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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

If you want to win the division you close this game.

If you want to host the WC games you close this game.

They are playing well but not good enough to stay where they are. Need to close these games down. One here, one against the O's.
 
CTheBigPicture said:
If you want to win the division you close this game.

If you want to host the WC games you close this game.

They are playing well but not good enough to stay where they are. Need to close these games down. One here, one against the O's.
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They aren't winning the division. Yankees are winning again, (11-5 this month). Jays are 14-6 so far, btw. They are up on the two teams behind them and control a portion of their own destiny with 7 games against Baltimore and TB. They are in excellent shape. Sucks to lose this game, but it feels like it's not gonna matter much.
 
Deckie007 said:
They aren't winning the division. Yankees are winning again, (11-5 this month). Jays are 14-6 so far, btw. They are up on the two teams behind them and control a portion of their own destiny with 7 games against Baltimore and TB. They are in excellent shape. Sucks to lose this game, but it feels like it's not gonna matter much.
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I'm looking at Seattle. They are dropping the ball but can easily take over the top WC spot with their easy schedule.

I agree division is out of reach now.
 
Jays have a .700 winning % this month with half a rotation, banged up Springer and Teo and no Lourdes and multiple double headers and the second hardest schedule in baseball. It's been a hell of a month. I'm not how much more we can expect.
 
MindzEye said:
A few things...

- off speed pitches don't actually cause less stress on the arm. They're thrown with the same arm action/force, it's the grip and release that causes the difference in spin & velo. What you're actually saying is that pitchers will have to choose between throwing more max effort pitches (risking injury and shortened careers) or throw softer....

- Which will lead to 2HR and 2K's every 4 AB instead of 3K and 1HR. Something you need to come to grips with (or don't and yell at clouds, whatever) is that the game you grew up watching is an inferior version of the sport from a competitiveness stand point. Slap hitters who stole 50 bases but couldn't take a walk to save their lives leading off, guys stealing 25 bags on 35-40 attempts, the hit & run, trying to slap the ball the other way as a hitting strategy etc, etc....all bad strategies for players trying to make the most positive impact, or teams trying to win the most games.
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What I know is that, supposedly "inferior" or not from a fancy stats perspective, the game I grew up watching was a more entertaining product for the fan than what it is today and that is what MLB needs to concern itself with. They are a sports league but they sell tickets to watch so in reality they are in the entertainment business and no one is entertained when the game is played the way it is today. Viewership and fan engagement, especially among younger demographics, is not on baseball's side right now and the reason for this is because the game, thanks to all this "progress" has become an unwatchable, tedious, 4 hour cricket match. The stats may not support the case for more stolen base attempts but stolen base attempts are infinitely more entertaining to watch than everyone standing around waiting for the inevitable result of a strikeout or a home run.

The game may be better statistically today but it is not better entertainment than it was 40 years ago. Far, far from it, and the lack of fan engagement with the sport, especially among younger people, is the proof.
 
MindzEye said:
Data has changed all of the major sports. When I was growing up (which is a while ago, but 25-30 years isn't that fucking long in the grand scheme of things) it wasn't expected for a point guard to be able to shoot. It was super, super common to see the "New York" style "point god" who wasn't a good scorer but had a slick handle, was a great passer and could run an efficient offence. Likewise, centres were just expected to be big. You didn't have to be able to run the court or do anything but rebound and challenge/block shots. These long 6'7-6'9 wing players that are the most desired player type in the league now were called "tweeners" and were generally not wanted at all. They tended to not be athletic enough to guard the hyper athletic 6'4-6'5 SG/SF's of the era and were too light to bang inside with the 6'8+, 240-250+ PF's of the era.

When most of us were growing up playing hockey, butterfly goalies were brand new and defencemen were big plugs for the most part. You took the guys who stickhandled the worst and jammed them on the blueline. You had maybe one guy who could handle the puck, 2 at most.

The sports are always going to move towards optimal strategy to win, that's the fucking point of the whole exercise.
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The point of any pro sports league is to have paying customers watching your product. To accomplish this you need to provide more than stats, you need to entertain. You mention basketball. Yet another sport that was more fun to watch 30-40 years ago, not because the level of the athletes was better but because the product was more entertaining. In my teens and twenties I was huge into basketball, both college and pro. Today you couldn't pay me to watch a basketball game. I don't think I've even watched one in its entirety in 20 years. I still like baseball, and I have the ability to watch any and every game I want, but I rarely do anymore. And people younger than me would rather watch x-treme sports than anything as establishment as a baseball game.

I was at a Jays game last month and it was a Friday night and they drew a good crowd. I don't know how many people who had tickets actually watched much of the game. It was just a thing to do, a place to tag on their social media feeds. I saw a lot of kids who probably wanted to go before they actually went and when they got there acted bored out of their minds. Their parents were similarly distracted. All most people did was move constantly between their seats and the concession stand. What was actually going on down at field level was barely on their radar. A very different crowd in terms of intensity compared to a hockey game.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
What I know is that, supposedly "inferior" or not from a fancy stats perspective, the game I grew up watching was a more entertaining product for the fan than what it is today and that is what MLB needs to concern itself with. They are a sports league but they sell tickets to watch so in reality they are in the entertainment business and no one is entertained when the game is played the way it is today. Viewership and fan engagement, especially among younger demographics, is not on baseball's side right now and the reason for this is because the game, thanks to all this "progress" has become an unwatchable, tedious, 4 hour cricket match. The stats may not support the case for more stolen base attempts but stolen base attempts are infinitely more entertaining to watch than everyone standing around waiting for the inevitable result of a strikeout or a home run.

The game may be better statistically today but it is not better entertainment than it was 40 years ago. Far, far from it, and the lack of fan engagement with the sport, especially among younger people, is the proof.
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Yeah, those are the big reason for their changes. While bigger bases has an element of safety to it, that plus limiting pickoff attempts should mildly increase stealing. Pitch clocks should take up less time watching someone adjust their jock, so should improve things too. And banning the shift should in theory lead to more hits and more action.

The game does still suffer from too many strikeouts. There's 50% more strikeouts now than there were in 2000, and back in the 1940s when WeHave grew up, we're easily 2X or 3X the strikeout rate from those days. And while power has increased since then, it's not the same - if an "average" player goes from 100 strikeouts and 10 HR to 200 strikeouts and 20 HR, that's actually a lot less action than it used to be, because that combined is removing 20-30 hits on balls in play.

But I think on the whole, even strikeouts aren't a bad thing as long as things are moving and there's action. If they can get the average game time down below the 3hr mark, that goes a long way. If a game starts at 7 or 7:30 and I know that 99% of the time I can be home before 10:30 or 11, I'm much happier heading out to a game rather than having them stretch past midnight and suddenly you have to look up TTC schedules.
 
UWHabs said:
Yeah, those are the big reason for their changes. While bigger bases has an element of safety to it, that plus limiting pickoff attempts should mildly increase stealing. Pitch clocks should take up less time watching someone adjust their jock, so should improve things too. And banning the shift should in theory lead to more hits and more action.

The game does still suffer from too many strikeouts. There's 50% more strikeouts now than there were in 2000, and back in the 1940s when WeHave grew up, we're easily 2X or 3X the strikeout rate from those days. And while power has increased since then, it's not the same - if an "average" player goes from 100 strikeouts and 10 HR to 200 strikeouts and 20 HR, that's actually a lot less action than it used to be, because that combined is removing 20-30 hits on balls in play.

But I think on the whole, even strikeouts aren't a bad thing as long as things are moving and there's action. If they can get the average game time down below the 3hr mark, that goes a long way. If a game starts at 7 or 7:30 and I know that 99% of the time I can be home before 10:30 or 11, I'm much happier heading out to a game rather than having them stretch past midnight and suddenly you have to look up TTC schedules.
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Agreed, except fuck safety. I want moar 2nd base and home plate collisions.
 
Not often do I give up on a game but just can’t watch this one only longer.

Maybe when I check the score later I’ll wish I has persevered and stuck it out. 🫰
 
superstardestroyer.gif
 
This team is so inconsistent (luckily more good than bad, but still) that it wouldn't surprise me if they got swept out of the playoffs or swept the other teams.
 
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