I don't think any of Cora's coaches are highly valued.

 

And the Nationals fired Dusty Baker after two seasons and two first place finishes.

 

It seems like coming up just short is now a worse career mistake than missing the post-season entirely...

[notin]

Fair enough . Shouldn't that have to applied to D.D. as well ?

 

I think Dombrowski also had some of his future commitments held against him. That the Sox are in a position that they have to even think about trading Betts in order to afford Nathan Eovaldi is a larger mistake than anything Cora did...

[a700hitter]

A submariner - a missing pitching style IMO - typically throws from very from a very low angle and throws at an slightly upward trajectory. There is a difference between a ball actually thrown slightly upward and one that rises due to air flow around the ball..

I can't definitively say what the effect of drag on rotating seams is over a short distance at very high velocity. I'll leave that to the field of physics to prove or disprove. At one time, the curve ball was thought to be an optical illusion.

[notin]

I can't definitively say what the effect of drag on rotating seams is over a short distance at very high velocity. I'll leave that to the field of physics to prove or disprove. At one time, the curve ball was thought to be an optical illusion.

 

Without even getting into the Bernoullian physics behind it, that the seams have allegedly been lowered seems to prove they influenced the amount of break on these pitches, similar to how (most people think) the shape of an airplane wing influences lift. Which is why we have so many home runs now.

 

But baseball players and managers are notoriously superstitious and believe a lot of old legends, which is why some players actually still cork bats, despite that it is actually a hindrance and not a help...

[dgalehouse]

I think Dombrowski also had some of his future commitments held against him. That the Sox are in a position that they have to even think about trading Betts in order to afford Nathan Eovaldi is a larger mistake than anything Cora did...

 

Well , they don't really have to think about trading Betts . That really would be cause for firing .

[notin]

Well , they don't really have to think about trading Betts . That really would be cause for firing .

 

I think they will have to think about it. I just hope they decide against it...

[a700hitter]

Without even getting into the Bernoullian physics behind it, that the seams have allegedly been lowered seems to prove they influenced the amount of break on these pitches, similar to how (most people think) the shape of an airplane wing influences lift. Which is why we have so many home runs now.

 

But baseball players and managers are notoriously superstitious and believe a lot of old legends, which is why some players actually still cork bats, despite that it is actually a hindrance and not a help...

I am surprised about the bats after hearing so much about trampoline effect etc. I just assumed that the corking of the bat made the bat lighter allowing for increased bat speed.

[Bellhorn04]

Fair enough . Shouldn't that have to applied to D.D. as well ?

 

Two very different positions. And I'm of the opinion that DD wasn't fired because of a bad 2019 season. If he was, that would have been an overreaction, yes.

[Slasher9]

A submariner - a missing pitching style IMO - typically throws from very from a very low angle and throws at an slightly upward trajectory. There is a difference between a ball actually thrown slightly upward and one that rises due to air flow around the ball..

 

its a FB that is going up in the zone. its a rising FB. you can use whatever other words you want to describe it but a submarine pitcher throws a rising FB.....

[a700hitter]

its a FB that is going up in the zone. its a rising FB. you can use whatever other words you want to describe it but a submarine pitcher throws a rising FB.....

Good point.

[notin]

its a FB that is going up in the zone. its a rising FB. you can use whatever other words you want to describe it but a submarine pitcher throws a rising FB.....

 

While you are right, I don't think the common reference to a rising fastball is often used when describing submarine-style pitchers..

[jacksonianmarch]

Nope. It’s usually a fastball thrown directly downward with almost no lateral movement with a high spin rate which slows its usual downward descent due to gravity

[notin]

Nope. It’s usually a fastball thrown directly downward with almost no lateral movement with a high spin rate which slows its usual downward descent due to gravity

 

I don't think the high spin rate reduces the effects of gravity. Gravity is constant.

 

The high spin rate might impact the airflow around the ball, but that would usually create movement and not a lack of it...

[jad]

I don't think the high spin rate reduces the effects of gravity. Gravity is constant.

 

The high spin rate might impact the airflow around the ball, but that would usually create movement and not a lack of it...

 

This is word-play. Gravity is of course constant, but its 'effects' vary. (Helicopters and frisbees, for example). Also, trying to distinguish 'movement' from 'lack of movement' makes little sense. Again, helicopters and frisbees. In a vacuum, a thrown baseball would move in a parabola. But that is affected by all sorts of things in the real world: atmospheric resistance, itself affected by spin, the gyroscopic effect of spin etc. etc. These change the trajectory of the ball away from the parabola of an ideal vacuum. It hardly matters whether you call the discrepancy in this path 'movement' or 'lack of movement.'

[a700hitter]

It's an interesting discussion and if I had gone further than getting an A in College Physics, I might be trying to prove out whether it is possible for the ball to rise. One thing is certain, the baseball at times seems to rise to the hitter. It also looks like it is curving at times too. For a hitter or an announcer to refer to a pitch like that as a "rising fastball" is okay with me. That is easier to listen to than an announcer or hitter refer to the pitch as an optical illusion that the hitter swung under. Maybe it is just me. Do some groundballs pick up speed as they go through the infield? I don't know, but it seems that way to the fielders at times. If the announcers describe what is going on from the players' POV, they are doing their job. That is clownish for some listeners.

[cp176]

I would defintely ay the Sox dealt a lot of prospects who were worth keeping, but in most cases, there was no other option if you wanted to get Sale, et al. But it is a fair discussion to bring up these prospects because there is a trade off when you make those deals. And maybe the trade off can be justified, but that doesn't mean it can be ignored...

 

I agree that you just can't ignore the business of baseball. My comments really refer to the overall opinion that trading away the players that were traded decimated the farm. It did thin a great deal of players out who really to date it seems would be able to play minor supporting roles. An argument stating that trades could have been done more effectively or that somehow we could have been just as competitive without making some of the big splashes that we made, in my opinion is silly. When playing GM, things always seem easier. Almost as easy as the people here who constantly want to sound as though they know more than they likely do.

[notin]

This is word-play. Gravity is of course constant, but its 'effects' vary. (Helicopters and frisbees, for example). Also, trying to distinguish 'movement' from 'lack of movement' makes little sense. Again, helicopters and frisbees. In a vacuum, a thrown baseball would move in a parabola. But that is affected by all sorts of things in the real world: atmospheric resistance, itself affected by spin, the gyroscopic effect of spin etc. etc. These change the trajectory of the ball away from the parabola of an ideal vacuum. It hardly matters whether you call the discrepancy in this path 'movement' or 'lack of movement.'

 

If we get all aerodynamic about it, like frisbees and airplanes, baseball movement is subjected to 4 primary forces - thrust, lift, drag, and gravity. With baseballs and frisbess, thrust is provided by the thrower/pitcher. Lift is a function of airflow. With a frisbess, the curved edges provide airspeed increase above the frisbee that causes the lift. Drag comes from below, perpendicular to lift, and is a function of air pressure and, actually, launch angle. Gravity affects the thrown object at 9.8 m/sec^2 with a downward force equal to that constant times the mass of the ball (which is known as the "weight").

 

The myth of the rising fastball rests on the lift force exceeding the drag force, but this cannot happen due to the weight of the baseball. I wouldn't call that slowing down the descent as much as I would simply being thrown too fast so as to minimize the effects of gravity. Gravitational force does have a time component, like all forces.

 

The "lack of movement" is about the fact that the launch angle from a pitcher is typically downward, with most release points being higher than the catcher's target. A "rising fastball" is just a fastball thrown at a launch angle with a higher trajectory to above the target. The hitter anticipates the ball being lower than it's actual path, and the 1/2 second doesn't always give the proper time to adjust. The ball isn't rising; it's just following a different path.

[notin]

I am surprised about the bats after hearing so much about trampoline effect etc. I just assumed that the corking of the bat made the bat lighter allowing for increased bat speed.

 

If a player does cork a bat, he can get increased bat speed. So if coriking is working, that player should perform the perfectly legal maneuver of switching to a lighter bat. In kinetic energy, speed is paramount. 1/2*mass*velocity squared. Increasing the velocity from 1 to 2 increased the energy by a function of 4.

 

But the corking myth I grew up with is that it makes the bat "springier." This only works in Bugs Bunny cartoons. The function of a spring in this case is to absorb energy, not to create it. (Those things on your wheels are not called "Shock creators" for a reason.)

 

Besides damaging the integrity of the wood, a corked bat also moves the center of mass of the bat (aka the "sweet spot") closer to the hitter, reducing the length of his moment arm. Essentially, by bringing the center of mass towards to hitter, you are making the opposite of a fungo bat, which is designed with a longer handle and more mass further away from the hitter. And is also designed to hit long flyballs. So opposite of long flyballs would be detrimental here.

 

Of course, this all assumes the hitter corks the barrel of the bat. If a hitter were to cork the handle, it would have the desired effect, assuming the bat didn't immediately break upon contact or via torque or both.

[a700hitter]

If a player does cork a bat, he can get increased bat speed. So if coriking is working, that player should perform the perfectly legal maneuver of switching to a lighter bat. In kinetic energy, speed is paramount. 1/2*mass*velocity squared. Increasing the velocity from 1 to 2 increased the energy by a function of 4.

 

Isn't the idea to lighten the bat weight while maintaining the maximum surface area that would be reduced if a lighter legal bat was used?

[notin]

Isn't the idea to lighten the bat weight while maintaining the maximum surface area that would be reduced if a lighter legal bat was used?

 

That would be the only positive of it, but the increase is surface area only allows for more weak contact on the expanded edges of the bat barrel. A player has to hit along the radius of the bat to make good contact. A corked bat might help increase pop ups and foul tips.

 

A lighter bat will lead to the same effects on balls hit squarely on the radius and increased exit velocity for those hitting the sweet spot, due to the increase in kinetic energy and moment arm.