Monthly Archives: March 2018

YOU WANNA SPEED UP THE GAME, MANFRED? TRY ENFORCING THE RULES YOU ALREADY GOT.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · , , , , , , ,

Hey there, speed bags. Yesterday, this season’s eventual World Series champion Chicago Cubs went down to the Marlins, 2-1, in a 17 inning marathon. Seein’ as how that mattress stain, Rob Manfred, has a major chubby over folding up a baseball game nice and neat-like so it fits into his pocket watch, I thought this an opportune time to throw out my own ideas for speedin’ up the game. I figure it’s gonna happen anyway, right? Fighting off Manfred-types is a full time job, and usually a losing battle. They’re everywhere, like [NAME OF LYING POLITICIAN, HERE] or [NAME OF ARROGANT HOLLYWOOD TYPE, HERE] who think they know what’s best for you, me and the rest of humanity, no matter what the subject. And they’re not the least bit shy about tryin’ to force their opinions — or if it’s Harvey Weinstein, his hairy, sweaty, lard-jiggling body — on anyone with a pulse.

In Manfred’s case — in spite of the internet rumors floatin’ around about him and the San Diego Chicken — I’m pretty sure it’s just baseball he’s systematically tryin’ to ruin. And by “just baseball”, I don’t mean to make it sound unimportant, cuz it is, my friend. How important? Well … if there was a moon-size asteroid headin’ towards Earth at a bazillion miles an hour, and we had a choice between figuring out how to avoid the destruction of all life on Earth, or savin’ baseball from the menstruation-like mood swings of Rob Manfred — I’d save baseball. No question. I mean, without baseball (which includes encased meat products, Old Style and curly fries) life’s not worth livin’ anyway. Simple choice.

So, without further adieu (or any adieu at all, for that matter) here are my speed up the game rule suggestions for Mr Womanfred:

Chuck instant replay for a coin flip. (Savings: Between 2 and 5 minutes per review.)

If there’s one thing baseball has done to slow down ball games more than anything (besides giving David Price and Daisuke Matsuzaka major league contracts) it’s allowin’ umpires to review certain plays using instant replay. Lemme tell ya, there’s nothin’ instant about it, pal. As soon as a manager points to the headset technician, you might as well grab your favorite reading material and go drop the kids off at the pool, cuz absolutely nothin’ is happening in the ballgame for at least 5 minutes. Seems like there are a handful of these in every game, too. Problem is, I only got so many kids that need swimmin’ lessons in any given 3 hour period, which makes for a lot of watchin’ umpires standing around.

You gotta ask yourself one question, though: Is the added review time worth gettin’ the calls right? Yes, is the answer. It’s worth it. As someone who’d rather have his left nut removed with a rusty hacksaw than have an umpire screw up a call, I’m willin’ to wait it out. (Boy, am I ever willin’ to wait that out.) But unlike the Commish, I don’t think there’s something wrong with the length of a ballgame.

Consider this: From 2014 thru 2017, there were 5,359 challenges issued in major league games, with the original call being upheld 50.96% of the time. Thursday — opening day 2018 — was right on track with that, too. Six challenges were issued — three upheld and three overturned. Basically blue is right only half of the time on close calls. Not good enough for me.

Now you could just do away with instant replay, which I don’t wanna, but you’d definitely save time. Or … you could replace instant replay with a coin flip. The home plate umpire flips a coin and the call is made by the manager issuing the challenge. The law of averages says it’ll work out about the same as having no replay at all — 50/50. But the arbitrary nature of it, which makes no sense at all, means its exactly like all the other changes Manfred has force-fed Major League Baseball, that also make no sense.

The Major League mercy rule. (Savings: Between 42 and 53 minutes.)

I’m sure half of Manfred’s itch to speed up the game has to do with him wantin’ to get home before his favorite nail salon closes. Here’s an idea … At the conclusion of the 7th inning, a team shall be declared the winner of the game if it has already accumulated a lead of three runs or more. If the differential favors the home team, this determination will be made after the conclusion of the visiting team’s turn at bat.

There you go, Lord Manfred. The first step toward seven inning games, which I know is what you really want.

The three foul ball rule. (Savings: About 1 minute per foul ball saved.)

This would be an addendum to Rule 5.09, “Making an Out.” To the long list (15 in all) of stipulations defining when a batter is out, Manfred could add the following:

A batter is out when, with two strikes, he accumulates three foul balls:
(a) In addition to any that resulted in either or both of the first two strikes;
(b) None of which is legally caught by a fielder;
(c) None of which are foul tips caught by the catcher.

I’ve been to games — tons of ’em — where guys foul off 8 or 10 pitches in an at bat. It’s like Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky on a diamond. (No, White Sox fans, they are not in the Hall of Fame.) It’s friggin’ awesome! Especially when it’s a Cubs player doing the fouling off and a guy like Kershaw getting meat-grinder arm. But Manfred’s bird brain doesn’t understand how great that is; it doesn’t see a duel of wills between pitcher and batter; it doesn’t feel any edge-of-the-seat tension. The Manfred brain just counts the extra minutes that are being added to the elapsed time of the game, which in turn sends signals to the glass-shard, acid-coated, beachball-sized burr he’s got lodged in his backside that make it rotate a time or two.

Note: Based on last years numbers, the rules committee is considering adding a 16th sub-item to “Making an Out” in the official MLB rule book, which would read as follows: “If the player’s name is Jose Bautista.”

Pitching change, smitching change. (Savings: About 12 minutes.)

A helluva lot of extra time is introduced into ballgames due to pitching changes. Limiting them would speed the game up a ton. It sounds like a crazy idea — and it is, my friend — cuz it removes a good portion of the strategy available to managers. Of course, that’s what the Designated Hitter rule did, too, and that sissy thing has been around the junior circuit for decades.

But let’s take a look at the numbers. In 2016, for instance, each team used 4.15 pitchers per game. That means, on average, you’re stoppin’ each game 6.3 times to bring in a new arm and give him his eight warm-up tosses. I figure that’s about 18 minutes.

Possible Manfred rule: Limit pitching changes to two per team, including the closer, should the manager decide to use one. An exception would be made for injury, but other than that, just two pitching changes per nine innings.

Enforce the rules you already got. (Savings: 45.75 minutes.)

Plain and simple, baseball doesn’t need more rules. In fact they could stand to repeal a few, most especially that Designated Hitter abomination. And in regard to speedin’ up the game, Manfred only needs to open up his 2018 Major League Rule Book and check out page 35. Rule 5.07(c), “Pitcher Delays”, which reads as follows:

When the bases are unoccupied, (like anytime the Cubs are playin’ the Cards and the Cards are battin’) the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call “Ball.”

The 12-second timing starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball and the batter is in the box, alert to the pitcher. The timing stops when the pitcher releases the ball.

The intent of this rule is to avoid unnecessary delays. The umpire shall insist that the catcher return the ball promptly to the pitcher, and that the pitcher take his position on the rubber promptly. Obvious delay by the pitcher should instantly be penalized by the umpire.

Given that whiffle ball head of Manfred’s, it’s possible that rule 5.07(c) went in one hole and out another. There’s a good chance of that. Or maybe his dog ate page 35 of his rule book. Whatever it is, we don’t need a pitch clock and rules defining it. Instead, Womanfred needs to man up and tell that group of narcissist’s called Major League Umpires to do their friggin’ jobs and enforce the rules baseball already has.

And here’s why:

Daisuke Matsuzaka’s pitch pace is the slowest in Major League Baseball, averaging a turtle-like 25.9 seconds between pitches. Mark Buehrle gets the rabbit award with a 16.4 second interval. So even though Buehrle is the lightning bolt of big league pitchers, there’s still a lot of molasses in his gearbox.

Let’s shove the probe up that donkey just a little bit further:

Now take the average between Matsuzaka and Buehrle — 21.15 seconds between pitches — and use that as the average pace for all pitchers. That’s 9.15 seconds over the 12 seconds allotted under Rule 5.07(c). Multiply that figure by the number of pitches in a game — 300 (approximately 150 per side, on average) and you get a total of 2,745 seconds. That’s 45.75 minutes. I think there are some marsupials that have shorter gestation periods than that.

So, Manfred, enforce the friggin’ rules you already got, and keep your sticky fingers off of the perfection of the game.

For anyone who feels I’m unfairly pickin’ on Manfred …

Not so. I’ve picked on every Commissioner baseball has ever had, equally. Besides, they haven’t averaged more than 23 brain cells between them (although that figure would be higher if you took Bud Selig out of the equation). Manfred is just the most recent example of the destructive effects that pathological stupidity can have on the game of baseball. Unfortunately, he won’t be the last.

Joe

PUTIN AND MANFRED: DICTATORS SEPARATED AT BIRTH.

· Baseball Rules, Joe Sez, News · , , , , ,

Not unlike Russia’s Vlad Putin, who pretty much put the “dic” in “dictator”, here in the US-of-A we got ourselves Rob Manfred, who’s doing a bang up job of puttin’ the “dic” in “dictatorial.” In fact I think he’s tryin’ to slip a high hard one into to the sacred and holy game of baseball. One thing is for sure: these two guys are snipped outta the same blood stained cloth, my friend. It’s basically, stand back or take your friggin’ chances.

If you wanna get a feel for how high Manfred’s “Putin factor” is, cast your eyeballs on the statement (below) he made about the new pace-of-play rules he’s ramming down the throats of Major League Baseball. It’s right outta the Kremlin; autocratic totalitarianism veiled in diplomacy, but with spaces between the lines you could parallel park a mobile ICBM launcher in.

“I am pleased that we were able to reach an understanding with the Players Association to take concrete steps to address pace of play with the cooperation of the players,” Manfred said. “My strong preference is to continue to have ongoing dialogue with players on this topic to find mutually acceptable solutions.”

What does that mean in English?

It means that Manfred, in true Omega House fashion, would prefer it if ball players just winced out a “Thank you sir. May I have another?” with each of his Neidermeyer rules, delivered with a sting in the name of speedin’ up a game that’s never ever ever never been based on time. Baseball has a seventh inning stretch, for Chrissakes. It’s a game that unfolds, my friend. It ebbs and meanders. Occasionally it explodes, other times it languishes. Except for trades, though, it doesn’t have a deadline. No clock. No timekeeper. No buzzer. Time doesn’t run out on baseball, no matter how much Manfred and the Snap Chat, instant-gratification, short-attention-span millennials that call themselves “fans” would like it to.

As a result, Lord Manfred is in the midst of makin’ up rules to make baseball more like football — an inferior sport in every way, with the notable exception of cheerleaders. It started with Rule 7.13 and Rule 6.01, both of which take away the freedom of a runner to break up a close play. The reason for these rules, they say, is to protect players. This is a sport, mind you, where guys are throwin’ what basically is a rock about 97 miles an hour within inches of your location. And sometimes they can get a little Wild Thing on you. Follow Manfred’s “protection” logic and it’ll only be a matter of time before hard balls are outlawed and he places an 80 mph speed limit on fastballs. It’s kinda like the NFL and their sissy penalty for tripping. You got 300 lb guys tryin’ to rip each other’s heads off, but you also got a penalty for tripping? What?!

Tictoc, tictoc.

Hell bent on turnin’ baseball into a 30 second commercial, Manfred will see some of his clock management dictates implemented this season. There’s gonna be a timer for pitching changes, for example. Brilliant. What’s that gonna save…a few seconds for each one? It’s not the time it takes to change pitchers that’s too long, it’s how many friggin’ pitching changes are made in one game. If you got a couple of Mike Scioscia’s in the dugouts, you might not get home before your carriage turns back into a pumpkin.

But that’s not the clock that matters. Womanfred also wants to hamstring the drama between pitcher and hitter by instituting a 20-second countdown timer between pitches, and a between-batter clock, so hitters can’t screw with a pitcher’s rhythm. These are time honored traditions that are part of the game, not somethin’ you send to baseball Siberia on a personal whim. The good news is the trouser snake didn’t get either one. Not yet, anyway.

Manfreds misguided mandates.

What he did get was a win on mound visits, now limited to six non-pitching-change pow-wows per nine-inning game, with one added visit permitted (gee-wiz, thank you, your worship) in each extra inning. And I’m not just talkin’ managers and coaches trottin’ out to the bump, either. It means any player (including the catcher) leavin’ his position to chat with the pitcher counts as a visit.

It’s also considered a mound visit if the pitcher leaves the mound to confer with another player. Question: How the hell can it be a mound visit if it ain’t on the mound?! That’s like sayin’ a ball landing in foul territory is fair. Of course as long as you have CB Bucknor out there, that’s always a possibility. But I’m just sayin’.

There will be free trips to moundville to check on an injury, or after a new hitter is announced, or if there’s confusion between pitchers and catchers over signs. (I predict about 30-40% more confusion this season.)

Thankfully, the MLBPA ain’t exactly skippin’ to My Lou with Womanfred on this crap. In fact the Union hasn’t formally consented to anything. They’re goin’ along … for now. But as Player Association Chief, Tony Clark, put it, the players “remain concerned about rule changes that could alter the outcome of games and the fabric of the game itself.” Of course he might as well have been speaking Russian as far as the Commish is concerned.

I’ll point out here that Womanfred has the right to institute rules changes without an agreement from the Union with one year notice. Which means, next year, you can count on havin’ the pitch clock, two strikes and you’re out, games shortened to seven innings, and the death penalty for giving up more than three walks per nine innings.

The pièce de résistance.

The proof that Manfred and Putin are evil twins comes into sharp focus when you take a look at this year’s new extra innings rule in Minor League Baseball, which is really the rule testing ground for Major League Baseball. They already have the pitch clock, for instance.

This season, extra innings throughout the minor leagues will start with a runner at second base. CAN YOU FRIGGIN’ BELIEVE THAT?! That’s the kinda crap you did for your younger brothers when you played whiffle ball — a game whose ball looks exactly like Manfred’s brain. And just to make this pinheaded rule more convoluted, the runner who starts an extra inning at second will be counted as reaching on an error for purposes of determining earned runs, but no errors will be charged. How the F does that wash? The guy technically reaches second on a two base error, but nobody is charged with one?

How ’bout Manfred? Now THERE’S a guy that should be charged with an error. A fatal one. One that boots his communist ass back to Moscow where he and his long lost brother can reunite and lay plans to get that bozo in the White House re-elected. Or maybe shorten the Indy 500 to the Indy 200. Or perhaps mandate shorter winters, 20 hour days, and partial amputations for anyone over 5’6″.

Joe

PS. I leave you with a quote from the great philosopher, Stormy Daniels: Shorter may be easier to take, but it isn’t necessarily more fun.”

JOSE ALTUVE, THE SMALLEST GUY IN BASEBALL, PUTS UP ANOTHER GARGANTUAN NUMBER.

· 2018 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , ,

Hey there, piggy banks. It’s time for a little pre-season math lesson, brought to you by the twin gods of baseball negotiations; Insanity and Yurshittinme.

Baseball is a numbers game, right?

Baseball men count everything — at bats, hits, runs, steals, earned runs, wild pitches…probably even how many times a guy adjusts his junk in an inter-league game with less than two outs and a man on third. It friggin’ ridiculous. They even make up things to count, like Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). This make-me-laugh stat zeroes in on how much batters and pitchers contribute to their teams compared to a fake position player or pitcher of league-average talent. Now that’s GOTTA be somethin’ created by agents. Anyway, baseball is a game that lives and dies on numbers — national debt-size ones when it comes to contracts.

So here’s a number for ya: 151,000,000.

That’s what the Stros’ are shellin’ out for their sawed-off second baseman, José Altuve, for the next five years. Not $150 million (cuz that woulda been an insult). One hundred and fifty-ONE million. Not bad for a guy who still has to travel with his Graco Nautilus booster car seat. Did the Tuve have a stack of other big numbers last year…especially during the playoffs? Totally. But holy craptoids!

Baseball is also a game of inches.

That means at 5’6″ (66 inches) José Altuve is now the highest paid player in baseball, based on height, and will be rakin’ in $454,545.46 per inch, each of the next five seasons. That would be 2,945,436,200,000 bolivars in Venezuela — where Altuve is from — according to the unofficial but often used exchange rate of dolartoday.com. Surprise, surprise…official Venezuelan government exchange rates are considered overvalued. Of course I could say the same thing about pint-size second basemen gettin’ paid 3 trillion bolivars a year. Nobody is worth that. Not even Scarlett Johansson.

Is America great or what?!

No matter how Lester Holt tries to paint it, America just ain’t that bad. And Little Joe’s contract extension illustrates that in 4K living color, my friend. Take Venezuela, for instance, where the latest increase in minimum wage to 97,531 bolivars a month — an amount equal to $12.53 in Houston, Texas, America — means that Altuve, all by himself, makes as much money as 200,851 of his countrymen. Pretty friggin’ incredible.

America: Land of the free, home of the highly overpaid. Especially if you pretend (act) or play baseball for a living. But hey…I say more power to Altuve. Right up until they meet the Cubs in the Series this year. (Not that the little bat swingin’ munchkin needs anymore power, with his obscene slash line and all.) As far as his contract goes, though…if I were in his size 3-1/2 shoes, I’d take every penny they wanted to bury me in. Includin’ that extra million.

Are you still with me?

I know I lost White Sox fans, Cards fans and probably Major League umpires — who can only count to four and require one of those umpire counter things to do it — the moment I mentioned “math.” But for the astute Cubs fan (and is there any other kind?) what all this means is that Altuve is gonna be a Stroh for a while, the Stros are likely to be contenders for a while, and the people of Venezuela are worse than dirt poor. Whatever is worse than dirt — which I don’t know what it would be — that’s it.

Saving the best for last.

As long as we’re talkin’ about mucho bolivaro, here’s a piece of good news for the rest of us: After gettin’ boystowned by the Ricketts family the last two seasons, Cubs tickets are stayin’ relatively flat, with 2018 prices gettin’ goosed by less than one percent. This means the average ticket will set you back 518,946 bolivars, or $66.67. Consider yourself lucky, pallie. A minimum wage Venezuelan has to work through June 10th to make that much scratch.

Joe

ARRIETA’S DEPARTURE FOR THE PHILLS HAS LEFT ME WITH A SCORCHING CASE OF GONORRHIETA.

· 2018 Cubs, Joe Sez, News, Trades · , , ,

Hey there, cheese steaks, Joe Schlombowski, here. Unlike you Arrieta groupies out there — and you know who you are, my friends — I seem to have developed some sorta rash. Yep, now that the bearded J is wearin’ that stupid friggin’ liberty bell on his head, I get what I’d call “free clinic” symptoms every time (enter name of sports media conglomerate here) mentions his name. Let’s call it Gonorrhieta.

Gonorrhieta is a baseball transmitted disease (BTD). No, White Sox fans, you can’t get it from bleacher seats. You get from having a baseball fan’s love affair with any major league pitcher named Jake Arrieta who decides to walk out on you (putting the “gone” in Gonorrhieta) even though management was willing to stuff $27.5 million down his jock strap each of the next four years. Some people call it “the clap.” And while there was plenty of well-deserved clappin’ going on when he donned Cubbie blue, Arrieta’s departure for redder pastures is definitely causin’ some pain in places too dark and waaaaayyyy too sensitive to mention in this august rag. Not because he’s gone, but because he definitely chose to be gone.

The Cubs 4-year, $100 million offer was one year longer and $35 million more than what he took from the Phillies. Now I don’t know about you, but I can feel that decision in a part of my anatomy that’s reserved for Dr Golberg and his latex glove.

I’m tempted to blame Scott Boras, cuz I friggin’ can’t stand what he and the other vermin that represent ballplayers have done to baseball. But like Steve Rosenbloom pointed out in the Trib today, Boras or not, it was up to “Arrieta to say deal or no deal, and when it came to the Cubs, Arrieta said no deal.”

After signing on the line which is dotted, Arrieta said, “This is a special situation for me. It’s a tremendous honor and I look forward to making this organization proud.” OH MY FRIGGIN’ GOD! The guy goes 22-6 and wins a Cy Young in 2015, then helps end the longest championship drought in the history of history when the Cubs win the ’16 Series…and now I’m supposed to believe that goin’ to a team with a 66-96 record last year is “special?!”

Bite me, Jake.

Straight up. I’m never gonna win a Fields Medal. But I know enough about math to know this: If Arrieta, or Phillies management or the drooling sub-creatures that fill Citizen’s Bank Park (Rolls off the tongue like peanut butter coated duct tape, don’t it?) think they’re gonna turn that 66 upside-down with the addition of said fireballer, they better break out their calculators cuz their missin’ a decimal point or two. Arrieta would have to win 33 games…and do it with a team that ranked 27th in offensive production last season. There’s a better chance of Scarlett Johansson scrubbin’ my backside in the shower tomorrow morning.

So I say good riddance to Jake the Snake, who apparently so badly wanted outta Chicago that he took a deal that two years ago he wouldn’t have pissed on. Especially if he had Gonorrhieta, cuz it burns like hell when you do that.

Joe

PS. Here’s hoping for a butt-load of bell ringin’ when Arrieta takes the mound against us, my friends.