Mancini Trade Package

[Ohfan67]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It's 8.8 strikeouts per team per game, up from 5.5 in 1992.  They've taken more than six plays per game out of the hands of fielders and turned them into strikeouts in the last 25 years.  While in the same period they've basically doubled the number of homers from 0.72/team/game to 1.4.  So that's about eight PAs a game something used to happen and now nine guys watch the batter walk back to the dugout or jog around the bases.

Also, steals are down by nearly half since 1987, from .85 to .46 per game.  In '87 an average team stole 138 bases, today it's 75.

I think the first "they" is at least a fairly organic evolution of baseball strategy. The second "they" is an MLB manipulation and that usually doesn't help things. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I think the first "they" is at least a fairly organic evolution of baseball strategy. The second "they" is an MLB manipulation and that usually doesn't help things. 

I think the second they is a combination of organic evolution of baseball strategy and MLB manipulation.

 

[Frobby]

16 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I think the first "they" is at least a fairly organic evolution of baseball strategy. The second "they" is an MLB manipulation and that usually doesn't help things. 

The first “they” is also a function of the increased capacity of pitchers to throw at high velocity.    Some of that relates to changes in strategy, some relates to training.   

[ScGO's]

.901 OPS, 74 XBH, 103 Runs, 4.0 oWAR. The only other AL 1B better than Mancini (if Mancini primarily played 1B) is probably Santana.  He might bring a lot back if he is traded this offseason. Controllable, cheap, and a lot of teams in need of an upgrade at 1B and there are virtually no 1B free agent options worth sniffing, especially if Jose Abreu is going back to Chicago.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

10 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

.901 OPS, 74 XBH, 103 Runs, 4.0 oWAR. The only other AL 1B better than Mancini (if Mancini primarily played 1B) is probably Santana.  He might bring a lot back if he is traded this offseason. Controllable, cheap, and a lot of teams in need of an upgrade at 1B and there are virtually no 1B free agent options worth sniffing, especially if Jose Abreu is going back to Chicago.

I think Trey putting in a solid full 2019 season definitely increases his trade value over the Orioles trading him in July. Teams should be less concerned about Trey's sophomore slump in 2018 with his performance this year. Additionally Trey's OPS+ is 135 and is an improvement over his rookie campaign 120 OPS+.

[Oriole1940]

4 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Thanks for doing the analysis to confirm what our eyes our seeing. I really miss the game, I grew up with in the 1980's up until about 1993. Launch angles and advanced analytics aren't going to go away, but MLB can get out of they way and not do things like juice the baseball.

Establishing a real consistent strikes zone is another step that could help as well. Bring on the robots-umps if that's what it will take. 

I have said for years bring on the robots umps.  I know it is giving up a lot as far as the personal interaction  with players and umps is concerned,  but I for one will take accuracy over the interaction.  That is I would try it for a year or two in the minors to see exactly how it works out.  

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

I think the first "they" is at least a fairly organic evolution of baseball strategy. The second "they" is an MLB manipulation and that usually doesn't help things. 

I guess that's one way to put it.  Evolution may produce results that were completely unanticipated, are beneficial to the narrow self-interest of a subset of the whole, but detrimental to the larger ecosystem. 

I think baseball that's completely focused on strikeouts and homers is like tigers evolving machine guns.  Great for the tigers dominating the world, less good from almost every other perspective.

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, Oriole1940 said:

I have said for years bring on the robots umps.  I know it is giving up a lot as far as the personal interaction  with players and umps is concerned,  but I for one will take accuracy over the interaction.  That is I would try it for a year or two in the minors to see exactly how it works out.  

The most logical implementation is to give the home plate ump some kind of an indicator, like a buzzer that he keeps in his hand.  It vibrates in near-real time on every strike.  He calls the strike, unless it's obviously wrong. Like if the pitch bounced into the zone or the system is clearly broken.  The ump is still right there, he just has an aide that takes away his nearly impossible responsibility to try to gauge whether that 93 mph slider just caught the plate or was 1/16th of an inch off.

[Ohfan67]

7 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I guess that's one way to put it.  Evolution may produce results that were completely unanticipated, are beneficial to the narrow self-interest of a subset of the whole, but detrimental to the larger ecosystem. 

I think baseball that's completely focused on strikeouts and homers is like tigers evolving machine guns.  Great for the tigers dominating the world, less good from almost every other perspective.

I'm not a fan of high strikeouts, for sure, but I do see it as "natural". MLB may need to tweak the game to alter SO's if they make the game less enjoyable. They lowered the mound, for example, to provide an institutional tweak. It does seem unlikely that an evolutionary response to strikeouts will lower them unless there's some selection for increased contact hitting, etc. If offense selects hard for home runs, then it seems that SO's are only going to decrease if MLB changes something. It's frustrating, but definitely very interesting to see play out. 

[DrungoHazewood]

21 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I'm not a fan of high strikeouts, for sure, but I do see it as "natural". MLB may need to tweak the game to alter SO's if they make the game less enjoyable. They lowered the mound, for example, to provide an institutional tweak. It does seem unlikely that an evolutionary response to strikeouts will lower them unless there's some selection for increased contact hitting, etc. If offense selects hard for home runs, then it seems that SO's are only going to decrease if MLB changes something. It's frustrating, but definitely very interesting to see play out. 

I think we're past the era where you could guess and hope that some new strategy is going to pay dividends.  Like in the 60s and 70s when stolen bases went off the charts but really didn't create any more runs.  If MLB doesn't actively change something we'll continue down the path of more power and more strikeouts, the math doesn't lie. 

But the more invested in power and Ks teams get, the more power pitchers and power hitters become a sort of a lobbying group or interest group.  Any change back towards contact, fielding, and athleticism cuts into the established player base and they'll push back hard. It won't be a good situation when the players are against reforms designed to bring in more fans and revenues.

[jtschrei]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think we're past the era where you could guess and hope that some new strategy is going to pay dividends.  Like in the 60s and 70s when stolen bases went off the charts but really didn't create any more runs.  If MLB doesn't actively change something we'll continue down the path of more power and more strikeouts, the math doesn't lie. 

But the more invested in power and Ks teams get, the more power pitchers and power hitters become a sort of a lobbying group or interest group.  Any change back towards contact, fielding, and athleticism cuts into the established player base and they'll push back hard. It won't be a good situation when the players are against reforms designed to bring in more fans and revenues.

Agree with all this.

In my opinion, the most obvious thing for MLB to do is make the strike zone bigger and make it automated. Initially, I think we would see some low scoring games, but at least they would be short. Over time, I think a bigger strike zone would encourage players to make contact, not draw walks, and not simply try to hit HRs. 

I do think the players union might have a problem with this. I don't think the union wants this change, but everything is negotiable. 

 

[wildcard]

Brian Roberts just said he is convinced that Mancini had a bad offensive year last your because he ran into the wall, hurt his knee and could not use his legs the way he needed to to hit well.

I argued this for a while.  Good to have BRob state it on TV.

[mdbdotcom]

On 9/26/2019 at 3:31 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

I think we're past the era where you could guess and hope that some new strategy is going to pay dividends.  Like in the 60s and 70s when stolen bases went off the charts but really didn't create any more runs.  If MLB doesn't actively change something we'll continue down the path of more power and more strikeouts, the math doesn't lie. 

But the more invested in power and Ks teams get, the more power pitchers and power hitters become a sort of a lobbying group or interest group.  Any change back towards contact, fielding, and athleticism cuts into the established player base and they'll push back hard. It won't be a good situation when the players are against reforms designed to bring in more fans and revenues.

Penalize teams for strikeouts. For every three strikeouts a team has they lose a run. Will it happen? Nah. Just a thought.

[Can_of_corn]

26 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

Penalize teams for strikeouts. For every three strikeouts a team has they lose a run. Will it happen? Nah. Just a thought.

Am I the only person that doesn't see this as a huge problem?  Seventy percent of the strikeouts would still be outs, mostly routine ones.  I'd rather see a K than a weak groundball to second.

Deaden the rabbit ball.  Once more of these fly balls start dying on the warning track hitters will adjust their approach.

[thezeroes]

Two things strikeouts give a defensive team.

1)  No need to have any decent fielders except the catcher and First baseman.

2) Lack of base runners for the inevitable Home run, which keeps the score in check.