rogers park bryan wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
I have to wonder if those people (dan bernstein is a good example) who have reguritated the things they have read on the subject for years will now turn around and start saying that taking pitches and drawing walks is suddenly not as important as putting balls in play and that strikeouts are indeed worse outs than those occurring on batted balls.
.
Id have no issue doing that. Things change. The way games are played changes.
To some degree, yes. But most people act like these things are absolute. There is a stridency when bernstein says Ned Yost is an idiot. That viewpoint is based on what bernstein believes to be true- wasting outs is bad, walks are good, taking pitches is good, defense on the corners is insignificant, striking out is no worse than any other out, etc.
You know how much I hate sacrifice bunts. I found them really moronic in a high run scoring environment. I still dislike them, but the risk/reward is much different when scoring is at deadball era levels. When Jake Arrieta walks the leadoff man in the seventh inning of the two-hitter he's pitching, the downside of moving that runner by making an out on purpose is relatively low.
Bernstein is Baseball stupid in many ways. The idea that striking out is no worse than any other out is the worst thought of all. When you have a runner reach base and the following hitter (less than 2 outs) makes an out but moves the runner up a base, now he in scoring position. 1st and 2nd less than 2 outs, and the batter bunts or hits a ground ball to the right side that moves both runners...good. Runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, a deep fly ball or ground ball in many cases may score the runner. A strikeout is a unproductive out and is not the equal of many outs that can actually contribute to scoring runs.