Credit the Rays, then Clean House

[bosoxmal]

Start with Sandy, Moreland and at least 5 pitchers. Bring some guys up and push the re-start button. Hire someone who can say, "Raph, they know you're over anxious, can't wait to clobber that fisrt pitch."

 

Put a chart on the wall Let in Scoring Position" I wonder why!

[jung]

Every single team of hitters I can think of falls prey now to the same thing. Every count is 2-1. Every pitch of every AB no matter what the actual count they treat as if its 2-1. Does not matter if they just need a skimpy single to score a RISP or a ground ball to the right side of the infield. It simply does not matter. A 1-2 count looks like 2-1 to them and they are swinging out of their shoelaces. IT IS RIDICULOUS. THIS IS NOT BASEBALL. I really have gotten to the point where I simply don't care how many of you think this is baseball, this is not baseball. A league or entire MLB full of hitters that don't hit and pitchers that don't pitch is not baseball.

 

Oddly enough, since Sam Travis has somehow figured out that nobody AND I DO MEAN NOBODY or close enough to nobody for practical purposes pitches inside anymore he is just reaching across the plate and doinking balls into RF with complete impunity. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, at the present time we would do just as will to have Sam Travis come to the plate every time we have RISP.

 

Some in baseball admire the Rays for the statistical merits of their approach particularly to pitching. It makes little sense to believe they don't have their computing geeks grinding away at offense as much as they are grinding away at pitching. Yet they are K-ing at a rate often as high as 15-20 K's per game AND STILL WINNING because the opposing team is also K-ing 15-20 times a game. Last night was an oddity in that regard in that the Sox pitching staff only generated 4 K's out of 27 outs, a staggering anomaly in today's game.

 

Watch if you want. Enjoy what you can of this mess. I watch as much now as I would find a hysterically funny and laughably absurd comedy show interesting, interesting to a baseball geek like me, but not entertaining as a human sports endeavor, as a true test of human skills which is what an athletic enterprise should be. THIS IS NOT BASEBALL and I no longer even know anymore if I would be happier if the whole thing simply fell in a heap around Rob Manfred's ears or if we took a clean piece of paper and just started from scratch and leave this mess to Manfred and the computer geeks.

 

In case you are wondering, I blame the players themselves least of all for this mess. They are just reacting to the changes to the very baseball itself, the emphasis on velo and spin rate and other idiotic orders of merit for pitchers from the MLB and media and US, rules changes and the shift. The players are simply trying to play within the boundaries we have defined for them and do what they have tried to do for decades, play a game that at its heart is still something they love for as long as they can.

 

Just as an aside, do we not understand how utterly absurd it is to have broadcasters heralding exit velocity off the bat and distance covered when you still just get 1 run once the ball goes over the fence. Wouldn't "he really tagged that one" be a refreshing change from the now all too common, "exit velocity was 105 mph and the projected distance was 451 ft". Who gives a crap when we all know they are blasting golf balls over the fence! Does your heart skip a beat when the play by play idiot tells you it exited at 105.3 mph as opposed to 104.2 mph?

Edited August 2, 2019 by jung