2023 MLB Playoffs

[KL2]

13 hours ago, HeyAbbott said:

The mindless idiots that have ran the MLB have made virtually every mistake that one could make in running a pro sports league since before the Curt Flood decision.

The season is too dammed long and is being played in non-baseball weather for much of the country. The entire season should be over by October 15. Once the weather turns cool, most folks will look to the traditional indoor or cool weather sports such as football and basketball.

They have made a marathon season essentially meaningless by having too many teams in the playoffs. The season should start on May 1. The regular season should be done on August 31, and the playoffs should run September 1 October15.

The game faces many problems to stay pertinent, the least of which is that its marketing to younger fans (9-18) is horrible.

Finally, the only thing that Manfred seems to care about is to make sure the gamblers are happy and everything and everyone else be dammed. I can do without the continual display of the Vegas odds during a game. Then, in the same breath, MLB tells its players not to bet on games.

Well, I'd better adjust because its only a matter of time before every team makes the playoffs, and we will see posted odds on whether the first baseman will scratch his balls during the inning.

LOL what?! A May-August season. Baseball has never done that. 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, casimir said:

I don't know.  I think maybe he returned to the mound too quickly and really isn't ready to be pitching quite yet.  So, I think what we're seeing in the playoffs isn't necessarily how he'll perform next season.  Although as far as the salary goes, $43M is kind of a ridiculous price tag.

He might be one of those guys who, when a team signs him for that kind of dough, their research tells them they can recoup it all, and then some, in extra tickets/concessions sold, increased road gate share, merch sales, and playoff revenue. That’s basically what’s going to make Shohei worth $50 million a year.

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, HeyAbbott said:

Finally, the only thing that Manfred seems to care about is to make sure the gamblers are happy and everything and everyone else be dammed. I can do without the continual display of the Vegas odds during a game. Then, in the same breath, MLB tells its players not to bet on games.

I’m basically with you on the scourge of gambling rotting the soul of the game, although pleasing the gamblers and the sponsors that cater to them would strike me as meaning more games to gamble on, not fewer to avoid weather.

To your broader weather point: most of us won’t live to see this, but I can imagine that every northern stadium that eventually gets replaced from now on will be a retractable dome so as to make weather a non-issue, even in Chicago and Boston when they finally replace those iconic stadia however many decades from now. if they build them the right way so as to let sufficient natural light in from all angles, and can open both roof and side panels to let in outside air and breezes when it is nice enough to, people would forget all about whatever charm there was in being in the total open air for game. I can tell you from experience that nobody in Milwaukee misses County Stadium and pines for those 35-degree April games.

At some point, perhaps by the beginning of next century, all the people who remember being in open-air stadia will be dead, and the entire open-air-stadium era will be regarded as an unfortunate pre-technological limitation.

[Tiger337]

On 10/30/2023 at 9:02 AM, chasfh said:

I don't think under-35s care about wins or complete games, either. But they definitely care about stars, and I think high strikeout totals might be the sign of a pitching star to them.

I think a lot of young fans still care about pitcher wins.  I still think the vast majority of fans still go by wins, ERA, batting average, home runs and RBI.  I am fortunate to live in some online bubbles where fans are more stat savvy.  I doubt more than 5% of baseball fans have heard of fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus.  

[oblong]

Any stat that can’t be easily explained and calculated is going to have issues gaining mainstream acceptance.  It’s gotta be a counting or ratio based stat. This year at Comerica they began listing OPS instead of BA next to the names. Started it in may. My theory is it was because everyone except one or two were under .200.  I’ve had to explain it to people.  That one is easy to comprehend and it makes sense those. 

[MIguy]

Garcia being out for the rest of the series is a huge loss for Texas. 

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, oblong said:

Any stat that can’t be easily explained and calculated is going to have issues gaining mainstream acceptance.  It’s gotta be a counting or ratio based stat. This year at Comerica they began listing OPS instead of BA next to the names. Started it in may. My theory is it was because everyone except one or two were under .200.  I’ve had to explain it to people.  That one is easy to comprehend and it makes sense those. 

yeah, I think OPS is as far as 95% of the baseball population will go.  I think OPS is fine though.  I see sabers bitching about how wOBA or some other advanced stat is better and people should be using it.  The other stats really aren't THAT much better though.  If people drop batting average in favor of OPS, I'd be happy and wouldn't expect them to go further than that.  

[MIguy]

So much for Texas missing Garcia.   

[Tenacious D]

Glad we avoided Semien and Seager in free agency.

#ElMago

[1776]

If Texas pulls this off and wins the series, the last three winning managers would be…”old school” guys. Bochy, Baker and Snitker. 
 

 

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

yeah, I think OPS is as far as 95% of the baseball population will go.  I think OPS is fine though.  I see sabers bitching about how wOBA or some other advanced stat is better and people should be using it.  The other stats really aren't THAT much better though.  If people drop batting average in favor of OPS, I'd be happy and wouldn't expect them to go further than that.  

I prefer slash lines over bottom line OPS numbers. A guy who slashes .320/.400/.400 is not the same kind of hitter as a guy who slashes .250/.300/.500, and showing just OPS hides that by making them look the same.

[casimir]

40 minutes ago, MIguy said:

So much for Texas missing Garcia.   

Wow.  As Yogi would probably say, home teams just aren’t very good at home this postseason.

Edited November 1, 2023 by casimir

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I prefer slash lines over bottom line OPS numbers. A guy who slashes .320/.400/.400 is not the same kind of hitter as a guy who slashes .250/.300/.500, and showing just OPS hides that by making them look the same.

Without a doubt.  But for decades fans have used batting average as a summary stat and it's terrible for that purpose.  OPS would be better.  

[casimir]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Any stat that can’t be easily explained and calculated is going to have issues gaining mainstream acceptance.  It’s gotta be a counting or ratio based stat. This year at Comerica they began listing OPS instead of BA next to the names. Started it in may. My theory is it was because everyone except one or two were under .200.  I’ve had to explain it to people.  That one is easy to comprehend and it makes sense those. 

BSD started using OPS rather than AVG in some of its windows this season.  I don’t recall when the switch started, but once it started, it seemed permanent.

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Without a doubt.  But for decades fans have used batting average as a summary stat and it's terrible for that purpose.  OPS would be better.  

actually, as a real time/in game stat, while watching I'd rather see OBP than OPS. The only value to me of a stat when a guy comes to the plate is seeing the probability of him making an out vs extending the inning - thus OBP. If I'm a PBP guy I'd talk about a guy's OPS, but I don't care in the moment about how he keeps a rally going, only if he will or won't. 

The other thing I think would be an actually addition would be more use of real trend stats. Here is a guy's OPS, and this is his dOPS/dt over the last month say. This would clearly take a lot of fan training of course! But now you have some idea if he's trending hot or cold or holding steady. They sort of approach that when they talk give streak stats, but saying a guy OPS's 895 in the last month still doesn't tell you which way he's trending. Maybe he's a career 900 OPS hitter......

Edited November 1, 2023 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

actually, as a real time/in game stat, while watching I'd rather see OBP than OPS. The only value to me of a stat when a guy comes to the plate is seeing the probability of him making an out vs extending the inning - thus OBP. If I'm a PBP guy I'd talk about a guy's OPS, but I don't care in the moment about how he keeps a rally going, only if he will or won't.

Is there any reason why you would use BA over OBP?  I get old school sensibilities but I have wondered for 25 years why OBP never became the dominant stat that BA did. 

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, oblong said:

Is there any reason why you would use BA over OBP?  I get old school sensibilities but I have wondered for 25 years why OBP never became the dominant stat that BA did. 

I suppose BA is more meaningful with 2 out and man on second. A walk is nowhere near as valuable as a hit in that particular situation unless you have a really good hitter on deck.

Edited November 1, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

9 minutes ago, oblong said:

Is there any reason why you would use BA over OBP?  I get old school sensibilities but I have wondered for 25 years why OBP never became the dominant stat that BA did. 

Because good hitters that draw a lot of walks are selfish.  They are only interested in their own stats and don't want to help their team win.  

[Tiger337]

16 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I suppose BA is more meaningful with 2 out and man on second. A walk is nowhere near as valuable as a hit in that particular situation unless you have a really good hitter on deck.

One of the big problems with BA though is that it largely based on luck.  The non-hitting portion or OBP (eyeso as Shelton used to call it) is more controllable than the hitting portion.   I do agree with your overall view that there is no one stat which fits every situation.  

I do think that the majority of bats over the course of the season do not involve playing for one run, so I think OPS covers more situations than batting average.  

Edited November 1, 2023 by Tiger337

[Jim Cowan]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Because good hitters that draw a lot of walks are selfish.  They are only interested in their own stats and don't want to help their team win.  

When I was about 12 I took a book out of the library, Baseballs Greatest Players.  Written in the early 60's it had Musial and Williams and all the others, and their stats were in an appendix at the back.  I looked at Williams' career and I thought wow, imagine how great he could have been if he didn't take all those walks.

[Jim Cowan]

I don't like stats that I can't figure out for myself.  I like the hitting slash line numbers, and I like WHIP and K9.  If I have to trust a third party to figure out wOBA, or defensive runs saved, it comes from someone's black box, like OE%.  I still don't like WAR because of the time that it proved that the best player in the league was Zobrist.

[gehringer_2]

33 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I don't like stats that I can't figure out for myself.  I like the hitting slash line numbers, and I like WHIP and K9.  If I have to trust a third party to figure out wOBA, or defensive runs saved, it comes from someone's black box, like OE%.  I still don't like WAR because of the time that it proved that the best player in the league was Zobrist.

the other question is "what is the marginal value?' If you are a GM or manager game or trade planning, that is one thing, but if you are watching a game and you want the PBP to give you some idea how good the hitter at the plate is, how much real marginal  value would you get from being given the guy's RC24? Especially considering the highly random nature of the outcome of any individual AB. The PBP situation doesn't really merit that much precision of analysis. Once you get to OPS, the strength of correlation between all stats for hitters is pretty high. Plus, in truth, even a relatively sophisticated fan may be just as interested in counting stats - what has the guy accomplished in the season - even knowing they may be highly flawed indicators of his theoretical quality as a player - because the old adage still applies in the end - "you are what you did".

[oblong]

51 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

I don't like stats that I can't figure out for myself.  I like the hitting slash line numbers, and I like WHIP and K9.  If I have to trust a third party to figure out wOBA, or defensive runs saved, it comes from someone's black box, like OE%.  I still don't like WAR because of the time that it proved that the best player in the league was Zobrist.

I do not know how these advanced stats get created. But I wonder if at some point there is a subjective element?  A decision is made to give weight to some element?  To me that can introduce doubt. Someone made a decision.  Plus it doesn’t roll off the tongue. I can’t very well mention at a game “well this guys RC25 is blah blah blah”. I sit in the second row in the second level.  They might toss me over. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

One of the big problems with BA though is that it largely based on luck

I understand what you mean here, but you don't want to overstate it either.  Kaline didn't keep a 300 over 20 years just because he was a luckier guy than his buddy Jim Price. 🤣

BA may be more flawed than other stats, but it still correlates with other measures of good hitting. And probably, in the pre-HR era - when the ISO component of everyone's OPS was lower and nobody struck out 100 times in a season, it probably correlated better!

[Tiger337]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I understand what you mean here, but you don't want to overstate it either.  Kaline didn't keep a 300 over 20 years just because he was a luckier guy than his buddy Jim Price. 🤣

BA may be more flawed than other stats, but it still correlates with other measures of good hitting. And probably, in the pre-HR era - when the ISO component of everyone's OPS was lower and nobody struck out 100 times in a season, it probably correlated better!

At the team level, It is less correlated with runs scored than any of OBP, slugging and OPS.  I think it has little use as an overall evaluation tool.  It has some use as a situational stat or as a descriptive measure.