Dreamcast 83: O Hai Lisa

In by Rice Cube84 Comments

RC and AC talk about the big thing that happened when we were all supposed to be asleep, and some stuff about Christopher Morel, Tom Ricketts, our expectations for this season, and more.

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  1. Perkins

    I wonder if there’s an injury or a trade in the works, because Cooper feels like a guy who wouldn’t need to settle for a NRI and he’s redundant to Wisdom.

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  17. Author
    Rice Cube

    I can’t be sure but I believe the Cubs slogan for this year has quietly changed to “C’ing is Believing” at least from the splash screens I’ve seen on their website. The “You Have to C It” image is still on their Twitter bio though.

    Someone suggested putting an L flag in between the C and the It and I kinda wish GBTS was still around for that.

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  27. Author
    Rice Cube

    (dying laughing) “Let me sleep, bro!”

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  29. andcounting

    Boras with a pretty convincing point on Bellinger’s lowered “hard contact” numbers: Bellinger took a much different approach with 2 strikes to prioritize making contact over power. That narrative definitely matches the eye test.

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  32. Perkins

    Rice Cube,

    That’s a problem that needs to be solved at the organizational level. Cutting a roster spot would require a few years of runway before implementation to allow for building to larger workloads in the minors.

    My quick and hilarious way would be to spot a team ten runs if its starter pitches a complete game, five if he finishes eight, and three if he finishes seven.

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  34. Author
    Rice Cube

    Perkins,

    My idea was to tie the DH to the starting pitcher unless the starting pitcher hits for himself, but I believe the minimum innings finished needs to be at least six to maintain DH for the rest of the game after the starter exits. I get the injury concerns but they need to do something because pitching matchups aren’t fun anymore

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  37. Author
    Rice Cube

    I think we sort of talked about this on the pod once but how would you propose making this even remotely fair for the players?

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  41. Author
    Rice Cube

    Today’s starters

    LF Happ
    SS Swanson
    3B Morel
    2B Hoerner
    RF Tauchman
    C Alfaro
    DH Wisdom
    CF Canario
    1B Mervis

    Obviously it’s still spring training but Happ at leadoff is a good idea IMO

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  43. Author
    Rice Cube

    Rice Cube:
    Today’s starters

    LF Happ
    SS Swanson
    3B Morel
    2B Hoerner
    RF Tauchman
    C Alfaro
    DH Wisdom
    CF Canario
    1B Mervis

    Obviously it’s still spring training but Happ at leadoff is a good idea IMO

    Looks like they changed the lineup around gametime

    Happ
    Swanson
    Morel
    Hoerner
    Tauchman
    Alfaro
    Mervis
    Canario
    Aliendo is now DH

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  44. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    Teams that receive revenue-sharing dollars should have a portion of those funds restricted for use on payroll, and those funds should function like a medical spending account—if they don’t sign the player before February 1, they lose that money.

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  46. dmick89

    Rice Cube:
    This may be a fun discussion later on, what do you all think MLB should do to incentivize starters going deeper into games? Shrinking the roster limit from 13 to 12 seems a bit too drastic.

    https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/mlb-wants-to-make-starting-pitching-more-prominent-but-its-a-tough-task

    Money. If it’s that important, MLB should pay something like $100K per complete game. Maybe it should be more. I don’t know.

    My question is, why is it important? I know it’s not to me. I don’t care if there are 500 complete games per year or none. I don’t get what MLB is doing these days. What’s wrong with letting individual teams manage their organizations differently? This used to be baseball’s strength.

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  47. berselius

    dmick89,

    I think it’s an in game narriative thing, though also with a hefty dose of not necessarily useful nostalgia. Much like a qb in football the starting pitcher is involved in half the plays of the game, and some people feel like you lose something without that through line. It doesn’t bother me either but I can kind of see the argument.

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  48. Author
    Rice Cube

    dmick89,

    I think they’d have to build that into the CBA as an eligible incentive but also they already have the 200 innings (or they used to, I think it was switched to number of games now)…it’s just more aesthetically pleasing to see a pitcher go the distance than an assembly line of pitchers in a single game, plus I like the idea that restricting the number of pitching changes can actually help boost offense some.

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  49. Author
    Rice Cube

    The counterargument is that athletes are wired for max effort whether they throw 9 innings or try to get one out so you probably won’t get a guy to voluntarily gear back to avoid injury

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  50. dmick89

    berselius,

    I became a fan in the early 80s and played throughout my childhood. I know there were more complete games then, but I don’t remember anyone giving a shit about them either. Wins were huge. Strikeouts were kind of big too. Saves were big, but not the 3 out kind. I remember those 6 to 9 out saves. Even keeping people off base was something fans would talk about. Shutouts, yeah, but I don’t remember complete games being of much importance to the fans I knew and talked with.

    You look at the average team these days and they can all hold leads late in games. About the only argument I can come up with wanting to encourage complete games is that it will improve offense league wide. If worse quality pitching is what they desire, they should totally do this.

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  51. andcounting

    dmick89,

    Even though I’m against it in a league that routinely has several 100-loss teams, expansion is probably the best way to nudge the system back in the direction of complete games. A replacement level pitcher these days is still a pretty good pitcher and possibly a better option than most starters on their third time through the batting order. It’s possible that opening up 80 more roster spots and redistributing the wealth of talent might change the formula a bit.

    Actually, this reminds me of a graph I saw about a completely different topic: WAR distribution by age. I think it plotted the % of 3+ WAR players under 30 over the decades, and there was this huge dip during the ‘90s and early 2000s. It seemed like most people attributed that surge in old-dude performance to PEDs*, but I wonder if expansion (Marlins, Rays, Diamondbacks, Rockies) wasn’t the bigger factor. If the league is too small for the talent supply, the demand for older, more expensive players just isn’t there. This could explain the recent FA market.

    One would think it might also force owners to spend more, making it less likely for teams to compete with payrolls under $50 million.

    Damnit, I may have just changed my mind on expansion.

    *this surge in old-guy performance is brought to you by Viagra. Viagra, the only PED Rafael Palmeiro ever admitted to using.

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  52. Perkins

    Rice Cube:
    The counterargument is that athletes are wired for max effort whether they throw 9 innings or try to get one out so you probably won’t get a guy to voluntarily gear back to avoid injury

    Justin Verlander at his peak is a notable exception and he was arguably more entertaining than any pitcher of the last 20 years.

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  55. Perkins

    Rice Cube,

    I meant more that Verlander made a conscious effort to hold something back the first couple times through the order and then dialed up the velocity in later innings so he could work deeper into games more effectively. I remember articles about it because it was (and is) so unusual in today’s game.

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  56. Author
    Rice Cube

    Perkins,

    Yeah I honestly don’t know why other pitchers won’t do that, I guess now that teams have identified the three-times-through issue they’re just resetting the way their pitchers deploy their energies?

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  58. Author
    Rice Cube

    As an aside, it is good to know that Shohei Ohtani married a normal Japanese woman and not an abnormal alien whatever

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  59. Perkins

    Rice Cube,

    I think the third time through the order penalty is a big reason. As someone most excited by low hit and/or high strikeout complete games, this is one of those areas where I think analytics has been a funsucker.

    In Verlander’s case, his being one of the most dominant pitchers of his generation almost certainly helped. I remember reading about the third time through the order penalty in The Book back in the day, and IIRC there was an improvement in performance the fourth time through that was most likely because only really good pitchers having great games were ever given that long a leash.

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  61. andcounting

    I don’t think Shaw and Caissie are going to be wearing 77 and 78 on their ST jerseys next year.

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  64. Perkins

    Rice Cube:
    Perkins,

    I think most guys if they even get into or through the third time through the order have so many pitches already that they’re on fumes anyway

    Yeah the flyball revolution almost certainly had an impact there. Tougher to pitch low and to contact when everyone is swinging to combat that, and trying to strike out more batters takes a lot of pitches.

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