Pet peeve:So there was this game, where you pitched to a batter who tried to hit the ball and run around the bases. It was exciting, and poetic, and fun.Then came some smart guys who figured out that:
You should rarely try to steal bases unless you are almost certain of being safe. So, fewer exciting plays on the bases and most steals lack drama when they happen.
Pitchers get hit harder on average the third time around. So it's better to change pitchers a whole lot.
Pitchers apparently have no effect on batted balls, only on walks, strikeouts and home runs. So pitchers who pitch to get batters to hit on the ground are not favored. The result of the last two innovations is a lot more strikeouts, home runs and walks.
Batters are taught to hit the ball somewhat upwards, to try and hit home runs, cause that makes your team win. It doesn't matter if you strikeout a lot.
So more home runs still and even more strikeouts. Fearing homers and trying for strikeouts, pitchers walk more batters.
It turns out bunting is bad. No more bunting. It turns out that shifts work, so fewer hits, fewer base runners,
All of this is science. It means it won't go away. These things won't stop being true. Descartes has killed our game. Nothing can be done to salvage it, except to move fences way the f .... back, ban most pitching changes, let walks put batters on second base and penalizing both teams in different ways for too many strikeouts. Ugh.
Baseball made into an Abstract Universal, a Cartesian matrix without magic. Who needed that? And like any island people who gods were knocked down by arriving colonialists, we remain traumatized.
That's my pet peeve. Oh, that and capitalism.
7/13/2020 4:35 PM (edited)