Less Appreciation for Baseball

[Voor]

I think most professional athletes just accept that it takes a fair amount of luck to win. We’ve seen players like Mike Trout be the absolute best for years and come nowhere close to winning a championship. So much of it is out of their hands.

NBA superstars probably have the most impact over winning. MLB stars probably have the least.

In the end, they’re humans with families, bills, etc., so I understand that being financially secure might be more important than winning. I remember Andrew Luck retiring early and appreciated his mindset about sports and life.

[jon]

Well, when Ohtani gave up 3 runs in the 2nd inning and the Dodgers hadn’t scored going into the 7th I was a little upset. But somehow, they scored 5 in the 7th, the bullpen held on, and Ohtani ends up with the win. Besides the 2nd inning he was amazing, and finished with 9 strikeouts in 6 innings pitched. They should be able to win the series and then we’ll see Ohtani starting in the NLCS. He did go 0-4 with 4 strikeouts at the plate though. So he was the first ever to strikeout 9 and strikeout as a batter 4 times in a post season game.

[bluenote]

I’ve been watching the Dodgers and Yankees games. In fact, Ohtani is going to be the starting pitcher (as well as DH of course) for the Dodgers in game 1 of the Divisional round tomorrow.

It seems all good watching the games. But I really don’t think the players care at all about winning. They showed the Yankees players celebrating and it’s so hard to relate to these players making hundreds of millions of dollars.

Conparw that to the 1986 World Series, where the $70,000 winners share actually meant something, and it’s ridiculous. It’s almost like the NBA now, where if a team loses early on the playoffs the players don’t care, and enjoy getting a longer offseason.

In a way it’s hard to blame the players. Making a hundred million dollars, most people probably wouldn’t care.

I don't agree with this at all. Baseball players (and any athlete) has to be incredibly competitive their entire lives to make it to where they are now. Their entire lives has been about being the best and winning. They had to work tirelessly to make the higher tier teams, to win, to get noticed by scouts, etc. 24/7. There is no way any player could make the majors without being like this. They are wired differently than you and I. To suggest that once they make the majors, they lose this? They just don't care all of a sudden about winning? Nonsense. that does not leave a person.

And the fact they make millions of dollars? I say good for them, why should the owners get all the money, the players deserve a big piece of that pie.

[Stalvern]

Professional athletes get paid a lot of money for the same reason that professional entertainers get paid a lot of money – mass media is a commodity without scarcity that few provide and millions pay for. As bluenote asked, is it the suits who deserve the revenue that the players create? But athletes arguably need that kind of money regardless, due to their very short (3-5 years for most players in most sports), high-risk career path that can easily end in debilitating injury.

[LoganRuckman]

And the fact they make millions of dollars? I say good for them, why should the owners get all the money, the players deserve a big piece of that pie.

Based

[jon]

Of course on cue, the Dodgers right fielder Teoscar Hernandez hit a slow grinder to the pitcher and he was barely jogging to first base as the pitcher makes that play just about every time. Well, the pitcher had trouble with it and the ball rolled by him and by the time he chased it down still threw Hernandez out before he made it to first base. If Hernandez was running as fast as he could, he would’ve easily beaten that out, and it would’ve been an error on the pitcher.

Things like that happen all the time where a player doesn’t give full effort. It’s even worse in the NBA and NFL. Hernández is in the 1st year of a 3 year contract guaranteeing him $66 million. There are tons of guys like him not giving full effort in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. Heck, bunting got basically outlawed because hitters didn’t want it to lower their power numbers. This isn’t some revolutionary idea. In fact, that’s probably a reason why a lot of fans don’t care anymore.

[matmico399]

Baseball sucks

[jon]

Astonishingly, the Phillies tried a bunt in the bottom of the 9th against the Dodgers. It didn’t work and they lost. The Phillies were down 4-3 and they had a runner on 2nd with no outs. The thing that’s hilarious is that not only was this the first bunt I’ve seen in MLB in years if not decades, but it wasn’t even that great of a decision on the manager’s part. Maybe I’m wrong on that.

But not astonishingly, the batter laid down a bunt to the 3rd base line and the 3rd baseman was prepared for it, playing in, and the shortstop covered 3rd and he was thrown out.

What I don’t understand is how does the guy bunting not see that the 3rd baseman was playing in? What I think happened is that since basically no one bunts anymore they had trouble executing it. The batter should’ve obviously changed his mind and taken the pitch. And that’s the main reason it was a bad idea. No one bunts, teaches it or even knows how to properly execute it so they try it in such a critical situation? And what about the other near extinct strategy of purposely hitting a grounder to the first base side and get the runner to 3rd that way? And even if the bunt worked, so what. A runner on 3rd with 1 out in this home run or strikeout era isn’t what it used to be, especially down a run instead of tied.

Edit: Apparently what happened was the batter showed bunt way too early and it gave the 3rd baseman a chance to charge. That can be attributed to lack of practice since bunting is just about outlawed.

[jon]

I’m watching the Dodgers game against the Brewers in game 3 of the NLCS. The Dodgers won the first 2 games.

Anyways. The Brewers had what’s called an “opener”. So an opener is a pitcher that’s going to pitch the 1st inning and then another pitcher will come in soon after and it’ll be bullpen by committee.

So their “opener” gives up a triple to Ohtani and a double by Betts which puts the Dodgers up 1-0. And then they take the pitcher out, after 2 batters!!!

This is getting just ridiculous. MLB has gotten a lot of things right lately with the pitch clock and banning the shift. But teams using so many pitchers in any given game is just taking things to another level. Something has to be done. Maybe there needs to be a minimum number of batters a pitcher faces or some way to penalize teams for using too many pitchers.

[VideoGameCritic]

I really thought there was a rule stating a pitcher had to face a certain number of batters. Maybe it doesn't apply to the starter??

It's almost as bad as when Buck Showalter was manager for the O's and late in the game he would change pitchers for every batter to get the righty/lefty or lefty/righty match up. That was my signal to change the channel.