Can’t Focus On One Thing In Evaluating Baseball Players

Baseball is changing, and we don’t mean the rule changes put forth by the commissioner a few years ago. For the record, we like the pitch clock and don’t have an issue with limiting the number of pick off throws by a pitcher.

As for the “ghost runner” in extra innings? Well, you can’t win them all, right Rob Manfred?

Over the past 40 years, there have been many new statistics, most of them add a lot to the game and give more information as to how valuable a player can be. Others, such as numbers reflecting expected numbers, tell both fans and front offices to be patient with players, particularly young ones.

A statistic that has come under fire recently, mostly because of a comment made by ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, is exit velocity. Quite frankly, it is cool to measure how hard players are hitting the baseball.

One issue among some fans is they take a number like exit velocity, and it is the only thing they look at. For Cleveland fans, Steven Kwan has a very low exit velocity, but there is no question he is a good hitter.

Two-time batting champ (and hitting for a high average still helps teams) Luis Arraez also doesn’t hit the ball that hard. Yet, in an interview a couple of years ago, Shane Bieber said he was one of the players he hated to face.

The point is while it is something that can be measured, it really has nothing to do with how good a player is performing.

We hear this locally when hearing about Guardians’ infielder Gabriel Arias. His fans constantly point out how hard he hits the baseball. Unfortunately, he doesn’t hit it all that often. He has an average exit velo of 89.8, and a hard hit rate of 39.7%. He also strikes out 31.7% of the time.

Compare those number to Kwan, a much more accomplished hitter. His exit velocity average is 82.3 MPH, and his hard hit percentage is 18%.

Let’s compare Arias to a less accomplished major league player, Tyler Freeman. He has an average exit velocity of 89.1 MPH, a tick below Arias, and his hard-hit percentage is 41.4%. His K rate is just 15.9%.

Those numbers would indicate why the Guardians’ front office have stayed with Freeman longer despite struggling early this year.

By the way, the Guardian who ranks 7th in hard hit percentage. It’s Jose Ramirez. And Arias’ exit velocity is also a tad higher than Ramirez. The difference is the five-time all-star only strikes out in 11.3% of his plate appearances.

We understand to market itself, especially to younger fans, baseball tries to point out excitement, the spectacular play, the rocket off the bat, etc. However, lost in that is what helps teams win games, which is the object of the sport.

It’s not sexy or exciting to hit a ground ball to the right side to move a runner to third base with less than two outs or hit a sacrifice fly, but it helps winning.

Sabermetrics is a good thing, but it seems to have gone overboard. A recent question about what the biggest problem about baseball was recently asked, and someone said the overuse of analytics in today’s game.

There were a lot of responses agreeing with that sentiment.

The point is in evaluating players there are many things to look at, no one should focus on just one. And also, people need to remember the game is not a skills competition, they keep score for a reason.

The Sadness Of Being A Baseball Fan.

It pains us to say it, but the sport of baseball is in trouble. The people who are supposed to be the stewards of what used to be known as “The National Pastime” simply are out of touch with not only reality, but also the people who buy tickets.

The negotiation of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement has simply been a joke. After locking the players out (let us repeat, the players are NOT on strike), they waited 43 days before sitting down and negotiating with the players. 43 days!

No sense of urgency at all.

The commissioner, Rob Manfred, who is hired by the owners, has revealed himself as a vindictive, petty man. He had one of the premier baseball writers ever, Ken Rosenthal, removed from the sport’s network because he dared to criticize the commish on his handling of the sport during the COVID year of 2020.

He also was laughing during a press conference the other day when he was announcing the cancellation of the first two series of the 2022 season. A somber mood would be more appropriate.

The owners continue to cry poor, when there is a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Here in Cleveland, we have an owner that is always telling the fans how difficult it is to make ends meet, but meanwhile cuts payroll and leaves ticket prices the same.

Besides canceling games this season, think about what the leadership of the game has given fans over the past three years.

First, one of the things the MLB office does is constantly tell everyone how bad their sport is and how it needs fixing. No other professional sport does this. We aren’t saying baseball is perfect, but would you buy a car if the dealer told you what a lemon it was?

The owners panacea is to expand the playoffs to 14 teams, making it more like the NBA. Apparently, the players balked and they decided on 12 teams, which is still too many considering the regular season is 162 games, and the best team wins roughly 60% of its games.

It’s strictly a money grab for the owners, who have revalued the regular season already and this will continue with more teams in the playoffs.

The ownership group has also given fans a ghost runner in extra inning games and seven inning doubleheaders, and are proposing a rule limiting how a team can play defense (banning the shift). Our opinion on that is you are rewarding players who are not good hitters.

The owners always focus on the payroll discrepancy within the sport. But isn’t that more on the smaller payroll teams? There were only two teams that exceeding the tax threshold last season, the Dodgers and Padres. Meanwhile, there were eight teams with payrolls less than $75 million, including the Guardians/Indians.

We have heard several fans say at least the Dolans want to win. Do they? We think they like winning. Everyone does.

We will say the same thing about owners as we do about players. We’d rather have an owner that hates losing more than one that likes winning.

The owners on the lower end of the payrolls spectrum are happy spending little, and even happier if they happen to win while doing it.

Fans who love the sport say something has to change, and they are right. Someone with some common sense needs to be in charge. Until that happens, we are afraid the sport will continue to fade in the sports fan’s psyche.

That’s not good for the future of the “grand ol’ game”.

Baseball Needs Leadership, Manfred Ain’t The Guy

Baseball is out of the public eye these days because of the lockout enforced by the owners, and their seemingly unwillingness to sit down at the negotiating table to hammer out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

We have read reports the two sides will return to the bargaining table soon, but hey, it’s no rush guys, spring training doesn’t start until the middle of next month.

When they are in the news now, you can predict it is usually for the wrong reasons, such as when it was announced one of the best baseball writers in the business, Ken Rosenthal, was no longer going to be affiliated with MLB Network.

Apparently, Rosenthal was critical of commissioner Rob Manfred for how he handled the sport during the shortened pandemic season of 2020, and the czar holds a grudge.

Talk about pettiness. Can’t we all agree the commissioner of a major sport should be above something like that?

Rosenthal will be just fine. First, he loves the sports and is a great writer, and he still writes for The Athletic, and he is part of Fox Network’s baseball coverage.

To us, it just is another example of the poor leadership exemplified by Manfred, who we wonder if he even likes the sport.

The problem is the commissioner is hired by the owners, and they look at the sport as a way to fill their pockets with massive amounts of cash, without regard to the future of the grand ol’ game.

All pretenses that the commissioner is the puppet of ownership was put to rest when Bud Selig, the then owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, replaced Fay Vincent in the position, because the owners felt Vincent intervened during the 1990 lockout of the players.

The big question to us is why should the selection of the commissioner fall solely on the owners? This automatically means the leadership of the sport favors one side in any dispute, and that’s the side he works for.

How convenient, right?

We know it will never happen, but it would be nice if the commissioner of the sport held the well being of both parties in making decisions. Especially because the players are the game. Ballparks all over the country are not being filled to watch the owners count their money.

The sport needs a strong leader now more than ever, and we have serious questions whether Manfred even likes the sport he is in charge of.

What the game has going for it more than anything else is tradition. Essentially, the game being played today is the same sport that Babe Ruth played, that Jackie Robinson played. You can’t say that about football or basketball.

Baseball needs to change, and the problem is not the way Manfred and the owners want. Right now, we believe the players have more of the sports’ best interests at heart than the people running it.

That’s scary.

Has Manfred made any decisions since he took office that didn’t make you shake your head? And if the owners are putting him up to this, what does that say about them?

Heck, we have severe problems with the owners of our team.

This new CBA would be a good starting point in giving the players some say in picking the commissioner. Or perhaps having the owners keep that power but pick a former player for the job.

Something has to change for the good and for the future of the sport. And we hope the commissioner doesn’t ban us from buying tickets because we criticized him.

Manfred Rights A Wrong?

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred finally said something that will make true baseball fans happy on Tuesday when he announced the seven inning doubleheaders and the addition of a runner on second base in extra innings may not be part of the sport come 2022.

Whether or not he means it or it is simply a negotiating issue for when the CBA ends after this season is up for debate, because the commissioner hasn’t seemed like a guy working for the purists of the sport up to now.

As evidence, we present you the All Star Game uniforms worn during the Midsummer Classic.

The shortened games were loved by those who want to change the grand ‘ol game because it doesn’t hold their interest. Can you imagine the uproar in the NFL announced their Thursday night game would only be three quarters because of the short time in between games?

Or the NBA announced when both team were playing the second game of a back-to-back set, the second game would only be 40 minutes?

We don’t hear many true fans of baseball who think these changes were good for the sport.

Besides, have you ever been to an NFL game live? There’s a lot of downtime in football too. Think about after a touchdown, there’s a commercial, the kickoff, and likely another commercial. If you are at the game, that’s a lot of time where nothing is happening on the field.

We have said it before, if baseball wants to address the pace of play, it’s a rather simple fix. Stop allowing hitters to get out of the batter’s box after every pitch, particularly if they take the pitch. There shouldn’t be anything to adjust if you are just standing there.

Another target to “fix” the game is eliminating shifts. Why should you limit the way another team defends a batter? It’s one thing if a pitch is inside for the batter to try and pull, but how many times do you see a hitter try to pull an outside pitch when the opposite field (at least on the infield) is pulled over to the point the third baseman is playing shortstop?

Besides, it’s not like no one can hit the ball where defenders are not. Players like Michael Brantley, Xander Bogaerts, Trey Turner, and Cedric Mullins are all hitting over .310. It can be done.

While the commish is making changes (or correcting bad decisions) for 2022, let’s request the end of pitchers hitting in the National League. A universal DH for all of organized baseball!

If baseball wants to help its image, perhaps they should stop talking about all of the problems in the sport. You don’t hear Roger Goodell talking about the horrible officiating in the sport, right? Or Adam Silver talking about how 75% of his franchises are largely irrelevant.

Having the game evolve into a glorified home run derby isn’t good for the game, but when MLB Network shows highlight after highlight of homers, what do young people think?

It’s the same as the NBA when the four letter network started showing just dunks and three pointers as part of their package. Guess what kids start working on at the playground?

The game and the network seems to be fixated on Shohei Ohtani and Fernando Tatis Jr. in promoting the game’s young talent. We would broaden that to even more of the great young players in the sport, like Vlade Guerrero Jr., Rafael Devers, Ronald Acuna Jr., etc.

As for the swinging for the fences (and missing), sports are filled with copycats. Currently, the Astros lead everyone is runs scored, and they are doing it by striking out the least times of any team.

Other teams will look at that and think…maybe we can do that.

The best thing Manfred and his office can do this winter? Avoid a labor stoppage with the players. Not having baseball in the spring will drive the casual fans away.

That’s the worst kind of public relations.

Baseball Doesn’t Need Major Changes

Baseball is in the news this week, not for stuff pertaining to spring training or possible roster moves, but rather for changes being considered to speed up the game.

Although we agree that there are things that can be done to move along the pace of the game, the idea of starting a runner at second base to start an inning once the game in tied after nine is blatantly stupid.

Ideas like this shows us that Commissioner Rob Manfred is chasing casual fans in favor of the hardcore fans who love the game and everything that surrounds it.

We know the average game takes about three hours to play, and really cutting ten minutes off of that time would be great. But that can be done in a series of ways.

The first thing would be to eliminate the constant stepping out by hitters between pitches. Hitters need to stay in the box and umpires should allow pitchers to throw to the plate if they are ready.

Batters have to ask for time out, the umpires don’t have to give it to them.

The second thing is to call a strike a strike. How many times in the course of a game do you say to yourself, “where was that pitch?” We understand that there is an art to drawing walks, we have one of the best in the game in doing that in Carlos Santana.

We have no problem watching a game where there is a pitcher’s zone, as long as the umpire is consistent. The game moves much faster.

In terms of the extra inning rule, which will take effect in the low minors this year, there wasn’t a more riveting game last year for the Tribe than the 19 inning victory over Toronto on July 1st.

Yes, the fact the Indians had a 13 game winning streak helped, without a doubt. We were at one of the local casinos while the game was going on, and crowds were gathered around the televisions that are at the bars. They weren’t moving either.

And when Cleveland won, a huge roar went up throughout the building. No one was bored by the length of the game, except for a few young members of the media here. Of course, they don’t understand the game.

Why pick on baseball? The length of an NFL game continues to grow every year because no one runs the ball anymore and every time a pass is not completed the clock stops. Granted, it has become so easy to complete passes, there aren’t many stoppages of play.

We understand baseball is played everyday, while pro football is just once a week. But no one is complaining that NFL games that used to fit in a three hour window, now take 3:30 or 3:45 to play.

Remember, it takes that long to play 60 minutes of football.

The NBA games are also lengthening. Again, no one is complaining.

The people who are complaining about baseball are people who aren’t going to games. Do you ever hear someone who was at a 9-7 game that took three and a half hours, complain about the game being too long?

Of course not, the complaint usually comes from people who don’t like or understand the game.