Mariner musings

Philadelphia's ballpark is among my most favorites, with all its flats and angles and variety of spaces outside the main seating area. The only drawback is its location amidst a sea of asphalt in south Philly.

So, yeah, there's a lot of important stuff going on in the news—the governor of Florida seems hell-bent on turning his state into a fascist hellscape that somehow relies on tourism; two-thirds of the Supreme Court is more corrupt than Warren G. Harding, Spiro Agnew, Ted Stevens, and the entire Reagan Administration combined; shootings are rampant across America; and so on—but tonight I'm just going to make a few observations about baseball and the Seattle Mariners. Because, hey, you gotta find some balance, right?

The Mariners just concluded a three-game series in Philadelphia, in which they lost two of three at my favorite big-league venue of those I have actually been to personally. (Philly's corporately-branded ballpark has great sightlines, lovely brick everywhere, angles galore—no rounded walls in sight—lots of great spaces, Phillies history exhibits, lots of great stuff. Too bad it's so far from downtown.) When I'm watching games on television I sometimes mix it up and watch the other team's broadcast feed—since we live in the future and that's a thing we can do now—because (a) the Mariners' broadcast team ranges from OK to bad, with color commentator Mike Blowers the only reliably good voice in the booth, and I like to get a feel for what fans in other markets get to hear day in and day out; and (b) it's fun to get the opposition's perspective on what the Mariners do in the way of, er, let's call it "strategy."

So, the Phillies TV team is headed by Tom McCarthy, a consummate pro and one of the best play-by-play guys working today, with sidekick and color commentator John Kruk, a former All-Star first baseman for the Phils and a general goofball on the air. They make a great and complementary duo, with McCarthy effortlessly shifting from accurate game-calling to engaging with Kruk's blue-collar humor and unfiltered observations of the moment. Some of it is just silly, like their banter about Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh's nickname of "Big Dumper" and how completely off-color it can be interpreted. Some of it, as Kruk himself says on air, gets him emailed reprimands from Major League Baseball for not only skirting the language regs but for not towing the Commissioner's party line (this is the best stuff, naturally).

During these three games, Seattle manager Scott Servais was the indirect subject of criticism by McCarthy and Kruk, though they were generously giving the benefit of the doubt, expressing puzzlement. On Monday the Mariners' starting pitcher was Marco Gonzales, who, as McCarthy helpfully told everyone, was coming off one of the best games of his career in his previous start, one in which he was snakebit by his relief. (Marco had thrown six brilliant innings against Milwaukee, shutting them out on just two hits and an umpire-aided walk; Servais let him start the seventh inning, but then pulled him after just four pitches because the first one was dribbled weakly past the shortstop for a cheap hit and the fourth—which was precisely the type of pitch and in the precise spot catcher Tom Murphy called for, on purpose—was struck for a standard run of the mill big-league single. This was panic time for Servais, who went to the bullpen because, oh my god we're in the 7th inning and we've yet to use a reliever!! and oh my god, Gonzales is nearly at 90 pitches and must therefore be losing it!!! Matt Brash came in to allow both baserunners to score and the score went from 2-0 in favor of Seattle to 5-2 Milwaukee before the inning was over, and there was Marco leaning on the dugout railing, thinking "good grief, I'd have gotten out of that with one run scoring at worst, but nooooo, Scott has to be a slave to the fucking pitch count." I mean, probably. He should have been thinking that if he wasn't.) Anyway, here in Philadelphia, Marco was once more cruising through the game, retiring one Philly batter after another with only one real blemish, a solo home run by Edmundo Sosa. Then in the top of the sixth frame, as Teoscar Hernández is circling the bases on his two-run homer, McCarthy notices activity in the Seattle bullpen. "What's that about?" he asks. Kruk concurs. "Why? Gonzales is only at, what, 70 pitches?" (It was 75, but still.) "There didn't appear to be an injury of any kind, he's not on short rest," McCarthy added (I'm paraphrasing). They were genuinely perplexed.

I, however, have observed Scott Servais manage the Mariners for years and I know what McCarthy and Kruk did not: Servais makes a game plan ahead of time and doesn't let pesky things like what happens in the game deter him from sticking to it, and he's a slave to pitch counts. God forbid a starter goes over 90, it's as if that would bring the horsemen of the apocalypse riding in to rain destruction on all the land.

Tuesday saw the M's start Logan Gilbert on the mound. He too was pulled from the game after just five innings, and once again McCarthy and Kruk were befuddled. Gilbert hadn't been as sharp or as economical as Gonzales had been, but was still in the lead and pitching well. Continuing to puzzle over it, McCarthy seemed to be starting to catch on, opining that perhaps this was just how the Mariners do things because they've had such good relief pitching the last couple of years. I'm not sure how much I agree with the "good relief" part of that, but yeah, that's totally it. The ’pen blew it in this case, though, as Philadelphia came back to win in the late innings.

Then came today, when the starter for Seattle was George Kirby, who, as McCarthy once again told us all—the guy really is a pro, he does his homework—constantly throws strikes and should generate a lot of contact. Which was true, and lo and behold we get to the seventh inning and what's this? Kirby is back out on the mound. McCarthy and Kruk are confused again. McCarthy looks it up: this is the first time Kirby's ever pitched beyond the 6th inning. Is there something different about today? Kruk starts to suggest that since the pitch count is low—still under 70—that's why, but McCarthy reminds him (and us) that Gonzales got pulled with roughly the same count and he was pitching at least as effectively. Confusion reigned again.

For the record, Kirby completed the game. Only eight frames, but still, it's a CG in the books, a rarity in today's game and a near-unicorn-level rarity on a Scott Servais team. Still lost, though, as Philly took it 1-0.

Kruk was also entertaining to me as a critic of the new rules, specifically the pitch clock. There was an issue with time-outs and a clock violation in yesterday's game and Kruk said, "what a great game this used to be." He also remarked that he'd better stop saying such things if he didn't want another email from Major League Baseball. Come on, Kruk, you know you want to say it: Manfred sucks.

 

Seattle finds itself in fourth place in the standings as the first month of the season draws to a close, three games under .500 and three back of first-place Houston. Not great, but not that bad either, and things still look quite promising despite Scott Servais' inability to think on his feet. One reason they do is the Mariners' third baseman, Eugenio Suárez. Geno has completely changed his approach at the plate from last season. Instead of the uppercut swing of prior years, he's swinging more level and thus hitting more liners and base hits. Compared to this time last year, his batting average is up 30 points and strikeouts are down. Fewer home runs, but more runs batted in. It is exactly the kind of thing I gave up on ever seeing from the Mariners, who for so long have been champions of the "go deep or go home," "launch angle is all" school of dumb hitting coaches. Keep at it, Geno.

 

Jarred Kelenic is another bright spot on this so-far underachieving team. The former top prospect has learned well from the brutal dose of humility dumped on him in both of his attempts at a rookie season in 2021 and ’22 and is currently the team's best hitter by a mile at .313 (no one else is over .260, though J.P. Crawford has come on strong in the last two weeks). Is he finally going to be the guy that the team brass thought they were getting when they traded Edwin Díaz for him? Is it ridiculous that the word "finally" is in that sentence, as had he not been rushed way too soon to the bigs this is basically when he'd be coming up anyway? (Answers: Maybe, and yes.)

 

That relief corps that Servais seems to love so much continues to trouble me, but left-hander Gabe Speier has been terrific. Everyone else, well, my confidence is not inspired.

 

Oh, and last year's big free-agent add, former Cy Young Award winning pitcher Robbie Ray, is this year's James Paxton: One start and done. He'll miss the remainder of the year with a flexor tendon injury. Not great for the M's, but the balance of the starting rotation is really, really good, save Ray's current fill-in (Chris Flexen), who's been pretty brutal. My opinion is that they can weather the loss fairly easily, maybe by taking a flyer on someone recently cut by another team (probably not Madison Bumgarner, though), maybe by recalling Tommy Milone again, who did great in his one chance this year despite being a victim of Servais' absurd proclivities. There's really no one else on the farm that's ready to get a shot. It'll be interesting to see what they choose to do.

 

The M's go north of the border for their next series, and I look forward to learning how the Toronto Blue Jays' broadcast team handles things and seeing graphics with Canadian spellings like "defence."

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners   |   Posted on April 28, 2023 at 2:49am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Don't be a level 7 susceptible

The other day I was at the Mariners game with my friend Mack. He and I were discussing the various things, good and (mostly) bad, that have changed in baseball since Rob Manfred took over as Commissioner of Baseball and eventually we got to advertising. The Manfred era has brought more ads to the baseball consumer, including ads on the field of play at some venues (on the back of the pitcher's mound for the TV cameras and on the grass in foul ground along the baselines) and even ads on the players' uniforms.

Thankfully, not even half of the teams have instituted the uniform ads (yet). But there doesn't seem to be enough of an outcry among fans of those teams that have; I suppose our culture has just become so conditioned to accept being inundated with branding and commercialism in every moment of existence that we're kind of numb to it.

Which brings up the meat of my conversation with Mack: What's the point of it all?

Obviously, the point to Manfred and company is revenue; advertisers pay for the opportunity to plaster their logos on spaces that will get exposed to our eyeballs and MLB and the teams rake in some dough. But what's the point to the advertisers? Do they get any benefit out of this, really?

A prominent software company based in the area has an ad on the outfield wall of the ballpark (and on the rotating billboards on the wall behind home plate). Everyone knows what that company is, we see it and register "that's an ad for the software giant we're all familiar with," but does that translate somehow into more money for the company?

Mack listed off all the ads visible from our seats. We know all of the brand names. We may even associate those brands with memorable marketing, e.g. the Bob Uecker ads for a certain beer brand back in the day. We may do business with those companies, we may not. But the fact that they advertise at the ballpark means nothing to us.

If I get on an flight offered by Airline X it's because their schedules and pricing were more advantageous than those of competing airlines, not because they put their logo on the outfield wall or sponsor the Mariners' pregame show on the radio. I suppose if I had never heard of Airline X I might go "hm, they sponsor the Mariners, I will add them to the list of options I look at when booking flights." Maybe. But what percentage of the audience is going to fit into that scenario? Does this bank or that gasoline brand get more business from people that go to baseball games because they put their logos on the stadium wall? Do San Diego Padres fans all now flock to buy the sponsored brand of phones because the Padres wear that company logo on their sleeves? I rather doubt it.

Sometimes marketing has a clear purpose. Like the scenario of never having heard of Airline X, getting the name recognition out there so your company will be thought of and considered, that makes some sense. Big well-known outfits can do well with great commercials; the prominent software company's principal competitor has had some genius ads over the years that have undeniably been very successful. But those tend to be funny commercials or ads that make an impact through the accompanying message, not just a wordmark or a bit of iconography. Don't get me wrong, I love good iconography, and I guess if all else were equal and I was choosing between two brands I may well go with the one with the better design sense. But generally a great logo isn't enough to make me choose Brand X over Brand Y, and the fact that Brand X is in my face every time I watch a ballgame is not necessarily going to help their cause.

I was at another game more recently with another friend, one who still works tangentially in the advertising world, and brought this up. She was of another mind about it altogether, citing various psychological/sociological theories about what are effectively subliminal connections people can make with brands because of the repetition of seeing the names and iconography in circumstances they associate with good times. That sounded a bit too "big brother" to me for comfort, but she's probably right. People are, indeed, sheep in may ways.

I then recalled an episode of the late great sitcom Community, wherein the character of Craig is targeted by a guerrilla marketer because Craig is discovered to be "a level seven susceptible." It's pretty funny as over the course of the half hour we see Craig surrounded by more and more products from the guerrilla marketer's employer corporation. (Also a very creative way to get some product placement bucks while mocking things like product placement. Community was awesome.)

So I guess ballpark ads are like junk mail. There's a relatively tiny rate of return on them, individual consumer-wise, but of those few perhaps enough of them are level seven susceptibles to make it profitable. Kind of like the MAGA problem.

So...humanity is probably screwed.

 

Tagged Baseball, Society   |   Posted on April 25, 2023 at 12:29am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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What a week

Whatever else has gone on the last week-plus, Picard has been a reliable highlight

So, it's been a while since I posted anything here. I've been pretty busy with work of different types. A client gig that was supposed to be relatively small that turned into a pretty involved endeavor because of software bugs led to a few all-nighters that I've not recovered from yet, hence me blogging at 3:00am (again). Also my umpiring gig involved a three game shift the other night that was just a miserable experience—it was raining, it was cold, there was an altercation between players I had to deal with—that I was half-convinced was going to result in my getting sick, but I guess my immune system is better than I gave it credit for and I wasn't out of commission for very long.

But it isn't like there was a shortage of things to post about. I mean, the domestic terrorists and autocrats known as the Republican Party have just kept on doing their thing to frighten their constituents and do anything they can think of to wrest more power for themselves in defiance of democracy. A week after I posted a screed about gun violence there was another mass shooting. Then another one the next day. And another one while that second one was happening, in the same town. Which begat more Republican autocratic power grabs and more Republican legislation to abet domestic terrorists.

You know, the usual.

Not all the news was bad, though. My state Attorney General, the awesome Bob Ferguson, stuck it to a suburban gun shop for over 2,600 counts of violating the law limiting what amount of ammunition can be sold, that was very cool. And my governor made noise about protecting my state from those autocratic Republican terror laws. Oh, and former president vonClownstick is squawking about his criming, which is equal parts entertaining and scary.

And then there was the pop culture stuff. Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard is nearing its conclusion without missing a beat, continuing to deliver some truly great stuff. (I wonder if there might have been a little overreach in this week's episode, but I guess we'll find out in the finale next week.) Ted Lasso is also in its season 3, and while it continues to be great it's pacing is a bit slower than over on Picard; interesting stuff has been set up, but not much payoff yet. Then there's a little show called The Big Door Prize—it's on Apple TV+ and from some of the folks that made Schitt's Creek, starring the always charming Chris O'Dowd, whom I enjoy in pretty much anything he's done. That show is a really interesting character study of disparate people in this small town that become enamored with a seemingly magic machine that tells them "their true life potential." I recommend.

What I haven't made time for the past week-plus is my new bike, which still awaits my attention to replace its seat and install a rack. Hopefully I'll get to that soon. Nor have I done any reading of anything other than some news, which is very unusual. Not counting the reference materials on SQL databases I made use of in the aforementioned all-nighters, anyway. My pile of books and comics just keeps growing and I need to make a dent.

Anywho. This has been a blithering blog post of no import and little focus. I now return you to your regularly scheduled websurfing.

Posted on April 14, 2023 at 4:25am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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New Season Primer

For the benefit of the few of you that were loyal readers of the now-defunct site I used to run about the Seattle Mariners, here is a much-abbreviated version of what might have run there as we approached Opening Day last Thursday.

Keeping track of the offseason player movements is sometimes a challenge, and as you tune in or go to the ballpark in 2023 you may wonder, "What happened to so-and-so?" and "Who's this guy that I never heard of before?" Well, fear not, I'm here for you. And after last season's playoff run, the team was already in pretty decent shape, so there's not a ton of new faces to learn. We'll miss some of the guys who have left Seattle, but welcome the new additions to the fold.

Here goes:

Gone from 2022			New in 2023
Player	New team		Player	Former team
Adam Frazier (2B/OF)	Baltimore (free agent)		Trevor Gott (RHP)	Milwaukee (FA)
Mitch Haniger (RF)	San Francisco (FA)		Teoscar Hernández (OF)	Toronto (trade)
Kyle Lewis (OF)	Arizona (traded)		Cooper Hummel (C/OF)	Arizona (trade)
Carlos Santana (DH/1B)	Pittsburgh (FA)		Tommy LaStella (IF)	San Francisco (FA)
Erik Swanson (RHP)	Toronto (traded)		A.J. Pollock (LF)	Los Angeles Dodgers (FA)
Abraham Toro (IF)	Milwaukee (traded)		Gabe Speier (LHP)	Kansas City (waivers)
Luis Torrens (C)	Chicago Cubs (FA)		Kolten Wong (2B)	Milwaukee (trade)
Jesse Winker (LF)	Milwaukee (traded)
Curt Casali (C)	Cincinnati (FA)
Matthew Boyd (LHP)	Detroit (FA)

 The big moves were the trade of Winker and Toro to the Brewers for Wong and dealing Swanson and a minor-league prospect to the Blue Jays for Hernández. The rest of the shuffling was fairly minor, though Pollock could become an important piece and I'm intrigued by Hummel.

With Frazier leaving, the Mariners needed someone to hold down second base, and though I'd have preferred it if they gave Sam Haggerty a chance to claim the spot, Wong is a proven hitter and defender (though he played below expectations in Milwaukee). Losing Haniger is a bummer, but Hernández is a terrific pickup to take the right field job. Cutting ties with Kyle Lewis wasn't popular, but I like it—he may well turn into a fine hitter, but aside from being injury-prone, he only showed three weeks of solid production for the M's; it was just magnified because those weeks came in the mini-season of 2020. There wasn't room for him in the outfield mix anymore anyhow, and Cooper Hummel was an on-base machine at all levels of the Diamondbacks' minors and put up decent defensive marks as a catcher while capable of playing the corner outfield as well, so I like the trade.

Winker is apt to have a great year now that the M's have dealt him away, but I don't mind shipping him off in the Wong trade. One year of Winker for one year of Wong, contractually speaking, plus the addition-by-subtraction of unloading Toro in the process. If spring training is anything to go by—and it rarely is, so who knows—Jarred Kelenic might just be ready to come into his own, making Winker eminently expendable. And if Kelenic still can't cut it every day, Pollock can step in beyond a strict platoon, and there's some outfield depth in the minors/coming off of injury.

On paper, you'd think the guy the M's will miss most is Swanson, but Swannie's better off with the Blue Jays. Manager Scott Servais never seemed to know how to use Swanson in a way that played to his strengths, so getting traded might be how he gets to finally be a go-to 8th- or 9th-inning guy.

 Anywho, the ’23 Mariners will feature a very strong starting rotation, even though Robbie Ray is on the injured list after just one game. With Ray out for likely a month or more, it'll be Luis Castillo, Chris Flexen (in Ray's spot), Logan Gilbert, Marco Gonzales, and George Kirby. It's not often that the number two spot is the weak link, but weak is relative here. These guys could all go deep into games if their manager would allow it, but as it's Scott Servais we're talking about, they'll get shortchanged some innings in favor of an overstuffed bullpen more often than is ideal.

That ’pen is a bit of a crapshoot, too. One of the club's strengths the past couple of years, the relief corps strikes me as the Mariners' biggest potential trouble spot. There's a lot of upside in youngsters Andres Muñoz and Matt Brash, but they're both still a bit raw; Diego Castillo was great a few years ago, but not lately; Gott seems like your average middle-relief guy. It just seems iffy to me. Is the Paul Sewald of 2022 for real or will he regress? Matt Festa and Penn Murfee have looked great from time to time, but they've also looked awful on occasion; Speier has been hit-and-miss, both literally and figuratively, in his time with the Royals, and he's the only southpaw in the group. Of course, if Servais let his starters pitch seven-plus on the regular, this would be less of a deal; why, they might even realize that carrying eight relievers is kind of bonkers! Yeah, yeah, I know. Never happen.

But with that pitching staff and a lineup that features Ty France, Julio Rodríguez, Eugenio Suárez, and Hernández, this looks to be a fun season. Wong and J.P. Crawford up the middle are among the best defenders at their respective positions, and thanks to the (dumb) rule that caps the number of pitchers on the roster, the team will have a workable bench complement. I mean, it'd be better to have five than four, but Servais has to have his extra reliever. Thankfully the bench has a lot of versatility—Haggerty can play six positions; Dylan Moore, when he gets healthy, can play seven; Hummel can spell the catchers or let one of them DH without courting the disaster scenario of having a catcher get hurt and no one left to put on the gear; and whichever outfielder isn't in the lineup (most often Pollock or Kelenic) figures to be the go-to pinch-hitter.

Got all that? See, not much different from 2022. It's not like being a Reds fan, for whom only every fourth guy is a name you might recognize; or a Marlins fan, where every other name prompts a reaction of, "wait, he plays for Miami now?" (Did you know Jean Segura is a Marlin now? See, you didn't, did you.)

Batter up.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners   |   Posted on April 2, 2023 at 12:24am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Bullpen Bulletins

Back in the day, Marvel Comics all had a page in them near the back that was for their little promo blurbs of various kinds that they called Marvel Bullpen Bulletins. In that vein, a few things to blurb about today...

• ITEM: Trump indicted! (Or "indicated," as he wrote on his knockoff social media platform.) About frakking time, but also, not nearly enough. It's a good start, and with luck the media will remind everyone that, though this is a relatively trivial case amongst the many criminal acts of former president VonClownstick, it was the one that conceivably allowed every subsequent one to happen and is of a kind when it comes to motive: to hoodwink the public and rig an election. May it be the first of many indictments and may it serve to lead to eventual justice being done, or at least a significant measure of it.
• ITEM: Yesterday was opening day of baseball season! I did not attend the opener for Your Seattle Mariners as I have been wont to do, but I will attend many games this season as per usual. I watched the game on the telly, though (after the fact), and thankfully the new rules Commissioner Manfred forced upon us didn't play much of a role. There was one pitch clock violation by a Cleveland reliever, who looked uncomfortable as all get out anyway, and one play at second base on a Ty France double that might have resulted in an out instead of a safe call if the old standard bases were in use. Otherwise, you wouldn't notice much change. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the pitch clock itself is not placed in a spot that the TV cameras can see with the usual camera angles. Good—I don't want to see the damn thing, it's too distracting.
• ITEM: Speaking of Opening Day, in years past I would have been spending a great deal of time writing up season preview articles and delving into all the player movement over the offseason and consulting my peeps for their season predictions. This all for the website I used to run based upon the magazine I used to do production for, which I finally got burned out on last summer. I gave it a go for several years, but it never made a dime and its audience never grew beyond a smattering. But I know some folks still want to know about my opinions regarding the Mariners in particular, so I'll run down some of that stuff over the weekend.
• ITEM: As some of you know, I have a side gig umpiring rec-league softball. I was working a few games last night, one of which featured two of my favorite teams to ump for, a good crop of guy and gals that keep things fun and don't take it too seriously. One of those teams is The Leftovers, who mark their softball journeys on Instagram. I even got namechecked in one of their videos. Their captain suffered a freak injury in winter league, so he's not playing for a while, but he's always there with his camera to document all the good stuff and post it. I appreciate that when he posts a video of a close call with the question "safe or out?" that he doesn't overtly second-guess me. :)
• ITEM: I bought my new bike finally, and gave it a bit of a shakedown ride the other day. It needs a little bit of adjustment, which I've not managed my time well enough to finish doing yet, but so far I'm pleased and not regretting the almost-$700 purchase.
• ITEM: The Mariners are playing! I must go now to tune them in on the TV machine.

More later. Excelsior!

Tagged Politics, Baseball, President VonClownstick, Seattle Mariners, Umping   |   Posted on March 31, 2023 at 7:22pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Guns are bad, m'kay?

Guess what. America had another school shooting. Because it's a regular week on Earth.

I realize that this is just screaming into the void (and apologies in advance, this post will probably have more swearing in it than is typical). The Nashville incident this week that resulted in seven deaths barely registers a blip on the societal consciousness because we are so goddamned used to it.

There have been 38 mass shootings in the US just this month. There were 40 last month. 53 in January. A lot of media types are reporting on the specifics of the Nashville case—because it's the newest, it's fresh—looking for motive and details and insights into the perpetrator as an individual, which is, OK, fine, I guess, but that's not what I want to see coverage of. I want to see journalists, protesters, people in general badgering Congress and state legislatures to regulate the fucking guns.

Reporters did approach Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett on the subject on Monday, which is good. Burchett is a Republican, though, so his response was not helpful. It was, however, relatively honest, which is notable in and of itself for an elected representative identifying with that party. He said, "We're not gonna fix it."

Whether he says that because he believes it's pointless to try or because he doesn't care about gun deaths or because he's too deeply in the thrall of the National Rifle Association's profit motive is up to interpretation, but the bottom line is right there. Burchett elaborated (if you can even apply that word) with, "I don’t think a criminal is going to stop from guns [sic], you know … I don’t think you’re going to stop the gun violence." By which he means, he doesn't think you, the empathetic concerned citizenry, can stop it because we, the Republican party, have enough power to ensure it keeps happening and that suits us just fine.

"We're not gonna fix it."

That is but one of the many reasons it is appropriate to label the modern Republican Party as a domestic terrorist organization.

The House Majority Leader, Congressman Steve Scalise, was asked what he thinks should be done about this issue. His response was eminently predictable. "I pray for the victims. I pray for the families. I get really angry when people try to politicize it for their own personal agenda," he said, trying to mask his own politicizing of the problem. The Senate chaplain, Barry Black, wasn't having it. "It's time to move beyond thoughts and prayers," he said in a prayer service he was leading for Senators. "Lord, deliver our senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous." I suppose that's the chaplain version of "kick these senators and other leaders squarely in the ass and make them act, because they sure as hell won't do it on their own."

Republicans behave as if this is just the normal course of life in America. But when I was growing up, we didn't have active shooter drills in school. We didn't fear that criminals were out there with AR-15 style assault rifles. We have always had a gun-fetishist culture that romanticizes the mistaken idea of the "old west gunslinger," but even in the old west there were, you know, regulations—you show up in town, you had to surrender your guns. The famous gunfight at the OK Corral? It happened because the Clanton gang wouldn't surrender their guns in accordance with the law. Tombstone, Arizona, had more gun control in 1881 that it does now.

I don't know when the NRA managed to convince Republicans that the second amendment to the Constitution didn't actually contain the phrase "well-regulated" or "safety of a free state"—maybe when they trotted out Charlton Heston to speak for them—but at some point the orthodox Republican position became that there should be no laws whatsoever restricting anyone's access to firearms of any kind. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger said in a 1991 interview that the second amendment "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud [perpetrated] on the American public." Many Republicans know this. Not all of them are insane Alex Jones types, plenty are smart enough to understand what the language of the amendment means and what the intent was with the wording as understood when it was written in the 18th century. But they do not care.

"We're not gonna fix it."

Once, we had a ban on assault rifles. It was effective, so Republicans made sure it went away. Now the assault rifle is a status symbol. Gun fetishists all have to have one. Or two. Or a dozen. Reinstating that ban would be a good start, but it's nowhere near enough.

I've known people that own guns. Most of them were the sort of person I would not trust with one. When I was a teenager I had a friend that lived with her father, a guy I knew to be a drunk and a real piece of shit, and there were multiple guns in her house. I never wanted to be there. I've known people who are not like that, that are basically well-intentioned sorts, that own guns. I had the impression they had them with the perhaps-sublimated hope that they would have an excuse to use them. I've even known a couple of folks who owned one "just for protection" against home invasion or the like. They, I thought, owned their guns out of fear and were far more likely to have the gun used against them or used poorly so that it offered no protection at all.

I have a bias, obviously. I do not support private ownership of firearms at all when it comes to handguns and other guns intended to kill human beings. I find hunting to be revolting, though I respect that it's a different thing and in and of itself can be regulated separately, but mass shootings like this never seem to be carried out with buckshot. Like the Nashville shooter, the perps tend to have assault rifles and handguns. And if we banned those fucking things, I can't help but believe these incidents would decrease dramatically.

They wouldn't completely go away. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that if someone wants to get something illegal, they'll find a way to get it. But it'll take a lot longer, take a lot more effort, and weed out a great many of the prospective perpetrators. Every other developed country on the planet has mental illness among the populace, has media with gratuitous violence, but only the United States has essentially unfettered access to guns and only the United States has dozens of mass shootings every month. Restricting access to guns would prevent many of these incidents, would save lives.

But we can't do anything like that. We can't ban assault rifles, let alone handguns, because Republicans have power and Republicans like violence. Too simplistic? OK, prove me wrong. Republicans like violence. They promote policies that encourage violence. They want criminals to have the very best armaments possible. In fact, they want everyone to be armed to the teeth and settle their problems with a bullet to the head, or at least the threat of one. Why else do they behave the way they do? Give me a convincing argument against that. "We're not gonna fix it" is their doctrine.

Well before this latest mass shooting, Jon Stewart interviewed a state senator in Oklahoma about his efforts to make acquiring and using firearms as simple and uninhibited as possible. It's a great/horrifying interview in which Stewart rams home the hypocrisy of this guy's positions and spotlights just how much this senator in particular and the modern Republican party more generally does not care about gun violence. The whole thing is on his Apple TV+ show, but the bulk of it is available here.

 

Tagged Republicans, Guns, Jon Stewart   |   Posted on March 29, 2023 at 9:38pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Hodgepodge

Captain Shaw might be a jerk, but I do feel for him

A few morsels of flotsam and jetsam from my mind as I get ready to head out for the evening...

• I did my taxes over the weekend. As per usual, as a self-employed person that gets screwed by having to pay both employer and employee shares of FICA and because I never send enough in estimated advance payments, I owed money. As not per usual, what I owed was more than $3,000, which makes me think I am doing myself a disservice by doing my taxes myself. Tax laws are so complicated, the forms are so elaborate, the software for making it easier to do so layered that I'm fairly sure I could have filed with a lower amount due if I knew what to deduct and claim and so on. I used the simplest/cheapest small business tax prep software I could find and it didn't guide me through all the stuff I seem to remember doing in prior years, but because tax laws change all the time I don't know what to think of that. I even know a tax prep professional personally, so I think next year I'll just pay her to do it and maybe I'll end up a little better off. The days of a 10 minute filing by form 1040-EZ are past me.
• Tomorrow night episode 6 of the final season of Star Trek: Picard drops, and boy am I ever here for that. Of course, I've loved every iteration of Star Trek (except Voyager and the JJ movies, of course), even when they're problematic and the writing slips (looking at you, Discovery writers' room, and no, I haven't forgotten Berman & Braga's incredibly lame time-war arc on Enterprise). But kudos to Terry Matalas and company for this season of Picard. Why is this the last season?! More, more! Spinoff!
• Former president Clownface von F*@%#stick told his cult of minions that he would be arrested today. Hasn't happened yet. Obviously, that was just another lie from him to generate fundraising, to get more of his red-hatted dupes to mortgage their houses for his legal fund, but I was still hopeful. Alas.
• Last night I was working here at my desk and heard a vicious-sounding fight between a cat and something else out my window. I peeked out to see what was what, but it was too dark, so I went outside to check it out, but by then combatants had fled. I just hope the cat wasn't seriously hurt. I bring this up just to say, as a lover of cats, please keep your kitties indoors whenever you can, especially at night. I know some of them love to explore and such, and once they get that into their systems it's a hard thing to curtail, but they will live longer and healthier lives. Give them stuff to climb on and room to run around inside if you have the space, windows to peer out of, toy mice to hunt. Keep them away from cars, coyotes, big dogs, even other territorial cats that might harm or kill them, not to mention parasites and diseases. I'm fortunate that I have a big condo with lots of space for my two to chase each other around in and that they've never shown an interest in bolting outside. When I was a kid I went through a string of pet cats that all died awful deaths because they went outside. My indoor cats lived to be 15½, 17, 18, and 19, my current two younger ones I hope will break 20.
• This went kind of under the radar, but President Biden vetoed a bill yesterday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy whined in response: “In his first veto, Biden just sided with woke Wall Street over workers. Tells you exactly where his priorities lie.” You know what, Kevin McCarthy is right. In that one thing, anyway. It does tell us where the president's priorities lie. They lie with the environment, working people, and the future. They do not lie with the short-term greed and profiteering of corporate moguls. The bill in question would have reinstated a Trump-era law that prohibited administrators of government retirement plans from considering environmental impacts or potential lawsuits when making investment decisions. Heaven forbid! Consider the likelihood that a company will be sued for its malfeasance when deciding whether or not to invest in it? Heinous! Mustn't be allowed! Give thought to whether or not a company is poisoning the planet before investing civil servants' retirement earnings in it? Outrageous! Poison and destruction should be irrelevant to making oil barons richer! Sit down and shut up, McCarthy, you spineless yet evil weasel.

OK, I have to go. Umpiring to do, followed by a hopefully spoiler-free viewing of the WBC championship game—being played right now as I type!—when I get home.

Posted on March 21, 2023 at 5:32pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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A WBC game for the books

Munetaka Murakami is mobbed by teammates after delivering the winning hit

Holy moly but that was a thrilling end to the WBC semifinal game between Mexico and Japan this evening, 180 degrees from the other semifinal (wherein the US trounced Cuba by 12 runs in a dull dramaless pounding). I know most of y'all don't care about such things and fewer still watched along with me, but I was into it and this is my blog, so I'm gonna tell you about it anyway.

Boosting Japan all the way, I was, naturally, feeling a bit frustrated at how things were going. Starting pitcher Rōki Sasaki, he of the 102mph fastball, devastating forkball, 2022 perfect game, and heartbreaking personal story—he's from the Tohoku region near Fukushima and lost everything including his father and grandparents in the 2011 tsunami—had been burned by a successful two-out hit against an infield shift that should not have been employed (I know Team Japan's manager, Hideki Kuriyama of the Hokkaido Fighters, is one of those sabermetric types, but when your pitcher is throwing 100+, do you really think batters are going to pull every batted ball?) and a popup that fell in behind the third baseman before his one hiccup of the game—a hanging forkball that got crushed for a homer. 3-0 Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexico's pitching was unexpectedly sharp when it needed to be and Japan's star third baseman, triple-crown winner Munetaka Murakami, continued his tournament-long slump by failing to cash in with runners aboard (three more Ks with runners on tonight).

By the 7th inning it was looking pretty bleak and I was resigning myself to the idea that at least I wouldn't have to worry about the championship game tomorrow being spoiled for me (I will be umpiring while it's being played and planned on watching it after the fact, and softball players have a tendency to look at their phones in the dugout and gab about scores they look up, heedless of my DVR no-spoiler lockdown).

But then came the bottom of the 7th. After a frustrating strikeout by catcher Takuya Kai and a lineout by Lars Nootbaar (yes, he's on Team Japan with that name, his mom's Japanese and his dad's Dutch-American), Kensuke Kondoh delivered a base hit to generate a little hope. Mexico went to the bullpen for a lefty to face Shohei Ohtani, but Ohtani took five pitches and walked. That brought up former Osaka Buffallo and new Boston Red Sox OF Masataka Yoshida, who leads the entire tournament in RBI. Hope welled some more. Yoshida ran the count to 1-2, but I'd seen enough of his at-bats by now to know he's a bit like Edgar Martínez in that two strikes doesn't faze him. He got a changeup falling into the lefty low-inside happy zone and golfed it over the wall a couple of feet inside the foul pole to tie the game. SUGOI!!

But then Mexico retook the lead immediately in the 8th as Japan's pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, was missing with everything. Yamamoto had been brilliant in his start against Australia and for two innings tonight, but here in the 8th he couldn't seem to locate any pitch. He got Austin Barnes to strikeout on fastballs out of the zone, but Randy Arozarena creamed a hanging forkball for a double and on the next pitch Alex Verdugo bashed a fastball down the pike for another double. It was time to pull Yamamoto, but no relief was ready yet, so Joey Meneses got to whack another hanger and now runners were on the corners. Too late, Yamamoto is relieved by the young setup man for the Hanshin Tigers, Atsuki Yuasa, and order seems restored when Rowdy Tellez strikes out; but Isaac Paredes still has something to say about it and grounds one through the hole into left field. That plated one run, but Japan escaped further damage when Yoshida threw a missile in from LF to cut down Meneses on a play at the plate and end the inning. Whew, and yikes.

Down two runs, Japan puts their first two batters on in the bottom of the 8th via a hit batter and base hit. Unfortunately, the bottom of the order is now up, but in true NPB fashion, shortstop Sosuke Genda, broken finger and all, squares to bunt and lays one down to advance the runners to 2nd and 3rd. Hokata Yamakawa is summoned from the bench to bat for Kai and hits one hard to left, but it's caught by Arozarena so all Japan gets out of it is one run on the sacrifice fly. Nootbaar follows with a walk, but reliever Gerardo Reyes gets Kondoh on strikes and things go to the 9th with Mexico still ahead.

In the top half, new pitcher Taisei Ota makes short work of Mexico so when Japan comes up in the last of the 9th it's still a one-run deficit. Mexico goes to its closer, Giovanny Gallegos, a solid Major Leaguer with St. Louis during the regular year. Ohtani leads off and doubles on Gallegos' first pitch to get the crowd and his dugout (and me on my couch) excited. Yoshida gets nothing good to hit and walks, which may have been a pitch-around situation—Yoshida has been Mr. Clutch all tournament and the next guy is Murakami, mired in a slump. So now 1st and 2nd, nobody out. Yoshida's no slowpoke, but still Japan goes to the bench for a pinch-runner, the very fleet-of-foot Ukyo Shuto, in case there's a need for speed. Nevertheless, this is a good double-play opportunity for Mexico and Murakami's slump might be exploited here. And he does foul off a pretty juicy fastball to go 0-1, then lays off a breaking pitch that gets buried at the plate. But this is still the guy who just won back-to-back Central League MVP awards, slump or no slump, and the next delivery is a fastball much like the first one and this time Murakami doesn't miss: he squares it up and drives it all the way to the center field wall, scoring Ohtani easily while Shuto kicks it into warp drive and slides home well ahead of the throw in from center. Game over. Japan wins. Much jumping around and screaming. The players seemed jazzed by it, too.

Really, one of the best finishes to a game I've ever seen; it sparked memories of the 1995 ALDS, even though the stakes in a short tournament aren't nearly the same. Mexico manager Benji Gil may have the quote of the night, summing things up thusly: "Japan moves on, but the world of baseball won today."

So, tomorrow we get the WBC finale we deserve, the two most established and historic baseball nations going at it, USA vs. Japan. Should be fun.

Now, if only I can get the softball players to keep their yaps shut so I can watch late tomorrow night unspoiled by "future" knowledge.

Tagged Baseball, WBC   |   Posted on March 21, 2023 at 2:46am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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WBC fun

Takumu Nakano laces a triple against Korea in the WBC last Thursday

I've been enjoying the 2023 World Baseball Classic this past week. Because of the pandemic, this is the first edition of the WBC in six years. (Usually it's played every three years except when it coincides with a Summer Olympics year, when it gets bumped ahead one year...which, as I think about it, really means it'll go to every four years because it'll get stuck always hitting an Olympic year. Hm. Methinks an adjustment is needed.) The tournament came into existence in 2006 as a way to grow the game in countries around the world that haven't traditionally been hotbeds of baseball and I've always found it to be great fun. This year the Asian opening bracket kicked off last week and the Western one started yesterday. (The difference to allow qualifiers from the Asian rounds a few days to acclimate to the severe time zone change when the advancing teams move on to the semis and the finals in Miami.)

My primary WBC enjoyment comes from getting to see the Japanese National team play. Made up of stars from Nippon Professional Baseball, aka the Japanese Major Leagues (plus a few Japanese players that make their living on this side of the Pacific), Team Japan is an international powerhouse that plays my brand of baseball. Heavy on the fundamentals, prioritize speed and defense, a real all-for-one-and-one-for-all mentality over the swing-for-the-longball-at-all-times approach that has become pervasive in the Majors over the last 10-20 years.

In prior WBCs there were particular NPB players I wanted to see play. I paid more attention to the ongoing seasons in NPB back then and knew of the star players then playing—your Ryosuke Kikuchis, your Kenta Maedas, your Shunsuke Watanabes, your Seiichi Uchikawas. This year there is only one NPB player on the roster that I was familiar with, infielder Tetsuto Yamada of the Tokyo Swallows. All the other guys I looked forward to seeing are now retired, playing over here now, or have aged out of star status and hanging on with lesser performances for their teams.

That's OK, though, now I have new NPB guys to pay attention to. I missed the first game of the tournament because of a TV rights situation I hadn't been paying attention to—Fox Sports got themselves exclusive TV rights to the tournament and thus I couldn't watch on MLB.TV—but once the situation was sussed out I ponied up for a month's worth of the Sling Blue streaming service, which carries two of the three Fox sports channels. (The third one carried some of the games being played in Taiwan, so I didn't see any of those.) So I DVR'd the 3:00a.m. games from the Tokyo Dome and got to see three games won by the Japanese.

No one caught my fancy as much as Ryosuke Kikuchi and Norichika Aoki and Michihiro Ogasawara had in prior WBCs, but there are some impressive participants. Tokyo Swallows third baseman Munetaka Murakami won the triple crown in the NPB Central League last year, which I had been unaware of. He seems to be slumping in the tournament, but he's got plenty of help. Left fielder Masataka Yoshida will be playing for Boston this upcoming season, but had been a monster hitter for the Osaka Buffaloes through last year and looked really damn good. Over seven years the guy has a career on-base mark of .419 and all he did was drive in eight in the first two games I saw. Shortstop Takumu Nakano looks a little raw—he's only been in NPB for two years—but I love his approach, with slap hits and blazing speed. For the first time, one of Team Japan's big contributors is an American—St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar qualified to play for Japan because his mother was born there, which makes for a strange juxtaposition of an Asian face with a Nordic name (strange for that culture, anyway). I think he's only playing because Seiya Suzuki of the Chicago Cubs bowed out due to injury, but he's won over the Tokyo Dome faithful.

Japan unsurprisingly ran the table in the first round of the tourney, beating Australia today to advance to the quarterfinals. They'll play Italy on the 16th for the honor of advancing to the next round in Miami. Italy is a surprise entry for the quarterfinals, advancing out of the Taipei group along with Cuba, which is far less surprising. The Taiwanese and the Dutch were favored over Italy there; the Italian baseball program is comparatively minuscule, but they pulled it off.

Of course, the roster rules are pretty lenient. In order to get the WBC off the ground and fill teams with decent players, someone was qualified to play for a country's team if he was a) a citizen of the country, b) eligible to be a citizen of the country, c) had at least one parent from the country, or d) maintained a permanent residence in the country. Which means if you're Jewish you can play for Israel no matter where you're from, so their team is actually not bad, and Italy's team is therefore almost entirely Americans with an Italian parent. I think the idea is that as national programs grow and evolve these allowances will tighten up, but for now the alleged European teams are kind of silly.

Except the Czechs—there's one former big-leaguer on the Czech team (Eric Sogard), the rest are amateur or semi-pro players that have regular jobs in Prague or wherever. One teaches high school, there's a fireman or two, one is even a neurosurgeon. They're not good compared to the pros, but they are having a blast and they actually won a game, beating the lowly Chinese to earn a bye into the ’26 WBC. 

The Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Latin Americans, and to a lesser extent the Australians don't have a problem filling a legit roster—there's stiff competition for those squads from actual nationals that play in actual competitive professional leagues in those places as well as in MLB. (In fact, there are so many Puerto Rican players that they get their own team even though PR is part of the United States.) And the Chinese don't have a lot of non-citizen options to pull from, so they're always pretty lousy. In five iterations of the WBC, Italy is the first European team to advance past round one (I'm not counting the Netherlands as they have a lot of players from Aruba), so it hasn't been an issue yet, but I can't imagine it feeling "right" if a team full of Americans win a title representing, say, Italy or Germany.

Another interesting thing this year is that the WBC isn't using Commissioner Manfred's new Major League rules, so there's no distracting pitch clock, the bases are standard, and defenses can still play wherever they like. Just out of curiosity I timed the pitches during an inning of the Japan/Czech Republic game and not once did anyone exceed the new pitch clock limitations, which reinforced my existing bias that the whole thing is just more Manfred nonsense. But then I watched Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, and that game would have had a few violations. I still think it's mostly nonsense, but I think more than anything it shows that the Asian leagues play in cultures that are a lot more disciplined and largely less homer-happy and, for me anyway, that makes for way more interesting baseball. Only one time was there an infield shift used in the three Japan games, implemented by the Australian team, whereas I'm seeing them more frequently among the Latino teams (Venezuela got burned using it just now as I type this) for the same reason: In NPB and KBO (the Korean Baseball Organization) every player is expected to know how to bunt and play a contact-hitting style even if his strength is hitting for power and they will try to beat the shift with a slap hit. Latin America and the US not so much.

Italy wasn't the only upset this year thus far. Australia also advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time, beating a frankly far better Korean team. Seeing them get creamed by Japan, I'm not sure how the Aussies managed it, but if they want to go to Miami they'll have to get past the Cubans on Wednesday.

All this makes me wish once again that there was a reliable way to watch regular season NPB games from this side of the Pacific. Hokkaido has some great looking players, the Swallows are really good, and—for now, anyway—the NPB Central league still plays real baseball with no DH, the way God intended. Also, I'd like to get a better look at a couple of the ballparks. Hiroshima has a newer modern facility that replaced the old dilapidated one they were using when I was there, and the Hokkaido Fighters open a new snazzy one just outside Sopporo this season.

For now I'll enjoy Team Japan in the WBC. Beat "Italy" and proceed to Miami! Ikimashōō!

Tagged Baseball, WBC   |   Posted on March 13, 2023 at 1:57am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Annual DST whining

I've been in a bit of a mood for the last couple of weeks. I've written a bunch of posts over the years about my struggles with what I call The Black Hole, my particular form of clinical depression; I characterize it as a massive gravity well of paralysis and fatalism surrounded by a powerful band of insecurity. I'm stuck orbiting this thing and am continually working to stay as high above it as possible, having never been able to achieve escape velocity. Thankfully, my current medication works reasonably well and lets me maintain, for the most part, enough altitude in my orbit that I haven't sunken into a severe episode in quite a while. Thank you, modern pharmacology.

However, I do often slip into minor to moderate episodes. It takes a lot of energy to maintain a high orbit and gravity is relentless. This latest one was of the more gradual variety, happening slowly and really not dragging me down that far. Those episodes can be hard to recognize in the early stages, but over the years I've learned to identify secondary indications that the Black Hole is gaining in the perpetual tug-of-war—principally those signs are brain fog and irritability. 

This time I've not experienced notable fogginess, but check that irritability box with big, bold sharpie. Many little things have set me off that are wholly unworthy of a snit. Work things with web projects, umpiring things, household things, Rob Manfred-related things, neighbor things (I'm on my HOA board and shit's about to go down).

I realized I was feeling the irritation of a sinking orbit while I was listening to a podcast that offhandedly mentioned our annual societal wacky tradition of advancing our clocks an hour and pretending high noon occurs at 1:00p.m. for nearly eight months of the year.

I hate Daylight Saving Time. I think it's pointless and dumb, if a fascinating example of social engineering and human psychology. I didn't grow up with it (Arizona doesn't participate in the charade) so it's always seemed kind of weird and goofy—it doesn't save energy, which is how the concept is justified; every time we move the clocks there are incidents and problems like increased traffic accidents and other hazards; and it doesn't do anything to, you know, alter the Earth's position on its axis, we all just pretend it does. But moreover, I am nocturnal by nature and I personally resent being commanded to do things earlier in the day.

It's a minor inconvenience, and yes, this annoys me every single year, but last week when the podcasters reminded me this was happening again the next Sunday (tomorrow, as I type this) I actually yelled out loud. "GODDAMN DAYLIGHT TIME. GODDAMN MORNING PEOPLE. WHY DO WE KEEP FUCKING DOING THIS." I was in my office, which has no shared walls with neighbors, so I likely didn't seem crazy to them, but I did scare Zephyr.

The part of my brain that was not busy trying to maintain orbit spoke up, "Ahem, yes, it sucks, but you know this happens every year and it isn't being done to annoy us personally. Maybe a frustrated sigh and shake of the head would be a more appropriate response than shouting and turning red in the face while our cat runs off in the way he does when we turn the vacuum on."

It's been several days since that incident and I'm on my way back to a stable high orbit. I'm less irritable in general. But I have a three-game ump shift tomorrow starting at noon, which is really eleven a.m., and that means getting up no later than 10:30, which is really 9:30, and despite attempts to adjust my circadian rhythms I still can't seem to fall asleep before 3 or 4 a.m., which is now going to be 4 or 5 a.m., and thus I will show up tomorrow groggy to officiate softball. Fortunately, being this early the players won't have started drinking yet.

Frak you, DST. Some of us like the night.

Tagged The Black Hole, Daylight Saving Time   |   Posted on March 11, 2023 at 6:47pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Oops

Apologies, email subscribers—I made an edit to some code on the back end to facilitate the "tags" feature here and a byproduct was that you all got buried in "update" emails from posts going back years. Oops. Please don't unsubscribe. :-)

Tagged Site issues   |   Posted on March 5, 2023 at 11:29pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Get off my lawn, pitch clock

As I have previously mentioned, I am, shall we say, not a fan of baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. He's terrible. And his new rules imposed on the game, both prior to this year and the new batch in 2023, rankle me. Well, OK, the three-batter minimum for pitchers is fine. But about most of the rest, I am rankled.

Still, this year's batch of changes—the pitch clock, the shift ban, the pickoff limitations—are being met with overwhelmingly positive reaction from people who choose to opine on such things. This also rankles me, but the reasons are more amorphous and vague.

Take Pos and Schur's effusive praise of the new normal. Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur have a podcast ("The Poscast") I find very entertaining (except when they go too long on about non-baseball sports). This week's Poscast was mostly about the new rules and, as Schur put it, he finds them "an unmitigated success." Pos calls the new setup "so awesome" and thinks criticism of it is "insanity." I generally love these guys, but this is…excessive.

They illustrate their position by comparing the pitch-clock setup to the extreme of the previous norm, referring to a side-by-side video someone posted of an entire half-inning of a spring training game from this year alongside a clip of Pedro Baez facing the Cubs in the postseason a few years ago that encompassed a single pitch over the same span of time. Yes, that Pedro Baez example is excessive. That wasn't good and making such an extreme sequence impossible isn't bad in and of itself. But it wasn't a representative AB, it was very much an outlier.

They further cite comparisons to other sports to justify the pitch clock. "Imagine basketball without a shot clock," Schur says. Well, Michael, I don't know or give a damn about basketball. Or football or hockey or any of the other examples he cites. A more frenetic pace might well be appropriate for those games, I don't know. Those sports are not baseball. Baseball is unique. Those arguments mean nothing to me. Eventually he gets back to baseball and makes arguments that mean something, and I respect those, though I disagree with the idea that eliminating the ability of the pitcher to effectively hold a runner is a net good.

Posnanski reminds us that these new rules are a correction, the idea is to return the game to what it was 35, 40, 50 years ago when batters did not step out of the batters' box all the time and pitchers didn't consider his next delivery for a minute before getting into the stretch. And defenses didn't move around the field because of a batter's spray chart that says he never hits to the opposite field. And that, he says, is what we want.

That point I agree with. I do want the game to be played more like it was in the ’80s and ’90s. I just don't like this methodology.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man and once I give this a chance I'll be fine with it. Entirely possible. I freely admit that my resistance to accepting the pitch clock and shift ban is tied inextricably to everything else Rob Manfred has done since he took over as commissioner—ads on the field; ads on the uniforms; proscribing who can pitch and who can't; devaluing the season with extra Wild Card playoff slots that are just as good as winning a division; the fucking "zombie runner" in extra innings; and the worst of the worst, the "universal DH"—and giving him even indirect credit for anything feels like having to eat a bowl of moldy nutraloaf. Had Manfred not screwed around so much with these awful things already, I'd likely be closer to Pos and Schur's position.

Yet, having watched some spring training action this year, it does feel rushed. Not frenetic, necessarily, but maybe a little too fast. There is value in having a moment to ponder the next pitch selection for those of us who, you know, pay attention. 15 seconds might be too short a span. When a runner is aboard and the clock extends to 20 seconds it's not bad, that feels proper. It's early days, of course, and it's spring training, but part of the goal for these changes is to create more offense and what I'm seeing is actually more striking out. Batters aren't ready when they swing. That'll change as we move forward, the adjustment period is going to be at least a few weeks of in-game at-bats, but I think 15 might need to be, say, 18 or 20.

Practically speaking, I will not miss the infield shift. I do not like banning it, but batters have unequivocally refused to combat it. In the early days of infield shifts being common, Ken Griffey Jr. would take advantage of it once in a while and bunt to the empty side of the field for an easy hit. Skilled contact hitters could beat it. But that went away, analytics decreed that batters should just keep on trying to pull the ball and hit for power, so defenses started shifting on nearly everybody.

Schur describes the shifting-for-everybody as an "overcorrection" to the steroid era. I see what he means, but I don't like that description at all, because the underlying problem is so many more batters swinging for homers and that hasn't been corrected for at all. Emphasis on power hitting is the underlying problem as regards the infield shift. That plus emphasis on power pitching is the underlying problem behind excessive strikeouts.

Move fences back. Make homers harder to hit and make the outfielders cover more ground—which is also more like things were in the ’80s—and you'll see fewer homers but more singles, doubles, and triples. And when batters (one would hope) stop swinging for the fences all the time, fewer Ks. And less incentive for infield shifts.

The shift ban makes that last bit moot, there's no way that rule is ever going away now that it's in place. We're likely stuck with the pitch clock forever too, and with luck over time it'll fade into the background and not be such a distraction.

But I will campaign until the end of time to do away with the Manfred Man zombie runner and the worst rule of all, the designated hitter.

Tagged Baseball, Rob Manfred, Poscast   |   Posted on March 5, 2023 at 11:27pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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