 |
| Got this from SF Chronicle |
What a great, great promotion for Major League Baseball! This picture should get people fighting for the turnstile trying to get into their respective home parks to see a great young talent! The NFL is so stupid for putting in rules to protect their players, just let guys fly through the air and crash into some of their best players and let what happen, happens, because it is part of baseball.
Of course, if we really held to that sentiment very, very strongly, obsessively so, we would go back to fielders using gloves that barely covers, let alone protect their hands, no more batting helmets, and base runners can still slide into bases like Ty Cobb, with his spikes sharpened for maximum damage to the fielder who dared to try to tag him out. And pitchers can be head-hunters again.
Still not seeing how this works for the benefit of baseball. I didn't like it when it was Ray Fosse, an Indian's player for the American League (I admit it, I'm a National League snob), I especially don't like it when it is the Giants prized rookie in his first full, ooops, season. I ain't having it!
Do Something to the Injurer Too
This is the idea I've had for a long while. I really don't like horrible injuries happening in sports, period. It made some sense 40 years ago when they didn't make that much money and it was a dog eat dog environment, in the very raw sense in that humans desperate to stay in the sport they love will do everything they can to stay there. Today, it's a multi-million dollar business for these superstar athletes, why risk having them permanently injured, that only takes away from the sport, not add to it.
It's ancient, but the old "eye-for-an-eye" comes to mind whenever I thought of how to punish for injuries. And I don't mean literally, where we go and bust up the runner's leg and see if he is really feeling remorse now. The way I see it, if one player (whatever sport you are talking about) injures another player through their action, they should be suspended without pay until the other player returns to the field of play.
It was an accident, you say. Well, why is the player (and team) who gets injured is the one who suffers then? Yes, I understand it was an accident, an act of god, if you will. It is random. So move on.
Well, good, then that player and team will suffer too. That's not random, but hey, you can move on too. Senseless moves deserves senseless punishment. Why do the other team get to take out the other team's player, even by accident, and then don't suffer in any way either? Injuries are random, OK, I know that, but that's life too, this will randomly affect you, the injuring party, as well.
Our guy hit in the face, broken bone, out to DL? Your pitcher, off the field, suspended until our guy returns to the field again. Our guy taken out at home plate when he wasn't even blocking home plate? Your guy, off the field, suspended until our guy returns to the field again. Our guy taken out at second base turning the double play? Your guy, off the field, suspended until our guy returns to the field again.
This is a rule that will make players think before they decide to make risky decisions that could damage another player. Not that the Marlins would miss their 25th man as much as we miss Posey, but maybe the runner might consider the consequences of his actions better next time, than to decide to take a flying tackle away from home plate in hopes of knocking the ball out of the catcher's glove.
Again, tell me why it is OK to do in the context of home plate when the runner cannot even touch the infielder without penalty at any of the other bases?
Accidents Happen
And I don't think that this rule will ever eliminate injuries. And I understand a lot of times it really is an accident that they did not intend to do (but when you are barreling into a catcher who might not be ready to take the collision, what the f*** do you think is going to happen? Reminds me of the lame excuses people use about driving while intoxicated). But then, with my proposed suspension, the other player will share some of that pain.
And, of course, lame 25th man players like that runner might think twice about a risky move like he did, if he thought he would have to sit indefinitely while someone takes his place on the roster and potentially Wally Pipp him. That's raw human desire right there.
And I understand that the runner has some rights as well regarding home plate. If the collision happens at home plate, I can live with that, you cannot legislate away all collisions and injuries but at least we can do something about the rules allowing the runner to make a risky and poor decision. I'm just looking more for minimizing these collisions and injuries.
And I realize that there is a grey area regarding the catcher's responsibilities with regards to injuring the runner as well. As in, I'm not sure what happens if the catcher causes injury to the runner due to regular baseball versus negligence or improper procedure by the catcher. Could have a panel of three catchers, known for their defense, to rule on such instances. In any case, I think the pendulum going way in the other direction is acceptable.
And it is not just me. Both Bruce Bochy and Duane Kuiper have spoken out about it, as well as a variety of media members. It don't make sense in terms of running a business, and ultimately, that is what this is for the people who could implement some rules regarding this. Regular reader and commenter, Marc, noted in his comment to my other post that if baseball would just enforce the EXISTING rules (my emphasis), that would help to limit these types of unnecessary collisions. Hopefully the MLB will be listening this time.
Giants Thoughts
First, there is a great article on the injury, describing it in medical terms, best I've ever read in 40 years in explaining an injury and the ramifications, in SBNation by Dr. Ali Mohamadi.
About the Pudge rumors, I would add that it would be my educated guess that it was started by either 1) a reporter who was making an educated guess on who Giants might talk to and/or 2) a Washington Nationals leak because they want to trade Pudge. According to what I've see/heard somewhere, Pudge's defense isn't so good anymore, and so it would not make sense to acquire him given the importance of the catcher with the Giants pitching rotation.
The more I think about it, the more I think Eli Whiteside will be the starting catcher for the rest of the season. He really knows our pitchers well and Posey at some point will be back in the dugout and given his advice and input. I noticed that in terms of ERA, he was the first to have an excellent ERA with Jonathan Sanchez, basically Bengie Molina and Dirty just didn't mix well, even when Dirty was doing well, for the most part, he had a very high ERA when Molina caught him still. In any case, trying to get a catcher now in a trade will be very costly, the other team knows that there is a level of desperation in the move, and will ask for more.
The Giants will just have to do with less offense and hope that the other players can just do more with what they got. And if Whiteside can hit more like 2010 (.696 OPS) than 2009 (.607 OPS), that would help greatly towards the rest of the players not needed to do more in Posey's absence. Hopefully he has learned something along the way. I would note that his BABIP was .299 in 2010 vs. .284 in 2009, so that was a large part of his gain in OPS, and something he will need to continue.
My only problem with the eye for an eye thing is, how much do you think the Marlins would miss Scott Cousins for the rest of the year vs the Giants missing Buster Posey for the rest of the year?
ReplyDeleteCollisions are basically not allowed in baseball at any other base. There's no reason why they should be allowed at home plate. Make two rules: 1. You can't block home plate and 2. The runner can't slam into the catcher.
Man, I feel so honored - linked to! Thanks OGC.
ReplyDeleteI just can't get enthused about other catchers either... saw a shortlist and it didn't really seem worth the trouble. Though the Giants now have four guys who really should be at first (Huff, Belt, Sandoval, Posey), so people have to play somewhere next year. I didn't really emphasize that I think Whiteside is GOOD - again, not quite regular caliber, but not replacement either. Good luck there.
Not sure about the hit-in-the-face-by-a-pitch argument though - on purpose, okay, sure, but one has to remember the most famous incident, Chapman/Mays, seems to have really been an accident, despite Mays being a horse's ass by all accounts before and after.
Again, the rules - you don't intentionally throw at a batter. I think umpires can tell the difference. Maybe you're right, Cousins was... negligent, and so should be suspended, but for the rest of the season? He wasn't being malicious. I think it's better to enforce the real rules first.
And the chutzpah/insensitivity award for the day goes to Prince Fielder - seems like good sportsmanship in light of recent events should have made him pause in making Whiteside take on a freight train. Very tacky.
Nice writeup, OGC. I don't know if you have noticed, but MCC is already back into their "fire Bochy/Sabean" bandwagon while the team is still in 1st place. I mean REALLY, it's their fault that the 2 best young hitters on the team have gotten unfortunate injuries. Just venting, but I hate that place with a passion, especially Grant Brisbee, who is a flat-hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteTo Nick, I wouldn't blame Grant for all the hate. I think that's more of the community, which can be pretty brutal at times. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a solid community, and I think in terms of sports blogs in general, you have to admire the community Grant has built. But to be honest, I'm not really sure how invested Grant is with McC anymore. He's now writing a lot for Baseball Nation, and it seems a lot of the posts are done by other writers and moderators. So, I wouldn't place the blame solely on Grant in this case, because I think Grant is a very solid writer who is actually more level-headed and objective then Giants fan think.
ReplyDeleteTo OGC, I like the thoughts on Whiteside. To be perfectly frank, I don't see any need for the Giants to trade for a catcher or re-sign Bengie. If you're going to make the argument for Bengie, it's not a good one because Whiteside knows the staff just as well, and he'd be a cheaper internal option. Bengie is going to cost somewhere in the million mark, and that is too much for a player who can't run or hit and hasn't been playing since the World Series. I know it's a pill to swallow because Whiteside is such a downgrade for Posey, but the reality is, most Major League teams don't really get much from production from catchers anyways, and this just shows that we need the other players to step up.
mohamadi made his diagnosis without seeing xrays or the mri
ReplyDeletehe is therefore a hack
buster is out for the season, wont be off crutches till sept and may not even be at st in 2012
and who knows if he will ever catch again
as for the rules...it is time to institute the ncaa rules
as for retribution...i officially call on all the stick battery chucks to join me at the belle when the fish come to town
payback will be a bitch
Bacci,
ReplyDeleteI thought Mohamadi's explanation was actually pretty good. He probably shouldn't have speculated on Buster coming back this season. Based on his own timeline it would be barely in time for the playoffs at best. Really, really unfair and uncalled for to call him a "hack" for that though.
Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteYeah, DrB, I agree, I should have emphasized more that the player will be more affected than the team. I recall reading about how collisions like this are rarer because most of the good players don't dare such a collision for fear of hurting themselves and thus their team. That leaves the bottom of roster guys who feel a need to justify their position, like the runner, and take chances like that. In one fell swoop, they got a win and hurt significantly the chances of one of their potential competitors for the wild card spot. I'm trying to figure out a rule that would help reduce the number of players making such a decision or following such instructions.
Love your rules, DrB!
Marc, np, thanks for sharing, I greatly appreciate that.
I disagree about all who should be at 1B. Sandoval, in particular, because he's been working on his 3B defense and his fitness. I'm not bothered by his adding pounds, I don't expect perfection from him in pursuing this goal of lower weight, and he ideally is at 3B for us for as long as he's able to hit well and defend about average or better, which he was able to do even when overweight, so he should be better now that he is fitter.
Posey too, for a number of similar reasons. One, he's athletic enough to play other key positions, 2B in particular. A Craig Biggio type of career would be ideal, except he shouldn't go to CF at any point, just play C and then move to 2B. Two, it's still debatable whether he can ever hit well enough to be an average 1B offensively. However, at 2B, he would be superior.
Belt I am not sure about right now. Obviously, he plays great defense there, so there is that. However, until he controls his strikeouts, he'll be one of those three true outcomes hitters: low BA, high walk leading to high OBP, high strikeouts, plus high homers. However, his power is not established yet. Despite hitting so well in AAA, he's got way too little homers to think that he could ever be the 30 HR guy most teams want at 1B. Plus, he was a pitcher so he's got quite an arm, seems a shame to waste that at 1B, it would be better utilized in the corner OF.
However, we have a lot of OF prospects who might develop, whereas 1B is kind of barren, so given his combo of plus offense and plus defense, I would be OK with him at 1B, but I'm not wedded to having him at 1B permanently. Depends on the options we end up having, I would be more than OK to move Belt to the OF.
And some people want to move Posey to another position once he's healthy but the problem there is that Posey do NOT want to move. And really, given his defensive abilities there, he really should play there, his offense/defense combo there is very very valuable.
Marc, about the HBP in the face situation, I admit that this represents, on my part, a bigger pet peeve about society in general, which is that the victim is usually forgotten in the process, there is rarely any attempt to do something for the victim.
ReplyDeleteI realize that eye for an eye is too extreme to do, and to make clear, was not advocating it, just was using that to convey the general idea. Which is that the player causing the accident would share in the "penalties" of the injured party. Nothing would ever match up to the loss to the injured party, I'm just seeking to even things up some.
So I brought this up as I did want a discussion.
I can see that perhaps the HBP situation involves too much gray area. Perhaps umpires could judge whether the pitcher was doing it intentionally? In which case, then the penalties could be applied?
In any case, I am evolving to the position that perhaps there should be rules, including enforcing the rules that already exist, and when injuries occur when a player is breaking rules would apply to that player as well as the injured player.
About Cousins' motives, see, that is why I bring up drunk driving, they probably honestly think that they were not being malicious by drinking and driving, but their actions create a dangerous potential for severe injury to somebody. Same with hurtling your body at a catcher who might not be prepared to absorb your collision, as Posey was. What did Cousins think might happen when he chose to do that, that it would just be a love tap and just maybe knock the ball out?
And I don't accept the premise that I've seen others espouse, that it happens and is just part of baseball. I don't see how baseball benefits by having one of their one of their more marketable assets be taken out of baseball because some 25th man on the roster think he has to justify his existence by taking out the catcher. It didn't make sense when runners were taking out secondbasemen and shortstops, it don't make sense at all with catchers.
Thanks Nick, I did not notice that recently, but given their offense to my comment after the Giants won the NL title, I'm not surprised either. They believe they can have the cake (Championship) and eat it too (complain about Sabean/Bochy).
ReplyDeleteI was going to post on this, and still might, but all this saddens me. Not that I think the management is beyond criticism, but more that the Naysayers might have learned a little after last season. But they still have the hubris of thinking that they know what's best for the Giants when after three seasons of not understanding the team at all, they still cling to that illusion.
And they just keep on doing the same thing, the team is beset by a lot of injuries and some poor performances, yet they act like everything is normal. Take away any offense's 3, 4, 5 hitters (Huff, Posey, Sandoval) and let's see how well they perform. The media is no help either, they understandable focus on the poor offense, but rarely mention that this is because Posey and Sandoval being missing from the lineup really screws up their offense. And anyone not understanding that replacing Posey and Sandoval with Whiteside and Tejada is a huge decline in the offense isn't worth listening to.
Part of my anguish is that, since I was young, I worried about my fellow humans to a great extent. To the extent that I could help, I would. Many classmates thought I was odd, but I didn't know any other way to live my life.
So because I feel a kinship with my fellow Giants fans, I been trying to explain what I see the Giants are doing and how that makes sense or not, and how that apples to the team for that season.
But I'm slowly coming to the realization that these people just have some underlying psychosis where they would rather suffer under their illusions/delusions and/or just complain about something. And I just can't help them, it has taken me years to cope with that, and I thought the championship would help free them, but if anything, it has made them worse.
It's like I've been saying about these people, they need to look themselves in the mirror and realize that they at one time or another advocated a lot of things that would have costed the Giants their 2010 championship, chief among them, trading away the great pitching that drove us all the way to the title.
ReplyDeleteGiven that, maybe perhaps the Giants know a little more about running their team than they do.
Thanks for your comment, Kevin.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, Grant as leader of the blog guides the community, even if he is now busy with other activities. He could easily tell the mods in charge what he wants as the general tone of the posts they put up. And remove anyone not following his guidelines.
And given his harsh comments to me and his removal of my blog link shows how megalomaniacal he can be. He apologies by not apologizing, then begs DrB back while giving me the back of his hand in the same post. How insensitive and out of tune was he to do all that?
One of the thing I like to do is analyze the lineup using Fangraph's player projections. Using one of the lineups (hard to fix on one, every day is a new one it seems), I found that the offense would be close to 2008's and 2009's 4.0 RS level, which with our pitching would still net the Giants a high 80's win rate over a season.
Then it would get a nice boost once Pablo returns. And the platooning that Bochy is doing is also helping as well. And hopefully one of our young hitters can start coming through with more than expected production.
Speaking of which, wow, how great has Crawford been? Not just the grand slam, but I'm talking the defense and generally good job hitting so far, particularly giving his inability to avoid strikeouts in the minors. Of course, only two games so far, but if you can't enjoy his good performance now, when can you?
Plus Burriss has been doing well too, within his limitations. Still not walking at all or hitting for any power, but hitting .300+ and not striking out much. And at his pace, would steal a heck of a lot of bases even with the lack of walks. That makes for a great bench player, able to get a hit with runners on base or pinch-run and steal bases and get into scoring position.
Thanks for the comment bacci40.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point about the doctor, but really, he made his best guess from the information available. Of course, it would be better if he had the x-rays and MRI, but as a reader we should understand that he has only the information we have, but can still give us an idea what is happening, what might happen and so forth. I like getting that guidance. And as more info comes out, hopefully he can add more details as well.
Yes, who knows if he will ever catch again, but he can at least give us an idea of what Posey is up against and give us an idea of whether his career is all over or to what degree.
I would be OK with any amateur rules that would protect the catcher more.
And I expect some sort of retribution at some point. Maybe Zito can come back at that time and plunk Stanton and see how they would like to wear our shoes.
Thanks DrB for sharing your expertise and thoughts. I totally agree, really unfair and uncalled for.