General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[Sammy Sofa]

it depresses me

 

NO WAY.

[David]

i will be bummed if the cubs don't win it, obviously, but i'd much rather see, say, the indians win one than see the marlins get another one. i totally reserve the right to pretend i never said that if we lose to them in the world series.

[minnesotacubsfan]

How the heck is Colby Rasmus almost 30? He looks 17

 

Htf is he only 30

[Cubswin11]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Cubswin11]

Byron Buxton this year in 182 PAs.... .199/.246/.337 4.9% BB rate and 38.5% K rate 1HR, and he's doing that with a .330 BABIP. He's been worth exactly 0 wins

[Clem Fandango]

David Ortiz shared a pretty great story from his time in the minor leagues in an article he wrote about his time in Minnesota

 

http://www.theplayerstribune.com/david-ortiz-farewell-to-minnesota/

 

I have to start with a story.

 

We used to have this vending machine when I was playing rookie ball in Arizona in 1994. It was one of the fancy new machines. When you put your change in to get a soda, it would tell you on the screen how much money you were missing. So this one day, I see one of my young Dominican teammates standing at the machine, looking confused. He was missing 10 cents.

 

The screen said, “Please add a dime.”

 

In Spanish, the word dime means “tell me.”

 

So one of my other Dominican teammates goes up to this kid and says, in Spanish, “What’s up? What are you doing?”

 

The kid says, “I don’t understand what’s going on with this machine.”

 

He wraps his arm around the kid’s shoulder and points to the screen.

 

“Bro … you see that word there? Dime. Dee-may. It knows you speak Spanish. The machine is telling you to ask for what you want.”

 

The kid looks at the vending machine. Then he looks back at my teammate. Then he looks back at the machine.

 

He leans in real close to the coin slot and starts shouting, “A Coca-Cola! I want a Coca-Cola! A COCA-COLA!”

 

He also goes on to share his story of his first experience in the majors which was against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. It's a fun read.

Edited July 21, 2016 by The Logan

[Sammy Sofa]

[Irrelevant Dude]

Enough already with the pace-of-game obsession...

 

“Relief pitchers have really changed the game. The use of relief pitchers — obviously every time you have a pitching change, it goes contrary to our pace-of-game efforts. And the other thing it does — and hats off to them — our relievers now are so good that they actually make the back end of the game — seven, eight and nine — with less action in it. And when you think about keeping people engaged, you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Is this a good thing for the game?'”

 

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/07/21/rob-manfred-pace-of-play/

[Andy]

Manfred is really starting to annoy me with that horsefeathers. You're never going to 'fix' pace of game to where games take 2 hours again. Without, that is, legislating out winning baseball strategy, which is precisely what crap like that would do. You might as well start everyone with a 2-2 count like in beer league softball while you're at it.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah it's getting annoying and trying to fix something that isn't that big of a deal/broken. IMO.

[Banedon]

lol, I just think it's awesome because of people getting all bent out of shape over it.

 

Relax...if they can't get the NL to adopt the DH, they aren't gonna get the union to allow changes in rules regarding relief pitchers that could impact the demand for those pitchers.

[Cubswin11]

lol, I just think it's awesome because of people getting all bent out of shape over it.

 

Relax...if they can't get the NL to adopt the DH, they aren't gonna get the union to allow changes in rules regarding relief pitchers that could impact the demand for those pitchers.

Well it's worth getting upset over because it's coming from the guy who runs the league, not some sports talk idiot.

[Irrelevant Dude]

lol, I just think it's awesome because of people getting all bent out of shape over it.

 

Relax...if they can't get the NL to adopt the DH, they aren't gonna get the union to allow changes in rules regarding relief pitchers that could impact the demand for those pitchers.

Well it's worth getting upset over because it's coming from the guy who runs the league, not some sports talk idiot.

I just think the underlying premise is flawed, that the way to make baseball more popular is to shorten games by 10 minutes. People who didn't like it before still won't like it, and fans who enjoyed spending a day at the ballpark would have that experience cut shorter (for the same price).

[bcl412]

The only time i notice pace of play anymore is on long replay challenges. Most of our sports are faster pace and baseball is more chill. Some people don't like that and aren't going too. Even with a quicker game it's still going to be what it is.

[Banedon]

lol, I just think it's awesome because of people getting all bent out of shape over it.

 

Relax...if they can't get the NL to adopt the DH, they aren't gonna get the union to allow changes in rules regarding relief pitchers that could impact the demand for those pitchers.

Well it's worth getting upset over because it's coming from the guy who runs the league, not some sports talk idiot.

I just think the underlying premise is flawed, that the way to make baseball more popular is to shorten games by 10 minutes. People who didn't like it before still won't like it, and fans who enjoyed spending a day at the ballpark would have that experience cut shorter (for the same price).

 

I think you're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't think there would be the emphasis there is on pace of play/length of games if there wasn't data that suggested it would bring more eyeballs, or at least retain them.

[Derwood]

The easiest solution to game length is shorter commercial break, which will never ever ever happen

[Cubswin11]

Well it's worth getting upset over because it's coming from the guy who runs the league, not some sports talk idiot.

I just think the underlying premise is flawed, that the way to make baseball more popular is to shorten games by 10 minutes. People who didn't like it before still won't like it, and fans who enjoyed spending a day at the ballpark would have that experience cut shorter (for the same price).

 

I think you're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't think there would be the emphasis there is on pace of play/length of games if there wasn't data that suggested it would bring more eyeballs, or at least retain them.

I just don't buy that more people are watching or staying tuned in if a game is 5-10 min shorter, I don't care what the data says. It's like the NBA changing the hack-a-shack rule, because "it was boring." I don't think any more people are watching NBA games this year because of that rule change.

[Clem Fandango]

People who complain about the pace of game and longevity of baseball infuriate me, so rant incoming.

 

Whenever my friends complain about baseball being too long or having too many games in a season, or being too difficult to keep up with, I tell them to go horsefeathers themselves for two reasons:

 

1) They loved it as a kid, but for whatever reason, they hate it now? Nothing in baseball has changed. It's been played the same way ever since it was created except for maybe the introduction of instant replay which was needed, the only thing that changed from the time they were a kid to now, is them. They changed. Instead of finding a scapegoat for not liking baseball, just admit it: you don't like baseball. Don't blame the sport, blame your own self interest and admit you just don't like it. It's not that difficult and no one will care if you don't like it, so stop giving [expletive] excuses for why baseball sucks and give the only one that matters: you don't like it anymore.

 

2) "Baseball is too long to follow" is a horse horsefeathers excuse. They don't watch baseball because it's too much to handle, and football is easier because it's only "one game a week"... but their 5 fantasy leagues take up a lot of time and forces them to watch ALL the football. They also watch college football when the NFL isn't on, so during football season there's like 4 or 5 days a week with football to watch. And when they don't watch that, they watch the NBA. Or PGA. Or NHL. Or MMA. Or soccer. Oh for fucks sake with the soccer. "Baseball is too hard to follow!" says the guys who keep up with every horsefeathering country's god damn soccer team and every league in the world all year round. "Baseball seasons are too long" says the guys frantically watching the NFL network in horsefeathering April to hear about their favorite teams draft strategy. Eat horsefeathers.

 

They follow every other sport on the planet all year round, but "BASEBALL IS TOO LONG AND HARD TO FOLLOW".

 

[Andy]

Logan, that's forever going to be my favorite post of yours.

[Banedon]

People who complain about the pace of game and longevity of baseball infuriate me, so rant incoming.

 

Whenever my friends complain about baseball being too long or having too many games in a season, or being too difficult to keep up with, I tell them to go [expletive] themselves for two reasons:

 

1) They loved it as a kid, but for whatever reason, they hate it now? Nothing in baseball has changed. It's been played the same way ever since it was created except for maybe the introduction of instant replay which was needed, the only thing that changed from the time they were a kid to now, is them. They changed. Instead of finding a scapegoat for not liking baseball, just admit it: you don't like baseball. Don't blame the sport, blame your own self interest and admit you just don't like it. It's not that difficult and no one will care if you don't like it, so stop giving [expletive] excuses for why baseball sucks and give the only one that matters: you don't like it anymore.

 

2) "Baseball is too long to follow" is a horse [expletive] excuse. They don't watch baseball because it's too much to handle, and football is easier because it's only "one game a week"... but their 5 fantasy leagues take up a lot of time and forces them to watch ALL the football. They also watch college football when the NFL isn't on, so during football season there's like 4 or 5 days a week with football to watch. And when they don't watch that, they watch the NBA. Or PGA. Or NHL. Or MMA. Or soccer. Oh for [expletive] sake with the soccer. "Baseball is too hard to follow!" says the guys who keep up with every [expletive] country's [expletive] soccer team and every league in the world all year round. "Baseball seasons are too long" says the guys frantically watching the NFL network in [expletive] April to hear about their favorite teams draft strategy. Eat [expletive].

 

They follow every other sport on the planet all year round, but "BASEBALL IS TOO LONG AND HARD TO FOLLOW".

 

 

 

http://gfycat.com/FrighteningTameDachshund

[Sammy Sofa]

Logan, that's forever going to be my favorite post of yours.

 

Logan liked this post, and yet you did not like his.

 

MESSAGE BOARD DRAMA.

[rocket]

no baseball game in recorded history has ever been more boring than this past super bowl

[UMFan83]

Logan, that's forever going to be my favorite post of yours.

 

Logan liked this post, and yet you did not like his.

 

MESSAGE BOARD DRAMA.

 

Andy has never given out a like so it could still technically his favorite post of his, but still not quite up to his standards for a like.

[Clem Fandango]

I've got so much like to give it hurts.

[BigSlick]

I don't understand what they could even do to affect the existence of relief pitchers. Whatever they do they'd have to force starters to pitch longer, which would literally be legislating more injured pitchers. Thats good for the game?

 

Here's what they could do - shrink the strike zone back to its pre-2011 size and put in a pitch clock. I'd honestly really like a pitch clock.