Happy 4th of July game vS The Blue Jays

[moonslav59]

Agreed. Price has been about the only consistent pitcher we have. Porcello can be one of the best in the game and then one of the worst. So strange. Sale just straight up sucks lately.

 

Workman has been pretty consistent, too, but Price has been the man.

[TylerD]

Workman has been pretty consistent, too, but Price has been the man.

 

If Barnes doesn't sniff the 9th inning he isn't bad lol.

[moonslav59]

Price has certainly been our most consistent pitcher. The only real black marks against him are the 2 starts he didn't make it out of the second inning and maybe his first two starts of the year, when he let up 4 ERs in 6 IP both games.

 

He's gone 7 IP just once.

6.1 IP once.

6.0 IP 8 times

6 or more 10 total out of 15 starts.

 

On the bright side, he's only gone less than 5 IP those 2 games mentioned above.

[dannycater]

Not infielders...they are categorically LESS athletic and LESS agile. Agile is what they should be. OFer's maybe by a little bit more athletic as a category of player.

 

As for success hitting the crap they are throwing up there. They want to hit HR's and NOBODY has been stopping them from hitting HR's.

 

In addition this is a game that revolves around pitching and that from a former hitter, not a former pitcher. Every single thing that happens on a baseball diamond starts with the ball in the hands of the pitcher. If the ball is radically different than what it was with said changes occurring over a very short period of years and the pitchers are crap, the game is fundamentally changed in a way that actually deserves a new name. Whatever this is that they are playing out there, it ain't baseball.

 

I was a pitcher in college, yes the game is not quite baseball anymore. It's evolved into some sort of home run derby and let's see who can make the best highlight reel dive, leap, throw--which is great, but you wonder what happened to pitching in general and hitting for average too.

[moonslav59]

I was a pitcher in college, yes the game is not quite baseball anymore. It's evolved into some sort of home run derby and let's see who can make the best highlight reel dive, leap, throw--which is great, but you wonder what happened to pitching in general and hitting for average too.

 

I hear you loud and clear, danny, but this is still the greatest game on earth.

 

Maybe it can be expected from a society who's President, on our day of Independence, praised our Revolutionary Army for taking over the airports from the British!

 

No lie!

 

Direct quote:

 

“...Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory...”

 

[a700hitter]

I hear you loud and clear, danny, but this is still the greatest game on earth.

 

Maybe it can be expected from a society who's President, on our day of Independence, praised our Revolutionary Army for taking over the airports from the British!

 

No lie!

 

Direct quote:

 

“...Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory...”

 

No politics. We had a President who visited 57 states and had a few more to go. Let’s just stop it there.

[moonslav59]

no politics. We had a president who visited 57 states and had a few more to go. Let’s just stop it there.

 

lol!

 

[jung]

I was a pitcher in college, yes the game is not quite baseball anymore. It's evolved into some sort of home run derby and let's see who can make the best highlight reel dive, leap, throw--which is great, but you wonder what happened to pitching in general and hitting for average too.

 

Well I think I know what happened to hitting....agents and MLB PR happened to hitting and is IMO driving this car into the ditch.

 

As for what happened to pitching I would not really have a worthwhile opinion on what has happened in the early development of pitchers and pitching because I never fancied myself as even caring to go in that direction. I never had the physical make up for it nor the mental image of myself as a pitcher. I was a hitter....Period. Play me in the field where you want to....I am a hitter. That was before I got to see and play with truly talented hitters that had physical skills that I could never duplicate nor even approach no matter how hard I worked at it. The guys who can hit a pitched baseball at a ML level well might just as soon be aliens from another planet.

 

So just to narrow our own focus I am not talking now about MLB pitchers and the reduced seems and what that might be doing to grip and spin/rotation. We are talking about early days for pitchers now. If I had to guess, looking at how pitching careers have gone, maybe it looks like too much of a crap shoot to too many guys and the only guys willing to take it are the guys that are pitchers down to their bones.

 

In my time, the guys who were young kids willing to take the ball to the mound as young developing ballplayers at some point became sharply focused on pitching. They had a mental picture of themselves on the mound early and success begat more focus and more focus begat more success and by the time they got to college or directly out of HS into minor league ball while they "might" be willing to still play in the field, they were pretty energetically directed toward pitching. There was the support there in coaching and other assets to help them progress as well.

 

I honestly wish the metal bat had never come along in amateur and most specifically scholastic baseball because I suspect it made it "easier" to be a hitter of note early in a budding amateur career. Before I go a step further I should say for the record that I am so frigging old that our scholastic leagues all used wooden bats. That is how frigging old i am.

 

Unfortunately, metal bat hitting was not and probably still is not wooden bat hitting and often success with a metal bat is just that, success with a metal bat. But I don't wonder if those guys that could have been directed toward what can be a harder road, the road of the pitcher simply took a hard left turn toward hitting and a position in the field outside of the "1" at that point and never looked back. Thus maybe the pool of potential pitching talent was narrowed earlier than it should have been and maybe we never turned that dial back the other way. The Cap Cod League ( a wooden bat league) was a big eye opening for a whole bunch of big shot hitters that were suddenly quite tame.

 

Plus now they are throwing too hard too early. They are throwing all sorts of stuff they probably should not be throwing too early. They seem to be getting TJ's as early and as often as soccer players are getting their knee cartilage worked on very very early in their careers. I am sure TJ is a wonderful thing for pitchers and ballplayers generally. I am concerned that it is a crutch that everybody, parents, coaches, the kids themselves have grown to depend upon too much. "Well he will be OK. He can have TJ if he gets in trouble".

 

As I said earlier though, I am guessing at what happened to the pitching part of the equation. I know its not what it should be. But I never had a mental picture of myself as a pitcher and that is a big hole in my understanding of what the f*** happened from the mound end of things.

Edited July 5, 2019 by jung

[TylerD]

Price has certainly been our most consistent pitcher. The only real black marks against him are the 2 starts he didn't make it out of the second inning and maybe his first two starts of the year, when he let up 4 ERs in 6 IP both games.

 

He's gone 7 IP just once.

6.1 IP once.

6.0 IP 8 times

6 or more 10 total out of 15 starts.

 

On the bright side, he's only gone less than 5 IP those 2 games mentioned above.

 

Now if Sale could that. That would be great. Did anyone see his post game press? He seriously seems depressed.

[Maxbialystock]

And how many innings does the starter pitch pitching this way? Pitchers went deeper into games in the past because they induced swing and miss on pitches IN THE ZONE and/or induced weak contact. Do your really think the "give me all you can for as long as you can" mentality of pitching coaches to pitchers is because pitching coaches think this is some wonderful innovation to pitching a baseball? The quality of pitching is nominally just not what it used to be. Too many guys that likely would not have even made it out of AA in the past, much less AAA now pitching MLB in today's game.

 

Again, want to look at a really good breaking pitch. Go find video of a Sandy Curve. Many of those started above the letters and finished at the bottom of the strike zone inducing a swing and miss at a pitch that would actually be a called strike if the hitter did not swing at it and Sandy's is just the Curve from the past you will most easily find on YouTube. Most Curves of that day were at least in that ballpark.

 

Want to see a really good FB, go find a video of the FB's they used to throw. No they were not often anywhere near triple digits, but the good ones all had tails. They would come up to the plate literally thrown right at the heart and would zip and dart left or right or left/up or right/up, still in the zone for a swing and miss at a pitch that would have been a called strike if the hitter did not swing at it. Throwing 98 flat as a pancake is a nothing ball. Its just a high velo nothing ball....A Joe Kelly special for example. These pitchers today know they can't throw in the zone and get away with it. They can't do it. They are doing what they can do.

 

What a crock. Yes, absolutely, Sandy Koufax, whom I saw pitch in person one time in Philly, had a fantastic curve and a fast ball that had plenty of tail. But he was spectacularly good, the very best of his era and was quickly elected to the HOF (after 5 years) even though the retired at age 30 because he doctor strongly recommended it. Plus he had the advantage of pitching off a higher mound.

[Bellhorn04]

What a crock. Yes, absolutely, Sandy Koufax, whom I saw pitch in person one time in Philly, had a fantastic curve and a fast ball that had plenty of tail. But he was spectacularly good, the very best of his era and was quickly elected to the HOF (after 5 years) even though the retired at age 30 because he doctor strongly recommended it. Plus he had the advantage of pitching off a higher mound.

 

I find when people talk about how much better pitching was in the past, they're talking about Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson-as if they typified the pitchers of their era.

[jung]

I find when people talk about how much better pitching was in the past, they're talking about Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson-as if they typified the pitchers of their era.

 

They typified the pitching style of that era which was to be able to throw swing and miss in the strike zone and to induce weak contact which is how they went deep into games and pitched complete games. Do you want to make the case that Koufax and Gibson were the only guys pitching deep into games and pitching complete games? Good luck with that one.

 

Unless you have a performance explanation based in the game itself for the lack of complete games, the lack of ability for starters to go deep into games the onset of the sheer idiocy of the "opener", the white flag of pitching coaches surrendering to the trend and deciding to ask pitchers to "just give me all you got for as long as you can" you are simply avoiding the obvious. You are just mad because you want sooooooo badly to buy into Manfred's idiocy that these are the best hitters EVER so by default these must be the best pitchers EVER and you don't like having the grand piano of reality fall on your heads.

 

The nominal quality of pitching in MLB has gone straight into the tank. Are you guys actually watching the games or are you picking up MLBGameDay and the running box score? These are all trends that began ahead of the rocket shop baseball which has simply exacerbated the situation to an absurd level. So NOOOOOOO.....I won't accept the rocket ship as a rational for it EITHER!

 

Some of you folks want to make the case that the pitching is "better than ever" which is a more laughably absurd, blind contention than Manfred's contention that he "knows nothing" about the rocket ship baseball.

Edited July 6, 2019 by jung

[Bellhorn04]

Some of you folks want to make the case that the pitching is "better than ever" which is a more laughably absurd, blind contention than Manfred's contention that he "knows nothing" about the rocket ship baseball.

 

Which folks said that? It wasn't me. I'm not saying anything is better than ever, just that it's probably not worse than ever either.

 

I do happen to agree with you about the travesty of the rocket ball.

[jung]

Which folks said that? It wasn't me. I'm not saying anything is better than ever, just that it's probably not worse than ever either.

 

I do happen to agree with you about the travesty of the rocket ball.

 

Read post #246 in this very thread.

[Bellhorn04]

Read post #246 in this very thread.

 

OK, one person said it.

[Slasher9]

Pitching from way back when benefited 1 billion percent from zero technology checking the umps. Pitchers now are better.

[a700hitter]

Eck said something interesting about the proliferation of arm injuries. He says that he thinks it is from the obsession with velocity --balls to the wall high velo from pitch 1. OB asked him about Nolan Ryan throwing hard for so many years and Eck attributed to the use of Ryan's legs -- thus taking the strain off his arm. Today, with the advanced mechanics, kids are incorporating a tremendous amount of torque and extension in their deliveries, putting all the strain on the arm and elbow. My Great Nephew who is committed to UConn in 2020 and likely to get drafted that year is getting this instruction now. At 17, he can sit around 89-90, and he has been told that when they make a few adjustments, he will kick up 5 mph. It's all about torque today. When he was 15, he strained his lat. I didn't see it, but his Dad told me that it really swelled up. Eck also mentioned that Ryan short-armed the ball as compared to the throwers of today. I found that interesting, because my Great Nephew told me recently that a coach has been trying to get him to be shorter instead of so-extended. IDK about any of this because I could never throw harder than 75 mph so instructors weren't giving me tips or coaching. I have no doubt that the advanced bio-mechanics while increasing the velocity also increases the wear and tear on the arm, causing more injuries and surgeries.

 

Last year Sale was throwing 92-94/95 when in May he made an adjustment and he was hitting 100 mph from his first pitch. I can remember wondering if his slight frame could stand up to throwing so consistently hard. After the All Star break, his arm was a noodle.