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Can Baseball's Obsession With "Analytics" Be Controlled? + Potpourri From The Baseball Scene

On the first Saturday in June I happened to flip the channel in time to see the top of the ninth inning of a close game between the Chicago Cubs and the SF Giants. With the Giants holding a two-run lead but the Cubs threatening, veteran third baseman Evan Longoria instinctively dove to his left on a hard smash towards the shortstop hole. 

 

Because of one of these new-fangled shifts, shortstop Brandon Crawford was positioned very close to Longoria who must have not been aware of it.  Crawford also went for the ball and the two veterans collided head-on.  Longoria got the worst of the deal, and he has shoulder damage that could keep him out for over two months.  

 

As far as I know, none of the Giants made a public comment questioning why Longoria and Crawford were aligned so close together.  Manager Gabe Kapler, one of more analytic-obsessed managers, did say afterwards that it was a "very emotional" clubhouse when they learned that team leader Longoria, the former Tampa Bay Ray with World Series and regular playoff experience, would be out for such a long time. 

 

Ballplayers are tough guys especially a gamer like Longoria so I hope he returns sooner than expected. But it raises the question of why so many players are abandoning traditional defensive positions in the supposed search for more statistical certainty.  

 

The basic double play is rarely seen now because infielders are shifting way out of their normal positions. There is now the frequent bizarre occurrence of a third baseman positioned near second base before a pitch. So to catch a routine foul ball, he must run like a 60-yard dasher to have a chance at corraling it. 

 

Analytics and shifting are getting out of hand and I don't know what it will take to bring that rarity known as common sense back to the game.

 

One thing I would do is to ban all players from carrying crib sheets of "tendencies" in their pockets and caps.   Baseball shouldn't be an "open book" exam!

 

The lord high commissioner Manfred just announced on June 15 a ban on foreign substances pitchers have been using on the baseball to increase movement and spin rates. Such a prohibition has been in the official rules for decades.  We'll see, of course, how it is enforced by the umpires.  

 

Let me repeat my call for another reform:  BAN THOSE CLIFF NOTES!  

 

Back to the Giants and how they may deal without Longoria for a good chunk of the summer. One of his replacements will likely be the former Met Wilmer Flores who is a versatile guy to have on your team. 

 

For me, Wilmer is the poster boy for "Yes, There Is Crying in Baseball!"  No one in the NYC area, Mets fan or not, can ever forget Flores weeping on third base when he thought he was being traded to the Milwaukee Brewers at the July 2015 trading deadline. 

 

It turned out to be a false alarm. He wasn't traded after all, and the valuable utility player, who had signed with the Mets as a teenager out of Valencia Venezuela, helped the team move on to the 2015 World Series.

 

Here's one last gripe against analytics.  Do we really need to know the percentage of swings and misses on different pitches from a pitcher?  Baseball is a very hard game and there is such a thing as TMI Too Much Information. 

 

TMI is a plague that is affecting writers, broadcasters, fans, and worst of all, players who forget about the "feel" of a game and how sight and sound are more important than those damned crib sheets they carry in their pockets and caps.

 

The fun element in baseball should never be forgotten. So let's hear it for one of the better new nicknames in the sport: the Jamestown (NY) Tarp Skunks in the Perfect Game Wooden Bat Collegiate League.

 

A tarp skunk is a regular denizen of that southwestern New York town near the Pennsylvania border and the Double-A Erie Sea Wolves.  The animal is an underdog that only sprays when faced with danger so it is an apt name for a scrappy team of collegians. They will be playing until the end of July, and early August if they make the playoffs.

 

THIS 'N' THAT FROM VARIED LEVELS OF BASEBALL:

**Update on Masahiro Tanaka still pitching well in Japan for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. In the last blog I did not give the full correct name of his team so here is the correction.  

 

Although his record is only 2-4 and he hasn't won since early May, he has been an innings-eater. He has averaged seven innings in his last five starts and his ERA is 2.90.  Most important, the Golden Eagles are in first place.

I leave it to Yankee fans to decide if he would have fared better than Jameson Taillon or the now-injured Corey Kluber. 

 

**Remember Mo'Ne Davis from the Little League World Series seven years ago?  She is now a softball infielder for the historical black college Hampton University in Virginia. In the off-season, she is broadcasting games of the DC Grays in a summer college league and aspires to go into the media business.

 

I learned about this story in Barry Svrluga's fine piece in the June 9 Washington Post..

Speaking of the WaPo, the brilliant columnist Thomas Boswell will retire on June 30 but hopefully not stay away from sports permanently.  He certainly has left an enviable legacy of game stories under deadline pressure and thoughtful commentaries.  Some appeared in such books as "Why Time Begins On Opening Day". 

 

**Here's hoping for a memorable College World Series starting on June 19-20 in Omaha.  I still find the sound of  aluminum bats jarring, but the pairings look very enticing.  All games to be aired on the "family" of ESPN networks.

 

The double-elimination tourney starts with red-hot Stanford vs. North Carolina State who knocked off #1 national seed Arkansas despite losing the first game 21-2.  Shades of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates against the Yankees! 

The second game will feature perennial contender/former champion Vanderbilt vs. Arizona. 

 

Sunday's pairings are Mississippi State, which came from an 0-1 deficit to knock out Notre Dame, vs. Texas

Followed by Tennessee vs. perennial contender/former champion Virginia.

 

**And here's a salute to Bryant (Rhode Island) catcher Liam McGill who led all of Division I with a .471 batting average.  The former Columbia star certainly put to good use his last year of eligibility.

 

Here's hoping that all Ivy League sports return starting in the fall.  The loss of two full Ivy League baseball seasons has been one of the most hurtful consequences of the pandemic.

 

That's all for now.  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!     

 

 

 

 

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How 13-22 Might Be More Hopeful Than 22-10 & Columbia Returns to Ivy League Baseball Playoffs (slightly revised)

On the first Saturday night of May on Star Wars Night at Camden Yards, struggling Dylan Bundy threw the best game of his career.  He pitched into the 8th inning to lead the Orioles to a 3-0 victory over the first place Tampa Bay Rays.

 
Last night (Mon May 6) rookie southpaw John Means contributed a similarly deep outing in a 4-1 victory over the Red Sox. Though my Birds seem consigned to permanent basement residence in  the AL East, they are now 13-22 and on a two-game winning streak.  Whoopee! and I am not being sarcastic.  

 
Two years ago harboring dreams of contention, the Orioles started 22-10 before reality set in.  They wound up 2017 under .500 setting the stage for the disastrous 47-115 of 2018.     

 
Allow me to note some cautiously hopeful signs for 2019.

 

**The overall defense is improved.

**Some decent offense has been provided (and good defense) by Blue Jays castoff outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. and young veteran Trey Mancini (gamely playing right field these days though better suited for first base). 

**Chris Davis is no longer an automatic out but certainly not yet a consistent threat.

**Rookie manager Brandon Hyde has the team playing hard if not always well or smart. 


Any solid hope will depend on the pitching staff.  Much has been expected of Dylan Bundy once a top pick in the draft.  His latest efforts have been encouraging.

 

Nothing was expected of John Means.  "I was never a prospect," he says, but he developed four pitches during his five-year minor league apprenticeship. So far he is rising to the occasion at the major league level.

 

A third starter veteran Andrew Cashner looks like he can provide five or six innings most of the time. Don't ask about where other starters will come from or what the bullpen will look like. Converted shortstop Mychal Givens has closer potential but hasn't shown consistency.

 

Repeat after me class - "If consistency were a place, it would be lightly populated." Don't know who coined the phrase but you can quote me.

 
One thing I've learned in nearly 70 years of intense baseball watching is that won-lost records don't mean much until at least Memorial Day weekend. In the 24/7/365 frenzied mass media world we live in today, it is a good point to remember. 

 
Good examples:  The once high-flying Seattle Mariners now limp towards .500 or worse.

The early promise of the Mets has sunk along with a record now below .500.


Turning to the much shorter season of college baseball, Columbia on Saturday May 4th earned its ticket into the Ivy League Championship Series with a 4-0 shutout in Philadelphia over perennial power Penn. 

 
Needing just one victory to make the playoffs, the Lions had lost four in a row. Gone was the hope of hosting the championship series that will now open at Harvard on Sa May 18.

 
The Lions faced elimination in Saturday's second game after a tough 5-2 loss in the first game when Penn got four runs in the bottom of the 8th. The Quakers had won a similar Winner Take All game two years ago. 

 
Short memories are so essential for baseball success. So senior righthander Ethan Abrams pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning and junior southpaw Leo Pollack earned the save in a 4-0 win. Junior catcher Liam McGill delivered two RBI, a single in the first and a huge insurance HR in the eighth.  

 

It's been quite a run for the Lions under coach Brett Boretti now in his 14th season.  A win over Harvard in two weeks will mean the fifth Ivy League title in the last seven seasons for the native of the North Shore of Boston. Though he still roots for all New England pro teams, there is no doubt that proud alums and all fans of the Columbia Light Blue and White feel that he is the answer to the question posed in the great school fight song, "Who owns New York?" 

 
Harvard will provide stiff competition for Columbia as they seek to repeat their thrilling series win two weeks ago. They have a deep pitching staff and a formidable one-two punch  in senior first baseman Patrick McColl, in the running for the Golden Spikes award as college player of year, and junior right fielder Jake Suddleson.

 
In case of a split on Saturday May 18, there will be a winner take all game on May 19. Games can be seen on the paying service ESPN+ but this is a matchup I must see in person.

You'll read about it and other college baseball matchups in this area in future posts. 

 

There are at least two college tourneys in the NYC area before Memorial Day: Fordham's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx will host the Atlantic 10 tournament May 22-25. On the same days the MAAC will have their tourney at the Yankees' Staten Island ballpark.

 

Coming up in early June will be the PSAL high school championship game. More info on these matchups in the next post.

 

The NYC PSAL has been using wooden bats for several years now. Colleges still use composite bats. I don't like their ping sound any more than baseball purists do, but if you want to see baseball with plenty of hustle and stress on fundamentals, check out the college game.  


That's all for now!  Always remember:  Take it easy but take it!

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