Should the Browns be interested in Brandon Marshall?
March 5, 2015Ohio State releases incredible National Championship video
March 6, 2015What’s up everyone? You know what time it is? It’s time to read Craig’s thoughts from Thursday when he had a chance to write up this here post! I really hope nothing happened while I was sleeping to make me look silly today. Let’s talk some baseball, shall we?
Speeding up the game of baseball…
Baseball is fine and I have really enjoyed the recent conversations here at WFNY about improving and modernizing the game. I wanted to call out one thing, however, that I didn’t have a chance to do in the comments.
When you really start thinking about speeding up the game of baseball and then you watch a broadcast of a game from last season, it makes even that much more sense. It’s not about drastically changing the game, but simply making moderate improvements. I was recently watching a game from last season on STO during one of my cardio sessions in the basement and it was noticeable how much time was wasted. I know this is anecdotal, to some extent, but check it out.
The broadcast comes back from commercial. Michael Brantley is walking to the plate behind the umpire. He reaches the vicinity of his box and takes three practice swings. He steps in the box and the catcher is ready to get on the same page with the pitcher. Another seven seconds or so pass and the pitch is finally in.
None of this is a huge deal one inning at a time, but let’s call it 30 seconds per half inning that is basically broadcasting dead air from a game standpoint. If you multiply it across at least 18 instances for each half inning – this doesn’t even mention other pitching changes or replay reviews – and you’ve got a full nine minutes of time that’s completely wasted in just a single game. Nine minutes doesn’t sound like a huge amount of time, but sit around and do nothing for nine minutes some time and tell me how bored you get.
Anyway, as I said, baseball isn’t broken and it’s fine and just needs marginal tweaks to help it evolve, but once you start actually thinking about it, it becomes a lot more obvious and apparent. Simply talking about this stuff is going to make it better, I think.
Finally a bit of an aside / reaction to Bode’s post about electronic strike zones or doing away with subjective balls and strike calls…
I’m also completely in the tank for electronic strike zones. It will vault the game forward in a way that I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone bring up yet. Legions of future pitchers will have the ability to practice in new ways with an electronic strike zone. Sure there are kids practicing all over the world with nets and tires and targets, but those aren’t nearly as cool as it would be to go to Dick’s Sporting goods and buy a pitcher trainer that also serves as a giant physical video game. Having an electronic strike zone will revolutionize the practice techniques for pitchers starting at a lower level, I think. And to think that a high school kid will someday know for a fact that if he ever makes it to college and subsequently the majors that it will be the exact same strike zone at each stop along the way?
Maybe I’m overstating things here, but count me in as a proponent even based on the potential for this to happen.
Baseball is fine, but it has an information security issue…
While everyone’s discussing the reported drug relapse of Josh Hamilton on every newschannel, Craig Calcaterra makes a really important point. Why, exactly, has this case become such a public spectacle?
This, combined with stories last week about the substances which Hamilton was using during his relapse, shows that Major League Baseball has no compunction whatsoever about making Hamilton’s relapse — a tragic and very personal part of an addict’s life which, from what can be told at the moment, is having impacts on his family as well — newspaper fodder. That they’re releasing this information is unconscionable. And that’s before you remember that, per the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement, all of this stuff is supposed to be confidential.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t leaks in the process across all professional sports, because there can be and often are. It’s merely to say that this specific case is really egregious. It seems like while we’re all actively discussing the ins and outs of the case, we forgot to ask ourselves why and how we came to know the things we came to know.
Calcaterra’s correct in his statement that we shouldn’t know some of this stuff, and for very good reason.
Your weekly moment of soccer zen…
This week’s moment of zen is brought to you by Will Gibson. He sent me this link and it was too good not to be the selection this week.
No music link because of a really rough singer…
I’ve been in a bit of a time machine listening to music lately. The album that I’ve been obsessed with almost like it was new is from 2002. I really wanted to link to a recent live performance of the song as the band is still active, but the singer is so sloppy, flat and bad live that I couldn’t find a good performance to put here. I find that horribly disappointing when a band fails miserably live like that, especially with regard to a vocal performance.
If you can’t do it live, or at least a good approximation of it live, then you shouldn’t put it on your album really. Certainly not as a lead vocal. I’m annoyed just writing this. If anyone can guess which band it is, I’ll give out a prize.
(NOTE: People who are Facebook friends of mine and have access to my Spotify feed are excluded.)
That’s it from me folks. Have a great weekend.
48 Comments
The baseball discussion around here really has been great. The game itself, for me, will always be great. But there’s still so much room to improve it in meaningful ways. For the record, electronic strike zones seem inevitable given time. Of course, I’ve been saying that about the DH becoming standard for quite some time now, so…
The soccer player in me has always preferred providing a great set-up for a goal, the kind where the scorer actually does very little, above all else. I could watch this highlight all day.
And I’m not often one to jump in on the music topics (always curious what folks have to say, but few things are more subjective), and it’s not a guess on the offending artist in question, but more about listening to a “not new” album a lot recently: Middle Brother. They only released one album together (back in 2011) but it is a great one, start to finish. I may have thrown this up at some point here before, and they may have been talked about around here already, but here’s a cool version of my favorite work of theirs, “Million Dollar Bill” (by the way, the album has some great upbeat stuff too (“Me, Me, Me”), but I tend to like some melancholy).
http://youtu.be/HE04t59uRY0
I have no problem with baseball the way it is because, tedious as it may be, it is part of the strategy of the game. One thing that does bother me is the amount of commercial breaks there are in pro football. It’s almost unwatchable. Of course The Browns don’t help anything with… uh, well anything.
Electronic strike zones?! No. No. NO. NO! If we do that, we’ll lose stuff like this:
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view7/3563917/phil-wellman-s-war-flashbaack-o.gif
The worst part about that with football is that is has significantly hurt the stadium experience, in my opinion. I’d much rather watch on tv and be able to flip to another channel than to be at the game and be sitting/standing around watching players and refs stand around. In baseball, you don’t notice the down time as much in person because it’s just sort of always been that way, and the game pace is slower by nature.
Plus all the Browns TO and 3&out leads to more commercials
was good technique and placement, although I would not condone pulling the pin with ones teeth. He could get his butt down a little more too
Also, good use of the only available terrain feature, but then he skylines himself far too long. Chuck and duck! That ump is dead, though. No way around that.
we wouldn’t know, but quick touchdowns lead to the most commercials.
touchdown, commercial for review, extra point, commercial, kickoff, commercial
Thanks Craig. Greatly appreciate you continuing the discussion and I agree that these are just tweaks that would make the game more enjoyable.
Can you give us any more hints about the band that sucks live? I want to say The Strokes, but I think their debut was in 2001
That wasn’t about the strike zone, but about the third base umpire making supposedly inappropriate comments to some players.
Oh, whatever. I knew someone would jump in and correct me with the “facts.” There’s just no reward for comedy anymore.
I don’t get this argument. There are so many ways to speed up the game without hurting game. And I don’t see what the thirty seconds of wasted time after coming back from commercial breaks has to do with strategy. And I also don’t see how readjusting your batting gloves between every pitch plays into strategy either. That’s what I like about these new changes MLB are requiring. They should speed up the game without any noticeable effect on play. Finally, I think it’s worth pointing out that long, long baseball games are not intrinsically part of the game.
http://media.swingleydev.com/img/blog/2013/04/game_time_by_year.png
You know we do our homework here.
wait a moment here. he covered home plate in dirt, then drew out the larger strike zone that he thinks the umpire was calling for the other team first. The final straw on the camel’s back may not have been the strike zone, but several of them were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf9E1zhnFec
I’m just reporting what I’ve read.
http://www.stry.us/stories/the-fake-grenade-toss-heard-round-the-world/
Datamining nerds.
Brandon Marshall to Jets.
Uh oh. We’ve got a battle of the facts. Watch out, here’s where the lawyers start getting involved.
that is why I have you on retainer.
http://www.gifbin.com/bin/012013/1380579838_kitten_gets_slapped_by_cat_and_falls_down_the_stairs.gif
Without all the commercials, how would I know what beer to drink?
You know you have to pay for that, right? That’s the whole point of a retainer. And I haven’t seen a check from you in WEEKS.
I call the big one Data and the little one Garry.
We still have ALL the cap space! WIN!
Not The Strokes. Think emo.
So MLB is again going after a player with a bad contract for his team, seemingly planning to suspend him outside the the terms agreed to in the CBA and JDA. At what point do the fans wise up and realize this is a moneygrab as much as anything else? Or are we never going to care because we always side with the billionaires over the millionaires?
One thing I’ve become aware of is how often NFL players entering free agency (or a general contract dispute of some sort) invariably end up having negative stories written about them. Colts want to void Trent Richardson’s contract? Article about how lazy and out of shape he is. Dez Bryant might be a free agent? Here are some completely unsubstantiated rumors about how he’s worse than Ray Rice.
Granted, all of this stuff might be true, but it’s interesting how it never was reported until it could help save their team millions or significant lower the salary of the player.
My final Answer will be Taking Back Sunday.
My pet theory is that A-Rod is actually a sleeper agent for the owners. They made a backroom deal wherein A-Rod acts like such a tool that the public, players, and even the MLBPA end up hating him so much that they’re all okay with the owners completely ignoring the CBA and JDA just to teach A-Rod a lesson. A-Rod was a time bomb of douchiness planted to blow up the union.
Oh. I thought the little one’s name was “Joy,” and the big one’s, “Killer.”
Garry Joy and Killer Data? That still works.
We see those but usually a swear word mixed in
When batters adjust their gloves in between pitches they are not just wasting time. They are going over what they just saw and how that relates to what they might expect next. People may find it tedious and I can understand that but it is part of the strategy of the game. I think the speed of the game slowing down over time has to do with the natural evolution of the game becoming more complex. And when I say “complex” I mean in relation to business and U$D’s.
I really don’t care if they speed up the game. It just doesn’t bother me all that much the way it is.
Commercial breaks in football however, have nothing to do with the game and only help to make an already misinformed public that much more so.
I’m talking about hitters who have ridiculously long pre-pitch rituals (for EVERY pitch). The new rules don’t disallow for thinking about what they just saw. They just limit the time to do so.
Yes, it does have a lot to do with business. That’s probably one of the major reasons the game has gotten longer (along with the ever growing number of relievers used in a game). And this current push to reduce the time has everything to do with business.
I’m rather agnostic about the time of the game for me personally, but I think baseball should do everything it can to remain relevant. And I think a big part of that means games that are shorter and easier for viewers to consume.
http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/RTd/ppg/RTdppgqT9.gif
and, if a pitcher wants to use an Oregon-style pace to counter that batter’s tactic, then they should be allowed to as part of their strategy to the game.
caps lock must be stuck on.
wasn’t Steve talking Hamilton?
Great call on Middle Brother. You should also check out Diamond Rugs. It’s John (from Deer Tick and Middle Brother) along with his guitarist from DT, a dude from the Black Lips, a guy from Los Lobos and several others. Great stuff and they’re on tour all spring. Here’s a new one of theirs:
Craig…is it Death Cab?
I’m always intrigued by a good consipracy theory. But that’s a bit too tin-foily even for me.
Rodriguez is another player that fits the bill of MLB going outside the previously agreed upon rules to take money from.
No. I like their live performances quite a bit.
Ding.
Yes. But A-Rod was the first. And I think if it was any other player, the MLBPA and its constituency would have ardently advocated on his behalf. Since everyone hates A-Rod, they basically let MLB trample all over the agreements they had agreed to which set a dangerous precedent.
Call me in 2030 when A-Rod becomes commissioner of baseball. (I so want to live in that future!)
Well, you have my attention. Best, most humorous string of comments of 2015 thus far IMO.