MLB 2024

[Michelle Branch]

Personally, I'm leaning towards #5. 

Note: don't dig through the replies unless you want hot takes about how Greg Maddux would be hot garbage in today's game.

[gunnar hendershow]

The rash of UCL injuries has a lot of reasons and I think all those reasons are valid for some of them.

There isn't a fix really, if guys threw more slowly and with more "finesse" it wouldn't matter. Today hitters are at the ball faster and hit it with higher speed off the bat because they're all trained to do so from a young age. Pitchers are playing their game of catch-up and it unfortunately involves pitching in a way that will assure a lot get injured. The human arm isn't going to evolve to where pitchers can be spared from TJ. It's hitting relief pitchers too, it's not some matter of too many innings.

You do try to mitigate it by giving pitchers things like sticky stuff back. That will certainly spare some.

[Gabriel]

Replace all pitchers with robots that are programmed to throw every type of pitch, who never miss the strike zone. Saves pitcher arms, speeds up the game, brings in robots. How could we go wrong?

[Michelle Branch]

49 minutes ago, Gabriel said:

Replace all pitchers with robots that are programmed to throw every type of pitch, who never miss the strike zone. Saves pitcher arms, speeds up the game, brings in robots. How could we go wrong?

Liner back to the mound, breaks robot, unlocks MULTIBALL!

[Gabriel]

10 minutes ago, Michelle Branch said:

Liner back to the mound, breaks robot, unlocks MULTIBALL!

Ooh, yeah. I like the idea of multi-ball. Five pitches in rapid fire sequence. Any dingers count, the batter runs after the last pitch.

[Krabby]

1 minute ago, Gabriel said:

Ooh, yeah. I like the idea of multi-ball. Five pitches in rapid fire sequence. Any dingers count, the batter runs after the last pitch.

Bonus runs if you hit them into hoops beyond the fence - Pinbaseketbal

[JasonM]

21 hours ago, gunnar hendershow said:

You do try to mitigate it by giving pitchers things like sticky stuff back. That will certainly spare some.

Human/athlete nature never works like that.

Bringing sticky stuff back will only mean they'll be throwing as hard as they already are, except with sticky stuff. It won't make athletes police their own velocity, because in the end every single advantage is one you want to have against the batter, or just generally to make it in the majors.

Honestly there's no real solution to the issue, other than maybe looking at the actual mechanics and starting to limit certain pitching motions. But even if you'd limit pitchers to only throwing underhand like in softball, they'd find a way to fuck up their elbows by finding the absolute physical limits there.

In the end it's all self-destructive, and no pitcher is going to jeopardise their careers by holding back, no team is going to jeopardise their winning by telling pitchers to tone it down. Only way you can ultimately fix the issue is if the league(s) finds ways to outlaw certain things so that they can't physically do them.

At the same time it starts in the youth, there's a lot of toxic parents who are telling their 14yo kid to throw curveballs to get an advantage even with proof that teaching breaking balls shouldn't be done until they reach physical maturity, but nobody wants to wait because it'll just create a disadvantage vs. the people that go against the wisdom to do it anyways.

Sadly, there's no real solution for these issues, in the end it's just (self-)destructive human nature working against us

[Maxx]

1 hour ago, Gabriel said:

Replace all pitchers with robots that are programmed to throw every type of pitch, who never miss the strike zone. Saves pitcher arms, speeds up the game, brings in robots. How could we go wrong?

I have already seen your bold vision of the future, and have been eagerly awaiting the day it becomes reality for decades now
 

 

[Your Mom]

I would buy season tickets for Base Wars the second they went on sale

[ThrillhouseMAX]

 

Mets' city connect jerseys will *probably* be purple like the 7 line train that runs to the stadium.

 

[Meacon Keaton]

Uncle Stevie can't buy them a ring, so he's getting them pretty new outfits. 

[The Buscher]

Mets DFA Julio Teheran just days after signing him to a $2.5 million contract.

Without context it just sounds funny and like Cohen really doesn't mind setting money on fire even more than people thought.

Pretty sure this was always the plan though.  The guy the Mets wanted to be the 5th starter once Megill got hurt was unable to pitch the game they needed him to because he both wasn't lined up to pitch it and not enough time had passed since he was optioned to AAA before the season.

So they sign Teheran, he pitches 2.2 innings against Atlanta and looked bad but he got them as far as he could while he ramps his own workload, then DFA.  If someone claims him they have to take his contract they probably won't care but know it's very unlikely.  So in all probability they've just paid a big league salary to him to go to Syracuse as emergency depth which they'll likely need as pitching injuries have already piled up early in the year.

[Lowerdeck]

It's Boston's home opener today, and it already feels like the wheels are falling off.  7-3 west coast trip is nice.  But then...

 

- lame duck manager

- only one major FA signing, who is out for the year after TJ

- starting SS, who was brittle to begin with, now out for the year

- #2 starter on the IL with elbow problems

- Terry Francona has a spat with ownership, and skips the 2004 WS 20th anniversary.

- Ownership has largely checked out, funneling money to other investments.

[Meacon Keaton]

Jackson Holiday, #1 Prospect in baseball, is getting promoted to the Show.

[Your Mom]

1 hour ago, Meacon Keaton said:

Jackson Holiday, #1 Prospect in baseball, is getting promoted to the Show.

 

[gunnar hendershow]

I thought that maybe they'd hold off a little while longer but it's definitely time. He can't learn anything else in AAA.

[Your Mom]

 

[Michelle Branch]

 

[Toe]

Inside the meetings that officially moved the A's from Oakland to Sacramento - ESPN

[gunnar hendershow]

And Holliday's debut winds up a memorable game as the Orioles come back from down 5-0 late to win. Terrible umpiring in this one, just some wildly missed strikes and balls.