Sundry baseball thoughts
Thoughts on Strasmas, Safeco Field, and little league pitch count limits.
On Strasmas: Well, today is the big day. June 9, 2010 --- the day I penned this --- seems a distant memory. Call me a cynic, call me a pessimist, call me a hater: I'm dreading tonight. I just can't shake the feeling that we've seen the best Strasburg is ever going to give us, and all that the future holds is the sad disappointment of a could-have-been career. I hope I'm wrong, but if you offered me 14-10 with a 3.6 ERA next year, I'd take it without thinking.
On Safeco field: I was in Seattle this past week for a conference, and got to Safeco on Thursday night. Wildly unimpressed. I haven't been to some of the other new parks (notably Yankee and Citi up in in NY), but Safeco seemed to me the pinnacle of anti-traditionalism. You almost don't even feel like you're at a baseball game. There's just too much going on around the park that has little to do with what's happening on the field. Better than average food, yes. Tons of amenities, yes. But does anyone there know what inning it is? Or even care?
The trend toward retro and fan-friendly stadiums that Camden set off in the 90's was a godsend. But it's gone too far.
On Little League Pitch Count Limits: So Little League rules now put serious pitch count limitations on pitchers. Unlike the rules in place when I was a kid --- which only limited how many days rest you needed between starts and how many innings you could go in a game --- these rules have a significant effect on in-game strategy, and potentially on the development of players. I understand their necessity from a safety point of view, but I am concerned about the strategy issues. First, it encourages opposing teams to take lots of pitches against strong pitchers. Facing a tough pitcher, I don't think it could possibly be correct to not have every batter taking a strike during each at-bat, nor would it be correct to ever give someone the green light, 3-0. Of even more concern is batter behavior as the pitch count limit approaches later in the game. The rule states that a pitcher must come out after he finishes facing the batter to whom he throws his 85th pitch. If it's the 5th inning of a 6 inning little league game and you're facing some flamethrower who has completely mowed you down all night but now has a pitch count of 76, it is probably the correct strategy for all of your batters to take two strikes. That would guarantee you, at a minimum, a new pitcher in the 6th, and could very well force a pitching change in the 5th. I'm not crazy about these sorts of tactics coming into play in baseball. They seem like the kind of incentives that make the game less fun. There are certainly equivalents in other sports --- most notably driving to the hoop against players in foul trouble in basketball --- but this seems different.
The second issues is more interesting, and serves just as a question: will the pitch counts (and perhaps offensive strategy in light of them) condition the next generation of pitchers to be more accurate? I have no idea, but it's hard to imagine it wouldn't have some sort of marginal effect.