Hey, Guys! Who’s Minding the Store?
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.
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| 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.
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.]
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.
1 comment:
Incredible read. What a knowledgeable baseball writer
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