eaterfan

Yes. MLB controls where a player can play and how much they will be paid for the 10 years of their career and we are worried about them mandating a shot in the arm.

An honest answer is that would encourage teams and players to hide positive tests and it could lead to further spread of the virus.

Slippery slope to what? Soon we're going to allow people to marry turtles!

I'm sorry. I interpreted your tone wrong, but 90% of posts like this are just a way for the OP to say "I don't care about advanced stats" and they are making me uncomfortable when they are brought up on the broadcast. How many threads on this board are "WAR: what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing!" Let's bag on stat nerds. And as you can see by many of the replies in this thread, it seems like your post was begging for the response "you shouldn't care." If you really do want to learn more about spin rates and what spin does on a ball there's a ton of stuff online. I provided a link to a good starter article. Maybe a question beyond "Why should I care about something, will get a more serious discussion with more in depth answers. I really do apologize if you were being serious in your original post.

Well, what people call "movement" is spin rate. The ball spins as it's thrown through the air and the seems create differentials in pressure. The more spin the more affect this has. It's basically a way to qualify movement or the ability to get movement on a pitch and thus strikeouts. There will be pitchers who make good use of their movement and others who don't. But asking why you should care is like asking why you should care about velocity. There are plenty of pitchers who have tons of velocity and fail, just like there are plenty of pitchers with high spin rates who fail. It seems weird to start a thread to tell everyone you don't know how Google works. https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2019/01/deeper-dive-fastball-spin-rate/#:~:text=Spin rate is important to,outcomes a pitcher gives up.&text=There is a large amount,different pitchers and their repertoires.

This is the worst list I've ever seen. They claim this list is the 100 hottest women of all time but all of them are from the 20th century or later. Did any of these women launch a thousand ships and start a war that lasted for a decade? No Cleopatra? Whatever.

Having been to a Philly's game in Philly this is definitely true. There were a couple of 13 years olds next to us who were just absolutely obnoxious. I went to a Boston game in 2004 before they won the WS and that seemed like the only reason people were there was to get drunk and fight. I'm surprised they aren't higher. I also wonder what effect the availability of public transportation plays in this study. I'd probably drink more if I didn't have to drive to the games. I think driving also increases "pregaming."

That's a good one. It reminds me of a story from a not celebrity: I used to work at a leadership camp for high schools kids in DC over the summers when I was in college. We'd tech leadership skills to the kids. It looked good on a college resume. Anyway, one day my senior year I'm flipping through channels and on MTV they had a show called "My Super Sweet 16" where super rich parents would throw their ungrateful kids lavish parties that looked like they cost $100k easily. The kids always get upset because their parents got them a 3 Series BMW instead of the 7 Series like they wanted, or whatever. So I stumble on the show and one of the kids from my group at the program is on there and having a meltdown for whatever spoiled reason their was and looked like the biggest bitch in the world. It's funny because in real life she was actually one of the kindest and most respectful kids I had in my 3 years working there. She was super easy going, teachable, and really humble. I always knew reality TV was BS, but I could not believe how they could make someone look the exact opposite. I'm sure a lot of it is staged and encouraged by the producers or whatever.

Are people actually upset by 6 inning spring training games? Do people care about the integrity of the Cactus League title?

Seems like Maddon was impressed.

I'm really good at recognizing people so I see a lot of "celebrities". I'll keep this list short and mostly on topic (airports). 1. Jake Johnson (Nick from New Girl) at LAX. He was going to Chicago for the Cubs WS games. He's a big Cubs fan. We were buying water out of the vending machine and he was behind us in line. My mom couldn't get her Apple pay to work and it was taking forever so we let him go ahead. He offered to help and was a really nice guy. My mom ended up just using her card. 2. Bill Walton - San Antonio after the Final Four. He was on my flight. He was having a great time chatting it up with everyone in the terminal. 3. Landon Donovan and the LA Galaxy - In DC, on their way home from playing DC United. He wore his sunglasses in the terminal and was loud and obnoxious on the plane. The other guys were on our shuttle from LAX to the parking garage and were really cool. Angels related: I see Garrett Anderson fairly regularly around Irvine and Newport Beach. He's at the Wholefoods in Fashion Island a lot. I work in Fashion Island and ate lunch there a lot pre-covid. I have never said hello to him. And finally, the most outrageous sighting: Andy Dick at the Marriott Desert Springs (probably about 20 years ago): A bunch of our family friend group went out there every year. Probably 10 kids (ages 16-13) were wandering around the hotel and Andy Dick and his entourage were at a restaurant in the lobby. We went by and somehow we got to talking. His son was there with him and was probably 11 or 12. He hit on on of our friends. I think she was 14 at the time and explained that "when the cat's away the mice will play." We left. The next day at the pool he was wearing dayglow yellow shorts running around yelling "why is everyone looking at me?!" His kid hung out with us that day and we played football and stuff. He was cool. I felt really bad for him. Andy Dick later crashed the wedding of my best friend's sister about 5 years later. My best friend was there at the restaurant for the first story.

I hope this is sarcasm. I've been getting back into posting a little more as the season has approached. I might need to take another break.

I would be over the moon if Adell turns out to be Justin Upton. Upton has had a great career.

It's already been done. A couple of years ago I was listening to a FG prospect podcast and they mentioned someone had done it and pitcher bust way more often for various reasons. As a result Langerhanger and McDaniel had started ranking pitchers a little lower than they previously had been.

I just meant playing significantly below expectations. I did not mean to imply that bust meant never made the major leagues. I meant guys like Brandon Wood (in addition to guys who never make the bigs) who had 750 plate appearances, but I don't think anyone here would say he was not a bust. My post was a little ambiguous, though.

Exactly this, but I'd also like to add that some failures don't make swing changes a bad thing or a team bad at player development. Even at AA or AAA so few prospects "make it." It makes sense to go for a David strategy (high risk high reward). If the team feels a player won't be able to succeed with their current swing there really isn't much to lose by changing it. I suppose the prospect loses trade value in the short term, but that's about it. If swing changes are successful even 10% of the time in getting a player to the majors that would have been borderline or gets a borderline player to become a solid regular or a regular turns into a star it's worth it. Maybe it makes the prospect worse 70% of the time and stays the same 20% of the time. That's still a higher success rate than what prospects normally do. Even MLB top 20 prospects bust half the time. If you operate with that understanding it makes a lot more sense to try to maximize potential rather than minimize loss. Getting a bunch of AAAA guys doesn't really help anyone.

I saw Bengie Molina hit a triple in the playoffs.

Godfather is a great choice. A good movie with a 3 hour run time means you only have to watch it 8 times. Shaw Shank was my initial thought, but it's 2:22 minutes so you'd have to watch it about 10 times through.

You keep using payroll budget to describe payroll. Maybe the Dodgers decided that their budget is $400 million this year. I think teams have long had the ability to spend way more than they do and still make a profit (without even factoring in appreciation on the franchise and taxpayer subsidized stadiums). Teams complained about the Yankees payroll in 2002. They were buying everyone. Their payroll was $125 million. It forced teams to actually pay players to be able to at least claim they were trying to compete. Payrolls rose. For the last decade we've had owner try to reduce costs and still compete but I think the Dodgers are done with that. I think they just want to win and I'd bet they (and plenty of other teams) have room to up their payroll substantially. I don't see the Yankees letting this go on for too long and then the Sox will have to up their payroll, etc.

Why not? I remember when Jack McDowell signed for over $5 million a year and everyone freaked out. Baseball players make a lot of money. Teams make a lot of money (even when they claim they don't) and franchise values go up a ton. What difference does an extra $5-10 million make to guys with billions of dollars?

Great move for the Dodgers. He'll make them a better team. The point is to win.

I don't they are going to have a Patriots like run, but I don't think any team will unless they have the man at QB. This is definitely going to crash and burn at some point but I think that's preferable to being 10-6 in perpetuity and losing in the divisional round every year. I think in the NFL you can win with a mediocre QB if he cheap. You can win with an expensive QB if he's great. I don't think you can win with a mediocre expensive QB. I think the Rams went from a mediocre expensive QB to a good medium priced QB.

Wow! Can't believe the Rams we able to get out from under the Goff contact. Getting Stafford will be huge for them.

I keep reading about the Jets keeping Darnold. Can someone explain Darnold to me? Yeah, Gase sucks as a coach, but it's not like Darnold was a medium QB who could become a top QB with the right coaching. He's been the worst QB in the NFL the last three seasons. He's the same guy he was at USC except he doesn't have much more talent than everyone around him. He has a big arm and is pretty mobile, but he turns the ball over all the time. He's just a worse Jay Cutler. He also isn't going to be cheap anymore. It seems like best case scenario he turns into Goff. The Rams are trying to move on from Goff. Why are people obsessed with him? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills any time anyone talks about him.