2021-2022 Off Season Thread

[jnewmark]

Yankees sign Manny Ramirez !

Manny Ramirez Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[HelloNewman]

Yankees sign Manny Ramirez !

Manny Ramirez Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

The business is going.

[yank4life2005]

Taijuan Walker released.

[Strategerie]

Taijuan Walker released.

I think that was a fake report. Could be wrong though. Don't think players can even be released during a lockout

[yank4life2005]

I think that was a fake report. Could be wrong though. Don't think players can even be released during a lockout

You are correct. My bad.

[Bauer]

If it's not behind a pay-wall (I don't THINK it is), I highly recommend the article linked below (Thrown Out At Home: America Moves on From Baseball) that attempts to outline baseball's extraordinary decline in popularity: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/thrown-out-at-home/

[Maynerd]

If it's not behind a pay-wall (I don't THINK it is), I highly recommend the article linked below

It's NOT behind a paywall, and thanks for posting it. Good read, though pretty depressing for a baseball fan.

One thing the article didn't cover is the societal change regarding youth sports. As a kid, baseball was a significant part of my summer. Little League. Sandlot games. One o' Cat. Hit the Bat. You didn't leave the house without a baseball glove. The back porch had a little basket holding balls, gloves, and bats. In the Fall, you rushed home from school in October to catch the World Series. Today, all that's changed. Little League has largely been replaced with Youth Soccer (it's a lot cheaper to field a soccer team than a baseball team). Kids can't watch the World Series any more due to the lateness of the games, and they don't even OWN a mitt or a bat.

It's one of many things that make me glad I was a kid in the 60s, and not today.

[Maynerd]

Double post.

[NelsonMuntz]

If it's not behind a pay-wall (I don't THINK it is), I highly recommend the article linked below (Thrown Out At Home: America Moves on From Baseball) that attempts to outline baseball's extraordinary decline in popularity: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/thrown-out-at-home/

Depressing as there do not appear to be any easy or even viable solutions to reverse the trends. I definitely do not think watching left handed hitters ground out to the SS positioned in shallow right field is helping.

[sjb23]

Depressing as there do not appear to be any easy or even viable solutions to reverse the trends. I definitely do not think watching left handed hitters ground out to the SS positioned in shallow right field is helping.

Preach Preacher, Preach !

Two guys on each side of 2B, both with feet in the dirt. Three OFers.

It's not rocket science - it's BASEBALL !!

[Art Vanderlay]

Preach Preacher, Preach !

Two guys on each side of 2B, both with feet in the dirt. Three OFers.

It's not rocket science - it's BASEBALL !!

I listened to the R2C2 podcast with Theo Esptein and he is 100% correct, the game doesn’t necessarily need change, it needs to be restored to the way it was intended to be played. If I told any of you in 1990 that my vision of baseball 30 years from now is hitters would K at an average of 25%, the league BA would be around .240, bunting/moving runners/stolen bases are no longer a big part of the game, starters would average 5 innings, and the average game will take over 3 hours, you would tell me I was trying to kill the game. Yet, that’s exactly where we are.

For starters keep the infielders on the dirt and move the mound back a foot. For those who believe that moving the mound back is to radical, keep in mind it was moved back once and lowered once.

[aeromac76]

Preach Preacher, Preach !

Two guys on each side of 2B, both with feet in the dirt. Three OFers.

It's not rocket science - it's BASEBALL !!

I agree... people want to change the game, when it really needs a rebirth..

One thing that I think would make the game a lot better is to make parks bigger and the ball deader. Yeah I said it..
With smaller parks and a lively ball, there is the thought process that homers are the way to go in many cases. Strikeouts are acceptable as long as walks and homers are also there. That leads to the three outcome situation, and with the advent of shifts, even many of the hitters trying to pull the ball find outs where there used to be hits..

With homers being less of a weapon (and I realize I am sabotaging my own Yankees here) then the game will return to a put the ball in play and go the other way sort of game. Stolen bases will come back, hit and runs will be more frequent. A homer should be a cleanup hitter getting all of the ball and sending it into orbit, not the 8 hitter slightly mis-hitting a high fly ball over a wall barely 300 feet away short porch affect.

In combination, lower the mound a bit, not to promote homers, but in combo with the above, to promote contact. Baseball was meant to be played by guys hitting the ball and guys trying to catch the batted ball and turn those into outs. It was not meant to be a homerun and strikeout derby. I love baseball more than life, so Ill watch until I need adult diapers and cannot remember my own name, but for new fans, it is boring. There is no action.

I'd have no issue banning shifts, but I do think with the above, you may not even need to. There was a day not long ago even mashers would hit the ball the other way if you gave it to them. I think we can go back there. Reduce the frequency of homers and strikeouts. That should be the goal.

[HelloNewman]

I agree... people want to change the game, when it really needs a rebirth..

One thing that I think would make the game a lot better is to make parks bigger and the ball deader. Yeah I said it..
With smaller parks and a lively ball, there is the thought process that homers are the way to go in many cases. Strikeouts are acceptable as long as walks and homers are also there. That leads to the three outcome situation, and with the advent of shifts, even many of the hitters trying to pull the ball find outs where there used to be hits..

With homers being less of a weapon (and I realize I am sabotaging my own Yankees here) then the game will return to a put the ball in play and go the other way sort of game. Stolen bases will come back, hit and runs will be more frequent. A homer should be a cleanup hitter getting all of the ball and sending it into orbit, not the 8 hitter slightly mis-hitting a high fly ball over a wall barely 300 feet away short porch affect.

In combination, lower the mound a bit, not to promote homers, but in combo with the above, to promote contact. Baseball was meant to be played by guys hitting the ball and guys trying to catch the batted ball and turn those into outs. It was not meant to be a homerun and strikeout derby. I love baseball more than life, so Ill watch until I need adult diapers and cannot remember my own name, but for new fans, it is boring. There is no action.

I'd have no issue banning shifts, but I do think with the above, you may not even need to. There was a day not long ago even mashers would hit the ball the other way if you gave it to them. I think we can go back there. Reduce the frequency of homers and strikeouts. That should be the goal.

I've been saying this for quite a while.

And I don't think you'd be sabotaging the Yankees necessarily, they thrived for decades in the era before 3-outcome baseball, and they largely did it via the home run. You don't have to go full-on 1900-1919 "deadball" to fix this, you just need to edge back from the extreme position we're in now, in which the game has become sluggish, slow, stationary and frankly, dull.

No need to ban the shift, I think you're right that restoring some value to contact baseball would render the shift largely obsolete anyway. I'm thinking the shift must have been fun to look at when it was an oddity, used only to combat hitters like the anomalous Ted Williams, who defied the conventions of his time by refusing to hit the other way and was tolerated to do so because he was so much better than everyone else. I'd hate to take that tool out of the manager's box if an extreme situation like that calls for it. Besides, if we ban the shift, shouldn't we disallow the 5-infielder, 2-outfielder alignment managers sometimes use with the winning run on third? Where do you stop? Except for requiring the pitcher to throw from the rubber, and requiring the catcher to line up behind home plate until the pitch is released, I don't like anchoring players in designated spots.

[fredgmuggs]

The approach to hitting is just different now. And pitching. Now they keep sending out upper and mid 90s pitchers. So getting into the bullpen now, I'm not sure that's a good thing. I'm not going to talk about extreme shifting. I still watch baseball but I don't enjoy the game as much. Honestly, if I was kid now I probably wouldn't be interested in watching games. 3 outcome baseball sucks.

[fredgmuggs]

I suspect this lockout will last longer than any of us will want. I'm not expecting baseball for a long while. It's like they try to do whatever they can to kill interest in the sport.