DrungoHazewood

I think it's less tying hands and more of pushing the innovation and strategy back to the offense. Used to be that a manager could really do some, well... managing, to get an advantage. Earl was wonderful at this. Start Mark Belanger at short, and if you're losing in the 6th you pinch hit, then defensive sub, then pinch hit, then defensive sub. You could pinch run regularly. You could have Jim Dwyer play seven or eight innings in RF, then you'd always have a better outfield glove in reserve for the 9th. You could platoon at four positions. Today there is little of that. All the strategy has been consumed by the need for five or six relievers a game. When you have 13 pitchers and 12 position players, as often happens, you really have a bench of a utility infielder, a 4th outfielder, and a backup catcher. That's it. There's no proactive strategy on offense when your backups' primary role is to be there in case someone at one of four different positions turns an ankle, not to hit .330 against lefties.

Instead of moving the extra point back, the NFL should have done two other things: Make whoever scored the TD kick the point after, and place the point after try from the same distance from the sideline that the TD crossed the line. If the guy dove for the pylon, he's kicking the try from almost on the sideline.

I wouldn't, because offensive substitutes don't interrupt the flow of the game. Every in-inning pitching change is the equivalent of a three- or four-minute timeout.

Also, the main impact of a 26-man roster with no other changes would be that most teams would carry 14 pitchers.

Last year the average MLB pitcher hit .119 with a .293 OPS. They were as far from Chris Davis as Chris Davis was from Mike Moustakas.

I'm a fan of re-aligning into regional leagues of 8-12 teams each. You play almost all or even all of the schedule in your regional league. You never play a regular season game more than one time zone away, and the whole league plays exactly the same schedule. You go back to the playoffs and All Star game being your chance to see the guys in the other leagues.

That was the first NL pitcher. There's some dispute about whether to call the 1871-75 National Association a major league, but if you do multiple pitchers homered in that league. And if you don't use the "major league" qualifier I'm sure pitchers hit homers in 1840s and before, including Jim Creighton who died after rupturing an internal organ while completing a mighty home run swing in (IIRC) 1861.

Could you imagne the crying from the NL purists if they eliminated Stephen Strasburg OPSing .391? It would be like you took away Christmas and their birthday. Let them have a #9 hitter who makes Chris Davis look like Wee Willie Keeler, just so long as that doesn't infect the AL.

I think that the three batter rule is okay. But I'd rather they just reduce the number of pitchers allowed on the roster (over a number of years) to eight or nine. You'd have to structure the rule to avoid cheating, and not allow sending guys down to AAA every three days. But if you could stay to the spirit of the rule you'd both eliminate LOOGYs, and force starters to go longer. Might bring back the four-man rotation. And it would stunt the trend towards 100% max effort pitching, possibly reducing injuries. You'd probably have to unjuice the ball at the same time.

Where? Since 2000 there are five pitchers (min 100 PAs) with a career OPS better than Mark Belanger. Brandon Backe and Brian Bohanan barely cleared the 100 PA minimum. Mike Hampton got most of his ABs in pre-humidor Colorado, and Dontrelle Willis and Carlos Zambrano had .650ish OPSes and 10:1 K:BB ratios. You can round off the number of good hitting pitchers who'd qualify as good at any other position to zero. The DH exists mainly because pitchers hitting are several orders of magnitude worse than any other position hitting. On a scale where 100 is average the 10 positions are something like 112, 109, 107, 102, 100, 99, 97, 92, 89, 28.

I think they should have 12-man rosters. If you're not good enough to pitch and play a position and hit you shouldn't be playing the game.

My #1 complaint about Major League Baseball is that the powers-that-be let blatantly obvious problems fester for years or even decades because they don't want to touch the rules. They treat the rules like they were handed down to Moses on stone tablets, instead of thrown together by guys attempting to invent a viable form of money-making entertainment in the 19th century. They let the game evolve in crazy ways, like nine strikeouts per nine and four-hour games, they do nothing, and their response is "the RFer standing around picking daisies is a feature, not a bug!"

The question could have been worded "The one that intrigued me was Dylan Bundy being given credit for 12 of the Orioles wins by rules more appropriate for 1919... What say you?"

I wonder how much he owes to other people (Boras) out of his annual pay? If he retired and just gave up his $20M a year, I'd bet Boras loses a $1M a year or more per year. There may be other arrangements like that. Obviously Davis has made enough that he should be more than okay for the rest of his life. But you never know just how badly people manage their money, or set up financial arrangements that aren't well considered.

Almost all of these suggestions assume that the problem is one of motivation, approach, and accepting advice. But the most likely case, to me, is that he simply doesn't have the reaction time, pitch recognition, and other abilities to hit major league pitching any more. Telling Chris Davis that he needs to win the job back and ride the bus or he'll be cut is like telling me I'll be fired if I can't run an 11-second 100 yard dash.

Also, looking at Gonzalez' minor league career through 2011 I'd assume he had about a 10% chance of having a major league career of any significance. He only played winter ball in 2008-09 at 24 and 25, and at 26 he was in the Carolina League with a 4.54 ERA. That kind of performance sends you to indy ball more often than the majors. If Hess is Gonzalez with less command he faces very long odds.

Doesn't eveyone have a list of the worst seasons of all time on ready standby? Jackie Gutierrez, 1984. Ray Oyler, '68. Butch Hobson's glove, '78. Bill Bergen, every year. The guy who pitched the Ty Cobb strike game (Allan Travers - had to look it up). Brian Matusz, '11.

Anyone asked if he's talked to Adam Dunn about how he bounced back from 2011? Unfortunately George Scott is dead, so it's hard for him to offer advice about '68. Those are probably the two best comps.

I don't think Daniel Cabrera* ever swung the bat, and he got two walks in 32 MLB plate appearances. That's 40 walks in a full season. Not that many fewer times on base than Davis... * Cabrera's professional batting numbers: 1-for-99, 8 BB, 10 SH, 1 HBP, 90 K. His one hit came with the Chunichi Dragons in Japan. My theory is that he was sacrificing and someone fell down.

So it does appear he's throwing more splitters. But his GB% has only gone up a tiny amount. The primary driver for his better ERA is that .252 BABIP. Low BABIP coupled with low K rate sounds a lot like the bet the O's took on Cashner.

According to Fangraphs he threw 22% splitters with the O's, 19% with the Braves. How does getting more runs make up for the fact you allow a #3-4 starter level of runs (4.14) per game?

113 National League pitchers have made five or more starts this year. Gausman is 107th in K/9, at 5.8. He has a 3.88 FIP, and a 4.38 xFIP. His walk rate is higher than it was in Baltimore. And his BABIP is 58 points lower than his career mark. All of that points to an nice little 8-start run where he's seen a lot of balls hit at his fielders and that's making up for a disconcertingly low strikeout rate. But if you want to dabble in the dark arts and assume the ghost of Leo Mazzone has enabled some pitching to contact wizardry that's fine, too.

The record may be true, but the context matters quite a bit. DeGrom has allowed three run in seven or fewer innings four times, and has been pulled from a game after six innings 10 times. Cole appears to have had 18 complete games during his run, although he was also pulled in a start where he allowed two runs in two innings. Of course DeGrom also has the (dis)advantage of not facing lineups comprised mostly of undernourished 5' 9" guys with an .080 ISO slowly swinging 40-ounce hickory.

AB/SO, all time, qualified for batting title. Includes only years where batter strikeouts available, although that doesn't matter because the years they weren't were a long time ago when nobody struck out nearly as much as they do today. Rk Player AB/SO SO Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos 1 Joey Gallo 2.2908 196 2017 23 TEX AL 145 532 449 85 94 18 3 41 80 75 1 8 0 0 3 7 2 .209 .333 .537 .869 537/HD 2 Chris Davis 2.3385 195 2017 31 BAL AL 128 524 456 65 98 15 1 26 61 61 4 3 0 4 7 1 1 .215 .309 .423 .732 *3/D5 3 Mark Reynolds 2.3649 211 2010 26 ARI NL 145 596 499 79 99 17 2 32 85 83 7 9 0 5 8 7 4 .198 .320 .433 .753 *5/3H 4 Chris Carter 2.3868 212 2013 26 HOU AL 148 585 506 64 113 24 2 29 82 70 1 4 0 5 8 2 0 .223 .320 .451 .770 37D/H9 5 Jack Cust 2.4085 164 2007 28 OAK AL 124 507 395 61 101 18 1 26 82 105 2 1 0 6 6 0 2 .256 .408 .504 .912 D97/H 6 Adam Dunn 2.4279 222 2012 32 CHW AL 151 649 539 87 110 19 0 41 96 105 3 1 0 4 8 2 1 .204 .333 .468 .800 *D3/7H 7 Jack Cust 2.4416 197 2008 29 OAK AL 148 598 481 77 111 19 0 33 77 111 3 2 0 4 7 0 0 .231 .375 .476 .851 *7D/H9 8 Chris Davis 2.4438 160 2018 32 BAL AL 107 436 391 35 66 10 0 16 44 35 2 6 0 4 5 2 0 .169 .245 .317 .563 *3/DH 9 Joey Gallo 2.4793 169 2018 24 TEX AL 122 488 419 72 89 20 1 34 78 66 4 3 0 0 3 3 4 .212 .324 .508 .832 *739/H8D 10 Rob Deer 2.5484 186 1987 26 MIL AL 134 566 474 71 113 15 2 28 80 86 6 5 0 1 4 12 4 .238 .360 .456 .816 *793/DH

Lowest OBP, modern Oriole history, min 300 PA: Rk Player OBP PA Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA SLG OPS Pos 1 Mark Belanger .236 313 1972 28 BAL AL 113 285 36 53 9 1 2 16 18 1 53 2 4 4 3 6 3 .186 .246 .482 *6H 2 Jonathan Schoop .244 481 2014 22 BAL AL 137 455 48 95 18 0 16 45 13 0 122 8 5 0 12 2 0 .209 .354 .598 *45/H 3 Chris Davis .245 436 2018 32 BAL AL 107 391 35 66 10 0 16 44 35 2 160 6 0 4 5 2 0 .169 .317 .563 *3/DH 4 Paul Blair .245 413 1976 32 BAL AL 145 375 29 74 16 0 3 16 22 2 49 2 13 1 14 15 6 .197 .264 .509 *8H 5 Dave Duncan .245 326 1975 29 BAL AL 96 307 30 63 7 0 12 41 16 0 82 1 0 2 8 0 0 .205 .345 .591 *2/H 6 Jerry Adair .246 401 1963 26 BAL AL 109 382 34 87 21 3 6 30 9 2 51 2 3 5 17 3 3 .228 .346 .592 *4/H 7 John Shelby .248 415 1984 26 BAL AL 128 383 44 80 12 5 6 30 20 0 71 0 12 0 4 12 4 .209 .313 .561 *8H/9 8 Willy Miranda .249 349 1957 31 BAL AL 115 314 29 61 3 0 0 20 24 2 42 0 8 3 5 2 1 .194 .204 .453 *6/H 9 Dick Williams .251 340 1961 32 BAL AL 103 310 37 64 15 2 8 24 20 0 38 0 5 5 7 0 4 .206 .345 .596 *7H3/859 10 J.J. Hardy .253 437 2015 32 BAL AL 114 411 45 90 14 0 8 37 20 0 88 0 2 4 11 0 0 .219 .311 .564 *6