Not As Good As The Old Days
Agree with this guy.
I’ll never give up on baseball, it will always be my favorite sport probably because I played it growing up. But it is not as exciting as it used to be. Not even close.
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A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Agree that baseball will always be my favorite sport, and also that it is not nearly as exciting as it used to be. Manfred is killing the game with his asinine rule changes.
i don’t think it’d sll on Manfred. Players have refused to adjust to the shift making every at bat (if you’re left handed) a pop out, line up, strike out or home run. That’s not exciting over and over and over again. The stolen base is an afterthought in today’s game. There are other things but those are two biggies
Manfred owns a big part of the degradation of the game. Just my opinion. He sucks. Worst commish in a long time, again, IMO.
sure but he doesn’t have anything to do with guys sucking against the shift, or the decrease in SB’s or the # of strikeouts and swing thru’s. That’s all on today’s player…….
Agree. I was talking more about the asinine rule changes he has instituted and proposed, that IMO, suck.
When I was a kid, a lot of games were done before 2 1/2 hours. Some were done in about 2 hours flat. Maybe MLB wouldn’t have hooked me in so well in those days if the games were often going 3 1/2 hours.
I think it was Blade who mentioned the ridiculously long commercial breaks we endure now. That’s also a big factor.
One of the cards from that pack is Righetti in a Giants uni. It reminded me that I’m older than Rags. Yeesh.
Baseball is my favorite game also. I believe it should be played aggressively, stealing bases, pitching inside, even bunting. There is so much money involved with baseball that some players don’t want to take a chance of getting hurt and it’s changed the whole game IMO.
Remember all the excitement Johnnie Lemaster created on the 1983 Giants with his 39 SBs? Beautiful memories.
Yeah, I also remember on ST game where Lemaster hit 2 home runs and Greenwald was calling him Babe Lemaster.
one
the fact that you’d prefer to watch a guy walk than attempt a stolen base is a perfect example of what’s wrong with the game today…..
I refuse to accept the blame — I’m just a spectator, one who’s apparently in the minority with his opinion! I prefer to watch a walk to 40 pick off throws in a game even more. I also prefer home run derbies to track meets.
I remember when Bobby Bonds had 39 HR’s with a week of games to go in 1973 and never hit number 40 .And since he already had his 40 SB’s he would of been the 1st player in the 40/40 club, such a bummer, he was probably pressing to hard to hit that homer instead of stepping back take a deep breath and just relaxing he might of got it..
Lol Bozo..Yeah I’m older then everyone on that card..
Jeez Todd Van Poppel the next big exciting kid compared to Nolan Ryan with his blazing fastball and in the bigs at 19 where the As ruined him as he clearly wasn’t ready to pitch and never amounted to anything but a bust! Another highly regarded can’t miss youngster was pitcher David Clyde I believe,same thing happened to him..
Definition of exaggeration . . .
“I prefer to watch a walk to 40 pick off throws in a game even more.”
Show me one instance of this occurring in the 100 years plus of MLB baseball. One.
40 pick off throws in a game doesn’t sound outrageous. I’ve actually never thought to count them.
Okay, in a game . . . Yeah no doubt (but who cares – at least there’s fucking action versus the snore fest going on today). The way it was phrased – it sounded like one pitcher going mano mano with one runner at 1st.
(James firing up his Cray Supercomputer with 17.59 PFLOPS working overtime).
Haha, nah. I did find this:
https://www.mlb.com/news/vince-coleman-drew-most-pickoff-throws-ever
“Amidst boos from his own Riverfront Stadium crowd, bewildered looks from hitter Willie McGee and with Jack Buck growing more and more agitated in the broadcast booth, Welsh attempted a mind-boggling 17 pickoffs to first base.”
“The reigning NL MVP saw FOUR total pitches in a little over FOUR minutes.”
Thx to Unc for Zappa…and comment on back up vocals.. I still listen to Uncle Remus with George Duke beautiful piano and Z’s haunting blues guitar licks.
Death of the SB is unfortunate. When was last time you saw a pitchout? Craig was master at slowing down running game, including the great Otis Nixon.
It was inevitable. It will be never be more than a secondary strategy again, because even if you’re good at it across the board, like the 85 Cards, it doesn’t create that many additional runs scored. And it’s hard to be good at it. Unlike the Cards, most teams in the good old days didn’t get close to the 75-80% success rate needed to make it worthwhile. As it is, the 85 Cardinals would have likely led the league in runs scored, whether they stole 100 bases or 300.
With Giants catchers last year a pitchout would of resulted in catchers interference..
lulz.
Something else weird about Bart—he sometimes just doesn’t catch pitches in the zone. K and K complained about it over weekend in TV game–that if Bart had caught a breaking ball I think from Kazmir (could easily be wrong here) the ump would have called it a strike. Bart didn’t get ball cleanly and ump called it a ball.
Talk of Belt yesterday…aroundthefoghorn site had a question they attempted to answer: Who plays 1b for Giants next year? Seems Giants do have an option on Wilmet, plus there is already Ruf. Um hope they could do better than that but..?
Unlike SS, 1b FA market pretty grim outside of Rizzo who will turn 32 this season.
No to Rizzo. That guy is like Bryant, a dude who looks like he’s getting worse. Plus he’s left handed.
I remember seeing quite a few games where the pitcher had a pretty good game until he walked the leadoff batter. A lot of pitchers fell apart after they did that. And if the player did successfully steal 2nd it really ticked the pitcher off. Sometimes a walk is better than a hit especially if he fouled some off.
Bill James’ analytics revolution had the numbers that showed the stolen base was highly overrated. He got a lot of flack for decades, but the sport believes him now.
And, of course, a lot of the sabermetricians ended up getting hired by MLB teams. The Red Sox hired James. They won 3 championships after hiring James. It’s not all his doing, but it’s more than just total coincidence.
Theo Epstein recently admitted the domination of analytics has made the game less entertaining.
Epstein: “it is the greatest game in the world, but there are some threats to it because if the way the game is evolving…using analytics and other measures to optimize individual and team performance have unwittingly had, you know, a negative impact on the aesthetic value.”
Analytics aren’t dominating the sport. It’s just people getting better at figuring out what works well and what doesn’t within the parameters of the game.
I could have phrased that as the “increase in the use of computer-tabulated data.”
And my response would still be pretty much the same. The stolen base was a dead duck a long time ago. The major “aesthetically displeasing” changes didn’t require petabytes of data, just the application of common sense by baseball management.
But going against 100 years of baseball conventional wisdom was the big challenge. Young guys with computers trying to convince grizzled baseball veterans that the vets were wrong about some things.
Analytics made the NBA less entertaining, too.
It hasn’t really changed the NFL much lately, because the NFL has a long history of reliance on analytics and game film.
Rule changes have changed the NFL a lot. A lot of the changes for safety reasons, of course.
The bottom line, of course, is teams want to win games and ultimately championships. I see the Cubs championship in ‘16 as the opening of the floodgates of teams wanting in on the new analytics.
Baseball memories remind me of a Beach Boys song, of course they do. The warmth of the sun. Quite different than at night at the Stick.
I find the backstory of this song to be moving. Later on the day that JFK was assassinated, Brian got together with Mike Love and they decided to try to deal with their heartbreak and grief by writing a song, and wrote one of the most beautiful songs ever written. One of Brian’s most beautiful melodies.
Brian Wilson is the honky Michael Jackson. If you dig it, fine. Mike Love is a colossal anus. A colleague of mine deposed him in one of the complicated lawsuits related to the right to use the band’s name. We replayed some of that video for laughs.
Btw, the labor union forcing a well-publicized vote at the huge Amazon op in Alabama also represents, sax riff, grave diggers. La lucha sigue, mofos. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/business/amazon-union-bessemer-alabama.amp.html
NBA Math:
You shoot 33% (2 for 6) from 3 point range you score 6 points.
You shoot 50% (3 for 6) from 2 point range you score 6 points.
I wonder if that’s any part of the reason why it’s all about 3’s now…
Yes. So if team A is making their 3s that night better than team B, then team A usually wins. They mix in a few one-on-one drives from the point guard trying to daw fouls and shoot freethrows. Lots of 3-point shots and freethrows. Less than thrilling usually.
I wonder if anyone is secretly figuring pickoff throws in the pitch count.
What’s the distance from the rubber to 1st base?
The same as to homeplate. But I have to think about that, lulz.
the mound isn’t exactly between home and 2nd base, it’s a hair closer to home so it’s prolly like 61′.
Well, it’s actually 63.7 feet, so maybe they should be part of the pitch count.
See page 6 for the calculation:
https://tinyurl.com/3tsrcrcr
“The stolen base was a dead duck a long time ago. The major “aesthetically displeasing” changes didn’t require petabytes of data, just the application of common sense by baseball management.”
Again, bullshit. When you make an unequivocal statement like that James you’re essentially saying, “I don’t need that arrow, so I will take it out of my quiver and throw it away.” You wont get an argument out of me that stealing bases willy nilly is a bad plan. I absolutely agree. However, you want to steal bases when:
– The value of one run is of great importance. In general, one-run strategies–steals, bunts, hit-and-run–are overused early in games.
– The batter at the plate is a double-play threat.
– The batter at the plate is much more likely to score the runner from second than he is from first.
By the by, that’s not me talking, but Baseball Prospectus. Equally important, if MLB thought it was a “dead duck” they wouldn’t be trying to do “mouth to mouth resuscitation” on the stolen base by making the bases larger in the minor leagues this upcoming season.
Hey, Blade, I’m familiar with those arguments, they’ve been standard for a while now, which is why I previously referred to SBs as a secondary strategy. The “dead duck” usage was rhetorical. I was emphasizing that SBs won’t again be viewed or employed as a major offensive tool the way they once were.
Selig ruined the game by turning a blind eye to steroids for 12 years while the game was recovering from the 1993 strike. The whole ‘chicks dig the long ball’ attitude was the death knell for the way the game was played varyingly for the previous 100 years. Sure, the game in the 40s and 50s was not a base-stealing era, but the hit-and run, hitting to the right side to move the runner, and bunting were all parts of the arsenal of a given team.
Maury Wills and Lou Brock brought about the steal as a weapon and the 60s 70s saw teams go for speed as astroturf became the norm.
George Duke’s work with Zappa is equally stellar, Willie. Wish I had seen Zappa in the 70s with a young Adrian Belew. Zappa sure knew how to find the most creative artists in the music world. Story was, David Bowie hired Belew from under Zappa’s nose, and Frank kept calling Bowie ‘Captain Tom’.
I’d like to know what Walt Dropo was taking in 1950…
Willie, I’m sure you’ve heard this, but Duke is killer on this track.
That was fantastic.
ha classic, yes. I did see him few times in ’70s, great shows. Once at Maples that ended early due to issues with the stage itself . NMB, loved that guy…his drummers were always top notch.
wonderful version thx! who did the vid stuff?
The only Zappa album I ever owned was Sheik Yerbouti.
Loved it a lot…
Nice win today for Giants..5 Homeruns and 5 innings of 1 hit ball and 7K’s for Logan Webb , who’s era is .000
Has to be a starter imo with this shaky rotation..
And a stolen base by Slater!
The average number of SB attempts last year was 40 per team over 60 games. The ML success rate was 75%. Projected over 160 games, that’s 80 SBs in 108 attempts on average
In 1985, when booing at pickoff throws was sometimes as good as a cold Candlestick night was going to get, the averages were 119/174, 68%.
so they’re getting better at this side of the game and should continue to run thereby improving their % further. I like what you’re saying.
Maybe they are generally being more judicious about when they run per the factors Blade listed above. There’s a limit to how often those situations are in play. Could be they’ve reached a completely satisfying equilibrium and the poetry of the game has never been more lovely for those with ears and eyes to appreciate its wonders.
it is a mosaic, well stated.
i feel like if Diggity had been just a little older he would have gone to this and told the story 1000 times by now
https://thesixfifty.com/showdown-at-the-cow-palace-when-evel-knievel-his-fans-fought-the-hells-angels-in-daly-city-411feee4c866
My theory on Stix is that he went back to clean up his old house and somehow landed himself in the hospital.
We know he enjoys working outdoors, but I think he’s 76, and maybe overdid it.
Sure hope he’s alright…
Place a few calls per day. Find out.