2024 MLB Season Thread
Nobody wants these games to start more than Mannfred.
Shohei just spoke to the media for the first time. In a prepared statement, he said:
-He never bet on baseball, or any other sport,
-He didn't know that Ippei lied to him, and that Ippei took the money from Shohei's account to pay his gambling debts
-He'll continue to cooperate with the investigation, and play as the investigation plays out.
If all that's true, then this is probably the best possible outcome for his reputation going forward. He's a naive star athlete who trusted the wrong person. It happens.
In any event, these games are about start! Last year, just like we all predicted, "Someone Else" came on strong in the playoffs, as the Texas Rangers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks for the World Series. Can that happen again?
T-Mobile is giving away a free MLB.tv subscription ($149 value) to T-Mobile subscribers starting TOMORROW (Tuesday 3/26 - April 1). Don't miss out.
So speaking of gambling, here are the current best odds for the World Series you can find, from Vegas insider!
well I'll be....
rainjas get beat single-handedly by a career .200 hitter. wouldn't expect that from the defending champs.
Royals winning the central. Mash it, ship it.
lol u silly
Jackson Holliday is up. Let's go, Birds!
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.
This is the only fact you need to know about why pitchers are breaking down: the ulnar collateral ligament cannot withstand the torque modern pitchers are imposing on it. It’s that simple.
Here is the proof. I looked at all the starting pitchers from 2019-23 who averaged at least 96.5 mph with their four-seam fastball in any season in which they threw at least 600 fastballs. I came up with 21 high-velocity throwers over the past five years. Of those 21, 18 broke down with major injuries and account for at least 22 elbow surgeries. Here they are:
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.
Tom Verducci wrote a great article in SI why this is occurring at such an alarming rate.
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.
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 guarant
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-wid...) 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.
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.
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.
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.
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/5325032/2024/03/...
Not everyone in pitching research and coaching agrees with Meister’s belief that spin is more problematic than velocity.
“A sweeper is just a curveball with a different grip,” one pitching coach pointed out, adding that research is divided on the link between grip strength and spin rates. “And guys aren’t screwballing their changeups to get this movement. For both pitches, they are leveraging the seams to get it to move differently.”
Glenn Fleisig, Biomechanics Research Director for the American Sports Medicine Institute, also expressed doubt sweepers are cause for greater concern.
“We have not studied sweepers, per se, in the biomechanics lab, but we have shown in a number of studies that curveballs and sliders are no more stressful than fastballs,” Fleisig said in an email.
“Therefore, I have no reason to believe sweepers are more of an injury risk factor than other breaking pitches or fastballs. The science points to three main injury risk factors — effort (velocity is an indication of this within pitchers), amount of pitching and mechanics.”
The caveat to research from Fleisig and others focusing on the risks of velocity is that at least one study from Driveline Baseball showed that stress on the elbow per mile per hour on the pitch is higher for secondary pitches like changeups and sliders. Thus, a pitcher who throws his slider as hard as his fastball actually will put more stress on his elbow.
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 th
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.
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
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
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.
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 pitch
Reaper coming for Ragans next. Is there a TJ pool on these boards? Bad taste?
Witt Jr. Goat. Recognize
