Bombers

Please limit these catcher pitcher chats - Jeez!

Brewers Record: 79-83 Playoffs: No Brewers MVP: Villar Brewers CY Young: Guerra until he is traded / Hader after the trade Brewers ROY: Josh Hader First player traded: In season trade: Guerra / before season trade: Anderson Surprise player: Santana Disappointing player: Arcia World Series: Cubs over Royals

Yes. It's way too long for the vets. I would tell players like Braun see ya 3/15. Sure some guys can show up starting 2/15 if they are trying out and/or want the facility to work out. Braun doesn't need almost 2 months of spring training. He needs 1 week.

I am sure many teams have guys that are just a joy to be around but Brett Phillips seems like one of those people. Hats off to him and Hader on this skit - nice job. Although Sandlot and Major League are my two favs

It's the first official "game" of some sort for the Crew. Lineup vs UWM is 1. Brinson - CF 2. Gennett - LF 3. Santana - RF 4. Shaw - 3B 5. Aguilar - 1B 6. Bandy - DH 7. Pina - C 8. Arcia - SS 9. Sogard - 2B P1 - Burgos - 2 innings P2 - Knebel - 1 inning P3 - Cravy - 1 inning I have tuned in a few times to MLB at-bat out of curiosity. I see Brinson has gone yard twice. Nice. Baseball games are back!

I am going to be in Phoenix this coming week for a few days. I was planning on heading over to Maryvale on 2/19. Is there any posted practice times anywhere?

This sums it up for me, your whole post really. Just call the strike zone according to the rule book, and however long the game is, it is. Crazy to think they believe game will go faster with a smaller zone. Automatic intentional walks are stupid too. Will speed up the game by a minute or so, and changes the rules so a pitcher doesn't have to actually, you know, pitch. That's just weird to me, and it does take away the intrigue of a pitcher air-mailing one over the catcher's head. All the pitching changes is what slows the game down, and nothing can be done about it. Or at least nothing SHOULD be done about that like limiting number of pitching changes, etc. Baseball is simply not a game meant to be "on the clock." But they actually do have a pace of pay problem. Baseball games have stayed the same forever (9 innings, 6 outs per inning, etc) and look at the difference in game length. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/1/29/7921283/baseball-game-length-visual-analysis They used to play 9 innings in 2:38 minutes in 1980 and now have upped that to 3 hours. In my opinion, that time increase is related to time between pitches. So to me, I don't get caught up in the length of the game, that isn't necessarily my issue. They don't need to cut down the time between innings or skip intentional walks. My issue is the speed at which the game is played. And as I said that speed is the time between pitches. Guys just been given too much time in between pitches and really have unlimited time outs they can take in a MLB game. To me that is where they should focus the issue. So I agree with you that adjusting the strike zone will have a limited impact. A shot clock to throw a pitch is fine in my opinion. It drives me nuts when the pitcher is shaking off pitches and then is allowed to just step off the rubber. Or the batter can step completely out of the box after a pitch. Or the number of "team huddles" they have. Those are the items they need to get rid of. (And we have already discussed those idea's on this board so I won't dive back into them.) But I sit on the side of the fence that MLB has a pace of pay problem which isn't length of game. I also think the NBA has a pace of pay problem but their games are shorter and not much is being made of it. If their games ballooned to a 3 hour average, there would be some fuss. Here is a graph on possessions per game in the NBA. Teams today are all about the half court offense. http://i.imgur.com/5KxNCau.jpg

Honestly it felt the same as it always is but maybe slightly down in attendance. There are always long lines for autographs- people wait hours in lines for some. I know if you bought the kids club before Dec 1 or around then you got 1 free ticket to the event and I assume there were others who got freebies.

Spent some time at the interactive stage with my 7 year old son and we watched dubsmash and then Kids Q and A - both with Tim Dillard. Tim is a real gem and I hope he can somehow find his was to Brewers radio or TV after his playing days are done. Such a nice and funny guy.

Lol, I am already lined up. I like Brewers on deck but we don't always do the autographs unless the kids really want to. The lip sync contest last year of Jeffress vs Smith was funny

I agree Svuem - lots of iffs will temper the excitement. Not a whole lot of proven track record on this team.

Peralta projection from MLBTR was spot on from October projection viewtopic.php?f=63&t=34722&hilit=Peralta

My only question is, how has his bat flip improved from playing in Korea? I hope it is epic - I do like this move. We can all agree that Carter isn't the answer. While it was fun to watch him knock out 41 dingers, it will be nice to see someone who might have an OBP of above 300. All in all, I like the move and am all for taking top players from other leagues. Success breed's confidence and confidence is a key ingredient to success. I would expect him to have a lot of confidence and hopefully translate that into success at the MLB level.

1. I am all in on the international draft. We have discussed it, but being born out of the US allows you to get paid more than being born in the US. Just seems like an irregularity that should be fixed. Could you imagine if the NBA only had a draft for US born players and international players were open to signing as a FA to any team? 2. Yes again. I like the format of the NFL and I think giving each team a 25% chance of making the playoffs is the best fit. I understand others will disagree, I just like the uniformity of 16 teams in each league. 3. I am in on expanding playoffs, but the season needs to go to 154. And the season should start March 31 and never go into November. 4. Agree on the September Rosters. However, teams that are not in the playoff race should have a way to bring up players to get them some big league experience. So they need an option to allow teams to bring guys up. Maybe each series they need to designate the 25 guys available. 5. I would say follow the NFL. They aware teams with sandwich picks who lose top players. I think that fits and doesn't hurt the FA from getting signed.

It's the lack of a running game and Rodgers just not seeing the field. I was at the game. Their receivers are blanketed as the DBs have no threat of it being a run and even on the rare chance it is, they know the front will handle it. As for Rodgers he just doesn't see the open guy. There were numerous times guys were open he he forces it to Adams or Jordy

Ya I think they will move it. Another schedule note is the Cubs will play at Miller Park before they play their home opener at Wrigley. So I would imagine that the Cubs fans will be out in FULL force to cheer for the returning champs. Miller park will unfortunately be Wrigley north for the foreseeable future.

That's kind of the point, these guys are allowed an unlimited allotment of timeouts so any gnat, guy yelling in the stands / wasp / fly and they get to call time out. Whether it is real or imagined. Time out is granted. And I am going to go with the vast majority of time outs are due to "strategy" ... To me, it should to be limited. The pitch sequence in this thread is a perfect example of the abuse that is allowed. And sure, these are playoff games, but those types of at-bats happen all season long.

I agree with this. If they inserted a play clock and forced pitchers to throw a pitch within 12 seconds, that would be a good start. But they would have to complement that with how many time outs a pitcher / batter / team gets per game.

The World Series killed the NFL in ratings last night and that game was two huge markets and national teams in Dallas and Philadelphia. The Chicago Cubs playing in the World Series with standing room only tickets for $1800 should generate a little more demand vs a week 8 NFL matchup between the Cowboys/Eagles. Sunday Night Football had a 16.82 and the World Series had a 21.54. Baseball is seeing the highest ratings in 7 years, which coincidentally was Yankee's / Phillies. The NFL has a game every week go over 20 million viewers, for which for baseball see's as it's "highest" ratings. Like I said, I feel there is an issue with the general public trying to watch these games and I agree with OWBC and his break down on the Champan/Kipnis at bat. that is a little over the top for the in-bat strategery I also think a detriment is having the championship series being played on cable TV. As more and more cut the cord, baseball needs to get out of the playoffs on cable TV business.

Say a pitcher reaches the limit. There's nothing stopping a runner at that point from just getting an 80 foot lead knowing that the pitcher can't throw over to pick him off. Sounds good in theory. Impossible to implement. Say you limit it to 4 throws. On the first throw, safe, second throw, safe. Well on the 3rd throw, he better be darn well sure he is going to pick him off, otherwise you are down to your final throw and if he is safe. And if you throw a 4th time I would just award him 2nd base. I understand this is a drastic change, but I am open to just about anything at this point. As I said before I just don't like the unlimited I can throw to first as much as I want. Additionally, if they do limit the number of times a pitcher can step off the rubber, this will just become the new way of stepping of the mound. With a runner on, they will just step off and throw to a base with a runner.

I meant it as, it's consistently the same. An NFL play runs for say 5 seconds. Then the ball gets set and within 40 seconds you know another play is coming. Sometimes sooner and sometimes all the way up to that 40 seconds, but it has to come or there is a penalty. In baseball a pitch is thrown. The ball is returned to the pitcher and then at some point he decides to throw anther pitch but only when he is ready, the batter decides he is ready and the catcher decides he is ready. If any of those 3 or the remaining 7 players in the field decide they don't want to "run" a play at that moment in time well then they don't have to. And they can just stand there, toss around the rosin bag, rub some dirt on the bat, whatever. You just throw the next pitch when you are ready. See this article http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=23669 As of the 2014 season, MLB has stretched to the time between pitches being over 18 seconds. However, football players can line up 22 people, call plays and snap the ball in under 40 seconds. So I would say yes, football is kept at a consistent pace of play- where as baseball is kept at an inconsistent pace of play. In baseball, players have free rein to do whatever they want and there is nothing stopping them. I like baseball too, but enough is enough. This time out strategy within an at bat is maddening to watch.

FTC - I like those idea's. Like my original post said why a pitcher can toe the rubber and step off repeatedly is beyond me. Same for the batter, you get 1 time out. You ask for a 2nd time out and it's a strike. If you have 2 strikes, well you just struck out because you needed time out. Alternatively, an idea would be to just allot a team so many timeouts per game. What sport allows for unlimited timeouts? Clearly it's being taken advantage of. It's all part of the "strategy" - which make for a slow / inconsistent pace. Maybe allow so many timeouts in innings 1 through 6 and then reset them for the 7th - 8th - 9th. But batters stepping out of box, pitchers stepping off mound, catchers talking to pitchers all constitute a time out. There is also the issue of "I can throw to first base as many times as I want" problem. The pitcher can literally throw there 20 times without any repercussion. (And I have seen multiple times where on the 4th or 5th time in a row of throwing to 1B they finally pick the guy off.) Once again, there should be a limit.

And the comparison with the NFL is fine - I honestly don't know the time length of NFL vs MLB- but at least the NFL has a play clock so the "pace" is consistent. Baseball has no consistency and pitchers / batters have free rain to take as much time as they want. Thus leading to a pace of play issue

I think this post season has just highlighted the issue. The dodgers / nationals had a 66 min inning. That's a little ridiculous. Manfred has also said that this off season “We’re going to put a package of issues on the table with the union,” http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/15575004/mlb-commissioner-rob-manfred-unhappy-increased-length-games So while I agree, it's the playoffs and one would expect slightly longer games, but I think it's still grown too long. IMO

From this yahoo article: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/indians-win-world-series-chess-134118825.html "the World Series games took an average of three hours, 41 minutes to play, required 28 pitchers and included not a single lead change." Baseball needs to figure something. World Series games have gone 3 hr 37 min 4 hr 4 min 3 hr 33 min on a 1 - 0 game 3 hr 16 min I know baseball has tried implementing some minor changes but the time between pitches needs to be reduced. Why players can step completely out of the box or the pitcher step on the mound and then decide to step off the mound is beyond me. Or the pitcher taking signs for 10 seconds and then the hitter calling time out