20-30, no. Last 100, yes, but not due to "evolution."

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Kids in High School now are in strength and conditioning programs that were unheard of years ago.

I am not saying there weren’t guys that threw hard back in your youth, my point is the number of guys doing it now. The training that it requires pushes the limits and they are finding out.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

They are also getting Tommy John surgery that was unheard of (and unneeded) years ago.


Anyone know if all these injured pitchers got the Covid jab(s)?!!!?!

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Too many fast food recommendations from KDddit

Looked like Babe Ruth, couldn’t play like it.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

JORR, I think it goes beyond that. Jose Alvarado is probably marginally better that Wheeler in that situation, but they are both really effective. The real point is, that if the Phillies are leading 3-0, the marginal improvement of Alvarado over Wheeler provides absolutely zero benefit. The odds of aguy getting a hit in that situation are probably like 10% better off Wheeler, the odds of scoring a run are statistically zero. It's a three run game, but it's rote now pull guys regardless of who they are or the score/situation.

So a couple of things. Maybe Chapman throws harder than Nolan Ryan, but as mentioned by someone above we now measure with lasers and stuff how fast a pitch is. In 1975 it was a old radar gun by some dude in the 3rd row. I think they generally say you can add like 3-5 MPH to a pitch measured in say 1983 as compared to 2024.


The bold is the key. The game has changed from a starter looking to get through seven innings and turn it over to the bullpen for a 6 out save, to a guy looking to throw 85 pitches at max effort before turning it over to 4-8 guys in the bullpen who also are going to throw at max effort. The players association should be pushing for rules that bring back the importance of the starting pitchers. Starting pitchers get paid big dollars, even in today's environment where they are less important. Bullpen guys who get used up like toiled paper don't get big money. They are easy to produce, easy to replicate, and disposable when they are broken. Those guys don't get paid anything. It's a winning formula in today's game because it's cheap, easy, repeatable, and predictable. The problem is that is ruins the game from an entertainment standpoint, but also from a player's standpoint, takes money out of the pocket of labor.

It's the training and development that has changed. Guys could always throw that hard, but in a game where SPs were expected to throw 250 IP+ a year and pitch well into the 7th inning you couldn't have max effort guys. Sure there were unicorns like Nolan who could do that for a long time, but there were a lot more John Montefuesco's Larry Dierkers who burned out after 4 seasons.

More guys are throwing harder because they are throwing less. Starters pitch to at most 20 batters and relievers are all one inning guys. Dave Dravecky didn't give a shit about throwing 100 MPH on every pitch because that wasn't what the game rewarded (paid) in 1983, it paid being able to get out A LOT of hitters, not just three. The game is paying guys to throw harder today than ever before and get out fewer guys than ever. That's why more guys are throwing hard, not because John Montefuesco's kid evolved to throw harder in one generation...

I think it has always been recognized that the strikeout was the most efficient out for a pitcher, so a pitcher would never say voluntarily pass up a strikeout. The issue in the past had been that high strikeout pitchers tended to be high pitch count pitchers. If you were expected to go deep into a game in 1978 you were going to have to give somewhat on K's unless you're a Roger Clemens. So a 2-2 count became a weak groundball count instead of a punch out at all costs count. K rate was treated as a premium because the game changed from a 2-4 pitcher per game proposition to a 4-9 pitcher a game proposition with every pitcher trying to strikeout every hitter they face.

Yeah, I get what you are saying.

My inclination is to stay with the guy who is pitching well as long as possible. The more times you go to the pen, the more likely you'll find the guy who is having a bad day.

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At some point the salaries are going to have to adjust to a point where there is more balance between what starters and relievers are paid.

If I'm a reliever who covers 70 innings with a 1.75 ERA, I'd want to know why I get paid less than a starter who covers 140 innings with a 4.50 ERA.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don't think "efficient" is necessarily the word I would use.

It's remarkable how the way the game is viewed has changed. Let's look at it from the batter's side. There was a hitter's roundatable hosted by Bob Costas, I think on HBO about ten or fifteen years ago. One of the participants was Michael Young who said something that really struck me. He said that when he first came to the big leagues (I think around 2000) he was embarrassed and felt he let the team down if he struck out. But at the end of his career he felt no shame in striking out but was embarrassed if he went up and made an out on the first pitch.

Anyway, obviously a pitcher with big "stuff" who is capable of striking out a lot of guys has a greater margin for error than a guy who is going to have a lot of balls put into play which over time will turn into hits at a 30% clip. But too often those guys who just come up dominating every batter never really learn how to pitch a ballgame. They simply don't have to.

Steve Stone will often make oblique reference to some of the ways he outsmarted hitters. And how he was looking ahead to facing the same hitters later in the game. Oddly enough, he was a flamethrower as he was coming up, but somehow, probably through some injury, lost his velocity and had to rely on his wits along with a pretty good curveball.

Mark Buehrle is a guy I watched pitch a lot of games. Maybe more than I've seen anyone else pitch. He didn't get into the seventh inning so often by accident. It was amazing to see him go through the line up with his mediocre fastball and a cutter, aided by an elite pickoff move and defense and get into a tight spot in the seventh or eighth inning where there were men on and two outs and the game was on the line and he had a two strike count on a hitter and out of nowhere he just dropped a curveball that he hadn't thrown all night right into the zone while the batter stood there flatfooted and shaking his head. That's pitching a ballgame.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

The answer is because it's easier to replace the 70 inning guy than the 140 inning guy. Like Jordan Wicks could be the best relief pitcher on the Cubs overnight. Hector Nerris is going tp get his brains beat in if he joins the rotation.

Efficient is the word I'm using in that it has the least possible bad outcomes of any plate appearance. The strikeout is most efficient at eliminating variables that could lead to bad outcomes.

That's probably true but the amount of innings pitched by starters and relievers is getting closer and closer.

I think limiting rosters to ten pitchers would be a good move.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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In a single plate appearance, of course. But it gets back to looking at the ballgame as a whole and how many outs you're going to cover. I guess if you're expected to attempt to strike every batter out and not worry about coming out in the fourth inning it doesn't matter. Again, another good reason to limiting the number of pitchers carried.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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And of course, that will never happen. Just like reducing to 120 games. They are just going to play it out until it's dead.

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The strikeout is not disincentivized (not paid) in 2024 like it was in 1980. You got paid less (rightly or wrongly) in 1980 if you K'ed a bunch. You might not be incentivized (paid) to K in 2024, but you aren't paid less because of K's. So you're going to get hitters who care less about K's. Also the tradeoff for more K's is fewer balls in play (disincentivized for the reasons mentioned before) but more HR's incentivized (paid) moreso now than ever.

The other thing about BABIP is that it measures all hitters across the league. Sure if you're facing Betts you might want to be careful because his BABIP is .389 or something. If you're facing any number of the White Sox hitters you can just say hit this sucker because even on a good day they are .245 BABIP guys. That's what we are talking about navigating a lineup. Know who to challenge and when. The problem now is that guys are just developed to be max effort every at bat strikeout guys because after they pitch their 85 max effort pitches, you just turn it over to 5 guys in the bullpen who are also going max effort.

If you don't incentivize (pay) guys to throw deeper in the game, guys aren't going to do that. Right now it's cheaper, more efficient, repeatable, effective, and valuable to develop 5 inning max effort starters, and back them up with 8 guys in the bullpen who are max effort one inning guys. None of those guys reasonably needs more than two pitches, and you need very little command. I mean some of those bullpen guys are 1 and 1/2 pitch guys.

But the point is that developing even a five inning starter is more difficult than a 18 pitch max effort bullpen guy. Why pay a dude who pitches 75 innings to the tune of 89 K's and an ERA of 2.89 $10MM when you have 30 guys in the minors or on the retread pile that you can pay league minimum to give you no worse than 90% of that production? You won't do it because it doesn't make economic sense, especially with the expanded playoffs, you don't need that marginal 10% for the extra $9MM. It just doesn't make financial sense.

Limiting to ten pitchers isn't a bad approach, but you have to wonder about roster shuttling, fake DL stints. I'd be more in favor with limiting each team to four pitchers per game.

That's my point, it's not efficient if you are incentivized (paid) to pitch 7 innings, but if you're incentivized (paid) to minimize the other team's chance to score even if that decreases your ability to get more guys out it's the most efficient way to get an out, there are the least possible bad things. Guys get pulled in the 5th and 6th innings at 80 pitches all the time now. Why save anything in the tank?

What I find hard to believe is that the things that would make the game more entertaining are the things that would make the players more money. Like I don't get why the players bitched about the pitch clock. Quite literally they got paid the same to work less and the customers/fans loved the idea. I'd be totally cool if I got paid the same amount of money and my boss artificially made me work 10% less. That isn't something I'd complain about.

A couple good points above.

I've gotten into arguments with younger guys who cite BABIP for batters suggesting it will normalize at about .300. That's just wrong. BABIP is a pitcher's stat. Theoretically at least, anyone who pitches a large enough sample of innings, whether it's you or me or Sandy Koufax or Nolan Ryan will allow about a .300 batting average against (on balls in play, homers excluded). But various batters can maintain wildly different BABIP. Wee Willie Keeler hit 'em where they ain't. Nicky Lopez hits 'em right to the shortstop.

Very good point about navigating a lineup and who the pitcher is game-planning against. That's the difference between looking at Baseball Reference and deciding Dewey Evans was better than Jim Rice and having actually watched them play, let alone pitched against them yourself.

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Watching some old baseball tonight. There is a big difference between being a better hitter (Rice) vs being a better player (Evans). I don’t know many people who think Evans was better at home plate than Rice, but Evans was incredibly better in the other two areas of the game.

Sure, but that's sort of like saying the Jim Rice car has the better engine but the Dwight Evans car has a great hood ornament, paint job, and bucket seats.

You could make the same argument about Dom DiMaggio being a better player than Ted Williams (except for hitting). No one is dumb enough to make it though.

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Skenes taken out w/ a no hitter and 11K through 7IP

99 pitches

Well you see the thing about that is that taking pitchere out after X amount of pitches means they wont have arm trouble later. Its like , science .

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It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I have no idea why baseball is dying. I can't think of one single thing.

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