Monday, September 21, 2009

Batters: run 'till they tag you out!

It's not good baseball. It's not team baseball. But it improves the batter's stats. When you hit the ball, run 'till they tag you out.
The neat part is that it really doesn't matter in some games for contending teams and in most games for non-contending teams. Stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples adds to Total Bases, increasing slugging average and indirectly increasing on base plus slugging, OPS.
I'm guessing that teams keep stats on players getting thrown out on the bases but who else does? Let's say that a batter tries to extend 20 times and is retired in half. That's ten extra Total Bases. Robinson Cano has 600 AB and 311 TB for a slugging average (TB/AB) of .518. Ten more TB would put him only five behind the AL lead of fellow Yankee Mark Teixeira. Plus, Cano's slugging average would increase from .518 to .535. A little more aggression by Cano and he could lead the AL in TB! If Cano really pushed it he could also lead in slugging. All that for merely playing bad baseball.
This shows how at least one aspect of batting stats can easily be manipulated.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Ice cream truck on the field.

A friend suggested that an ice cream truck be sent out on the field to provide refreshments to the players who have plenty of time to consume a Popsicle during the numerous unnecessary periods of dead time in a MLB game. Sounds good to me. Anything to emphasise the absurdity that has swallowed a once interesting game and made it almost unwatchable as a lone source of entertainment.
I almost never watch a game on TV without lots of other stuff to provide content:
- another MLB game or two
- other sporting events, especially NFL and NBA
- news or public interest programs
- web
- movies
- Law & Order reruns
- House reruns
- NCIS reruns
- Monk marathons.
That's enough. Needless to say, actually attending a four hour game has lost almost all of its appeal, especially considering the nasty weather elements that MLB will force on the attending fans without regard to their comfort or safety.
How about an ice cream truck in my living room?

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Let the batter fire a baseball at the pitcher.

If a batter gets hit flush, let the batter fire a baseball at the pitcher who hit him. Allow the batter to chase the pitcher and fire it at the pitcher point blank. The pitcher may run away and protect himself with his glove. That might reduce the number of incidents in which a pitcher feels entitled to hit a batter because:
- the batter got a hit
- the previous batter got a hit
- the batter might get a hit
- the batter looked at the pitcher the wrong way
- the pitcher was simply in a bad mood.