Attendance 2019

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Honestly it may be.  The standards are written with huge tolerances.

I think that's how Ruth may have hit 550-foot homers that seemingly defy physics.  The quality of the balls varied so much that there were some super-bounce balls interspersed with horsehide-covered rocks.

[atomic]

14 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Teams care about revenues way more than quality of 5th starters.  You're proposing cutting 25% off the length of the schedule.  That means increasing ticket, concessions, parking, media, merchandising revenues by 25% per game to keep overall revenues where they are today.  I doubt per-game attendance is going to go up if an average Orioles ticket goes from $30 to $38.  The Yankees' premium seats aren't going to sell any better at another 25% premium.  Advertisers might be a hard sell on paying 25% more for each commercial minute with 25% less time on the air.

Having more rounds of playoffs has a lot of implications.  Increases the revenue gap between playoff and non-playoff teams.  Randomizes outcomes even more - you will eventually get a 16th-best team winning the Series while a 108-win team goes home after the first round.  With 30 teams in the league and 16 playoff teams you will regularly get sub-.500 teams in the playoffs.  And you'll get the NBA/NHL effect, where for 14 teams the season ends in August or early September, while other teams get to play into November. Most fans tune out the season when their team is done, so 2/3rds of baseball fans will have moved on to some other activity by mid-September.

And remember the DH controversy?  The one that still goes on today, nearly 50 years later?  Now think of how people will respond to never having a single-season record ever broken again.  What's Ichiro's hit record, 262?  In a 120-game schedule that works out to 194.  Now a good starter might get 32 starts and 160 innings.  In 120 games that's 24 starts and 120 innings.

Those single season records are boring.  All that stuff with steroids killed the value of anyone setting records anyway.   I didn't even know about Ichiro's hit record. All that tells me is he doesn't walk very often.  Pitchers aren't going to set any win records as the game has changed.  Need to get excitement on the field instead of only caring about old records.  

Now if a guy had a .400 average season that would be exciting as no one has done it in so long. 

[Larry18]

3 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Honestly it may be.  The standards are written with huge tolerances.

Which makes the problem worse, IMO. 

 

 

[atomic]

Looking at Ichiro's 262 hit season.  He finished 7th in the MVP voting that year even though he led the league in WAR.  Just shows you how much people overvalue home runs. 

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think that's how Ruth may have hit 550-foot homers that seemingly defy physics.  The quality of the balls varied so much that there were some super-bounce balls interspersed with horsehide-covered rocks.

I think it is more likely folks were either exaggerating or simply poor at judging distance.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, atomic said:

Those single season records are boring.  All that stuff with steroids killed the value of anyone setting records anyway.   I didn't even know about Ichiro's hit record. All that tells me is he doesn't walk very often.  Pitchers aren't going to set any win records as the game has changed.  Need to get excitement on the field instead of only caring about old records.  

Now if a guy had a .400 average season that would be exciting as no one has done it in so long. 

The records are only boring if no one challenges them.  So doubles and triples are boring, nobody has approached 36 triples in a century, and nobody has gotten anywhere close to Earl Webb's mark in almost as long.  The home run chase was exciting because a long-held record was challenged.  If someone got close to 191 RBI it would be exciting, even if RBI are pretty stupid.  If pitcher use/rules changed and someone made a run at 30 wins it would bring eyeballs to the sport.  If Scherzer or Verlander challenged Ryan's strikeout mark, same thing.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 minutes ago, atomic said:

Looking at Ichiro's 262 hit season.  He finished 7th in the MVP voting that year even though he led the league in WAR.  Just shows you how much people overvalue home runs. 

It's what I said the other day - old school sportswriters always talk about how the little things win games.  But when it comes time to vote for MVP they give it to Juan Gonzalez for stumbling around left field and leading the league in RBI.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think it is more likely folks were either exaggerating or simply poor at judging distance.

I think that was a lot of it.  But there are some reasonably well-documented homers from 100 years ago that don't have a rational explanation if you assume the balls are the same as today.  Mickey Mantle hit that homer off the facade at old Yankee, and the other one at Griffith that nobody in the juiced-person or juiced-ball eras approached. I think the occasional old-time ball was super-juiced just from very poor QA.

[atomic]

13 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The records are only boring if no one challenges them.  So doubles and triples are boring, nobody has approached 36 triples in a century, and nobody has gotten anywhere close to Earl Webb's mark in almost as long.  The home run chase was exciting because a long-held record was challenged.  If someone got close to 191 RBI it would be exciting, even if RBI are pretty stupid.  If pitcher use/rules changed and someone made a run at 30 wins it would bring eyeballs to the sport.  If Scherzer or Verlander challenged Ryan's strikeout mark, same thing.

Yeah I don't think any of those things will happen.  They might draw fans to the game or they might not. I would like to see someone win 30 games but how do guys even get 20 games in a season?  

 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, atomic said:

Yeah I don't think any of those things will happen.  They might draw fans to the game or they might not. I would like to see someone win 30 games but how do guys even get 20 games in a season?  

 

Eduardo Rodriguez is at 19, has a start left and hasn't had that dominant a season.

[atomic]

15 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Eduardo Rodriguez is at 19, has a start left and hasn't had that dominant a season.

Yeah but that is nowhere close to 30.  With pitchers getting 34 starts at most  you would have to absolutely dominant, be on a great run scoring team, have a great bullpen and have incredible luck.  

Dennis Mclean had 41 starts and also had 28 complete games. 

The year Bob Welch won 27 games he didn't really lose any games he should have won.  He had an incredible bullpen pitching behind him and his team lead the league in OPS +.  He also managed to get 35 starts.  His team had 9.9 DWAR.

So I guess it is doable. You just need a team that scores a ton of runs, incredible bullpen, great defense, pitcher friendly park, and not have a bad game all season while getting a ton of starts.   

 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, atomic said:

Yeah but that is nowhere close to 30.  With pitchers getting 34 starts at most  you would have to absolutely dominant, be on a great run scoring team, have a great bullpen and have incredible luck.  

Dennis Mclean had 41 starts and also had 28 complete games. 

The year Bob Welch won 27 games he didn't really lose any games he should have won.  He had an incredible bullpen pitching behind him and his team lead the league in OPS +.  He also managed to get 35 starts.  His team had 9.9 DWAR.

So I guess it is doable. You just need a team that scores a ton of runs, incredible bullpen, great defense, pitcher friendly park, and not have a bad game all season while getting a ton of starts.   

 

You asked how guys even get to 20.

I agree 30 isn't happening until someone has the guts to reinvent the pitching staff.

[Redskins Rick]

22 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You asked how guys even get to 20.

I agree 30 isn't happening until someone has the guts to reinvent the pitching staff.

20 is pretty unattainable, they skip their turn in the rotation, if their room-mates 2nd cousin twice removed has the sniffles.

[SteveA]

7 hours ago, atomic said:

I parked at a metro lot once and took the Subway down there.  Never again.  Been to plenty of Capitals games but that is an easier drive as you are against traffic going down.  More places to eat and drink around the Arena. Tons of places to park. 

The area around Nats Park is growing and growing fast.   There are more and more good places to eat and drink near the ballpark every day.   The last two years it's really taken off.

[weams]

5 hours ago, hoosiers said:

You realize the recent adverse MASN rulings indicate that the MASN was not only shorting the Nats, but also the Orioles by tens of millions of dollars.  That was $ going straight into the pockets of MASN owners which is basically the same makeup as Os owners.  

We've had discussions that Os owners were making profits between $50M and $75M around 2012-2014 between the Os and MASN.  

The Nats received the higher end of the DC/Balt market, but MASN owners were guaranteed in the neighborhood of $200M when the deal was originally signed.  You can look at all that $ and wonder about the ownership decisions to avoid spending internationally, to avoid investing in an analytics department, to avoid investing in modern baseball technologies. and much more.  Issues surrounding the Orioles various problems over the past 10 years including our current state of (lack of) competitiveness have very little to do with the Nats.

I do realize that money got redistributed, and a great portion of it to the Learners.