MLB Off-Topic

[TripleCrown9]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Hits is blue. K's is red. It's a poorly designed graph...

Ah, yep. I certainly misread it.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I keep seeing reference to strikeouts going up as if it's a recent trend...if you look at MLB history, it has always been trending towards more K's:

But the last time pitching went on a run like this, the mound was lowered. For Ks to have gone up by that much in the previous 12 years is very striking. Furthermore, "trending" in a direction and "always going up" every year are different matters. I also think starting the graph in 1871 is misleading...today's game bears very little commonality with baseball pre-1900.

[CMH]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

And I'm sure the average velocity has also gone up.

I'm just not going to blame hitters or teams for focusing on runs.

Who cares if guys can get a single here or a single there when there's a higher chance that single doesn't result in runs.

But a home run is a run every single time.

I get not liking the opposite end of it but again you're asking players and teams to not score. That's essentially what it comes down to. Don't score. Instead manufacturer your runs. That philosophy doesn't work.

I will also argue the reason you don't hear about guys wanting to hit .300 is because it's a dumb arbitrary number that means only as much as what you place into it. Why is .300 the special number? Because some guy said so and it's a nice round number? We've had arguments in baseball for years asking questions like would you take a .300 hitter with no power or a .275 guy with a lot of power? It's no question who provides more offense.

Again, I'm not going to argue that strikeouts are great. I know they aren't. And I get why people hate them. But I don't buy that things will shift. It's becoming increasingly harder to reach base against these increasing velocities and guys shouldn't take their chances by wasting an at bat and only trying to get to first instead of a quick run.

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[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

The velocity thing is a good point. I do wonder what the limit of human throwing really is...I don't even understand how MLB hitters even see the baseball nowadays let alone coordinate a swing to meet it, all while accounting for movement. It's really a special, special skill. To that end, no one can really be too surprised that batters can't ever really place a batted ball anywhere they'd like.

I still think that if it begins to make more sense to strikeout less in terms of winning games, then we could see a shift back to higher batting averages and less of a walk-walk-home run strategy. Baseball has an uncanny way of natural selection.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I've mentioned it before but I think the higher strikeout rate (in addition to variable mentioned above) also has a lot to do with batters being more selective than they have been in the past.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I've mentioned it before but I think the higher strikeout rate (in addition to variable mentioned above) also has a lot to do with batters being more selective than they have been in the past.

Yep, getting into deeper counts plays a role. And more players striving to get on base via BB is a big driver of that.

If I could add one more thing, I don't think players protect the plate with 2 strikes as vigorously as they used to. I've seen Kyle Schwarber, for example, and other guys with really good batting eyes take a bunch of borderline strike 3's that would fall under the "too close to take" axiom.

[Jr.]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I think all of this goes to show it's much more than "moar HRs!!!" that has contributed to the current state of the game.

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[Speedy]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Side point: I'm enjoying this discussion.

I would love to see an analysis that shows when a HR is equal to x amount of basehits that are not HRs. I understand there is slugging% and such but I mean the value to the team and having players hitting with a player on base, RISP, even the pitcher having to pitch from the stretch and subsequent stress pitches. So, over the course of a given season what is the proportion where a base hit is as beneficial to the team as a HR.

That type of analysis is going toward what @SportsForever mentioned, where a player's value in hitting basehits is equal/better to a player that hits a lot of HR with a low average. Ultimately, OBP and slugging is the weighty part of the OPS perspective so it doesn't matter if playerA has a .300 average and playerB has a .200 average...it's which player has the higher OBP and overall OPS. That makes sense to a degree but I feel it's also not taking into effect a player's ability to move the line (errors, fielders choice, moving runners up, etc.). While minimal, there IS value to that versus a player simply striking out. The league average of BABIP is .300 so it stands to reason that if more balls are put in play, the closer a player will be to that average.

One-two decades ago, the strikeout pitch seemed to always be the offspeed pitch in the dirt. Now? It's the high fastball. This is because of the launch angle and how players are continually wanting to hit HRs.

[Blzer]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

There are some players in the lineup who should/can be geared for power at the cost of average, but when everybody is doing that I don't know if it's the best recipe for success, especially if they're not built for something like that.

One good thing about getting on base is that you keep the line moving, even if you don't score. That gets those other players who are built for and geared toward the home run ball to get that extra at-bat if necessary.

Then again, now that they're all hitting at the #2 spot they probably get that at-bat anyway (still something I don't agree with in the National League if your pitcher is batting ninth, but then again I haven't calculated anything with that). Maybe all of these numbers have come as a result of less hits, thus less opportunities for the 3/4/5 hitters to get a fifth at-bat or something.

[CBoller1331]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I would love to see an analysis that shows when a HR is equal to x amount of basehits that are not HRs. I understand there is slugging% and such but I mean the value to the team and having players hitting with a player on base, RISP, even the pitcher having to pitch from the stretch and subsequent stress pitches. So, over the course of a given season what is the proportion where a base hit is as beneficial to the team as a HR.

This isn't perfect, but FanGraphs keeps track of constants used in their calculation of wOBA (weighted on base average).

https://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=cn

As far as I understand it, each constant is put into terms of runs. The way I interpret it is the value given is the average number of runs each outcome results in

[CBoller1331]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Joey Gallo has more home runs than singles in his career in case that surprises anybody

[Blzer]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Joey Gallo has more home runs than singles in his career in case that surprises anybody

[The Kid 24]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

They need to take the walls back to 600 feet, bring in the aluminum bats, juice up, and let's just go nuts.

It would be awesome to see guys using aluminum bats for the HR derby!

[Jr.]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

It would be awesome to see guys using aluminum bats for the HR derby!

Not for the fifty 9-year-olds in the OF trying to catch any line drives.

[The Kid 24]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Not for the fifty 9-year-olds in the OF trying to catch any line drives.

Haha, yea good point!