batting Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Baseballs really went from sticky to slippery in less than a year
Today is the one-year anniversary of MLB’s ban on sticky substances. In that time, we’ve seen a massive decrease in spin rate, a few suspensions, plus a striptease or two from Max Scherzer and company. Even most fans seemed to like the change. Yes sir, everything was going according to plan for Rob ...
Y’see, this is the problem
Most of the discussion about baseball this year has been about the baseball itself, or the lack of runs being scored. Rob Mains at BP expertly broke down just how big the offense problem in MLB these days, when you pull it out from under the shield of extra innings/Manfred Man. These discussions lea...
Anthony Rizzo’s season has made absolutely zero sense
The New York Yankees are a good baseball team. Contrary to what any rational baseball fan wants to believe, the Yankees are currently leading the AL East and are top-5 in MLB in average, OPS, and home runs. They are a great team, and a big part of their offensive prowess in 2022 has been first basem...
Robo umps can’t get here soon enough as unhinged humans remind sports fans that baseball still has worst officials
The MLB’s umpires are really milking their last few minutes of relevance, and in the process aren’t doing themselves any favors in the argument against robot umpires taking their jobs. No, Triple A isn’t testing out a robo-ump at the moment, but maybe they should be because what happened to Madison ...
How much thin air is in the 10-5 Rockies?
See? It’s an altitude joke! Because they play in Denver, see? Pretty genius, huh? I know, I’m great. Yes, it is a burden, but one I carry for you. Because you deserve it....
The baseball is deflated again
I’m cribbing heavily from Joe Sheehan’s newsletter again, but in his latest missive he points out that things keep getting better and better for pitchers. Thanks to technology and greater study, they discover new pitches or tweaks to existing ones as they keep throwing harder and harder. At the same...
Baseball is back, but the DH is everywhere, and that’s awful
There’s only one bad thing about the MLB lockout being over: The game is changing forever....
Devil’s Advocate: Banning the shift shows that MLB is moving in the right direction
I’ve never had too strong an opinion on whether or not Major League Baseball should ban the shift....
Singles were already available
Negotiations in MLB didn’t really get any better yesterday. There was buzz that the players gave up even more in their quest to get the luxury tax threshold raised, even though they still haven’t really asked for any guarantee that more than a few teams would even approach it. This was met with mor...
Help wanted: Bullpen catcher
Being a Major League catcher is tough. Not only do you have to squat in an uncomfortable position for over an hour everyday for six months while wearing big, heavy pads (the tools of ignorance) in the middle of summer, but you also need to be knowledgeable of your pitching staff and opponents so as ...
You’ve got a lot of balls, MLB
As long as you’ve known baseball, it’s been four balls for a walk, but it wasn’t always that way. Today is the 133rd anniversary of the Joint Rules Committee taking away 20% of pitchers’ margin for error, reducing the number of balls for a walk from five to four....
Joey Gallo is this generation’s Adam Dunn
Nothing against him, but New York Yankees outfielder Joey Gallo is irrelevant in Major League Baseball right this second. His team isn’t in the playoffs. He’s never played for any of the teams involved in either Championship Series. He’s at home watching the games from his couch, the same as you and...
Robot umpires would destroy the beauty of the catcher position
2022 will be longtime St. Louis Cardinals’ backstop Yadier Molina’s final season. When Yadi finally calls it quits, he will leave an incredible legacy behind — one of defensive prowess, solid offense, and fear being struck into the hearts of baserunners everywhere....
This was your human element moment
I’m not here to claim that anyone should feel sorry for the Tampa Bay Rays. While MLB would love to position them as the plucky underdog, what they really are is the model that almost every team owner has pointed to while yelling at their front office saying, “Why can’t we win that cheaply?!” while ...
This Juan Soto hot streak is way, way, <i>way</i> better than you realize
Shohei Ohtani is the best player in baseball. Mike Trout is the best pure position player in baseball. Juan Soto is the best hitter in baseball, and as much as I love Mike Trout… he’s not close. Juan Soto is doing something Trout has never done. In Juan Soto’s last 40 games, he has an OPS of 1.253 a...
Step into the batters’ box against this guy… if you dare!
Would you step up to the plate in a Major League game if you knew there was a 10 percent chance you were about to get hit by one of the pitches? Maybe you’d put a foot in the box and stand in the corner and hope the pitcher had enough control this time, but every time that pitcher started his windup...
Why don’t more players bunt against the shift?
This era of Major League Baseball can be defined by a multitude of things: the increased usage of analytics, or perhaps the enormous surge in both home runs and strikeouts. However this era eventually gets defined, one thing is for certain, the bunt is a thing of the past....
Offense is way up since MLB’s ‘sticky stuff’ crackdown
It’s officially been one month since Major League Baseball implemented their guidelines forcing umpires to check starting pitchers for illegal foreign substances. Sure, the All-Star break cost us a few days worth of data points, but in general, we have seen more than enough games, analyzed the spin ...
I for one don’t welcome our crappy new robot umpire masters
Do you remember the part in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark was in court and the United States government was essentially trying to take the Iron Man technology for themselves and their argument was that other countries were developing the same technology, then Stark hacked the monitors and showed a vid...
The HR Derby field is set so who’s going to take the crown?
Yesterday, the bracket for the 2021 Home Run Derby at Coors Field (the field Home Run Derbies were made for) was filled out when Washington’s young superstar Juan Soto and Texas Rangers slugger Joey Gallo announced that they’d be competing in the annual slugfest....