Recent content by allmanbro

I don't really like the double hook rule, but it might mean fewer mid-inning pitching changes, which would be OK by me - probably not by a lot. This might be an interesting wrinkle: instead of saying you only get to DH for the starting pitcher, why not say "you can only DH for one pitcher" -...

A couple lines of thinking might connect this to HR specifically: by cutting down on Ks, hitters might feel less like they have to go all-in on those few times they can make contact, so the hitting strategy shifts towards line drives for singles/doubles. You could also think that this move would...

Going in, I figured this was an 82-85 win team. They are already 3 games ahead of that pace. Those wins in the bank, so even if they play at that expected level going forward, the new range is 85-88. That might put them at the fringe of WC competition. But I also think it's reasonable to tack on...

I'm sure the standards of loving the game are very different: it's one thing to watch and read about it obsessively as a fan, it's another to spend 6 months of the year constantly on the road, beating up your body every day, and knowing that it could all fall apart instantly with one injury or a...

Ya, I think you are right that that was the intended meaning - not the clearest way of saying that. And agreed, that would have made sense for Mookie, if it's what he did.

The first two sentences in that quote seem to contradict one another - the way a lot of discussions of this do, ultimately saying nothing. I just don't think we can really confidently evaluate that process unless we have actual numbers of what was offered and what Mookie would have accepted...

Corbin Burnes

Ya, in one of those threads, I suggested cutting the controllable years down (maybe to 4) and massively increasing the MLB minimum. I think those changes would help solve a few problems.

Well, if you change the incentives in the game, you make certain skillsets more valuable, which will then change the free agent market and get different kinds of players paid. The arbitration system is a weird backwater in that sequence - presumably it would filter down eventually if arb awards...

This is a great post and explanation. It really bothered me recently when the usually so great Joe Posnanski also trotted out the same line in his spring training summary of the Sox (paywalled). The bottom line is that the Sox had a ton of holes opening up, and almost nothing to look forward to...

So would moving back the strike plane: hitters can step back in the box and wait until the ball gets the the shoulder of the plate, rather than the front of the plate. If 8.5 inches makes a difference, it doesn't matter if it comes from the mound or the plate.

Interesting that he calls them optical illusions - really it seems like the lesson is that actually sticking to the 3d zone gives pitchers too big of an advantage. That seems like a reasonable worry to me. I still think a flat zone a couple inches back from the front of the plate better matches...

Especially because they are putting the plane at the front of the plate. We should have the pitchfx data to tell us how many pitches that would impact, so hopefully someone somewhere with those abilities wants to write that article. If you have to use a plane, I would guess that placing it at...

Ya, it will be interesting to see. Either way, hopefully the deadened ball will make a difference. That's by far this biggest issue.

A bunt against the shift has a single as the best-case outcome, and is not trivial to pull off. A hard line drive into a shiftless RF could be a single, double, or even triple or HR if it bounces right or carries. Lowering your launch angle is not the same as just taking a single. The question...