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Diameter of the bat makes a big difference in how big the hitting area is also, so it isn't necessarily optimal to make a skinnier bat even if it is denser. I think the optimal bat is the fattest barrel possible (which is limited by "rules") coupled with the densest possible surface layer plus the lightest possible swingweight. Obviously these are all kind of competing with one another, so you're seeking balance of all the factors. The best wood solution is probably something like a bamboo core surrounded by hickory or maple but I think that's against the "rules" also.
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Mar 6, 2021 17:18
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at my kids practices I sometimes hack with their 10 drop fancy pants bats and I swear to god I could kill one of them with it if I swung full speed. I can't even fathom what a pro-hitter would do with one, let alone an elite pro-hitter
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Mar 7, 2021 04:37
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alpha_destroy posted:I'm starting to think Bobby Witt Jr might end up being pretty good. Weird being excited about a Royals batting prospect yeah i'm not sure what to do either 20 year old who runs bases like this https://twitter.com/MLBPipeline/status/1367909194175815681 and hits baseballs like this (turn sound up) https://twitter.com/alec_lewis/status/1369062311785209859 plus he has a good glove and elite arm at SS? I dunno man, he's going to get hit by a falling satellite or something probably
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Mar 9, 2021 22:00
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Intruder posted:Just practice dropping bunts to literally anywhere on the left side of the infield hard enough to get it past the pitcher have you been watching me play with ty cobb on the show
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Mar 11, 2021 22:44
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man i was really hoping markakis would get to 3000 hits and thus cause the hall of fame to eat itself
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Mar 12, 2021 15:42
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The Athletic did a Bill Brasky thing with Greinke and it is pretty great. I'd just post all of these but I had to stop myself. Tim Federowicz, Dodgers: So we’re in a team meeting, and it was a real serious meeting getting ready for the playoffs. Like, “Let’s get ready, everyone get locked in, we’ve got about a week left.” And then at the end, Don (Mattingly) was like, “All right, anybody got anything?” Zack raised his hand, and we’re ready to listen to him. And he goes, “Yeah, after you guys are done using the bathroom, just make sure you wash your hands.” Buck: One day I came home to where I had bought a house in Surprise (Arizona). There was a pretty cool little basketball park just down the road from the stadium. And my house was right by that one. So after he’d throw, and after he’d run, he’d be out there shooting hoops with 12-year-old kids in the neighborhood. Zack’s socks are pulled up. He’s got his bedhead going, and he’s out there in a tank top and shorts. Before short shorts were cool, Zack was wearing them. Out there with these 12-year-olds playing hoops. Lucroy: For context, I’ve known Zack and Zack’s family for years and years. I played with his brother, Luke, in high school travel ball. He’s from about 30 minutes from where I grew up in central Florida. One of the first times I spoke to him in Milwaukee, he walks up to me in spring training. He looks at me and just says, “You know, if I wanted to be, I could probably be a better catcher than you,” and just walks away. I was like, “What? I can’t believe he just …” Federowicz: I was struggling hitting at the time. I was like, “Man, I really don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m such an easy out.” And his response was like, “Yeah, you are. If I was facing you, I would just throw you all sliders and you’d have no chance.” Tony Arnerich, Class-A Wilmington: In spring training, we were both staying at the hotel. I was facing him and I got to a 1-2 count and fouled off like three pitches. And then he just smokes me in the elbow with a fastball. That night, we were back at the hotel and we’re in the hot tub. My elbow is kind of barking and I’m like, “Greink, man, you know where you’re throwing the ball. What’s up, man? Did you hit me on purpose?” And he was like, “Well, I only had so many pitches, I didn’t want to waste them all on you. I wanted to face other hitters so I had to get you out of there.” I was like, “Oh my god.” His brutal honesty was so great. Buck: I had been catching him for a while. This was right at the end. And it happened to be the year he was having his Cy Young year (2009). In the middle of that, he said, “John, I know I’m throwing good, but I’m starting to second-guess myself. I don’t want you to catch me anymore.” I was just kind of like, “What?” I was young, too. My ego was hurt. And then he goes, “I just think you’re too smart. You just make me out-think what I’m calling. You have too many good reasons, and sometimes I just want to throw it. And with Miguel Olivo, I just don’t get that.” We’re both sitting there, and Olivo is like, “OK, so I’m dumb?” And Zack goes, “Yeah, but I like throwing to you.” Olivo and I were like, “How do we both want to punch him, but we both get it and appreciate his honesty?” Gosewisch: But when we would get on the airplane, we would have these special cookies that they would always have for us. … Zack would have all of them in his seat, and I’d say by the end of the flight, he’d have about a dozen cookies just crushed while he was on the plane. It was so random. The plane was his space where he could just let it go and just see how many cookies he can possibly eat on the airplane. Ellis: It’s like the opposite of the Wade Boggs how-many-beers-can-I-drink-on-this-flight story. For Zack, it’s how many cookies can I eat? Ellis: He took a deep dive in the fantasy football world, and like anything, when Zack gets involved with something, he’s going to be all in. … He took on the persona as Trader Zack, a guy who was constantly chasing down roster reconstruction and making changes. Trader Zack was working the clubhouse. Avila: He likes that whole GM style of being able to create a team. Ellis: It was during the middle of his warm-up session in the Dodger Stadium bullpen. At that point it was like 7:03 p.m. All of a sudden he stops throwing and starts walking toward me. So I pop up from behind the plate and meet him halfway. He looks at me and says, “I’ve been thinking.” It could be about anything. He says, “I’ve been thinking. You guys have this quarterback injury issue going on now. I’ve got a ton of quarterbacks on my roster, and I noticed you’ve got a bunch of wide receivers on yours. I think we match up really well so I think you guys should make a trade. We’ll talk about it a little bit later.” Then he totally 180’d and walked back to the mound. Peña: I told him at the end of the season once, I said, “Zack, listen, I don’t know if I’m going to be back next year, so I want to have something with you. I need a picture of you and I together or a baseball or something.” He goes, “Yeah, Peña, no problem. Of course.” We took a picture and I told him, “Zack, I need you to sign this picture.” He signed the picture: “To Brayan Peña, one of my best friends and a great catcher. Please do not sell this on eBay.”
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Mar 12, 2021 15:59
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Julio Cruz posted:wow yeah he was only *checks notes* 612 hits short he had 2200 after his age 34 season, it was hardly a ridiculous idea at that time
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Mar 12, 2021 17:04
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Julio Cruz posted:there are 14 players ever to have got 800 hits from ages 35-39 oh man, i had no idea! thanks so much for this
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Mar 12, 2021 17:30
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surely this is what they envisioned when they started putting tattered pictures of baseball stars in cigarette packs shortly after the civil war
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Mar 15, 2021 03:09
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MrMojok posted:If any of youse guys like OOTP, (I know you do, Bewbies), OOTP22 is looking pretty cool. Individual players have a lot more slider settings, like you can select a pitcher and now he has his own individual slider for "pitch around", and everything else. OOTP owns and anyone with a passing interest in baseball or sports games in general should get it. Also MLB The Show is the best non-management sports video game and you should get that even if you don't really like baseball or sports video games.
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Mar 15, 2021 14:48
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unless things have changed you can choose between home and away broadcasts, which for most teams is the local fox sports affiliate. importantly for royals fans this means you can get rex hudler wherever you might be
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Mar 16, 2021 18:25
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I thought this was a pretty good piece on pace-of-play. It isn't just how long a game takes -- it is more what happens during the game. The bottom line is that a lot less stuff happens during game today than it did in previous generations, and that is something that needs fixing. More balls in play is good. Less emphasis on pitching velo is good. More steals is good. Less relief pitching is good.
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Mar 19, 2021 19:46
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Darude - Adam Sandstorm posted:4/82 extension for Sal Perez seems nuts but who else are the Royals spending that on I guess? what do you think is a fair value? dude is an awesome player. also I think WAR undervalues catcher defense
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Mar 22, 2021 01:58
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it is only a 4 year deal. normally the AAV would be lower and term higher, I assume that's how they worked this one out. salvy is a workhorse (minus the TJ) who hopefully will stay healthy, and a league average hitter and GG caliber catcher is a really valuable player. plus it'd be particularly awesome if his offense explosion last year took hold for a full season or two.
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Mar 22, 2021 03:18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpA0y36-j-w a cool game. watch till the end
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Mar 22, 2021 16:58
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randy was always a strange bird, so to speak. he seems like the kind of guy who'd be incredible to talk to one on one over a whiskey or two but then is just terribly uninterested in most other forms of human interaction quote:Calvin Murray, Giants outfielder: My initial reaction was the ball had exploded. I thought it was a practical joke or something, that he threw some tricked-up exploding baseball. It just took a minute for it to process. lol bewbies fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 18:47
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I play diamond dyansty online almost exclusively and find that incredibly engaging; playing the AI after playing good humans is just not the same. that said I dunno if they keep game servers up for previous years editions.
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Mar 25, 2021 20:30
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Salvor_Hardin posted:Does it still have a ton of microtransaction stuff bolted on? Because that was such a turnoff. not at all, at least for diamond dynasty. you can still buy "stubs" if you really want to but they release gobs of free content throughout the year. most of the best players in the game can't be bought.
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Mar 26, 2021 15:56
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how the hell was bryce harper a -3.0 WAR defensive player in 2018 i vaguely remember this being a thing but that's appallingly bad
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Mar 30, 2021 19:35
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royals and rangers just both batted around in the first. surely that has never happened before on opening day?
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Apr 1, 2021 22:00
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Sydin posted:Owners find new ways to save a couple nickles I see. still twice the size it needs to be
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Apr 3, 2021 00:22
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so, I dunno, get rid of the bloated system of affiliated minor league ball and let indie and college baseball breathe properly again
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Apr 3, 2021 00:32
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Sydin posted:Unless the financial landscape of college sports and indie ball attendance changes dramatically all this results in is less young players getting paid so ownership can save a few nickels. Yes, MiLB guys get paid like absolute dogshit, but that's still more than the "nothing" and "might as well be nothing" you get playing for a university or in Indie ball. well, MLBs cornering of the baseball market by dominating the minor league tree and raiding college ball wasn't accidental. this anticompetitive effort goes back decades. I get this is an anti owner rant but you're mad at them for the wrong thing.
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Apr 3, 2021 00:37
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Sydin posted:So how is it better for players to have less draft rounds, a more robust nation-wide NCAA baseball program, and more players in indie ball? How does this help them make more money, or develop faster, or magically make a ton of people start caring about college baseball or indie ball when they otherwise didn't? Hell, even the minor league system that exists now is fighting for eyeballs and butts in seats, and that was pre-covid. In general I'm for anything that keeps players out of the MLB juggernaut. It may well be wishful thinking from an indie baseball enthusiast. A big part of the problem is the entire system is designed as a bigass pyramid to shovel money to the big clubs and their owners. poo poo like this has been a constant for eons: Crazy Ted posted:Hell it goes all the way back to the 1920s when Branch Rickey, IIRC, used the economic conditions of the Great Depression to snap up minor league teams on extremely favorable terms and make them direct affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals. By dominating the pro baseball landscape, MLB can make the minor leagues less appealing (through roster turnover and playing younger, developmental players over better, older players who don't really have a shot at the bigs), can control the media environment, and increasingly, control their finances directly. Their goal since forever has been to make MLB baseball the only place one can really form long-term attachments to players and teams and reliably get games on TV/radio (which, lol @ this situation recently even for MLB). I'm not under the impression that shortening the draft will solve the problem, but I feel like anyone who has taken in a well-produced indie baseball game should be more or less on the same page with shrinking the MLB affiliation pyramid by any means necessary.
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Apr 3, 2021 01:07
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I saw this on some comment section and I can't stop laughing at it "Phil Niekro threw a 61-mph knuckleball in the top half of one inning and bunted a man to 2nd in the bottom half. Similar? "
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Apr 5, 2021 04:13
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i don't think there's a better phone plan out there than t-mobile's veterans thing; $100 a month all-in for 4 lines unlimited everything. like VA mortgages and whatnot are cool but this is by far the best veterans benefit i've found
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Apr 5, 2021 17:11
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god dammit i was super excited to try and see ohtani pitch in person in KC next week but it looks like the rotation is going to miss us
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Apr 5, 2021 17:47
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IcePhoenix posted:Is this the first grand slam of the season or did someone else hit one over the weekend i just saw this, the previous pitch he hit a mile the opposite way and he was convinced it rang off the foul pole (it didn't) so, he was probably pretty pissed off so just lined one out of the park the other direction
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Apr 5, 2021 20:06
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this has to be a subluxation thing right? this sucks in any case, i was pretty behind this guy becoming the new Face Of Baseball
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Apr 6, 2021 19:22
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https://twitter.com/DrJesseMorse/status/1379299383099977728 i dunno who this guy is but he sounds pretty official FTJ should probably get the reconstructive surgery and come back next year to destroy the league rather than swing a bad wing all year and then have to do it next year. - sincerely, guy who overpaid for FTJ in two auction drafts edit - Ha Seong Kim won MVP in 2022 in my current OOTP game (at 2B, but still) so maybe this is all how god intended bewbies fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 19:37
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Slimy Hog posted:How could you not include the time when he Rougned up Bautista? its in the center of the dam picture
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Apr 6, 2021 21:37
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Come join a group play of OOTP! These are fun and lets you experience the pain of long-term debilitating injuries from a managerial perspective!
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Apr 7, 2021 15:55
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does this mean all of those Chicago sports fans are going to transfer over to the White Sox shortly? the White Sox are very good and very fun to watch by the way
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Apr 11, 2021 21:16
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If that speed is accurate that probably makes Acuna the fastest player in baseball and one of the fastest of all time. Elite baseball players are actually quite a bit faster than Bolt over a 30m/90 ft. There have been a handful of 3.3 second times (Billy Hamilton and Altuve come to mind) recorded in recent years. Bolt's 30m split is in the 3.7 range, which is, if you can believe it, not all that fast by elite athlete standards. It isn't until the last half of a 100m race that Bolt turns into the fastest human of all time, and this by a fair margin. Also "Bolt" is an official MLB stat.
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Apr 12, 2021 13:36
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seiferguy posted:The perfect statline doesn't exi- 
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Apr 13, 2021 21:54
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Popete posted:Ok so I looked up the fastest softball thrown by a woman is 77 MPH. Presumably Hope wasn't throwing it that fast which means she must have some nasty movement or pinpoint accuracy. Remember the softball mound is only 43 feet, so as far as the hitter's reaction time is concerned, a 70 mph softball pitch is like a 100 mph baseball pitch. The bigger ball helps but those ladies who can regularly get past 70 mph are usually freakishly dominant. In related news Jennie Finch destroying Pujols and Piazza is one of my favorite things.
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Apr 13, 2021 22:09
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I actually got to go to an actual baseball game in actual person tonight! it was surprisingly wonderful. I haven't looked at any statcast stuff or anything yet but based on what I saw in person I feel like ohtani had one of the more quietly extraordinary baseball games I have ever seen or heard of. he had five plate appearances and put the ball in play five times. I would be surprised if any of them were under 100 miles an hour. three were hits, including a LONG HR, he also beat out a single on a routine ground ball a shortstop that was not dissimilar to what acuna did the other day. the two outs he made were also hit wicked hard, including one really unlucky line drive nto the shift that looked like it was going about 120 mph. it was one of the most fearsome displays of hitting power and general baseball ability I can remember ever having seen, and it really might not get too much attention as they lost the game and his stat line doesn't really jump out at you. but, holy hell that guy is starting to approach Bo Jackson levels of did you see that. edit - I have no idea who this guy is but he had the same experience I did and probably summarized it more effectively https://mobile.twitter.com/Jaxtrip7/status/1382176049912483840 bewbies fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 04:53
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https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-experimenting-with-moving-back-pitchers-mound-as-part-of-atlantic-league-rule-changes/ Moving the mound back: potentially great idea DH tied to the SP: weird and seems kind of unnecessary
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Apr 14, 2021 16:43
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 13:20 |
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baseball in 1968 was getting unwatchable so they lowered the mound and changed the game for the better. I would assume pushing the mound back a little bit would have a similar effect. the other way to address this problem, which is quite a bit harder to deal with,l but would be even more preferable, is disincentivizing teams to prioritize throwing hard uber alles. I don't know how you would do it but that would have positive repercussions all the way through the game to include ending this trend where parents break their children's bodies down trying to get their velocity up high enough to make it on scout spreadsheets that basically just sort by "how hard can you throw"
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Apr 14, 2021 20:39
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