Maxbialystock

Not a big fan of velocity. I think location and variety are more important. Bumgarner almost shut us down and didn't throw anything faster than 89 mph.

That is why I read this thread. Great synopsis of more than a decade.

Vazquez a surprise choice but a good one. No earned runs, and the unearned one was from HanRam's errant throw and not a PB.

An imperfect strike zone has existed in baseball at every level for maybe 140 years, as has the right of managers and players and fans to disagree with calls by umpires. I like it that way because I think it's part of the experience and appeal of the game. If balls and strikes are called automatically, umpires will be marginalized if not eliminated, and I think that would be a real loss.

You're right. My introductory paragraph was over the top and unfair. It was not intended to call you a dope, but I apologize nevertheless. I should have said something like, "your points disagree with what I understand to be the fundamental nature of baseball."

Once again, thanks for your forthrightness, especially your use of terms like "engineering and management" and "minimizing failures" and "not acceptable in any industry I ever worked in." All those tell me you have a fundamental misunderstanding of baseball. MLB is big business, but it is also a sport and even entertainment, but entertainment that is filled with uncertainties, which are actually the quintessence of baseball's appeal. Good, competitive teams can get to the playoffs by winning just 60% of the time. If a batter has 13% failure, he is the best batter in the history of baseball. Right now you can lead the AL in hitting if you are out 65% of the time. Pitchers, by the very nature of balls and strikes, are expected to miss the strike zone more often than hit it. They can also make a great pitch and get hit. They can throw a pitch well outside the strike zone and get hit. Hitters and pitchers both live with the near certainty that they will be inconsistent from game to game, month to month, year to year. Managers make decisions based on the best information availalble--and it is very good information--with the knowledge that the pinch hitter probably won't get a hit and the relief pitcher has a good chance of of not getting thru an inning or even a single batter. Wealthy teams can invest lots of money in players who just don't pan out, but they still have to keep paying them year after year. Umpires, just like players, are not out there to be perfect because humans are imperfect. They put that hat and uniform on to indicate they are the decision makers on balls and strikes, hits and outs. Managers' and players' periodic explosions notwithstanding, it's a ball or strike or hit or out simply because the umpire says so (granted, replays have changed this somewhat). If their error rate is indeed 13%, they are the most reliable parts of the game.

Thanks to you and mvp78 for clarifying your perspective. I get mad if we get screwed on calls on balls and strikes, but that has never caused me to go away from a game in progress. Indeed, to me that is part of the experience because I accept the umpire's role. I will, however, go away if our pitcher is giving away tons of runs and an insurmountable lead. On rare occasions I even do that when the Sox go up by, say, 10 runs. I like the drama of the game, the great plays in the field, the matchups between pitchers and hitters, the weather and/or the look of the ball park. I even like to watch the way umpires call the game when it is well done. Last night I was furious when an outside pitch was called against HanRam in the 9th and therefore enjoyed the payback when the Giants LF dropped the fly ball for a 2 run error. I got mad again when other outside pitches, especially against JBJ, were called strikes in the 9th inning, especially because I saw few or none of those outside strikes called for Price when he was in.

Let's not forget, however, that when Nava was a rookie (or a newbie) he once hit a 100 mph fastball from Verlander for an opposite field single. In 2013 we all loved him.

1. The opinion pieces I've read are simply being provocative. It's a fun topic. A couple or more were on a minor league experiment done a year or two ago when balls and strikes were called by a computer or whatever. But the guy who set that test up and who has been the heaviest advocate of doing this is, guess what, an entrepreneur who wants to sell his system to MLB. 2. I don't doubt the 99% to within an inch numbers, but do doubt how well the computer will match the strike zone to each and every player if only because I don't think the strike zone is all that well defined at the top and bottom. 3. In the end, however, I will still prefer the umpire making the calls because that's what he is there for. With all the mistakes umpires have made over the years, and some of them have been lulus, they have not kept baseball from being a great sport to watch and to play. Player and manager histrionics notwithstanding, to me the simple fact is that it's a ball or strike or hit or out simply because a human being, duly appointed, says it is and that's an important part of the game. In the most popular and watched and played and refereed sport in the world, football/soccer, there is just one referee on the field to make all those crucial calls. Heck, he even keeps the time and declares by himself when a half or game is over. The line judges help with offside and similar calls, but that one referee is all-powerful, even when he makes a mistake. 4. All these concessions to technology--including replays in football basketball, baseball, and, I assume hockey--are because of television. I'm grateful to TV because it does a great job of showing us the game, but I don't think it should take over sports the way it now threatens to. Replays in MLB do serve a useful purpose in that they prevent most confrontations over calls and thereby save time, but they are also a big distraction, especially if there are several in a game. I think challenges and replays in the NFL are less of a distraction because half of a game is already consumed by timeouts. Replays in basketball, NBA or NCAA, on the other hand, seem to me to be interminable and a major distraction.

Then we completely disagree and that's fine. I like aggressive baserunning as long as it ain't stupid. HanRam was stupid sometimes last year, and this year it's been mostly Shaw. My rule of thumb is that, if it's a close play but an out, I can live with that.

Really alert play and absolutely clean--he just went down and never came close to going outside the baseline. Plus he had the first rbi double. Plus that terrific catch against the wall in which he slid and did not get hurt. Plus the other goood catch after running over the pitching mound. Back in April I defended him, but only on general principles because I knew nothing about him. Right now he looks like a pretty good all around player and I frankly am surprised. When JBJ was out, I think he also played CF and made a pretty good grab in deep CF. With Castillo struggling and Swihart and Holt on the DL, Young is pretty darn handy to have around.

I think the Giants win this one because of better pitching, and that makes last night's terrific win that much more important. On the off chance someone is actually reading this thread, I offer a somewhat new thought--that Shaw is struggling right now in part because opposing pitchers have discovered his swing/stance are not good for hitting outside pitches. This was particularly noticeable last night. I'm not sure I'm right and welcome comments.

A question. What rating would a team have if they simply didn't steal bases, didn't try to stretch singles into doubles or double into triples, didn't try to take that extra base on a single to center or right, didn't try to score from 2d on singles or from 3d on a fly? In other words, are the baserunning stats skewed toward being cautious?

I'm actually not much of a Young fan, and, while I have defended Farrell, I did so on general principles. Last year I would have been fine if he had been fired. My points about Young on the other thread (referendum on Farrell) were that playing him against righties was not unreasonable because the Sox hadn't faced many lefty starters and the Sox were paying the guy $13M/2 years to do something besides ride the pine. Plus he played 140 games for the Yankees last year. Plus it was April and a good time to see what he could do. Plus the Sox offense was actually doing pretty well whether or not Young got a hit. But most of all I believed that Young would not have been played if management, including both Farrell (and Lovullo) and the front office, hadn't thought it was worth trying. In retrospect, it's possible they wanted him to hit against righties just to prepare for the unlikely event, now upon us, that he might have to play against righties. Plus maybe Chili Davis was saying he could hit righties despite that horrible OPS. Thus I was astounded when the few times Young played against righty pitchers were treated as prima facie evidence that Farrell really doesn't have a grasp of which players to use. Yes, yes, the story went, the team is playing well and winning, but Farrell is clueless about who to insert into the lineup when. Look at that Young guy going up against righties if you doubt his ineptitude. I'm also astounded you can honestly say that, despite Young's success, Farrell was still wrong to play him. In other words, if any of us thinks Farrell shouldn't have made a move, any move, he's wrong whether or not it works out. Me, I'm the opposite. I think all moves are OK because he knows his guys and the other teams' players a whole lot better than we do.

Pretty big, all right. Porcello wasn't great but he was good enough long enough, and the Sox really needed this win.

espn has an article (5 things about the Sox in San Francisco) that argues what others here have already said, that Swihart's injury hurts because he is a key prospect for trading to get some starting pitching help.

Hard part is I gotta go to work after missing sleep. Terrific win all around. Funny how the outcast of poker flats, one Chris Young, is now looking like a pretty good acquisition who was maybe helped by Chili Davis. Shaw, meanwhile, seems to be in trouble because he struggles against anyone who can consistently throw to the outside part of the plate. I mean that last night the Giants pitchers all had his number--just throw to the outside part. He might hit it, but won't hit it solidly. High time for Shaw to make his own adjustment.

I did finally read some of the articles on automated strike zones and found none compelling although I now think it is possible MLB will use them, if only to be able to regulate--and by that I mean expand and especially contract--the strike zone to ensure pitching is never allowed to dominate. You can do the same thing with human umpires, but not as quickly or cleanly. The problem, other than my philosophical dislike of marginalizing umpires, I see is that it is in fact true that every player has a different strike zone which a human umpire routinely adjusts to but a computer might struggle with. Heck, I'm not even sure what the real top and bottom points are. If the knees are the bottom, does the ump go by the top of the knee or the bottom of the knee or some middle point? And where is the top? The armpits? The articles I read, I might add, seem to agree that calling balls and strikes has been getting steadily better even if it is still imperfect.

Back to Young. My guess is the Sox got him (for $13M/2years) as kind of a back-up and maybe figured he couldn't be too bad if he played 140 games for the Yankees last year. They probably figured they were solid in CF and RF barring injuries. For the remaining LF slot they had Castillo, Holt, and Young. Of those three Young is clearly the most experienced MLB outfielder, but the question was could he hit. As of today, June 8, I think it is beyond question Young was a smart acquisition. His hitting, especially against righties, has been surprisingly good,--who knows, maybe Davis helped him-- and his fielding is better and certainly smarter than Castillo, Holt, or Swihart's. At his age, 32, he ain't the long-term fix, but meanwhile he's pretty useful, and all the carping critics who argued that playing Young against righty pitchers demonstrated Farrell's malfeasance and ignorance might be carping a little less these days.

Never read that one, but it's pretty good and by the same guy, Emerson.

I thought I'd return to this thread one more time with this thought, that the notion of having computers call balls and strikes is not getting much traction in any news media I am aware of. So, please, you advocates of purifying the strike zone, set me straight. Show me a link to a story about how umpires calling balls and strikes is bad for baseball and must be fixed. I dare ya. Heck, I double-dare ya.

Decathlons can be boring, maybe even very boring. But they are overall terrific competitions because of the variety of things they have to do. Rarely, however, to decathletes go mano a mano. Roller derby is probably more fun to watch.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Actually, I would prefer that runners occasionally run into outs because never running into outs--trying to steal or trying to get an extra base--means you are taking zero risks on the basepaths. For example, in a recent game Betts was thrown out going from first to third on a single to right field, but it took a beautiful, dead-on throw to get him. I'm fine with that--that's exactly the way to run the bases, when only a perfect throw will beat you. On the other hand, several years ago, maybe before Farrell, Nava was on 2B and someone hit a shot off the RF wall/fence at Fenway. About the time the ball hit the wall/fence, Nava was sliding back into 2B, just to be sure he couldn't be thrown out. He never got to 3B. That sir, is the result of cautious baserunning--or maybe idiocy.

Ellsbury is coming back a little. I read something recently, albeit written in April, in a NJ paper that the real comparison should be Ellsbury vs. Cano because it was Cano's departure for Seattle--I think their offer was $240M for 10 years--that caused the Yankees to spend big on Ellsbury. Right now Cano is having a heckuva year.