General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[jersey cubs fan]

Mexico’s hat is decent, the DR is passable. The rest are trash.

[Cubswin11]

The American and Puerto Rico one’s look exactly as same as the last WBC, no? I was in Puerto Rico when they won the last one and bought a hat, it looks exactly the same I feel. I have it somewhere in my closet.

[minnesotacubsfan]

Man, they should all just put some logo or symbol or whatever the horsefeathers on the front instead of a dumb letter. China's the only one that comes close to that besides Israel.

 

Edit: totally missed the Netherlands crown.

And Canada, but in general I agree with you

[Andy]

that mexico hat is nice

That was probably my favorite. The Netherlands is pretty nice too although I'm not crazy about the color scheme.

 

Great Britain's hat is freaking awful. What the hell is that font?

[Andy]

The American and Puerto Rico one’s look exactly as same as the last WBC, no? I was in Puerto Rico when they won the last one and bought a hat, it looks exactly the same I feel. I have it somewhere in my closet.

I think the US cap logo has been the same for every WBC.

[Sammy Sofa]

that mexico hat is nice

That was probably my favorite. The Netherlands is pretty nice too although I'm not crazy about the color scheme.

 

Great Britain's hat is freaking awful. What the hell is that font?

 

Cockney Rhyming Sans.

[Bertz]

 

I don't think there had been any talk of the additional position player limits before this.

[Irrelevant Dude]

The dream is dead... As expected, the extra innings baserunner has been made permanent. Life goes on, but baseball will forever be worse for this rule change.

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35652660

[Andy]

It was so obvious they were going to do that that they should've just announced it 2 years ago.

[WrigleyField 22]

Even if you were wanting to go gimmicky to shorten games I feel like you could come up with something more compelling than starting a runner on 2nd. Doesn't really add much in the way of strategic value/drama.

[squally1313]

Start with the bases loaded. If you're worried about lopsided scores, just do a soccer/PK thing and make it so the winning team officially wins by 1 regardless. It'll increase variance of scoring results and also speed up play.

[Irrelevant Dude]

It was so obvious they were going to do that that they should've just announced it 2 years ago.

Yeah, it was obvious that once they started it there was no going back. And they made the change permanent under the guise of "fans love it!" How exactly did they survey the population of baseball fans to determine that? (Hint: They didn't)

[Cubswin11]

Yeah, to me personally this rule sucks and doesn’t make the game more fun or exciting. Where is this contingent of fans who love this and think it’s so exciting?

 

Also wasn’t the point of this to speed up games/avoid marathon games? I feel games are lasting just as long with this/going multiple extra innings anyways.

[WrigleyField 22]

Yea at the very least after a few years will be interesting if there's even any shortening of extras. Both teams are getting an equal advance. Intuitively it feels like it would just increase the odds of 1:1 innings instead of 0:0 innings. Although maybe random variance should get the total extras down with 0:1 innings being kind of randomly distributed at a more frequent rate.

 

If time is really the concern, just come up with contrived tie breakers after 12 that dont require gameplay - who really cares at that point, if we're admitting the only real goal is to not let games drag on.

[Andy]

Yea at the very least after a few years will be interesting if there's even any shortening of extras. Both teams are getting an equal advance. Intuitively it feels like it would just increase the odds of 1:1 innings instead of 0:0 innings. Although maybe random variance should get the total extras down with 0:1 innings being kind of randomly distributed at a more frequent rate.

There have definitely been fewer marathon games. LA and the Padres went 16 innings in 2021, but a CBS Sports article about this said that only 7 games have gone past 12 in the 3 seasons with the rule whereas 2019 alone had 37 games go past 12.

 

So the rule's stated purpose is being fulfilled, just at the cost of surpassing the NBA's 'time-warp the basketball to half court because reasons' rule as the dumbest in sports.

[Bertz]

I know I'm in the minority but I like the rule. I'm too damn tired all the time to watch games go much past 10:30. And with how dominant bullpen have become extra innings basically became "trade zeroes until the first reliever throws a meatball or loses the strikezone".

 

As contrived as it is, the new rule makes a much higher proportion of extra inning play compelling. I'm going to miss the annual 15+ inning game, but I'm comfortable with the tradeoff.

[imb]

you should be able to put a guy on second but he has to be dan vogelbach

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yea at the very least after a few years will be interesting if there's even any shortening of extras. Both teams are getting an equal advance. Intuitively it feels like it would just increase the odds of 1:1 innings instead of 0:0 innings. Although maybe random variance should get the total extras down with 0:1 innings being kind of randomly distributed at a more frequent rate.

There have definitely been fewer marathon games. LA and the Padres went 16 innings in 2021, but a CBS Sports article about this said that only 7 games have gone past 12 in the 3 seasons with the rule whereas 2019 alone had 37 games go past 12.

 

So the rule's stated purpose is being fulfilled, just at the cost of surpassing the NBA's 'time-warp the basketball to half court because reasons' rule as the dumbest in sports.

 

Love that 1% of games played having a couple extra innings shaved off is considered a success. Solving a problem that doesn't exist and doing it in the worst way.

[Cubswin11]

Attendance and viewership must be going through the roof then with basically 0 marathon games and games being shorter then, since that’s the implied goal that shorter games equals more fans of all of this by Manfred and the idiots.

[chopsx9]

you should be able to put a guy on second but he has to be dan vogelbach

 

or just make the runner spin around 3 times in between each pitch.

[Cubswin11]

Pandemics, actually good!

 

[Cubswin11]

Can’t wait for this stupid rule. It’s so dumb, cool games are shorter so what? There isn’t some magic game time that there’s all the sudden millions of new fans starting to watch your product. The arguing/ejections will cause delays and make for more dead time and games going longer without baseball being played. So congrats you implemented a rule that won’t bring in new fans, will give your dedicated fans more time to do other things and watch other things if the games are shorter and consume your product less. If games are shorter MLB/Teams likely lose money since there’s less time for ad buys and less time for fans in your stadiums buying horsefeathers. I also think a pitch clock, in theory, puts pitchers at a little more injury risk/hurts their performance if they can’t take a little extra time here and there to regroup/take a breather. Good job Manfred you buffoon.

 

 

 

[CubColtPacer]

Can’t wait for this stupid rule. It’s so dumb, cool games are shorter so what? There isn’t some magic game time that there’s all the sudden millions of new fans starting to watch your product. The arguing/ejections will cause delays and make for more dead time and games going longer without baseball being played. So congrats you implemented a rule that won’t bring in new fans, will give your dedicated fans more time to do other things and watch other things if the games are shorter and consume your product less. If games are shorter MLB/Teams likely lose money since there’s less time for ad buys and less time for fans in your stadiums buying horsefeathers. I also think a pitch clock, in theory, puts pitchers at a little more injury risk/hurts their performance if they can’t take a little extra time here and there to regroup/take a breather. Good job Manfred you buffoon.

 

 

 

 

As someone who hasn't watched much baseball the last couple years, I can tell you from my experience that this change is going to make me more likely to tune in this year. If I felt like I was likely going to fall asleep in the 7th inning, I just wouldn't tune in. The fact that the games will end earlier will help, but also the faster pace of play will help me even being tired stay engaged in the action.

 

Now, there still are challenges. I've fallen out of the habit, and the only way I can watch the Cubs is if I switch back to traditional cable which is not happening right now. If baseball fixed that issue, that also would go a long way.

[soccer10k]

The new pitch clock rule is great. Don’t need batters stepping out and adjusting their gloves over and over again and I don’t need pitchers taking 25 seconds between ever pitch. Get the ball, get your sign and pitch. Or grab your bat, step in the box and get ready to hit.

[Derwood]

Nomar would be called out on strikes before seeing a pitch