MLB 2024: The Reign of Shohei

[Ramsay B.]

Damn, Rays aren’t fucking around. Yankees have won all 4 series so far and find themselves 4 games out.

I’m loving the pitch clock and all that. So weird to see Yankees games going less than 3 hours. So far it’s cut out like 28 minutes on average league wide compared to last season.

[Lightning Lord]

Yeah, I love baseball and am okay with a relaxed pace...but nothing wrong with a bit of move-it-along. That said, I may be less enthused when I am at the park and miss things because I am chit-chatting, eating, or drinking and forgot to pay attention

I don't hate the start of the season for the Twins but they are already facing a raft of injuries to a number of starters, including Farmer getting a fastball to the face today. Yeesh.

 

And the Rays seem out for the blood of everyone who wrote them off in the push to pick NY or the Jays in that division, with the dark horse Orioles. I know not every opponent has been top-shelf but it's also 12-0 with a run-differential of +65. This doesn't seem like a fluke but a ridiculous hot streak of a very good team.

[Jaxom 1974]

Wait. People don't think there's still a relaxed atmosphere of the game, despite the pitch clock?  

[Argonath Diver]

I'm headed to my third game of this young season. The speed of the game is awesome live. Keeps butts in the seats. I drank fewer beers than I'm wont to do, took only one trip to concessions/pisser, and paid attention to (most) of the at bats in an April game that in other years I might have spent 60% of the game moseying around or waiting in beer lines watching a TV.

Leisurely baseball is fun, sure, I'm from the most baseball-centric city in the league and have spent many a game barely paying attention. But encouraging fan interest in every at bat with all this rapid action has been a terrific experience for me as a huge baseball nerd.

 I'm takin my Dad to the Cards game tonight, a customer gave me superb seats I've been eager for weeks to watch from. Faster pace or leisurely, there's nothin like a night out at the ballpark. 

[Jaxom 1974]

 

 

[Jaxom 1974]

I realize my dreams of seeing this Cubs team vault into a 2015 like performance are a pipe dream of epic proportions...however, after the last three days, at least I don't see any reason to fear the Dodgers overly much anymore...yeah, they likely get a playoff spot again this season, but they're a paper tiger in the end...

[Arakasi]

On 4/12/2023 at 6:59 PM, Ramsay B. said:

Damn, Rays aren’t fucking around. Yankees have won all 4 series so far and find themselves 4 games out.

I’m loving the pitch clock and all that. So weird to see Yankees games going less than 3 hours. So far it’s cut out like 28 minutes on average league wide compared to last season.

Well despite Manoah sucking today can’t say I’m unhappy taking two of three from them to cook them down a bit. They are a very good team but not as good as that first 13 against mediocre opposition showed. Also the AL east is ridiculous. Probably four of the top five teams in the AL are from there.

[kairparavel]

Clayton Kershaw. That's the post. 

[Argonath Diver]

He was amazing tonight.

It's been one heck of an April for the Cardinals, that's for sure. Shows how useless Spring Training stats are vs the regular season. Card went like 17-6 or something and had a bunch of their starters playing in the WBC. Now 10 games back - of the Pirates! What the hell!

It's a nice chance for lots of fanbases with simmering resentments of the organization to gleefully point and laugh. Reddit is generally a cesspool for echo chamber negativity, but boy howdy is the r/baseball sub enjoying this worst-in-50-years start. I truly have no idea what's happening; I've been to 3 games now at Busch and all three were deflating losses. 

[DMC]

One month in, Yanks back to their widespread injury ways.  Only bright spot is it looks like this may finally be the year Cole wins at Cy Young.  Oh, and they keep finding diamonds in the rough in the bullpen.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not sure how this is being reported as an apparent racial slur by ESPN.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Cruel sport:

 

[Argonath Diver]

I whimpered out loud a bit. 

Yadi took a foul tip to the tip last year that probably would have ended me entirely. 

[James Arryn]

No thoughts on the Judge controversy?

To get out in front, Yank fans seem to keep missing a few facts:

1) it was noticed and discussed (by two of the most universally respected and loved announcers in the game with like 55 years combined experience announcing, and another 17 as a mlb catcher) on TWO back to back at bats against TWO different pitchers.

2) In all their years broadcasting, neither has ever made this kind of ~ allegation before, and both looked at each other immediately after they first saw it in the at bat prior to the moonshot and were uncomfortably discussing it again in the moonshot at-bat BEFORE the moonshot.

3) No cheating is ever believed until it’s proven undeniably. 

4) His explanation about players chirping I could almost believe..partly because I have so much respect for his talent…except that only covers one of the two at bats at most.

5) So we are left with…what? The odds that back to back pitchers were tipping and the Yanks immediately noticed both? You think that’s the Occam’s answer?

I honestly have no idea wtf happened, but pretending this is standard/gamesmanship not cheating/a nothingburger seems imo the least reasonable assumption. That it was a team from another country against the biggest star on the highest profile team inAmerica, I don’t expect this will go anywhere. Maybe that’s the correct call, but it leaves a ton of unanswered questions imo. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by James Arryn

[DMC]

1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

5) So we are left with…what? The odds that back to back pitchers were tipping and the Yanks immediately noticed both? You think that’s the Occam’s answer?

 

Teams noticing pitchers tipping with the naked eye and alerting their own batters is not illegal.  Teams literally review tape in-between games to try to recognize their opponents' tells in tipping pitches.  The problem with the Astros was they were using illegal technology to do so.  If Travis Chapman was moving outside of the first-base coach box I suppose that can be addressed, but it's hardly uncommon either.

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Teams noticing pitchers tipping with the naked eye and alerting their own batters is not illegal.  Teams literally review tape in-between games to try to recognize their opponents' tells in tipping pitches.  The problem with the Astros was they were using illegal technology to do so.  If Travis Chapman was moving outside of the first-base coach box I suppose that can be addressed, but it's hardly uncommon either.

I guess I didn’t make my main point: it was back to back at-bats against two different pitchers. I find the odds that they both were tipping their pitches, both picked up on and both to the same batter, somewhat stretching probability. Not impossible, especially when the second pitcher has been rumoured to tip a bit in the past, but I think other explanations are at least as likely. Pitchcom has been beneficial, but we also know how arms races work. 
 

Again, not saying ‘they are cheating!’…but I’d feel pretty comfortable in saying that if this were reversed and the Yankee announcers felt they caught something, twice, and were literally talking about it just before say Guerrero hit a moonshot, it would not end there as it likely will here.

Edited May 18, 2023 by James Arryn

[DMC]

I mean, have you seen the comments from the Jays?  Jackson straight up admitted he was tipping his pitches and doesn't seem to have a problem with what happened:

Quote

"From what I was told, I was kind of tipping the pitch," Jackson told The Athletic as part of a report published Wednesday. "It was [less] my grip when I was coming behind my ear. It was the time it was taking me from my set position, from my glove coming from my head to my hip. On fastballs, I was kind of doing it quicker than on sliders. They were kind of picking up on it." [...]

"If they knew it was coming and he clipped me, he clipped me," Jackson told The Athletic. "I'm glad he hit it as far as he did."

Even Schneider's not really leveling any accusations, at least publicly:

Quote

"If you're doing things in plain sight, I think that you have to be able to correct them and you have to be willing to have the consequences be what they are," Schneider told reporters, according to The Athletic. "If it's done fairly -- that's part of the game. Everyone's looking to help their teammates, everyone's looking to pick up on tendencies, so anything that's happening on the field in the right way -- totally fair game."

Schneider's main problem seemed to be the base coaches stepping out of their boxes, not hacking pitchcom.

[James Arryn]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:58 AM, DMC said:

I mean, have you seen the comments from the Jays?  Jackson straight up admitted he was tipping his pitches and doesn't seem to have a problem with what happened:

Even Schneider's not really leveling any accusations, at least publicly:

Schneider's main problem seemed to be the base coaches stepping out of their boxes, not hacking pitchcom.

Yeah, I saw that. Still not sure how to factor in two different pitchers, though. But to be clear, the Jays themselves never went near this; teams/players/coaches generally stay as far away from these kind of controversies in public as they can. It was the announcers…who also usually do the same. Basically anybody whose career depends on the game keeps this in-house, though to be fair I have yet to hear any ‘anonymous sources’ saying anything either, which is possibly telling. 

But yeah, it reduces my suspicion a bit, no question. 

Edited May 19, 2023 by James Arryn

[KingintheNorth4]

Welcome back to the mound Liam, and congrats on kicking cancer's ass.

 

 

[DMC]

Aaron Judge >>> Fence: