notin

The main flaw in your theory is starters don’t give max effort. Watch the All Star game and you’ll see starting pitchers are pacing themselves all season. Sure teams value hard throwers, but they don’t develop them. Kids grow up believing 95mph radar gun readings get them drafted in the top fuce, or a free ride at Arizona State. Plenty of kids out there are bringing their own high octane arms to the draft. And even their parents believed it - remember about 10-20years ago, when there was tjis trend where parents would subject their perfectly healthy teenagers to Tommy John surgery because they had this mistaken belief their kids would throw harder? MLB teams aren’t doing that. But some point, MLB pitchers did price themselves $20-30mill per year. And teams actually signed on. But when you’re paying a pitcher that much, he’s not just a roster spot; he’s an investment. And teams will protect their investments. This is probably why Early was allowed to throw more pitches than Crochet. And that Early has potential is why he (and no other pitcher) is allowed to throw 125 pitches anymore. And especially not in March…

Should we stick to fox hunting, dog shows or polo? What did you think about all the hullabaloo in the third chucker? I think it was a lot of shenanigans and tomfoolery, but Reginald thinks the horse was bulimic. Whats your hot take?

He just wants Early to be treated like a Hall of Famer, apparently. Or like Michael Fulmer, whichever comes first…

I love basketball and the NBA. I just hate the Triangle Offense…

Even Homo Erectus used to hear from his grandparents about how much better it was to crawl around on all 4’s, and they’d say things like “You kids today with your opposable thumbs…”

If anything ruined the NBA, it was the universal adaptation of the phenomenally boring Triangle Offense. Three pointers are exciting; passing the ball for 44 seconds, missing a shot, followed by 44 more seconds of passing the ball around? I’d rather watch golf, and I don’t even believe in golf…

Because my dad was still alive and we used to watch games together…

The whole “pitchers are wussies compared to back in the day” is more than just 1980 vs 2025. Yes the Hall of Famers from the 80s and 90s threw lots of innings. Not as many as, say Bob Feller, who frequently topped 280 IP. Of course Feller was a complete wussy compared to Christy Mathewson and Iron Man Joe McGinnity, a pair of Giants’ teammates who would conbine for 700 IP. Of course they were still wimps next to Hoss Radbourn, who would throw 400IP on his own and then punch out a horse. This is an ongoing evolution in MLB….

Who pitched more sixth innings? Starters or bullpen? If you’re going by aggregate run total, that’s a factor. By any chance did you consider that your ERA question was effectively “did pitchers have a better ERA before or after the universal DH?”

Frank Tanana? A hard-throwing pitcher who had to reinvent himself as a junk baller because he threw too hard too often? Do you realize Tanana is a better argument against your position as opposed to for it?

This is not even remotely true. Teams started tracking pitch counts against arm injuries as early as the late 1980s. By the mid-1990’s, every team was tracking pitch counts to preserve the arms of their SPs and countering the lower IP totals with specialized bullpens. It was as far back as 1996 when the Yankees used Mariano Rivera and John Wetteland to reduce the game to 7 innings for opposing batters. And the 2001 Mariners had a monster bullpen that carried them to 115 wins. Early on, some pitchers were vocal about pitch count limits. Former White Sox ace Jack McDowell was very vocal about having his outings cut short by pitch counts, apparently preferring to have his entire career cut short instead…

And then do Britt Burns and Kerry Wood and Ben Sheets and Josh Johnson…

But by the time he was Early’s age, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych had over 350 IP. Also by the time he was Early’s age, the Bird’s career was effectively over…

Valera wouldn’t be a big surprise if he made it by 2027…

Actually the pitching looks promising. No position players left except Arias and Campbell…

Are those skills obsolete or just much more difficult? Bunting isn’t the analytic taboo many think, just sac bunting is, and even then not always. The big problem with bunting is too many think it’s easy and fouling off a bunt is “poor fundamentals.” But much like Calculus 2, bunting MLB pitching is hard. As for choking up and going the other way, maybe that stuff was just a lot easier when you faced more guys throwing 85-90mph as opposed to now when everyone throws 95 mph..

Shame on Connelly Early for not being like 5 guys that played across a 30 year stretch ! You do realize that 1965 (Hunter’s debut) to 1994 (Morris’ last year), a couple thousand pitchers spent time on the IL/DL. This isn’t disproven by naming 5 guys that didn’t…

You really can’t even lose it in March…

On Eaton and Romy, yes Romy is a situational role player who might have been playing hurt, which is not on Cora if Romy withheld that info. Eaton’s is an AAAA player who excels at the stuff it’s hardest to improve at (speed, arm strength) but at the end of the day in on the MLB fringe and not a guy you want starting postseason games. And he would not have been had Abreu and Anthony not been hurt. (Abreu played but he was just coming back.) Sogard has the ceiling of a utility infielder that never gets anything longer than a 1 year deal. That’s why I’m on the short list glad to still have Yoshida…

96 pitches in a March game was already crazy. I’ll gladly take a singular loss over pushing Early until his tendon snaps and he’s out for 18 months…

So he’s the cheapskate?

Sellers like the Dodgers?

It seems like Cora is drifting from his analytics background. Not that they would be 5-1 if he used it more, but his batting order using them properly would be: Anthony LF Duran DH Contreras 1b Abreu RF Story SS Mayer 3b Durbin 2b Narvaez C Rafaela CF As pointed out earlier, putting Anthony/Duran 1-2 invites opposing managers to counter with a LHRP. What needs to be acknowledged is this can be good thing. Forcing managers to use relievers is effectively managing both teams at once. This is playing chess, not checkers…

I get why he kept Story at SS; Cora isn’t very confrontational and the last time he had a player change positions, it didn’t work out so well. But batting him second and batting Abreu 5-6 is all on him..,

Schrodinger’s Bat?