OT: MLB Thread 2025
- Thread starter Beliveau
- Start date
- Jan 7, 2013
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yankees hit well against mediocre pitching but completely disappear against quality pitching. not a good recipe for long term succsss. yankees bullpen has serious depth issues. cashman needs to work some magic in finding some good bullpen arms in the bargain bin
Jack Hanson
nachos, lemonheads, my dad's boat
- Oct 5, 2023
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Pete Alonso has 3 homers and 10 rbi now and hit a 2 run homer on his 1st at bat on opening day.
Jack Hanson
nachos, lemonheads, my dad's boat
- Oct 5, 2023
- 169
- 2,367
Jesse Winker ties the game in the bottom of the 8th with a 2 run 3 base hit. His 2nd triple of the night. PS Majordomo beats me to it!!
will1066
If you score four, you better f'n win the game
- Oct 12, 2008
- 43,400
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NYR94
Registered User
Crease
Chief Justice of the HFNYR Court
- Jul 12, 2004
- 23,965
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FultonReed
derailer of threads
Machinehead
Bring Back Olli
nyr2k2
Can't Beat Him
- Jul 30, 2005
- 45,715
- 35,598
He's not. He has never hit and now he's like what 25? I mean Vientos you can at least point to last season and say he's putting too much pressure on himself or whatever, but Baty has just been horseshit outside of AAA. I didn't think I'd be counting down to the return of Jeff McNeil, but here I am.
Roo Returns
Skjeikspeare No More
He looks like a 19 year old Marc Staal and plays baseball like a 30 year old NHL Marc Staal.
Bob Richards
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Its not as short as that Hemingway story but it might be just as sad.
Goddamn you Brett Baty.
Report: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. agrees to 14-year, $500 million extension with Blue Jays
The deal is the third-largest in MLB history and the second-richest in present-day value behind only Juan Soto's contract.
Machinehead
Bring Back Olli
I never understood switch hitting for the sake of it when you literally can't hit from one of the sides.
The technology and methods used to measure pitch velocity has changed over the years. Even 8 years ago the change was pitch at 50 feet to pitch at release which changed velos by about 0.5 mph. In the 80s, the speed guns measured velo at the plate. Nolan Ryan's fastball from 40 years ago is estimated to be measured at 108 with today's technology (movie fastball). A more skeptical view is here
1970s - Speedgun (at plate)
1980s -JUGS (10 feet before plate)
1990s - Stalker Pro (???)
2010 - Pitch F/X (50 feet from plate)
2017 - Statcast (pitch at release)
MLB later recalibrated Pitch/FX but not earlier than that. That's the reason for the huge gulf in velocities at the time. Pitchers are not on average throwing 10mph faster today - that's ridiculous. Bob Feller was famously measured against a motorcycle but that's obviously not precise.
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GoAwayPanarin
learn w/ da bern
You’re on the pipe if you think pitchers from 20+ years ago were throwing even close to as hard now. Nolan Ryan is a terrible example because he was clearly an outlier for his era.
And it’s not 10 MPH harder on average, it’s 5+. It’s not even pure velocity on thr FB that is the big difference, it’s the velocity/spin on breaking pitches. Pitching is less about hitting spots (which it was as recently as bascially 2010) and more about tunneling (all pitches coming from the same release aka tunnel) and letting the movement take care of the rest.
Remember how crazy maddux’s movement was? There are dozens of guys who create as much if not more today. Now not all of them could spot it like Greg but this my point, things that were anomalies in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s are basically commonalities today and in a lot of ways, have been improved upon.
This isn’t bagging on Ryan or Maddux, it’s just that there are way more pitchers capable of throwing stuff that is just as nasty if not more nasty now. I don’t even see how this is up for debate really, pitching has gotten insanely good in the last 7 years.
Again, HOF hitters from the 90s have made mention of this and said that they’d be way worse today. I’ll take their word for it over some random internet video.
You were comparing speed gun readings from the 80s against statcast readings from today to make a point - which is like 5+ mph different across the board - thats what I was arguing. If you watch the video, nolan ryan was the first pitcher to do any weight training which is standard today so obviously pitchers are in better shape now than back then. If players from the 80s played today they'd have the same advantages players of today would have. Pitcher velocity has been rising across the board over the years but that doesn't make them better pitchers.
The problem pitchers from the 80s would face today is the shrunken strike zone. The game changed drastically when the strike zone was changed. Would Gwynn be a career 340 hitter? Thats a different question but IMO you can only judge players in their era by how they fared against their peers. Gwynn faced Maddox/Smoltz/Glavine in their prime nearly 300 times and hit 381 striking out 3 times. Gwynn faced Nolan Ryan about 70 times and hit 300 and struck out 9 times. Your comment that Gwynn would strikeout 150+ times today is just delusional.
NickyFotiu
NYR 2024 Cup Champs!
- Sep 29, 2011
- 14,569
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I often laugh at recency bias when we are only talking about a 20-25 year time period in sports. Guys like Jagr played in multiple eras and excelled. Were guys like Justin Verlander striking out 500 guys 20 years ago? Bartolo Colon hit a home run not that long ago but Tony Gwynn would strike out 150 plus times? Come on
GoAwayPanarin
learn w/ da bern
How’d he do against Randy Johnson?
Because teams are loaded with lefties with bascially the same pitch profile now.
Glavine would be JAG today but that’s neither here nor there.
But you keep missing the point. It’s not just top arms (there are more of them now) but just insane relievers now that didn’t exist back then. You’d be hard pressed to find a reliever who hit triple digits in the late 90s.
There are probably triple the amount of starting pitchers (if not more) who can do that now than there were relief pitchers who could do it then. This is before getting to the stupid breaking stuff that we see now.
I think you're the one missing the point by continuing to compare pitch velo clocked using 40 year old tech vs todays. Watch the video from pitching ninja - Does Aroldis Chapman really throw 5 mph harder than ryan did 50 years ago? Doesn't look like it when viewed as an overlay. But that difference in velo is across the board because of how the tech was used - it's not just different on those guys. I remember watching Sid Fernandez in particular and his pitches looked like a 95 mph fastball and the clock would read 82. Maybe it was his weird motion but still - it always drove me crazy.
Do guys today throw harder? Sure it is a point of emphasis - higher velo is more important than control. Does it make them better? How do you measure? Strikeouts are definitely up but is that solely due to increased velo or due to changes in batters approach (HR or bust)? Its also possibly the change in value to a teams roster of an extra reliver vs an extra utility player - 50 years ago relievers were failed starters as opposed to specialty 7th inning guys today. But then starters went from about 7 IP/start to just over 5 so relievers weren't nearly as heavily used back then. If you look at leaguewide bullpen stats over the years, K/9 are up but most everything else is about the same.
Raspewtin
Stay at home defenseman hater
- May 30, 2013
- 42,541
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It's more than one thing.I think you're the one missing the point by continuing to compare pitch velo clocked using 40 year old tech vs todays. Watch the video from pitching ninja - Does Aroldis Chapman really throw 5 mph harder than ryan did 50 years ago? Doesn't look like it when viewed as an overlay. But that difference in velo is across the board because of how the tech was used - it's not just different on those guys. I remember watching Sid Fernandez in particular and his pitches looked like a 95 mph fastball and the clock would read 82. Maybe it was his weird motion but still - it always drove me crazy.
Do guys today throw harder? Sure it is a point of emphasis - higher velo is more important than control. Does it make them better? How do you measure? Strikeouts are definitely up but is that solely due to increased velo or due to changes in batters approach (HR or bust)? Its also possibly the change in value to a teams roster of an extra reliver vs an extra utility player - 50 years ago relievers were failed starters as opposed to specialty 7th inning guys today. But then starters went from about 7 IP/start to just over 5 so relievers weren't nearly as heavily used back then. If you look at leaguewide bullpen stats over the years, K/9 are up but most everything else is about the same.
The major factors contributing to greatly increased strikeouts are:
1. Lower batting angles to increase chances of an XBH, which also results in more whiffs.
2. Pitchers throw much harder, particularly on breaking balls, and the movement is dramatically upped.
3. Starting pitchers pitch less than ever before and BP arms are disproportionately oriented towards strike outs in pitch style. Someone like Tim Hill who pitches as a reliever for ground balls is really rare.
Baseball dramatically changed basically overnight in the last 20 years. I find this conversation really interesting. I don't think Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn teletransported into today's league would be completely useless or anything but I do think their style of game has way less value in today's league, both in expected result and ability to execute.
Machinehead
Bring Back Olli
I don't think it's that Aroldis Chapman or Chris Sale are throwing harder than Nolan Ryan.
It's that Bob Diaz comes in to pitch the 5th inning for the Colorado Rockies and he's throwing a 99 MPH slider. Mop-up guys like that used to throw 87.
It's not that the top, top guys are better, it's that EVERYONE has overwhelming stuff.
Hitting has changed too. Could Tony Gwynn replicate what he used to do? ...probably. I don't think there's any pitching he couldn't adapt to. The thing is, though, every coach in the world would be in his ear to drop 30 points off his average to hit 10 more homers.
It's that Bob Diaz comes in to pitch the 5th inning for the Colorado Rockies and he's throwing a 99 MPH slider. Mop-up guys like that used to throw 87.
It's not that the top, top guys are better, it's that EVERYONE has overwhelming stuff.
Hitting has changed too. Could Tony Gwynn replicate what he used to do? ...probably. I don't think there's any pitching he couldn't adapt to. The thing is, though, every coach in the world would be in his ear to drop 30 points off his average to hit 10 more homers.
Raspewtin
Stay at home defenseman hater
- May 30, 2013
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Exactly. It's not Tony Gwynn's ability to do it in these circumstances, it's that his style of play has less value in this league; but he'd also probably suffer quite a bit with this new gen of pitching. He doesn't become unplayable, it's that his style of play would likely decline and it has less inherent value anyway.
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