Why MLB will never get me back...
DocBenjamin
Posts: 1,492 ✭✭✭✭✭
Aside from the clock and the phantom base runners, why take away a no hitter from the fans?
Paul Skenes had another shot at history on Thursday, but again wasn't given the chance to finish the job.
In just his 11th big league start, the rookie phenom was pulled after seven no-hit innings against the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.
Skenes struck out 11, walked one, and hit a batter in his 99 pitches.
It was the second time he took a no-hitter deep into a game, as he had a no-hitter through six innings in just his second big league start, but had 100 pitches in that outing.
His Pittsburgh Pirates were leading, 1-0, when he was taken out.
Each of Skenes' last two outings saw a new career-high in pitches: 102 on June 29, and then 107 his last time out.
Comments
I agree today they should have at least brought him out for the 8th inning. Maybe he gets a quick 3 outs then bring him out for the ninth. If he gives up a hit in the last two innings take him out.
The pitch clock is a great thing. Games aren’t near as boring as they used to be. Got sick and tired of batters stepping out to adjust batting gloves or whatever else their nervous condition was telling them needed adjusting.
Taking him out was the right decision. Youd be looking at at least 130 pitches for a guy who the Pirates spent the first 2 months of the year trying to manipulate his service time throwing 50 pitches a game in AAA. Going into the 9th with like a 125 pitches or even 115 and a no hitter makes it harder to take him out.
The shorter 17 second MLB pitch clock increases stress on the pitchers arm even for the ones that are used to it from college where its 20 seconds. The balls are smoother and sticky stuff is subjective now which requires more stress to grip it and pitchers have been dropping like flys around the league.
Theres no reason to send Skenes out in early July to throw another 20-40 pitches when hes already at 99 with two innings left just for a no hitter.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
To us it's sports entertainment. To the owners it's first and foremost a business. Always has been, always will be.
Their player "commodities" are too valuable these days to risk causing a sore arm, just for some pitcher's possible no-hitter recognition.
"These days" I get that. Why franchises that were tens of millions are now billions. No surprise in this instance...but not much fun.
I'm enjoying this MLB season only because the Phillies are doing so well.
That being said, I'm much more looking forward to football season.
As a fan, you hate the game has turned into this, but as a manager or GM, you have to make the right decision for the player and the team and taking him out was the correct decision.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
We would be talking about the 2 or 3 Nolan Ryan no hitters instead of 7.
Fourth took 147 pitches. That would not have happened today.
if they are just cogs and sprockets in a machine then minimum wage should be enough
but why should anyone pay to see the product then?
heaven forbid a pitcher throws over 100 pitches anymore
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
They can do whatever their “business” sense dictates. In the meantime I am watching the WNBA more than MLB this year.
craig if you use the h word again you get a time out
Saving Skenes up for an AS Game start so the network execs can whoop it up, they got their feature guy.
Enjoy the go.
I have heard this same exact type of comment multiple times since this happened. Each time, the person complaining ignores:
*This was his 11th career start and threw a combined 130ish innings in college over three years
*The number of pitches ignores the number of warm up pitches
*Also ignores the effect of the pitch clock which forces pitchers to throw with less time between pitches
It also ignores the fact that in the grand scheme of things, this game is meaningless. The Pirates aren't a very good team at the moment, and Skene is much more important to the team than a single game in July.
It also ignores the advent of relievers and how much more effective a fresh arm throwing 100+ in late innings is over a starter going through the lineup for the 3rd and 4th times.
If you claim this is your breaking point, you were never going to be a baseball fan to begin with.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
While I agree with basically all the other points, he did throw more than that in college. He started as a reliever and was a two way player at Air Force. His second year there they switched him to a starter and had almost 90 innings. Thats when he transferred to LSU for his junior year and put up one of the greatest college baseball pitching seasons of all time with a 120 something innings.
LSU was good about not abusing his pitch counts though unlike some other schools will do with their studs. He spent the first two months of the year throwing 50 pitches a game in the minors with the Pirates trying to manipulate his service time. You can do all you want in the pen but nothing matches game adrenaline than an actual game which are more stressful pitches.
Even ignoring all the data about injuries with 100+ and specially 120+ pitch counts a lot of people dont realize the Pirates basically turned him into a reliever in the minors hoping to hold him down there long enough that he couldnt win rookie of the year or a CY Young and get the extra year of control. If he wasnt dating Livvy Dunne he likely would have stayed in the minors longer. She started putting a lot of social media pressure on the team to call him up because his numbers were so insanely good it was a joke, it was a joke he even started the year in the minors
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Behind every great man....
Enjoy the go.
Baseball has always been my number one sport and that will not change. I used to watch hockey when I lived in Mass but not since I moved to Albuquerque. I always hated basketball, soccer and tennis. Football is ok as there is nothing else to watch in the winter.
In my view football is the ultimate sports chess match, played by gladiators. For a sports game to watch, that's tough to beat in my opinion.
Not knocking baseball, as in my opinion it's the greatest summer game ever invented. That being said, playing it in cold spring weather and cold fall weather takes away from the beauty of it. Also it's supposed to be a timeless game, but no longer with the greedy MLB owners and their new rules.
Baseball and football…. toss up.
Breaking point was when Bo Schembechler fired Earnie Harwell in the early 90's. Three decade obsession and love affair of the game. Kaput.
MLB has no interest in my demo. Beer ads have no influence. Couple times I sat in Tiger stadium. Sort of a buzz when the starter goes 5 innings hitless. A bit of urgency after 6 and game on after 7. Why you bought the ticket...hoping that you were going to witness history, Same on tv or listening to the radio, Game 108 of the season means not much. Hit for the cycle. triple play, 3 home runs...great, but the no hitter is the holy grail. Perfect game... that is Mt Rushmore stuff.
But in 2024, you wonder, gee, is the stooge manager going to yank the starter. Maybe on in 3 or 4 chance that he completes the no hitter, but that is what keeps you on the edge of your seat. And if he is the opponent, you now cheer each strike out of your homies. That happens in no other sport.
But the smart phone has saved the sport. Check Bitcoin quotes between innings and order winded on Amazon between innings. All good in baseball land, except for those that really loved the game.
Baseball used to be. Sadly they took some of the strategy out of the game with the rule changes. Theres a better compromise between Baez standing on the mound forever while the bullpen was getting warm and a 17 second to fast clock. Weve already had a walk off pitch clock violation with the bases loaded 2 outs bottom 9 tie game. No one goes to the park to watch pitch clock violations.
The shift as well, other than a pitcher and catcher you should be able to put everyone else where ever you want and now we have to have different stats too because of the base paths.
The game of baseball itself is incredible, but MLB was better when the majority owners cared about winning
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
a timeless game? 162 3 hour games adds up to 20 days of baseball but you need it to take longer?
Everyone has their personal preferences of how to spend their time. Sure would be nice to allow those who enjoy baseball the way it is supposed to be played, but sadly with MLB, that no longer exists.
I mentioned this before, but a couple years ago they replayed the 1971 WS between the orioles and pirates. Palmer was getting the ball back from the catcher and making his next pitch probably between 10-15 seconds. Same as the pirates pitcher. It was amazing. Now with the pitch clock we’re returning to those halcyon days. Some forum members (basebal21) have seemed to suggest the pitch clock isn’t long enough but Palmer and those guys back then never had a problem with pitching fast.
The game play time reduction hasnt been matching the actual watch time reduction. What I mean by that is basically they took a 3 hour game time, made it 2 hours and 30 minutes, added 15 minutes of commercials and and said they reduced the game time by 15 minutes
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
For every Palmer theres a ton of guys that get hurt plus sticky stuff was ignored back then, the seems on the balls were a little higher and the balls werent as smooth. The MLB balls today are basically like holding a lacrosse ball that weighs less theyre so smooth and the seems are so low. The injuries speak for them selves and the pitchers hate it.
Right now in MLB most of the pitchers never had to use a pitch clock. Even the ones that have its 20 seconds in college not 17.
Most importantly I want to watch baseball not more commercials and pitch clock violations. The Rockies won a game recently against the Nationals in the bottom of the 9th inning bases loaded full count pitch clock violation. What happens if thats the deciding game of a playoff series or we have a World Series winner because of a pitch clock violation?
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Its turned into a garbage league. I quit watching years ago. I will always remember the good times of the 70's and 80's.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
The closest thing we have to gladiators in our lifetime are boxers, this sport will test what you are really made of like no other.
Good post. DC is the new national pastime.
I watched some of Don Larsen's perfect game. There was a groundout and they went around the horn after the out. By the time Larsen got the ball back, the next guy was in the box, ready to go. The pace was so much faster back then.
In a game in 1963, Juan Marichal threw 227 pitches and Warren Spahn threw 201 in 15 innings. Both survived. They should have let Skenes continue until he gave up a hit.
Football is unwatchable. The same people who lament baseball games running 3+ hours seem to have no issue with a 60-minute game taking 4 hours to complete. Throw in the "analysts" who seem to be competing against one another as to who knows more, the inability to determine what is or is not a catch, and the game is not at all interesting.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
Baseball games are longer now than in the past due to the increased use of relievers. Period. The point of the game is to win as many as possible, and specialized relievers do that, and has nothing to do with today's players being "softer". A pitcher going through the lineup for the third and fourth time is nowhere near as much an advantage as a fresh reliever coming out throwing 100+ of which every team has multiple.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
I was trying to recall who pitched against Marichal in that game. Thanks.
Spahn was 42 when that happened and teams werent exactly concerned about the future of either for varying reasons. The most pitches ever in one game by two starters shouldnt be the bench mark.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Varying reasons include 8 figure per year contracts. Denny McClain signed for about $100,000 per after his 31-6, 1968 season.
He was a scoundrel, but yanking him from a game was not an issue.
its maybe 20 days a year usually on a sunday , not every day for 8 months
When televisions were 19 inches and low def, NFL plays were settled in a second or three. Now as long as a couple of minutes. Worse when the refs have tote tickets in their pockets.
Your not wrong but I still love the game of Football, the is it a catch BS is over the top
20 days a year?
Really?
18 weeks of games. If they only played on Sunday, that would be one thing. But....
15 weeks of Thursday night games, now up to 33. Week 18 has two saturday games. 35.That's all without pre- and postseason.
Regardless, the game itself is unwatchable.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
It's funny when people lament pitchers getting pulled due to pitch counts and whatnot.
Do you not remember Mark Prior and Kerry Wood? Two great pitchers ruined forever due to Dusty Baker riding them into the ground?
Do you understand how much these pitchers are abused in ways they never have been before in club/travel leagues? The demands these coaches put on these still-developing arms? There's more of the same in high school and college.
Why do you think Tommy John surgery, which used to be a procedure needed exclusively on old, worn out pitchers, is performed with regularity on kids in their 20s? Do you think it's because they are 'soft'? Or perhaps the abuse they have faced since youth has a cumulative effect? Now you have kids in their TEENS needing TJ surgery.
When a phenom like Skenes comes along, and you still lament the 'good ole days', then you aren't a fan of the game. You're a fan of abuse.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
Oy Vey
It's not so hard to train a model to predict injury using past data. Try a logistic regression. I will say that you will not find a positive correlation with pitches per game.
When I looked at pitches per game during an individual season for a pitcher who injured his throwing arm I found no correlation. But, the distribution was odd so I tried the following transformations.
To keep this short.. I also performed this task 'by pitch type'.
While all of these transformations produced normal distributions none of them had a strong correlation. To understand that we don't know requires only considering how valuable a predictive model for pitcher injury would be.
We know that the number of pitches matters in some way, but there is no model which is meaningful for all pitchers and there's no clear indicator whether the new workload management schemes which track various categories of pitches and throws along with distances. Most workload management models seek to break pitches and throws down into acute vs. chronic workload to determine whether either one of those can impact injury risk and/or whether the ratio of one to the other may be an indicator of risk.
My next question to those who have this all "figured out" would be: Why aren't you licensing your knowledge to a MLB team?. Seems like a missed opportunity.
Every team has already 'figured it out'. The people who haven't figured it out are the neanderthals complaining about 'soft' pitchers getting pulled early in meaningless games, who apparently think that athletes are gladiators to be ground up and spit out for their amusement.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
Thank you for proving my point.
https://abc7chicago.com/tommy-john-surgery-baseball-injuries-pitchers/14541893/
"He said a third of all major league pitchers have had Tommy John surgery."
"Dr. Cohen said the fastest growing segment of patients needing Tommy John surgery are 15- to 19-year-olds. He said the common theme is overuse from single sport specialization and year-round throwing."
But please, tell me how you know more than trained medical professionals.
I do not have time for ignorant trolls.
ignore list: 1948_Swell_Robinson, Darin, bgr, bronco2078, dallasactuary
We are talking about 20 additional pitches in a game. Let the fans go home with a thrill, not a stomach ache.
At the least, the mgr could call a few fat, wheelhouse pitches so the hurler can leave with a hit on the card. Deceptive, sure, but that is MLB in 2024.
Prior isnt a good example since the line drive to the elbow played a role, but the points overall are valid. More and more pitchers are having TJ surgery and that includes HS kids. A solid number of pitchers have had TJ before they even get to college or the pros.
Its not as bad as it used to be at least not at the good college programs with the transfer portal but a great example is the 2004 draft. Towmsend. Humber, and Niemanm were all top picks. Absolute studs at Rice that were absolutely abused for wins at Rice. They were abused with pitch counts and innings. None of them could stay healthy. Townsend never made the pros, and the other two couldnt stay healthy there. Stanford was know for it as well at the time.
Thankfully now players can transfer but its still happening at the high school and lower levels. You get a stud and run him into the ground and they end up getting TJ.
You get 1 TJ and its not guaranteed. The 2nd one basically no one has come back as a top pitcher and the 3rd youre basically just throwing BP.
For every old time top notch pitcher thats mentioned theres thousands and thousands of guys who had their careers ended from injuries that no one remembers
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
Thousands and thousands?
Maybe make a 50 pitch rules to accommodate the insecure. Hell, they have 11 or 12 men staffs. But then the 3 day rotation would cause consternation.
It’s all good….. baseball or football
There are thousands and thousands that arent remembered or not known about. > @DocBenjamin said:
Actually more like 10s of thousands of guys that got hurt or their career was ruined by injury. MLB has 100s of pitchers on the roster, then theres the minors, college, international, high school etc.
There is a ton of stuff on pitch counts, grips, the ball etc with increased injury rates
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007