Spring Training games thread

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

Dylan Carlson becoming a good MLB player would be big for the Cubs. And could give the Cubs another, slightly cheaper resign option over their other 30+ year old OF'ers which they then could reinvest elsewhere. 

We're well early for that talk, but something I've considered deep in the recesses of my brain. 

Also it would be super fun to laugh at Cardinal fans

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

Dylan Carlson becoming a good MLB player would be big for the Cubs. And could give the Cubs another, slightly cheaper resign option over their other 30+ year old OF'ers which they then could reinvest elsewhere. 

We're well early for that talk, but something I've considered deep in the recesses of my brain. 

The scuffling Tigers, 40-44 after injuries to Framber Valdez and Casey Mize, trade free agent-to-be Tarik Skubal to the Chicago Cubs for hyped prospect Jefferson Rojas, Cubs sign Skubal to 10 year, $400m deal. 

Justin Verlander, seeking one last playoff run, retires, agrees to join Cubs coaching staff and relocate wife to Chicago for the rest of the season. 

[Jason Ross]

6 hours ago, squally1313 said:

The scuffling Tigers, 40-44 after injuries to Framber Valdez and Casey Mize, trade free agent-to-be Tarik Skubal to the Chicago Cubs for hyped prospect Jefferson Rojas, Cubs sign Skubal to 10 year, $400m deal. 

Justin Verlander, seeking one last playoff run, retires, agrees to join Cubs coaching staff and relocate wife to Chicago for the rest of the season. 

[mul21]

11 hours ago, Stratos said:

If a catcher can be accurate with ABS and rack up many successful challenges per game that could fundamentally change game outcomes in this sport.

You wonder if catchers become so good that teams will start to not allow hitters to challenge unless it's very high leverage like runners on late in a close game.  Sounds like teams already don't want pitchers challenging.

That doesn't even make any sense.  Hitters and catchers are challenging different things.  Catchers challenge when a pitch in the zone is called a ball and hitters are challenging when a pitch out of the zone is called a strike.  

[squally1313]

12 minutes ago, mul21 said:

That doesn't even make any sense.  Hitters and catchers are challenging different things.  Catchers challenge when a pitch in the zone is called a ball and hitters are challenging when a pitch out of the zone is called a strike.  

I was with you and then thought about it more and maybe he's talking about not wanting to risk them being wrong and using up their challenges so that the catcher (who has a much higher success rate) can't challenge the rest of the game?

[Stratos]

9 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I was with you and then thought about it more and maybe he's talking about not wanting to risk them being wrong and using up their challenges so that the catcher (who has a much higher success rate) can't challenge the rest of the game?

Yes that was my point.

[Rcal10]

13 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Yes that was my point.

I doubt that happens. Hitters are going to challenge strike calls. I am sure of that. 

[CubinNY]

They should have unlimited challenges until they do away with umpires calling balls and strikes. It's stupid. 

We have this highly accurate system, but we are still relying on humans who are less reliable. Tennis did away with it long ago, and you don't even hear about it anymore. 

[squally1313]

30 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

They should have unlimited challenges until they do away with umpires calling balls and strikes. It's stupid. 

We have this highly accurate system, but we are still relying on humans who are less reliable. Tennis did away with it long ago, and you don't even hear about it anymore. 

https://www.shopdoubletake.com/blogs/well-played/challenge-rules-for-professional-tennis?srsltid=AfmBOopJFH0aSW7PJYhmDRoBW6vIhjpEMnlVpYmei073SHp719lSFvKK

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, CubinNY said:

They should have unlimited challenges until they do away with umpires calling balls and strikes. It's stupid. 

We have this highly accurate system, but we are still relying on humans who are less reliable. Tennis did away with it long ago, and you don't even hear about it anymore. 

I agree that 2 wrong challenges isn’t enough. Maybe they should have 4. But not unlimited. I would rather see all pitches called electronically over unlimited challenges. 

[CubinNY]

2 hours ago, squally1313 said:

https://www.shopdoubletake.com/blogs/well-played/challenge-rules-for-professional-tennis?srsltid=AfmBOopJFH0aSW7PJYhmDRoBW6vIhjpEMnlVpYmei073SHp719lSFvKK

The French Open is the ONLY professional tennis tournament that still uses line judges. Sometimes AI gives you wrong advice. The ATP  and WTA tours do not use a human line judge. Neither does Wimbledon, the US Open, or the Australian Open.  

Edited March 5 by CubinNY

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

The French Open is the ONLY professional tennis tournament that still uses line judges. Sometimes AI gives you wrong advice. The ATP  and WTA tours do not use a human line judge. Neither does Wimbledon, the US Open, or the Australian Open.  

Got it, good to know. I thought you were referencing tennis to support your argument that teams should get unlimited challenges, which I think would be a bad idea because then you'd have one every pitch. Don't disagree with this eventually needing to be fully automated. 

[CubinNY]

8 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Got it, good to know. I thought you were referencing tennis to support your argument that teams should get unlimited challenges, which I think would be a bad idea because then you'd have one every pitch. Don't disagree with this eventually needing to be fully automated. 

I don't think giving unlimited challenges would harm anything, and I don't think it would be abused. I read the overturn rate was slightly 50%. Think about how often they are wrong when they don't get challenged on close calls. 

Edited March 5 by CubinNY

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I don't think giving unlimited challenges would harm anything, and I don't think it would be abused. I read the overturn rate was slightly 50%. Think about how often they are wrong when they don't get challenged on close calls. 

Why wouldn't you challenge every call that went against you in that scenario? Conceptually you want every call correct and I would love a situation where the automated call is transmitted instantaneously to the umpire. But I think having the current challenge system coming into play 40-50 times a game would lead to a really stilted product. 

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Why wouldn't you challenge every call that went against you in that scenario? Conceptually you want every call correct and I would love a situation where the automated call is transmitted instantaneously to the umpire. But I think having the current challenge system coming into play 40-50 times a game would lead to a really stilted product. 

This is where I'm at. If we aren't going to have an automated system, and calls right now are sitting at 50/50 or so, you'd expect there to be a lot of them. How many times do we see a pitcher or a catcher, per game, throw eyes or shrug off a call like they knew better only to sign on to Savant and see they were wrong? A bunch! Same for a hitter.

We can debate whether the number of wrong ones should be 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever, but as long as we're not going full automated, we should assume that players will abuse them if they're unlimited which would be a bad look for all involved. 

[Bertz]

A) It's an entertainment product It's okay to make decisions that reflect that.  In the multiple years of studying this in the minors they found 2 challenges a piece to overwhelmingly be the sweet spot for cleaning up the bad calls while keeping games watchable

B) On a practical level ABS is literally changing the shape of the strike zone.  It would be frankly moronic to not take an incrementalist approach to implementing it

[Radar3454]

2 hours ago, Bertz said:

A) It's an entertainment product It's okay to make decisions that reflect that.  In the multiple years of studying this in the minors they found 2 challenges a piece to overwhelmingly be the sweet spot for cleaning up the bad calls while keeping games watchable

B) On a practical level ABS is literally changing the shape of the strike zone.  It would be frankly moronic to not take an incrementalist approach to implementing it

How is it changing the shape of the zone? Isn't just getting it correct now?

Edited March 5 by Radar3454

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, Radar3454 said:

How is it changing the shape of the zone? Isn't just getting it correct now?

The zone as umpires actually call it and the zone as it is in the rulebook are very different.  Here's a really great graphic

Jumping whole hog into robot umps instead of starting with challenges is begging for massive unintended consequences.

[CubinNY]

11 minutes ago, Bertz said:

The zone as umpires actually call it and the zone as it is in the rulebook are very different.  Here's a really great graphic

Jumping whole hog into robot umps instead of starting with challenges is begging for massive unintended consequences.

"very" is doing a lot of work there. It's also so much horsefeathers I can smell it from my computer. Why is this incremental approach better when we have the technlogoy to make every call correct?

 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Didn't they try all ABS in the minors already?

[Jason Ross]

24 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Didn't they try all ABS in the minors already?

They only tried it in the MLB-affiliated (none of the players are signed to an MLB contract, however, the MLB does own the league) independent league. It lasted part of one season in 2019.

MLB uses that league as a testing ground for new rules. 

[Radar3454]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

The zone as umpires actually call it and the zone as it is in the rulebook are very different.  Here's a really great graphic

Jumping whole hog into robot umps instead of starting with challenges is begging for massive unintended consequences.

Not all umps had the same zone before - gonna be great to have consistency. I believe more balls will change to strikes than strikes to balls as catchers will be trusted to challenge more and have the best view.

[Gjfificifjdej]

10 hours ago, CubinNY said:

They should have unlimited challenges until they do away with umpires calling balls and strikes. It's stupid. 

We have this highly accurate system, but we are still relying on humans who are less reliable. Tennis did away with it long ago, and you don't even hear about it anymore. 

What an obscenely awful opinion. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Dansby with oppo shots on back to back days. Hes going to lean fully into the up the middle approach, be nice if it carries over into the season.

[Bertz]

11 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Dansby with oppo shots on back to back days. Hes going to lean fully into the up the middle approach, be nice if it carries over into the season.

Turns out that his single earlier in the game was hit harder than any ball he's ever hit in a regular season game.  They were cagey about what kind of stuff he was working on over the winter too...something's up with him.