2019 Misc MLB News

[tmwiese55]

Just generally speaking though I think it's basically logical to assume more relievers would lead to longer game times. Maybe not all the time of course but on average it makes sense. But yes hopefully teams and MKE continue to do it the way the last few posts mention to reduce it being like LaRusa era STL games.

[coolhandluke121]

 

I don't think the Brewers did a whole lot of mid inning pitching changes and most relievers were starting innings and pitching whole innings, they just used a lot of pitchers to get through games.

 

Good point. After September call-ups, I'm guessing their games got a lot longer on average - even compared to other teams with call-ups in September. They had a lot of bullpen games.

[KeithStone53151]

This thing says Brewers games averaged 3 hours and 7 minutes. I honestly don't buy that though. There were some marathon games that must have driven up the average. I can think of very few games that were 2 hours and 45 minutes or less.

 

One other side thing, I was super impressed by the Giants attendance numbers considering they were a 73 win team. All the other teams that were top 12 in attendance were either playoff teams or serious contenders into September

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-misc.shtml

[tmwiese55]

Another factor in Brewer game times being down would be well that we obviously gave up very few runs and they also didn't have all that great of an offense. Essentially lower scoring games are simply usually faster. So I guess that would work overall in general as a counter to the extra pitching changes, basically if it leads to lower scoring games it might trade off the extra time spent on changes. However you then run into the overall issue in baseball of wanting more runs/action.

[coolhandluke121]

Yep, that's a good point. I would love to see more low-scoring games to be honest. I wish it was more defense + balls in play, as opposed to so many k's, but either way it's better than inflating offensive numbers for the type of fan who considers baseball boring without lots of runs. I don't think it's boring at all.

 

I'm going to lose it if they try to ban shifts. Let offenses adapt. Evolution is a huge part of baseball. Take away the game within the game and you alienate a large chunk of your core fan-base.

[Eye Black]

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-misc.shtml

Huh, I knew the Brewers were bad at challenges, but I didn’t realize their 20% success rate (7 of 34) was the worst across all of MLB by 15%. Over half of MLB teams were at or above a 50% success rate on challenges. The Royals (75%), Yankees (74%), and Giants (74%) were excellent at challenging calls apparently.

[xisxisxis]

Huh, I knew the Brewers were bad at challenges, but I didn’t realize their 20% success rate (7 of 34) was the worst across all of MLB by 15%. Over half of MLB teams were at or above a 50% success rate on challenges. The Royals (75%), Yankees (74%), and Giants (74%) were excellent at challenging calls apparently.

Oh yeah, they were epic bad. It's been several years the brewer have been near the bottom of MLB and as I remember it was pretty consistent drop so whomever is responsible needs to be canned...

[istanbultaye]

I would like to see less of the "well, it's late in the game, and it's a close play that didn't go our way, so we might as well give it a shot" challenges that seemed to be prevalent by the Brewers. If there's only 34 challenges in an entire season, it's not adding that much of a delay to the games really, but it's still a little annoying when it comes up.

[xisxisxis]

One other side thing, I was super impressed by the Giants attendance numbers considering they were a 73 win team. All the other teams that were top 12 in attendance were either playoff teams or serious contenders into September

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-misc.shtml

If you divide attendance by estimated payroll, the Brewers have the largest number, which once again shows the level of support the Brewers get from their fans. The smallest market in MLB has the largest number of attendance per $ of payroll.

[brewerfan82]

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-misc.shtml

Huh, I knew the Brewers were bad at challenges, but I didn’t realize their 20% success rate (7 of 34) was the worst across all of MLB by 15%. Over half of MLB teams were at or above a 50% success rate on challenges. The Royals (75%), Yankees (74%), and Giants (74%) were excellent at challenging calls apparently.

That link is really interesting. While the Brewers had the lowest percentage of overturned calls they also were wayyy below league average in the total number of calls overturned as well. Half the league had *at least* three times as many calls overturned as the Brewers and all but one team had *at least* twice as many calls overturned as the Brewers. On the flip side, the Royals had the best percentage and also managed to overturn a whopping league best 31 total calls throughout the year.

 

It'd be interesting know how many bad calls each team *should have* challenged. Did the Royals really have that much worse of a time getting umps to rule plays in their favor throughout the year? Was whoever was in charge of watching the replays for the Brewers asleep on the job whenever Counsell called on them? Or was CC and his staff just totally incompetent when it came to this aspect of the game?

 

If you can assume all teams have roughly the same luck in getting close plays called their way over the course of a season (which I don't know is true), that's quite the disadvantage they're putting themselves in just by being awful at something that shouldn't be that difficult to correct. If they can just get 10-15 more calls turned their way this year, that could be an area that improves them by a couple games over the season.

[TURBO]

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the Padres are pursuing Manny Machado.

 

Acee says that the Padres were not initially one of the "mystery teams" in on Machado, but they "became players in the pursuit of Machado a week ago when reports surfaced of a price that was far lower than expected." If San Diego were to land the marquee free agent, they plan to play him at third base. Machado is said to prefer playing shortstop, but he figures to wind up with the highest bidder. The White Sox, Phillies and Yankees are the other teams that have been connected to the superstar infielder.

 

Source: San Diego Union-TribuneJan 25 - 2:27 PM

[DHonks]

What was amazing last year was how often on tv it seemed the Brewers would win challenges only to have them upheld. AND other teams often had seemingly hopeless challenges that would go against the Brewers. I don’t know how many seemingly obvious calls on replay went against the Brewers, but it was a rough double whammy

[KeithStone53151]

Regarding challenges, I can think of at least a handful off hand that the umps in New York simply got wrong last year. I still think CC wasn't great with the challenges, he was never going to be in the 70% arena. But he should have been much more bottom 1/3 of teams than an outlier way below everyone else.

[dlk9s]

Hey, if you're not failing on your challenges, you're not trying, right?

[jjfanec]

This is MLB news since it is the owner of the Cubs. If a player said something like it would be a huge issue. Will be interesting to see if it is a big deal for an executive. Dont want this to become a political debate so mods can delete it if they want.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/cubs-patriarch-joe-ricketts-condemns-islam-leaked-emails-muslims-naturally-enemy-001154007.html

[CrewFanBrewMan69]

This is MLB news since it is the owner of the Cubs. If a player said something like it would be a huge issue. Will be interesting to see if it is a big deal for an executive. Dont want this to become a political debate so mods can delete it if they want.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/cubs-patriarch-joe-ricketts-condemns-islam-leaked-emails-muslims-naturally-enemy-001154007.html

I don’t think he actually owns or has anything to do with the team other than being the owners dad and giving them money to buy it? The one son is the primary owner and runs it but all of his kids own smaller parts of it. I don’t think he actually owns any of the team from seeing other stuff on them.

[stoutdude04]

I see MLB is discussing a few new rules. This one caught my eye, since we've discussed this before.

 

A three-batter minimum for pitchers

 

Apparently the union wasn't opposed to it. This would surely take away some of the Brewers strategies from the past year(among other teams), but it seems like the Brewers already use their relievers for more than one batter anyways. Is 3 to many? Should it be 2? The pitcher you bring in could potentially walk the bases loaded. Yikes.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I see MLB is discussing a few new rules. This one caught my eye, since we've discussed this before.

 

A three-batter minimum for pitchers

 

Apparently the union wasn't opposed to it. This would surely take away some of the Brewers strategies from the past year(among other teams), but it seems like the Brewers already use their relievers for more than one batter anyways. Is 3 to many? Should it be 2? The pitcher you bring in could potentially walk the bases loaded. Yikes.

 

I don't think this would hurt the Brewers so much. They have been gearing up with pitchers who don't exhibit major splits and are capable of going multiple innings. It's going to hurt a team like the Cubs, though, as Maddon loves his one-batter matchups.

[KeithStone53151]

In case anyone was considering becoming a Marlins season seatholder. Postseason priority for as little as $120...

 

[CrewFanBrewMan69]

The Cubs announced a new TV deal today (going to be their own network). It starts next year. I know they already spend plenty but I would think this allows them to go to another level, if not now then in the near future.

[owbc]

The Cubs announced a new TV deal today (going to be their own network). It starts next year. I know they already spend plenty but I would think this allows them to go to another level, if not now then in the near future.

 

If the Brewers launched a similar partnership (with this particular media group) I would be furious. As a non-fan of the Cubs I hope it backfires.

[MillerParkSouth]

They really sold their soul for that WS. Champman, Russell, Ricketts, now this. They are an incredibly unlikeable franchise on almost all levels.

[jerichoholicninja]

Alicdes Escobar signed a minor league deal with the Orioles. First off, he's 32. Where did that time go? Second of all, he's been possibly the worst hitter in baseball during his career, yet, Yost gave him over 600 PA's almost every year and hit him first or second the majority of the time. I'm not sure what more mind boggling - how bad of a hitter he is/was or how stupid Yost is/was.

[pacopete4]

Alicdes Escobar signed a minor league deal with the Orioles. First off, he's 32. Where did that time go? Second of all, he's been possibly the worst hitter in baseball during his career, yet, Yost gave him over 600 PA's almost every year and hit him first or second the majority of the time. I'm not sure what more mind boggling - how bad of a hitter he is/was or how stupid Yost is/was.

 

Yost would like you to kiss his ring.

[clancyphile]

The Cubs announced a new TV deal today (going to be their own network). It starts next year. I know they already spend plenty but I would think this allows them to go to another level, if not now then in the near future.

 

If the Brewers launched a similar partnership (with this particular media group) I would be furious. As a non-fan of the Cubs I hope it backfires.

 

If working with Sinclair Broadcasting would enable the Brewers to boost payroll and/or spend more on scouting/minor league development/sabremetrics... then I hope the Brewers do it. They need every edge they can get.