A Realistic View of 2024: Part II

[mvp 78]

If the sweeping was the other way around the Rays would currently be a playoff team.

 

A "playoff team" on 5/23 with horrible underlying metrics. With 6 teams able to get into the playoffs each season now, any team above .500 is theoretically in the playoff picture until halfway through September at least.

[mvp 78]

And yet they will somehow still be in the postseason hunt come September...

 

Maybe? Even the Rays are due for a down year. The Jays are talking like it's time for a fire sale.

[Elktonnick]

After 50 games last season, they were 26-24.

Feckless Bloom sucked the spirit from that team.

[Bellhorn04]

Feckless Bloom sucked the spirit from that team.

 

Breslow seems much more feckful.

[Hugh2]

A "playoff team" on 5/23 with horrible underlying metrics. With 6 teams able to get into the playoffs each season now, any team above .500 is theoretically in the playoff picture until halfway through September at least.

 

So what you're saying is using a teams record at this point in the season to say we beat a "good" or "bad" team is irrelevant?

 

I agree.

[Bellhorn04]

I don't know if baseball is worse now, as Red claims. But there have definitely been some impactful changes. One of which is the expansion of the playoffs that gives so many more teams a chance. Another is all the analytical stuff going on behind the scenes that affect player performances.

[mvp 78]

So what you're saying is using a teams record at this point in the season to say we beat a "good" or "bad" team is irrelevant?

 

I agree.

 

I wouldn't say ANY team. Yankees look good. Guardians have been on fire lately. Royals seem to be decent. Orioles are good. White Sox, A's and Angels are horrible. The rest are a murky middle right now that could go up or down.

[moonslav59]

And yet they will somehow still be in the postseason hunt come September...

 

How many times have people discounted the Rays?

 

Then, you look up, and they have 92 wins.

 

(I do think this is the year, they don't win over 85 or 86 games.

[moonslav59]

I wouldn't say ANY team. Yankees look good. Guardians have been on fire lately. Royals seem to be decent. Orioles are good. White Sox, A's and Angels are horrible. The rest are a murky middle right now that could go up or down.

 

The murky middle might be 8-20 teams.

[mvp 78]

I don't know if baseball is worse now, as Red claims. But there have definitely been some impactful changes. One of which is the expansion of the playoffs that gives so many more teams a chance. Another is all the analytical stuff going on behind the scenes that affect player performances.

 

It's a marketing thing. Baseball clings to the past like no other sport. Any top 25 list always heavily leans to players pre-1980 and often features black and white film where players are sped up awkwardly. If you put Ohtani on the 1927 Yankees, he'd outhit Gehrig and Ruth. If you brought 1927 Gehrig and Ruth to the 2024 Dodgers, they wouldn't make the All Star team and maybe not even get a starting spot on the Dodgers. The players now are better than they've ever been. Send Houck back to the Dodgers of the early 60's and he's neck and neck with with Koufax.

[mvp 78]

The murky middle might be 8-20 teams.

 

I was only referencing AL teams.

[Bellhorn04]

It's a marketing thing. Baseball clings to the past like no other sport. Any top 25 list always heavily leans to players pre-1980 and often features black and white film where players are sped up awkwardly. If you put Ohtani on the 1927 Yankees, he'd outhit Gehrig and Ruth. If you brought 1927 Gehrig and Ruth to the 2024 Dodgers, they wouldn't make the All Star team and maybe not even get a starting spot on the Dodgers. The players now are better than they've ever been. Send Houck back to the Dodgers of the early 60's and he's neck and neck with with Koufax.

 

OTOH if those olden time guys had all the training and technical tools at their disposal that players have now, they'd be better too.

[notin]

It's a marketing thing. Baseball clings to the past like no other sport. Any top 25 list always heavily leans to players pre-1980 and often features black and white film where players are sped up awkwardly. If you put Ohtani on the 1927 Yankees, he'd outhit Gehrig and Ruth. If you brought 1927 Gehrig and Ruth to the 2024 Dodgers, they wouldn't make the All Star team and maybe not even get a starting spot on the Dodgers. The players now are better than they've ever been. Send Houck back to the Dodgers of the early 60's and he's neck and neck with with Koufax.

 

So who do you think wins 7 game series - the 2023 Oakland A's (50-112) or the Big Red Machine?

[Bellhorn04]

So who do you think wins 7 game series - the 2023 Oakland A's (50-112) or the Big Red Machine?

 

I think to make things fair, you'd have to transport the 1975-76 Reds into 2022, then give them a year to adapt to the higher velocity pitches and stuff like that.

[notin]

OTOH if those olden time guys had all the training and technical tools at their disposal that players have now, they'd be better too.

 

Part of his point is they didn't have them.

 

Of course, they didn't have a lot of things as well, like a complete talent pool made of more than just mid-sized white guys. Even if you want to argue the best players were comparable to today's best, the back end of those players is much worse, even with the league being nearly one half the size. That's probably a big part of the reason more players hit .400 back then, while also facing more pitchers with sub-2.00 ERAs...

[notin]

I think to make things fair, you'd have to transport the 1975-76 Reds into 2022, then give them a year to adapt to the higher velocity pitches and stuff like that.

 

 

Without that year, what would you say?

[moonslav59]

I was only referencing AL teams.

 

Ok. That's what I assumed.

[notin]

I don't know if baseball is worse now, as Red claims. But there have definitely been some impactful changes. One of which is the expansion of the playoffs that gives so many more teams a chance. Another is all the analytical stuff going on behind the scenes that affect player performances.

 

The expanded players gets more teams in, but we still just crown one winner. It makes the path through the post-season tougher, but also includes those teams whose sole flaw before that they just happened to play in a division with one better team. I hate seeing good teams eliminated solely based on geography....

[Bellhorn04]

Part of his point is they didn't have them.

 

Right, so we're not really talking about improvements in ability, just in technology.

 

And the great plays Willie Mays and Brooks Robinson, for example, made in their careers, will always be great plays by any standard, because fielding skills aren't affected much by technology.

[Bellhorn04]

The expanded players gets more teams in, but we still just crown one winner. It makes the path through the post-season tougher, but also includes those teams whose sole flaw before that they just happened to play in a division with one better team. I hate seeing good teams eliminated solely based on geography....

 

True, but you also get the absurdity of the D'Backs taking out the Dodgers last year.

[Bellhorn04]

Without that year, what would you say?

 

Simple, the Reds would be at a huge disadvantage because of the extra velocity and spin.

[notin]

Right, so we're not really talking about improvements in ability, just in technology.

 

And the great plays Willie Mays and Brooks Robinson, for example, made in their careers, will always be great plays by any standard, because fielding skills aren't affected much by technology.

 

Yes and no.

 

Mays and Robinson's plays were great, but in this exit velocity/launch angle era, we are seeing harder hit balls with less time to react for a defender. This not only comes from better hitter mechanics, but also the increase in pitching velocity, which means more kinetic energy to the pitched ball. If a faster pitched ball gets barreled, it becomes a faster hit ball, simply because that energy cannot be destroyed. That is, unless some hitter goes all Roy Hobbs on that ball and just pounds it into a scattered pile of leather and twine...

[notin]

Simple, the Reds would be at a huge disadvantage because of the extra velocity and spin.

 

I think so, too.

 

Not even sure if giving them a year to adjust makes that much difference. If only it was so easy...

[mvp 78]

OTOH if those olden time guys had all the training and technical tools at their disposal that players have now, they'd be better too.

 

They may be better, but I think it's ridiculous to keep assuming that the greatest players of all time are long dead and the current players are outside the top 50.

[mvp 78]

So who do you think wins 7 game series - the 2023 Oakland A's (50-112) or the Big Red Machine?

 

I think the A's aren't very good, so probably the Reds. The integrated teams from the 70's are more modern than what the game was in the Cobb through DiMaggio days.

[mvp 78]

Right, so we're not really talking about improvements in ability, just in technology.

 

And the great plays Willie Mays and Brooks Robinson, for example, made in their careers, will always be great plays by any standard, because fielding skills aren't affected much by technology.

 

Willie Mays would still be an MLBer today. Frank Robinson would still be an MLBer today. Ty Cobb? It's really hard to say.

[moonslav59]

Luis Tiant's delivery would be illegal, today.

[Old Red]

It's a marketing thing. Baseball clings to the past like no other sport. Any top 25 list always heavily leans to players pre-1980 and often features black and white film where players are sped up awkwardly. If you put Ohtani on the 1927 Yankees, he'd outhit Gehrig and Ruth. If you brought 1927 Gehrig and Ruth to the 2024 Dodgers, they wouldn't make the All Star team and maybe not even get a starting spot on the Dodgers. The players now are better than they've ever been. Send Houck back to the Dodgers of the early 60's and he's neck and neck with with Koufax.

 

Houck would be neck, and neck with Koufax if he pitched back in the 60’s? Wow! All these things you mentioned here are just assumptions on what anyone would do, or wouldn’t do. Koufax would shut this 2024 Red Sox lineup down better than Sale recently did if he was pitching today, and the same with Drysdale, Gibson, or Juan M.🤭🙈

[Old Red]

I might have more posts, but you and Red lead the league in rips.

 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[Hugh2]

They may be better, but I think it's ridiculous to keep assuming that the greatest players of all time are long dead and the current players are outside the top 50.

 

I think it's also worth noting that the guys who had the physical tools to be superior athletes might not have even gone into baseball back in the day.

 

The way sports are marekted, with all the youth programs, college programs, and the knowledge that atheltes are paid handsomely and parents pushing kids talented into said programs nowadays there's a far greater chance of superior atheltes being lined up with going into sports.

 

You just look at the average athlete today, the average athlete back then look like the guy on my softball team loading up on beer and wings every night. Oh wait, that's me.