8/9/24

What Is It With Sports Media, Anyway?

                                     OR

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story"  ~ Mark Twain

Offseason trade rumors has generally been a fun topic to explore. But, as always, sensationalism, abject irresponsibility and industrial strength BS has virtually eclipsed actual facts, possibilities and reality and it gets worse every year. Unfortunately, the concept has been the main marketing strategy and sales/ratings hook for the media as a whole for generations. For example, remember this Chicago Daily Tribune moldy oldy about the results of Election Day in  1948?

                

And how about the New York Post's shameless 1978 attempt at drumming up newspaper sales?

                         

And they almost never apologize for deceiving the public, whether it was accidental or not. And if they actually were to admit their error they bury it in another section where it will most likely be overlooked. No accountability, not even an hint of guilt because they know it'll all blow over in a few days as long as they keep creating chaos.

There always someone (especially a young newcomer) who tries to make a name for himself through emotional, angry hysterics and making up or spreading fake rumors or creating controversy in an attempt to provoke an emotional reaction. And it works for them because, 1. Bad news outsells good news, and 2. That's how fans have been conditioned. Players refer to it as "stirring up shit" and, quite frankly, that's the perfect definition.

[I once heard an overnight sportsradio call-in rookie try to hook his listeners into calling  by claiming, very loudly, that in Major League Baseball, "Anything that happened before 1950 doesn't count!" The next sound my radio made was "Click!" I've never reached for the "off" switch so fast in my life. One of the dumbest things I've ever heard. - Ed.]

Anyway, the cases in point for this article are the constant trade rumors, proposals, fiction and runaway speculation surrounding New York Knicks' All-Star power forward Julius Randle and the New York Rangers' captain and leader, defenseman Jacob Trouba. 

[Because of his impending free agency, New York Mets' All-Star slugger Pete Alonso has had a "Trade him!" bullseye on his back all year until the Mets vaulted themselves back into contention. But now, even after the trade deadline, the media is still trying to worry Met fans by giving Alonso's undecided future top billing with multiple articles at a time in different publications as well as sports radio and TV shows. It's so aggravatingly typical.]

The fodder for this particular wave of media hype is player contracts and, along with an overdose of media science fiction, it targets those fans who just can't resist buying into all that smog. In Randle's case it's about a contract extension in which the Knicks have until October 21st to make a commitment either way. Meanwhile, the writers and radio hosts have floated countless unfounded rumors, questionable trade proposals and seriously poor excuses to Trade Randle.

               

Claims: He's an awkward fit now with four key members of the 2016 and 2018 Villanova NCAA champions now on the roster. Many of the local hacks propose trading Randle for a backup/starting center, a legitimate need they have had with the departure of Isaiah Hartenstein to free agency. Even with the Knicks re-signing Precious Achiuwa, a potential backup to starting center Mitchell Robinson, the media is still at it.

Facts: 1. Julius Randle knows Knicks' coach Tom Thibodeau's system and has excelled in it over his five years with the team. 2. Randle's one of the toughest and strongest players in the game and combined with his talents, it's an asset not easily replaceable. 3. Besides, if he's traded for a center, who's going to replace Randle as the starting power forward? None of the scribes have addressed that issue, have they? And it's by design. They have practically no interest in professionally examining the ramifications of such a move beforehand. Why should they bother with the dull truth when there are perfectly good rumors to be spread?

In July, Randle's teammate, superstar point guard Jalen Brunson, signed a four-year, $156.5 million contract extension to help the team avoid salary cap issues should the need arise to add another star player or two. If he'd played out his current contract instead he would've been eligible for a five-year, $269.1 million deal next year as an unrestricted free agent. Brunson sacrificed a lot of money to assist the team. It was a very rare move by a star player and it was met with raves from fans and consternation from some players who only work via the dollar $ign and have very little or no interest in the home team discount concept.

Julius Randle's extension may or may not pan out the same way, so the writers have taken it upon themselves to start churning out absurd rumors and trade proposals that demonstrate quite clearly that they'll never be management material in any field. Long/short, when it comes to prognosticating, the media knows virtually nothing because they conveniently bypass conventional wisdom until unavoidable facts come to light and spoils their fun.

Jacob Trouba's going through the same thing:

             

Claim: Despite the Rangers coming off an outstanding season, the sports "experts" say that the team needs another big-name scorer and the only way to accomplish this goal is to trade Trouba and his big contract which will carve $8 million off their payroll this year and increase the room they'd have under the NHL's ludicrous hard salary cap rules. The team also had some of their own players to re-sign so, seizing the opportunity, the local media took the low road, as always, and flooded the fans with incessant trade rumors (The Rangers are sending Trouba to this team or he was being offered to that team or he was going to be outright released), and generally without any real evidence, i.e., no authentic quotes from any member of Rangers' management. It's always "Unnamed sources" or "somebody familiar with the situation" - the terms often used to protect the the identity of their sources - but it's all too often used as a license to "stir up shit."

Fact: News bulletin, you guys. The Rangers had the best record in the league last season and Trouba was a big factor whether you know it or choose to ignore it in order to create a story to gain ratings/sales. The team fell short of winning the Stanley Cup but they don't need a scorer so badly that they have to trade their captain, team leader and inspiration in order to get one.

So why does the sports media play these games? Is it due to what's known in the business as a sloooow news day and they have space/airtime to fill? Is it a quota they're required to meet? Is it to get their jollies? Is it satisfaction? Is it ego? Fulfillment? Gratification? Mind games? Power? Sadism? Truth be told, it's a little (or a lot) of each. Or, as the great W.C. Fields once said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

In recent years, the overall credibility of the Fourth Estate has taken a beating due to blatant sensationalism and they have nobody but themselves to blame (that is, if they actually give a damn long enough to blame anyone). And sports fans, in the guise of being uber-passionate, eat up all the gossip-style nonsense and sometimes even adopt the same attitudes and opinions that they may read and/or hear. In many cases, almost everything that sportswriters and sportsradio know-it-alls say or print are revered by their fans, whether true or not. The media knows this so why would they stop? Hey, it's America! Freedom of the press and all that. Okay, fine. But can't just a smidgen of ethics be dropped into the cauldron? It can't hoit.

For What It's Worth Dept. - Here's your bottom line: Providing a happy, or at least contented ending is not possible here because, unlike most media types, this writer refuses to insult his audience's intelligence by faking anything. It's a major league shame that the mainstream media operates under the same dollar $ign that the players do. Common sense, accountability, responsibility and the truth have virtually no lease in the newsroom and there are no plans to change the formula.

More's the pity.

1/31/24

The Mets Should NEVER Trade Pete Alonso

It’s the Tom Seaver Situation All Over Again

Back in 1977 the New York Mets were run by a stockbroker, the infamous M. Donald Grant, the board chairman and part team owner. A stubborn, old skinflint, Grant continuously refused to spend any money on free agents in 1976. When then-future Hall of Famer, the late Tom Seaver requested a contract re-negotiation, Grant refused, calling Seaver an ingrate and leading local sportswriter Dick Young to write several articles berating Seaver until Young brought Seaver’s wife Nancy into it. Seaver then demanded a trade and on June 15, 1977, in what became  known as “The Midnight Massacre,” Seaver was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for far below equal value. (Dave Kingman, their best slugger, was traded to San Diego for a similar low-end return.

Fast-forward to 2024 and it looks like it’s happening again although without the hostility and cheap ownership. Like Tom Seaver was as a pitcher, Pete Alonso is the best slugger in franchise history, has hit more home runs than anybody in baseball over his first five seasons, is a well-liked leader in the Mets’ clubhouse, a goldmine when it comes to community relations and has publicly stated that he wants to be a Met for his entire career.

So what’s the problem? Last year the Mets multi-billionaire owner Steve Cohen spent money to the tune of a record $350 million payroll (more or less, depending on what publication you read), delighting Met fans all over who were sick and tired of the Wilpon regime, which, ironically, resembled the Grant regime in their refusal to spend to keep the team a winner.
The 2023 Mets were a colossal failure and that appears to have shifted management’s direction completely away from spending in favor of several bright prospects, which, in and of itself, isn’t wrong at all. But the real concern is that Pete Alonso is due to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2024 season and management doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to lock up Alonso for the rest if his career. There’s still plenty of time at this point to get a deal done.
Now here’s the part that’s eerily similar to the Tom Seaver situation. It started when two media types interjected their "opinions." Bob Nightengale of USA Today and Sal Licata of WFAN New York, in their endless effort in trying to make a name for themselves by being loud, negative and controversial (An infuriating method sports media types tend do to make up for their lack of ability in their field) by saying Pete Alonso was a “toxic” presence in the clubhouse with Nightengale adding unsubstantiated trade rumors. What’s worse, many sports media outlets jumped on the bandwagon because they want the notoriety of causing more worry among Mets fans as well as jockeying for the position of being the first responders in case a trade actually does happen   

Whether there’s fire where smoke is or not, the Mets shouldn’t even begin considering trading Alonso because, like Tom Seaver was, Pete Alonso is wildly popular in New York and respected all around baseball. 

The Mets better not make the same stupid mistake that M. Donald Grant did 47 years ago or else they’ll be facing a public relations catastrophe that even Steve Cohen can't afford.

Sign Alonso A.S.A.P.!

2/22/23

An Open Letter to Major League Baseball

Hey, Guys! Who’s Minding the Store?

Dear MLB,

   I've been a baseball fan and historian for over 50 years. I love this game and its glorious history that can, like no other American team sport, be statistically traced all the way back to the mid 19th century. However, I've grown annoyed with most of the slew of new rules and endless statistical evaluations that threaten America's Pastime (It's not called that for nothing) as we know it. Overreaction, you say? Hyperbole, you say? Perhaps, but kindly read on.

There are those people who will dismiss me as nothing more than a crusty, old-school baseball traditionalist but I couldn’t care less what they say. Hey, what’s wrong with standing by MLB’s history? It's one of its most endearing qualities and it's the very reason MLB exists at all. It’s natural that over the course of time some tweaks and changes are necessary but the fact is, the powers that be, on and off the field, are altering the game instead of getting to the real causes of the problems, and I’ll proceed to prove my point.

In baseball’s modern era (since 1901), MLB has withstood a major gambling scandal, the military draining the game of its best players during three differential wars, preposterous contracts, extortionate ticket and stadium food prices, strikes, lockouts, millionaire players vs. billionaire owners and PEDs among other blots on the sport. But Major League Baseball has persevered, particularly when Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby debuted in 1947. All that said, MLB history offers nothing close to the many self-inflicted issues MLB is facing now and it’s not going away anytime soon. For example, take…

Analytics/Sabermetrics/Advanced Stats…etc.

First off, analytics are indeed an important tool in all sports. I get that. But this new era of judging players’ skillsets and team effectiveness using all the frightening little skills that algebra has made available has been hated by some, loved by others and overly depended on by too many. It’s way-hey out of control. Look, I love stats. Always have and always will. I’m a major league box score maven. But as far as I'm concerned, all these piles of statistical formulas are inane and blatant overkill for the fans. A lot of these anyalytical TV graphics they put up several times a game take a lot longer to understand than the 5 or so seconds allotted. Sportswriters have gone to using mostly metrics to describe a player's production. For example, they've augmented the batting average with the slash line. Individual home run totals are often neglected entirely unless the numbers are exceptional. But worst of all is that they've eliminated the most important stat: RBIs. On the pitching side, they've jumped on the trendy idea that a pitcher's won-lost record is meaningless. It most certainly isn't. On occasion a pitcher's record doesn't give an accurate read on his effectiveness, but hardly often enough to where wins and losses should be ignored altogether. That's subtractive analysis.

I’ll wager that many of those geeks who are planted in front of their computer monitors with their large quantities of junk food and high-fructose corn syrup beverages at the ready and develop these mostly unnecessary formulas have never actually watched a professional baseball game. Far too much emphasis is placed on number-crunching, databases and spreadsheets instead of  the original-style statistics; matchups that are not dictated by metrics and, above all, simple observation and scouting. Baseball had gotten along with with those facets of the game just fine since 1871.

Without boring the hell out of you with the dizzying number of metric schemes, here are a just a few of the more ridiculous ones (in my opinion).

BABIP [for pitchers and batters] - Batting Average on Balls In Play.
- Um, isn’t that a batting average? Yeah, I know what it is but the idea of removing home runs and foul balls from the equation seems pointless.

ERA+ - Adjusted Earned Run Average takes the ballpark and league averages into consideration. - Actually, this one's quite useful because ballparks generally don't share the same outfield and foul territory dimensions. I first saw a similar formula on Strat-o-Matic Baseball (a terrific board game that I highly recommend).

WAR (Wins Above Replacement) - A comprehensive formula popular with the sports media that  distills a player's contributions into a single number by estimating the amount of wins a player has been worth to his team compared to an available player such as a minor leaguer or a readily available free agent.                                                                                                                                                  - Estimates are not statistical facts; they are assumptions.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) focuses only on the events the pitcher has the most control over - strikeouts, unintentional walks, hit-by-pitches and home runs. It entirely removes results on balls hit onto the field of play.                                                                                                                              - It's laughable how they're trying to "simplify" stats by converting them into complicated formulas. Each regular number is a different stat and should be recognized as such instead of jamming them into one number. Using analytical algorithms worthy of astrophysical science is, in layman's terms, a truly bass-ackwards way of achieving its goals. By the way, it may interest the number-hoarders out there that until the pitcher pitches the ball, nothing happens! So technically, that makes him involved in every play on the field, whether he fields the ball or not. Try creating a metric for that one.

Okay, get a load of this one:

PECOTA - That stands for (Deep breath, now) Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm.                                                                                                                                          - Gosh, I didn’t know baseball metrics included the Collatz conjecture. I think I sprained my tongue just saying it. You know it's a bad idea when deciphering all these stats seem to take as long as the game itself. Without using one single metric, I can tell how good - or bad - a player is and where he batted in the lineup just by the individual and full-season team stats and I'll bet that I'm at least as accurate as any metric-analyst because it's not just the numbers; it's having a feel for the game. Gut instinct, a vital human element, is being phased out by sabermetric nerds in favor of cold, hard aggregate numbers and formulas. Look fellas, baseball's a simple game with simple scoring but that doesn't automatically mean it needs to be overly complicated. Developing sabermetrics is not a necessity just because you can and just because some sportswriters want to appear far more knowledgeable than they really are.

[I won't delve into defensive metrics because if I did, this article would be twice as long.]

In my opinion, it all boils down to this: Most of these complex analytics should be left to the players, their agents and ballclubs during contract negotiations and arbitration hearings. I want to be able to watch the game without trying to figure out that a barrel rate is not about the price of crude oil. Many fans like metrics and there's nothing wrong with that. And as I stated earlier, in all fairness, some analytics are actually very good tools to have - but not when managers and coaches use them solely to make up for their deficiencies. Speaking of which…

Unqualified Managers

Too many are hired due to name recognition. After all, they were star players and/or played for the team so they must make excellent managers. It’s automatic, right? Right??
Wrong!!
The big problem in this area is that there are many who think they’re good managers but in reality they’re simply not because of lack of previous experience and/or lack of success. It leaves a tragically shrinking number of truly qualified managers out there. This problem is made worse by team owners and managements who all too often are hamstrung by their own inadequacies. The blind leading the blind.

Here are two prime examples of how managers allow sabermetrics to do their managing for them:

August 25, 2021: The New York Mets were leading the San Francisco Giants 2-1 in the 7th inning. Mets pitcher Taijuan Walker was dominating, having given up one hit on just 74 pitches. After an error and a misplayed bloop hit put two runners on with a left-handed hitter coming up, manager Luis Rojas came out of the dugout and took Walker out of the game to Walker’s utter disgust.

Lefty reliever Aaron Loup’s first pitch went for a 2-run, game-losing double. Rojas’s logic (such as it was) was that he wanted the lefty/lefty matchup against the lefty hitting Brandon Crawford despite the fact that Walker had already struck out Crawford twice. Baffling, to say the least. Rojas was one of the worst at letting analytics dictate his decisions. His obsession with metric-inspired matchups led to his absurd strategy of posting a different lineup almost every day. That, along with the launch angle metric (which Rojas and his hitting coach Hugh Quattlebaum were hopelessly addicted to) is the death knell for team offensive efficiency. One look at the 2021 Mets' offensive numbers compared to 2022 proves my point.

Taijuan Walker reacts to Luis Rojas coming to take him out of the game

October 17, 2020 - The most glaring example of metric sickness came during the 6th inning of game 6 of the 2020 World Series. With Tampa Bay leading the Dodgers 1-0 and 8 outs away from forcing Game 7, Rays’ manager Kevin Cash inexplicably removed pitcher Blake Snell after he'd given up only his second hit of the game. Cash's reasoning was that he didn’t want Snell facing the top of the Dodgers’ lineup a third time around despite the fact they were a combined 0-6 with 6 strikeouts against  him. Plus he'd given up no runs on 2 hits with 9 strikeouts on only 73 pitches. In a World Series game!! It might've made sense if Toronto was trailing but sure enough, it backfired forthwith as the Dodgers, on a double, a wild pitch and a fielder’s choice, scored twice off reliever Nick Anderson and went on to win the game 3-1, ending Toronto's season on the sourest of notes. Small wonder that during the offseason Snell left Tampa Bay as a free agent.

 Blake Snell is none too pleased to see manager Kevin Cash on his way

Pitch/Innings Counts

Organized baseball in general has become imprisoned by the faulty belief that limited pitch counts and innings allow pitchers to throw harder short term while effectively protecting a pitcher’s arm long term. These so-called experts desperately need to drop the damn sabermetric charts and look up the top pitchers from the 1940s through the mid 1980s. Hard throwing Hall Of Famers like Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, and Steve Carlton pitched - Remember, “pitch” is the operative word here - as hard as anybody in their eras and yet they were tossing over 20 complete games a season. That’s because they had virtually no restrictions on pitch counts or innings pitched. They were trained to pitch the entire game as often as possible. Today it's usually the 7th inning when the bullpen takes over, like it or don't (and I don't). Sadly, the time-honored complete game is being replaced because of…

Unqualified Pitching Coaches

Over the last 25 years, pitching coaches have generally trained pitchers to throw has hard as they can instead of learning the fine art of pitching; how to throw a consistently good cut fastball or a curveball, a slider, a sinker, a screwball, a splitter or even an occasional forkball or even a knuckleball. There are pitchers who have some variety but others, particularly relief pitchers, are at full throttle most of the time. Pitching is a skill. It’s been famously and accurately defined as the art of deception. This dangerous obsession for 100+ mph velocities has led to a alarming number of Tommy John surgeries over the same 25-year period. That's not a coincidence. The aforementioned pitch count has only exacerbated the situation. Also, if a pitcher must throw that hard that often the pitches better have some movement or else he'll get shelled because Major League batters know how to hit a flat fastball no matter how hard it's thrown. Those previously mentioned Hall Of Famers rarely had such worries. The issue of pitching too hard goes all the way down to the Little Leagues now. But has it stopped pitching coaches on any level from training pitchers to throw too hard 90% of the time? Noooooo.

Unqualified Hitting Coaches

For the most part, skilled hitters who know the strike zone and know how to work a count have been overshadowed by “Three True Outcome” hitters, meaning that most of the time, no matter what the situation, they can be expected do one of three things: a home run, a walk or a strikeout. This has led to many low-average, high-strikeout hitters who, over the last several years, have dragged MLBs combined team batting average from the 21st century norm of .250 all the way down to 242 in 2022. The altered baseballs have been a factor but more on that later. 

The bible of hitting philosophies for know-nothing managers and hitting coaches in recent seasons has been the launch angle/exit velocity metric. This instructs batters to swing hard with an uppercut and pull the ball in the air all the time. And a faster exit velocity means a better chance for an extra-base hit - if he makes contact. Grounders are strictly verboten (Former Mets hitting coach Dan Warthen once said that it's okay to hit grounders as long as they land in the outfield. Oy...). This has led to situations like the Yankees batting Aaron Judge second and the Phillies batting slugger Kyle Schwarber leadoff despite his .218 batting average and 200 strikeouts. 

What the hell are these alleged managers doing?! Why should your top home run hitter be at or near the top of the lineup? I want that bat in the middle of the order driving in runs. A silly quick-fix to an early lead makes no sense. I will admit though, that exit velocity is an interesting stat by itself because of the curiosity factor. If somebody hits the ball extremely hard it’s only natural to want to know how fast it came off the bat.

Old School Alert! - With few exceptions, slugging should generally be left to the sluggers in the middle of the traditional lineup. It's still more efficient (and sensible) than metric-based lineups. The table-setters and the back end hitters don’t usually swing for the fences unless they’re capable of it but even then, not all the the time. If they’re being told to do what they’re not used to doing the strikeouts and weak grounders will spike. The batter’s primary job with runners on base is to make contact to keep the runners moving even if he doesn't get a hit; It’s called a productive out. Not seen much anymore is opposite field hitting, the hit-and-run, the suicide squeeze, the drag bunt. Even the simple sacrifice bunt, already in decline, could further decrease thanks to the universal designated hitter. In today’s “modern” game, 200 strikeouts is considered acceptable (as is a .200 batting average) if someone hits 40 home runs with 100 RBIs.  Outside of that alternate reality it's idiotic because strikeouts accomplish absolutely nothing and they kill a hell of a lot more rallies than home runs help them. With runners in scoring position and less than two outs, the batter shouldn’t automatically be swinging for the fences just because a faulty probability metric says so. Make contact. Put the ball in play. Make the opposing defense work for an out. They might commit an error, you never know. Where has that tried and true method gone? It may be “old school,” but it’s a lot more fun to watch than strikeouts and groundouts. There’s nothing wrong with manufacturing runs via line drive base hits, stolen bases and sacrifice ground balls. If you hit a homer, great, but don’t let your personal motto be, “Chicks dig the long ball.”

[Case in point: In 1993, Toronto Blue Jays first baseman John Olerud, one of the finest all-around hitters of his time, led the league with a .363 average along with 24 homers and 107 RBIs. He also led the league in doubles (54) and on-base percentage (.473). Now Olerud was a big guy (6'5", 220 lbs.) so Toronto manager Cito Gaston decided he wanted Olerud to pull the ball so that he could hit more home runs. The results were a major drop in his offensive production and after three years of struggling, Olerud was traded to the Mets for a song. When the Mets coaches looked at the videos his previous seasons they told him to go back to what he was doing during the '93 season and before. He immediately became a dangerous hitter again.]

The Shift

Naturally, all this emphasis on pulling the ball has resulted in defensive over-shifts that concentrate most, if not all the infielders on the pull side while leaving the opposite side empty. The Dodgers once employed a complete one-side shift. It looked like this:

Silly looking, isn’t it? It may work but it’s not baseball. Like the neutral zone trap does in hockey, overshifting starves the offense and makes the game even more dull than metric-inspired hitting already does. MLB is banning, or at least severely limiting the overshift starting with the 2023 season, the first positive change in the game in a long time. But the real answer to the problem is teaching batters to hit the other way more often. The proof is that at the start of the 2022 season the Mets' Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo were constantly shifted against based on the failed launch-angle tactics deployed by the Mets the year before. However, when they started hitting to the opposite field and up the middle the shifts disappeared. The fact that it was two whole months before opposing teams finally caught on proves my point about unqualified managers.

Altered Baseballs

Over the years MLB has constantly tinkered with the baseball. In 1931 they made the ball livelier which led to the entire National League batting .303 before the ball was doused to a more normal level the following season. It happened again in 1987. Then came 2019. Since 1961, 200 home runs for a team has generally been the benchmark for dominance. However, MLB officials, in all their ignorance, decided to make the ball almost as lively as a lacrosse ball. More exciting, they said. Higher attendance, they said. This reckless "business" decision led to 24 out of 30 teams hitting over 200 homers, 11 teams with at least 240, with two passing the 300 homer mark. This FUBARed the record book more than the steroid era did. The tragicomical reaction by the powers that be was to deaden the ball so much that the 2022 season saw a grand total of 11 .300 batters in both leagues. As usual, MLB did their usual knee-jerk overreaction.

The Umpires

Ah yes, the umpires, the bane of baseball that’s as old as the game itself. I know it’s not an easy job but still, the quality of umpiring has become embarrassing. They miss a lot of easy calls, they don’t know the strike zone from the ozone and if a player questions the umpire the ump will take it personally, get mad and eject anyone for no good reason. If the player or manager/coach is profanely abusive, that’s one thing, but an umpire should never decide, or influence the game’s outcome because he had a hissy fit when somebody looked at him wrong. One name I must mention is the ever notorious Angel Hernandez, who has carved out a well-deserved reputation as the worst umpire in the game due to consistently bad calls and a confrontational attitude. My question to MLB is, why does this guy still have a job after over 30 years of bad umpiring? I know, I know, he's protected by the umpires union but hell, even the umpires in the Replay Center screw up more than they should and they have slo-mo close-up replay from several angles at their disposal. Many of those plays aren’t photo-finish calls, either. They're painfully obvious. So what's the response? Well, instead of making sure umpires are professionally capable, MLB is instituting ABS (Automated Ball-Strike) which is an AI-powered system that relays balls and strikes to the umpire to ensure the correct call, which may be the beginning of removing the human element from umpiring altogether. The prospect of turning pro baseball into a virtual video game is scary, but I found time to make light of it:

Larger Bases

The reasons for this change are to help prevent baserunners from inadvertently spiking the infielders' foot on the bag. It's mostly aimed at plays at first base where the amount of injuries to runners and fielders alike has risen sharply in recent seasons. I can understand this change because over the years, players have become bigger and faster. Picking Nits Dept. -  Larger bases cut into, however minimal, the long established 90-foot distance between bases. Will it have an effect on the game? We'll find out.

The Pitch Clock

Pitchers have gone to taking an inordinate amount of time between pitches and batters. So, in the latest of MLB's attempts to speed up the game without thinking about it first, they're implementing a pitch clock where the pitcher has 15 seconds to throw a pitch with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base. The penalty for pitchers who take too long is an automatic ball. Pitchers will only get two pickoff throws per at-bat, which means a virtual automatic green light for base stealers. See, this is how the rules committee fails to take the ramifications into account.

A batter will often take forever to adjust his uniform, his cap, his shoes, his batting gloves, his protective gear and even his crotch (on live TV) before he's finally ready to bat. The new rule says that a batter must be in the batter's box by the 8-second mark on the clock or be charged with an automatic strike. Unfortunately, this will occasionally result in a clock violation deciding the outcome of a game (It's already happened in Spring Training). That's worse than the umpires doing it.

Instead of once again taking the path of least resistance to solve the issue of game length, the powers that be could - dare I say - cut a few commercials from their broadcasts. Yeah, I said it. They're wealthy enough to afford to trim one commercial from the average TV break between innings which could potentially cut an average of 45 minutes off the time of a game. If they're really that serious they'd do it. But not on their greedy watches, unfortunately.

Everybody Plays Everybody

This one's the worst of all. The 2023 schedule has every team in both leagues playing each other all season. They're doing this so that fans who don't get to see the superstars in the other league will finally get their chance. Look, interleague play is one thing, but this is almost MLB sacrilege. It blurs the idea of two leagues, divisional rivalries and with the added travel you're going to see a lot of tired players and substandard play. September division races could be decided by a team in the other league. How does this make any sense at all? Again, the ramifications are completely ignored. The least they could do is schedule no interleague games in  September. Leave the pennant races alone.

If it ain’t broke, don’t break it!

Other frightening experiments, if implemented in the big leagues, threaten the integrity of the game, such as moving the pitcher's mound a foot back from its long-standing distance of 60'6" from home plate (They experimented with it in the Minors). I really can't imagine how a anyone with even a minimal knowledge of baseball could come up with a zany idea that would alter the baseball diamond's dimensions that have seen little change since the the Knickerbocker Rules of the 1840s. 60'6" has worked since 1893 and still does. Don't screw around with it, especially if you haven't a clue on how it would affect the game.

A Final Thought

It's quite clear to me that the wrong people are making these decisions. How an industry that pulls in $10 billion of revenue a year can be so ignorant when it comes to the game on the field is not that surprising anymore. I wonder what kind of ideas MLB will concoct once all the asterisks start to be added to the record books to allow for these changes (Aha! Never even occurred to you guys, did it?).

Hey, MLB! Anyone home?! Your public is waiting.


3/7/22

Mets Should Cut Bait With Canó and Sign Bryant

What's Canó Going to Bring to the table Without PEDs?


As a twice-suspended, two-time PED loser, Robinson Canó shouldn't even be on the Mets roster. The minute his suspension ended they should've bought him out or released him and been done with it. Addition by subtraction and all that. That said, when it comes to Canó making "too much money" to be cut outright or be a bench player, some people still don't realize that this is no longer the Wilpons' Mets. Steve Cohen can afford this luxury and that's great for the team and Mets fans who've waited seemingly an eternity for a new owner who's not looking to pinch pennies. He's sparing no expense to put the best team he can on the field and if that means Cano is an overpaid role player than so be it.

Besides, who's to say he won't cheat again? Never trust a repeat offender. At age 39, not having played in a year and proving over the last 4 seasons he played that he's virtually nothing without PEDs, can anybody realistically expect anything substantial from Canó at this point? (Only if he cheats, yeah, I know.)

If they must keep him (and even if they don't) it would be worth it if the Mets sign Kris Bryant to take Michael Conforto's place in RF. It's the best move they can make because it allows free agent signee Eduardo Escobar to play full-time at 3rd while Jeff McNeil does the same at his natural position at 2nd with Canó at DH and bench depth. Sometimes if you make one move, everything else falls into place. This is one of those times and it's screaming, Do it!!"

2/4/22

    Mets Should Steer Clear of Seiya Suzuki

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As in many MLB cities, a lot of New York sportswriters are clamoring for the Mets to sign Japanese star outfielder Seiya Suzuki, figuring he's just the get-well tonic they need to vault back into contention. However, after looking over Suzuki's stats, they're eerily similar to Kazuo Matsui's. Remember him, Mets fans? Of course you do.

Seiya Suzuki (left) and Kazuo Matsui
For the benefit of those fans too young to remember, back in December of 2003, the Wilpons' Mets, in all their glorified incompetence, tried to make an international baseball splash by signing Japanese star shortstop Kazuo Matzui just like the Yankees did with Hideki Matsui (no relation) and Seattle with Ichiro Suzuki (no relation, either). In fact, Mets management was so excited to sign the Japanese star shortstop that they decided to shift Jose Reyes, their top shortstop prospect, to second base, where playing out of position effected his offense. Then they had them switch positions midseason and there after and now Matsui, a lifelong shortstop, was playing out of position. To nobody's surprise, the results were no different for him.

He turned out to be a major dissapointment to say the least, if not less. Of course, this isn't to say Suzuki will automatically be a Kaz rerun, but the Mets already have plenty of outfielders, with potentially another one in their crosshairs (Kris Bryant?). So there's no guarantee they won't play Suzuki in more than one position (The "Here We Go Again" dept) for tons of money better spent elsewhere.

Even with the universal DH the Mets don't need to go after Suzuki just because of the resounding success of fellow Japanese star Shohei Ohtani. That was the Wilpons' mistake. But these are now the Steve Cohen Mets and the glaring fact is too many Japanese superstars fail to live up to their billing in the Majors. However, MLB clubs are still shelling out the posting fees and the contracts to acquire what can be accurately described as very costly risks.

There's no creditable reason for the Mets to take that risk again.