9outof10mms
Enginerding, good coffee, and factual opinions.
2A Bourbon Hound 2024
Supporting Member
Multi-Factor Enabled
I know there are a few others here that enjoy MLB. I’ve got few other places to vent or otherwise express my factual opinions, so let’s fire up a baseball thread.
I’ll start with a couple juicy ones:
1. The Braves are setting us up for a typical choke season. With Fried performing oddly crappy, Sale being ho-hum so far, and Strider out for the season, their rotation is shot. The incredible offense can only do so much. Saturday’s comeback game versus the DBacks used a lot of magic juice that I doubt will be there all season for them.
2. This scapegoat hunt for the reason pitchers are blowing their arms out at a seemingly higher rate—I can tell you what it’s not: the pitch clock. That has zero effect on their arms. Nada. Zilch. That’s a fricken witch hunt that is hiding the real reason that no one will talk about: pitchers are pushed way too hard way too early nowadays.
Where do I get this factual opinion from? Glad you asked!
I’ve been relatively away from real hardball baseball for about 20 years. Since graduating high school and not going anywhere with baseball, I wandered away. I never really liked watching the game as much as playing. Fast forward to recent years and I’ve got two boys that have enjoyed playing, and who are now enjoying following MLB to a healthy and entertaining degree. This has brought me back to the pros, too. Add to this me observing kids at the middle school and high school levels throwing incredibly hard. Way harder than they threw when I played—and I come from the land of Flori-duh where we had an arguably higher level of play than most of the country during the 90’s.
If there was a kid throwing upper 80’s and 90’s, they were the talk of the town. Now, it’s darn near commonplace. In fact, it almost seems like they’re letting a kid with physical disabilities throw when one gets on the mound and doesn’t bring some sizzle and pop to the glove.
Nearly all of the guidance and “coaching” I’ve seen is stressing speed speed speed. Or as the cool kids like to call it now: velo. There is very little emphasis on throwing three pitches for a strike or on hitting locations. Hell, there’s a kid on my son’s high school team THAT DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO THROW A CHANGEUP!!!
Don’t even get me started on curveballs being thrown too early and too often.
I can only imagine this push for land speed records continues and likely becomes exponential after high school.
If, and that’s a big IF, the pitcher makes it to the Show, they’ve used a lot of the available “mileage” in their arm. This ugly truth has been hiding in the closet due to pitchers not being given a chance to go more than 5 innings or more than two cycles through the order. It’s kept some mileage off of their arms. But I think the bounty is coming due and we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve not heard any of the talking heads offer this idea for pondering. All I’ve seen is slight murmurs of the pitch clock rushing pitchers which is hurting their arm, turn into the leading scapegoat as of todays news cycle.
I’m a 90% baseball purist. Leave the secret sauce alone—it’s worked for 100+ years. I don’t like the pitch clock at first, but I gotta say it’s worked better than I’d thought. I heard average MLB game times were down 20-30 minutes last year. That’s huge when you consider that at the MLB level, it is equally about the game as it is the “show.” The fans need to stay engaged or the game will die. So the clock combined with the pickoff attempts and slightly larger bases has added excitement.
We can discuss the (de)merits of other changes (in place and proposed) later on…
I’ll start with a couple juicy ones:
1. The Braves are setting us up for a typical choke season. With Fried performing oddly crappy, Sale being ho-hum so far, and Strider out for the season, their rotation is shot. The incredible offense can only do so much. Saturday’s comeback game versus the DBacks used a lot of magic juice that I doubt will be there all season for them.
2. This scapegoat hunt for the reason pitchers are blowing their arms out at a seemingly higher rate—I can tell you what it’s not: the pitch clock. That has zero effect on their arms. Nada. Zilch. That’s a fricken witch hunt that is hiding the real reason that no one will talk about: pitchers are pushed way too hard way too early nowadays.
Where do I get this factual opinion from? Glad you asked!
I’ve been relatively away from real hardball baseball for about 20 years. Since graduating high school and not going anywhere with baseball, I wandered away. I never really liked watching the game as much as playing. Fast forward to recent years and I’ve got two boys that have enjoyed playing, and who are now enjoying following MLB to a healthy and entertaining degree. This has brought me back to the pros, too. Add to this me observing kids at the middle school and high school levels throwing incredibly hard. Way harder than they threw when I played—and I come from the land of Flori-duh where we had an arguably higher level of play than most of the country during the 90’s.
If there was a kid throwing upper 80’s and 90’s, they were the talk of the town. Now, it’s darn near commonplace. In fact, it almost seems like they’re letting a kid with physical disabilities throw when one gets on the mound and doesn’t bring some sizzle and pop to the glove.
Nearly all of the guidance and “coaching” I’ve seen is stressing speed speed speed. Or as the cool kids like to call it now: velo. There is very little emphasis on throwing three pitches for a strike or on hitting locations. Hell, there’s a kid on my son’s high school team THAT DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO THROW A CHANGEUP!!!
Don’t even get me started on curveballs being thrown too early and too often.
I can only imagine this push for land speed records continues and likely becomes exponential after high school.
If, and that’s a big IF, the pitcher makes it to the Show, they’ve used a lot of the available “mileage” in their arm. This ugly truth has been hiding in the closet due to pitchers not being given a chance to go more than 5 innings or more than two cycles through the order. It’s kept some mileage off of their arms. But I think the bounty is coming due and we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve not heard any of the talking heads offer this idea for pondering. All I’ve seen is slight murmurs of the pitch clock rushing pitchers which is hurting their arm, turn into the leading scapegoat as of todays news cycle.
I’m a 90% baseball purist. Leave the secret sauce alone—it’s worked for 100+ years. I don’t like the pitch clock at first, but I gotta say it’s worked better than I’d thought. I heard average MLB game times were down 20-30 minutes last year. That’s huge when you consider that at the MLB level, it is equally about the game as it is the “show.” The fans need to stay engaged or the game will die. So the clock combined with the pickoff attempts and slightly larger bases has added excitement.
We can discuss the (de)merits of other changes (in place and proposed) later on…
