well I'll be....

rainjas get beat single-handedly by a career .200 hitter. wouldn't expect that from the defending champs.

Luckily I decided to watch hockey.

Royals winning the central. Mash it, ship it.

Schlitz,


you're winning this thread!

lol u silly

Jackson Holliday is up. Let's go, Birds!

https://www.si.com/mlb/2024/04/10/ja...tory-mlb-debut

Royals mashed up the Stros

2 weeks into the season and there are 36 pitchers on the IL with elbow injuries, 16 on the IL with shoulder injuries and another 6 listed as arm injuries. That's 58 pitchers, enough to almost fill out a starting rotation for 12 teams.

Tom Verducci wrote a great article in SI why this is occurring at such an alarming rate.

Tom Verducci SI Article

It's a neat trick to be able to touch the gun at 100 mph. But there's a difference between a pitcher and a thrower. A pitcher should be locating his pitches, mixing velocity, at about 70-80% of max. And then, in key moments, reach into the tank and blow smoke to retire a batter.

Throwers who come out and have little to nothing in their arsenal but to max out velocity for 6-7 innings are headed nowhere but the IL. But hey, you might pick up a Cy Young on your trip. Worth it? Their mammoth guaranteed contracts say yes. But as a fan, I want to see them on the mound. Not reading about their 2nd TJS.

The elbow injuries are obviously baseball specific but there's also an increase in other ligament injuries because the human body just isn't built for the athletic levels of today's sports.

ACL injuries, especially in female youth players, are through the roof in sports like soccer and basketball because the sports are on a totally different athletic level than even 10 years ago.

Obviously a huge concern for MLB because star pitchers are among of the faces of the league. The NFL keeps changing the rules to make sure the game is save for QBs. Obviously not as easy for MLB.

This is not what's changed - today's pitchers, if anything, are far more skilled than their predecessors and less reliant on velocity than ever. And this is the worst time to pitch if you have nothing else in your arsenal but velo - there were far more guys like that having success in the past, because it was easier to be a huge outlier in terms of velo and even major league hitters struggled with upper-90's fastball. Pitchers rely on their fastball far less than they did in the past (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-league...-on-pitch-mix/) and velocity doesn't set you apart from others the same way because everyone else is throwing hard too.

The problem is that the bar is just so much higher, in terms of velo, in terms of how sharp your breaking pitches have to be and so on, in terms of how accurate you have to be (which favors more practice at higher intensity) because our understanding of pitching mechanics is so much better and also much more widely available, but the human body hasn't caught up to it. This is even more acute at the youth level - young pitchers have gotten even better at an even faster rate, a much higher percentage of them are getting close to their physical potential and they are getting there younger (with a less mature body more prone to damage) due to year-round training and substantially better instruction.

I think it comes down to YouTube (and social media and the internet more generally) - the level of instruction is so much higher because of information that is directly available through these channels and also indirectly because coaches that would otherwise be teaching obsolete nonsense can also learn what they should be teaching instead. It's also easier than ever to find private instructors or to make a living as one because of the internet.

Meister appeared on Foul Territory yesterday and gave a more nuanced answer than velocity. He claimed that he can basically tell what kind of pitches are thrown from the damage on MRI, and that the horizontal movement pitches present a big risk factor. They talk about grip and how sticky substance ban might be a factor, but it seems like a small factor.



None of this matters though because nothing will change. You'd have to radically alter the rules in a way that rewards not throwing those pitches at max velocity. I can't think of a way to do it without hard capping the number of pitchers allowed in a baseball game at like two or three which is never going to fly with MLBPA.

This makes sense to me, but it's not a generally accepted finding. For example this article (which does quote Meister blaming sweepers and certain types of changeup):

https://theathletic.com/5325032/2024...-mlb-pitchers/

Star pitchers are going to be the face of MLB less and less as time goes on bc pitchers just don't pitch deep into games anymore. We're 23 years removed from Johnson and Schilling carrying the dbacks in 2001, we're 10 years removed from Bumgardener carrying the Giants in 2014 - hell we're 7 years removed from the last complete game in the playoffs. Injuries aside, it's a lot harder to market someone when they're out of the game in the 6th inning.

haven't stopped. nice little 9 spot in the first (so far) lol stros

lol *stros and their fans, not including txdome who is an awesome poster and is never insufferable.

SO wholesome

Amazing. 9-4 royals. Won 7 straight

U eatin' high on the baseball hog right now.

Did the birds come back in the 8th and hold on for the win?

Wonder how The Moutain's rehab is coming along

Would've voted Braves for Spencer StrideGOAT but I'm the only Dodger vote. If I were a betting man, I'd take that 1500 on Texas, though

Reaper coming for Ragans next. Is there a TJ pool on these boards? Bad taste?

Witt Jr. Goat. Recognize

Bad taste? Yes
Would I play? Yes

ldo