DrungoHazewood

My rule is to put 0% stock in all spring numbers unless the player is hurt or very clearly, obviously has changed his basic approach from the past. The latter is exceptionally rare.

Nice. On my machine it's just the spinning "nothing happening" indication. Will fix.

1989 Orioles starting lineups. They (Anderson, Finley, Devereaux) actually never started a game together in 1989. Mainly because Phil Bradley started 138 games in left. Finley was the only one of the three to start in left at all, and that was just three games. It would be more challenging to go through box scores and see if they played together later in games after subs.

Team? Hopefully not. But fans and media are are more than willing to extrapolate enshrinement into Cooperstown or banishment to local softball leagues based on 2 1/3 innings.

Hand-cranked 8mm film. You'd just have to have a short delay with runners taking the film canisters off site, develop them, digitize them, and sending the resulting Zapruder film version of the game out to the world. There could be commercials, just inserted later, so the game really would/could go faster. Just thought of this... you'd have to put a big Faraday cage around the whole stadium to keep ne'er do wells and their cell phones from violating the ban without resorting to pat-downs of everyone coming in the gate.

They could ban the use of electricity in MLB ballparks. You'd have to make a few minor changes, like no more night games, gaslights in the bathrooms, clubhouses and suites, all hand-operated scoreboards, scores would be relayed off-site by carrier pigeons, and the PA guy would have to yell into a big cone. But that makes it a lot harder to cheat. Plus, it gets the sport back to its supposedly more innocent, pristine roots.

There is some weak correlation between a massive spike in spring power and carry-over into the season. So if you have a guy who hit four homers in 500 PAs last year, but hits 11 homers in the spring that's something you might pay attention to.

Just a button with a wireless transmitter. Pitcher has an ear piece. One beep fastball, two curve, etc. Ifyou think it's too easy to see the catcher and count the times he's pushing a buttons, give him two or three buttons and the combinations would cover multiple pitches. Very simple, easy to implement solution that could even be encrypted without too much fuss.

The Orioles would probably find this in bad taste and not do it, but someone should totally give out small team logo trashcans to the first 10,000 fans on a day where the Astros are in town. You know an indy league team would do it. The Saint Paul Saints are probably already setting up Astros-themed trash can night.

They're people. Some good, a few are truly admirable, some not so good, some downright despicable. And many or even most will go along with the other guys banging on a trash can because in the moment maybe it doesn't seem so bad, we all try to peek at the signs when we're on second base, right?

They could put a large video board somewhere behind the plate with instructions and positioning for the defensive team. If someone from the offensive team looks at it that's cheating and they're banned for life.

But then the hitters might catch on to defensive positioning that changes according to the pitch and they'd know what's coming so you'd have to make it illegal to look at the fielders from the batter's box. Perhaps you make batters wear VR goggles that erase the fielders from the hitter's vision. Edit: that just flipped a switch and I've come up with the new innovation. When the defense is not in an extreme shift, don't move anyone from standard positioning until the pitcher is in the windup. As the pitcher starts his motion you have the fielders sprint to the optimal spots, and low-probability fielders (like the 3B for a lefty batter) sprints a random direction. Just to mess with the hitter, throw him off, get him thinking, mess up his field of vision.

But then things would be different and weird. And there would be the inevitable transition period where the sports talking heads would rip the game to shreds for not being exactly like when they were in high school. That would last two or three weeks before the next distraction pops up, and cost the game dollars in revenue. So no, much better to stick with one finger a fastball, two a curve, than slightly modify a rule and invest a few hundred dollars in a mic and an earpiece for the catcher and pitcher.

I thought he had more in common with Cesar Izturis. But it's spring training, so why not? JJ it is.

Yea, the only spring numbers we should pay attention to are the bad ones.

Headline: "Tragically Yanks may have to dip into 5% of their reserves to keep their expected win total over 100"

Besides major injuries, nothing will happen until about May 15th that will meaningfully add to our knowledge of baseball.

... and we have the first example of confirmation bias 22 seconds into spring training!

That was the era when I had a BaySox partial season plan and saw all those guys pitch multiple times. But I was a bigger fan of Harry Berrios, although looking at his numbers I'm not sure why. The only time he ever hit in the O's system was '94 split between Albany and Frederick. They also had Howie Clark, the mythical Willis Otanez, Dave Dellucci, Danny Clyburn, Calvin Maduro, Eugene Kingsale, Augie Ojeda.

I definitely remember Rick Forney. For a while the Winnipeg Goldeyes were something of a landing spot for former Oriole farmhands. Forney pitched for them for four years. Harry Berrios later played about four years as one of their best hitters. Chip Alley was there for a while. And George Sherrill wasn't drafted but pitched a couple years in the Frontier League, then a couple in Winnipeg, before signing with the Mariners' org.

The year after George Sherrill left the O's (2010) he had a .573 OPS against lefties, a 1.223 against righties. Pitched two more years in the majors. In 2006 Eddie Guardado had a 1.029 against righties, and a .640 against lefties. He pitched another three years. Remember Mike Myers? In 1996 righties OPS'd .911 off of him and he led the league in games pitched. In '97 he again led the league in games pitched with righties OPSing .957 off of him. He was still pitching in 2007. This is the reason for the three-batter rule. For 30+ years we've had the baseball equivalent of a kickoff-only kicker. Does one thing kind of well in one circumstance, but nothing else of note.

Usually. But not always.

The conversation went like this: That's the context I was responding in. No mention of which way the bets went, just that they were placed. If you're interested in the '77 Grays scandal some details here. Short summary is they took money to throw games, they blew a big lead in the pennant race, four players were banned for life, and the franchise folded.

I wouldn't. He was still beholden to bookies, and managing the Reds not for their best interest across the season and his players' best interests but instead for Pete Rose' wallet.

Pretty hard to find data because we only know of a few instances. But we can certainly see negative impacts of the 1919 White Sox and the 1877 Louisville team. And it's logically sound to assume betting on your team to win as a manager would cause you to pick short-term strategies that risk negative impacts over the rest of the season. Such as using your closer on short rest, or pinch hitting someone who needs a couple days to rest an injury.