Fifth Avenue Forum

Unfortunately I feel like Bob Ryan is bemused and doesn’t understand how to use twitter

A Boston sportswriter voting for a Red Sox World Series hero for the Hall of Fame? Madness.

Listened to a Bob Ryan interview this morning. He said it’s unlikely Schilling will get in through the veterans committee either. I guess there was a straw poll of some current HOF players and the consensus is he shouldn’t be in. Obviously that view could change a bit over the next few years.

Are you a Little? If so that makes three of us that I know of.

The connective tissue...

Yes, have been for years. Always top of my podcast list.

Bauer to LAD. Hell yes let's break baseball

Good. Ruin it

Why did Cleveland decide to not try?

Pedro Gomez died. Damn.

Said it in the RIP thread but I remember him specifically reporting on the Bonds record setting era, which is relatively significant (home run record is likely the biggest record in all of sports)

Even if Bonds wasn’t clean (he wasn’t), Gomez’ reporting on it was great

Moving this from the TIL thread but tif’s post in there got me thinking about why pitchers moved away from throwing as many innings as they used to

I’ve always assumed (and maybe heard) that it’s to help avoid injuries, and I’ll admit I’m too young to have followed baseball at all before 2000, but hearing stories about old pitchers who knocked 20 wins every season and 300 total wins and throwing 74 complete games in a row make me question how true the injury thing is. Maybe those are the pitchers who got lucky and avoided devastating arm injuries and most pitchers got hurt often but I’ve never really heard of that before

There's a host of reasons. They throw harder, more violent breaking balls etc. They're probably not as tough as they used to make em. It was the norm. Imagine being the first guy to ask to pitch every fifth day

Bob Walk says it has a lot to do with the fact pitchers are already wore out by the time they get to the majors from year round travel ball and lack of rest.

He also said it comes from too much strength training.

There's a host of reasons. They throw harder, more violent breaking balls etc. They're probably not as tough as they used to make em. It was the norm. Imagine being the first guy to ask to pitch every fifth day

The first part is my theory too. A lot of the old guys just look like their mechanics are just so smooth and they're going for efficiency of motion rather than "going to throw this as hard as possible".

Back when cole was a pirate, he speculated that one of the reasons he was much healthier than a lot of other guys was that he could throw gas without putting in much effort. He recalled showcases where everyone there would be throwing as hard as possible so they could get noticed by scouts. Obviously that kind of attitude is going to end up with some very messed up arms. Cole is a d-bag but he has a good point in this case.

On a sidebar, Spahn struck out 2 guys in 15 innings and Marichal struck out 10 in 15 innings. Nowadays, the going rate is one K an inning.

well if they all could throw 100 without any effort they'd be on their way to the HOF too

When did they start gauging pitching speed?

With a radar gun? 1975.

I think it’s a combination of what people have already said. The biggest thing is probably the violence with which pitchers throw. I don’t know how cy young pitched, but I imagine his mechanics weren’t fine tuned to torque his body in a way to produce the highest velocity. Pitching is completely unnatural, and ramping that to the most extreme extent can’t be good. The year round pitching from a young age is probably a close second.

When did they start gauging pitching speed?

Apparently 1912:
http://scoutee.co/the-historic-quest-fo ... -baseball/

I wonder how much pitch movement has changed too. Like, how much does a Kershaw slider move compared to a Spahn slider

I would think in general the movement is much better, just because the level of teaching has gone up. But probably some specific players have movement that was just as good as the best today.