Cup of Coffee: May 15, 2024

Good morning!

Today I wrote a whole lot of critical things about 12 theoretical rules changes that Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark of The Athletic suggested as means to protect the health of starting pitchers and to restore them to the role of the Main Character of each baseball game. Of course after I did that like five or six starting pitchers turned in throwback, ace starting pitching performances last night, so it’s further proof that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. Not that that’ll keep me from talking. Indeed, I also talk about Trevor Bauer, “The Natural,” a good book you should buy, and offer a followup about high pitch-count shutouts.

In Other Stuff, I continue to post something every time I see something new about “Megalopolis,” I also discuss J.D. Vance’s place in the universe, people being people, and Bloody Charlie.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Marlins 1, Tigers 0: So there’s a long item in today’s newsletter about how there’s a starting pitching crisis. About how guys don’t stay healthy and, more broadly, modern starting pitching use has deprived us of having pitchers serve as the main characters of each game. I think it’s a good piece, but when you read it forget that in this game Ryan Weathers and Reese Olson each tossed eight shutout innings and allowed just tree hits in doing so, because that sorta kills the premise.

Phillies 4, Mets 0: For that matter, ignore the fact that Aaron Nola tossed a complete game four-hit shutout. Again, I picked a really, really bad day for writing a “the game these days ain’t what it used to be” item.

Nationals 6, White Sox 3; White Sox 4, Nationals 0: In the nightcap Erick Fedde tossed seven shutout innings — guys, really not the best day for this! — while Andrew Vaughn hit a three-run homer and a solo shot to account for all of the evening’s scoring. In the opener Joey Meneses went 4-for-4 and drove in two while Keibert Ruiz and Trey Lipscomb each hit an RBI single in the Nats’ three-run rally in the eighth. Lipscomb had three hits and swiped three bases.

Atlanta 7, Cubs 0: Chris Sale was yet another pitcher screwing up the Starting Pitching is Dead premise last night, tossing seven shutout frames while striking out nine. Matt Olson swung the big bat, doubling in a run early and hitting a three-run homer late. Michael Harris II also went deep.

Guardians 7, Rangers 4: Jack Leiter helped save the premise by getting blown up for six runs in an inning and two-thirds, with the Naylor Brothers doing most of the damage. Bo hit a two-run double in the first and Josh Naylor hit a three-run homer in the second. By that point it was 6-0 Guardians so the game was effectively over even if no one could be 100% sure about that at the time.

Red Sox 5, Rays 4: You don’t see a lot of 12-inning games these days, but these clubs were scoreless in the tenth and traded runs in the 11th. In the 12th Romy Gonzalez singled home the Manfred Man to walk it off for Boston. Cedanne Rafaela homered for the Sox in the fifth, made a key error that allowed the Rays to take the lead in the top of the 11th, but had a key bunt which led the Red Sox’ run in the bottom half. The universe wants balance, just as Thanos said it does.

Yankees 5, Twins 1: Carlos Rodón started a bit shaky but settled down to turn in six solid innings. His counterpart, Chris Paddack, was shaky all around, allowing 12 hits in five innings of work. Giancarlo Stanton homered and Alex Verdugo hit a two-run double. New York has won nine of 12.

Brewers 4, Pirates 3: Milwaukee starter Joe Ross and three relievers combined on a three-hitter. Two of those hits were homers and thus the game was close, but it was enough to win. Sal Frelick homered for the Brewers. He also had a couple of defensive gems, diving to catch a sinking liner to end the second inning and diving on the track to rob Andrew McCutchen of an extra-base hit in the eighth.

Astros 2, Athletics 1: Alex Bregman homered in the second and Houston won it in walkoff fashion in extras thanks to Victor Caratini’s single in the tenth. Neither of those hits were the big news here, though. That would be Astros starter Ronel Blanco being ejected following a foreign substance check to start the fourth inning, One of the umps called whatever they found "the stickiest stuff I've felt on a glove since we've been doing this for a few years now." Manager Joe Espada and Blanco both later claimed that it was just rosin that had gotten mixed up with sweat, but given that you’re not supposed to have rosin on your non-pitching hand, even that weak excuse isn’t gonna wash. The glove is being shipped to MLB for analysis, but in the meantime Blanco has an automatic ten-game suspension. What a season for him so far: a no-hitter and a sticky stuff rap. I can’t wait to see what the rest of it holds.

Cardinals 7, Angels 6: Alec Burleson had three hits including a two-run homer in the seventh and Pedro Pagés had a three-run double for his first MLB hit to help lead the Cards to victory. It was their third win in a row following a seven-game skid.

Reds 6, Diamondbacks 2: Hunter Greene went seven and was backed by a Will Benson two-run homer among other things.

Rockies 6, Padres 3: Six in a row for the Rockies. I’m officially buying a lottery ticket. Ezequiel Tovar, Ryan McMahon and Elehuris Montero each had two hits, with one of Tovar’s being a homer.

Royals 4, Mariners 2: Michael Wacha allowed one over six while striking out seven. Nelson Velázquez hit a three-run homer in the 7th inning to turn a 1-0 M’s lead to a 3-1 Royals lead which they would not relinquish.

Dodgers 10, Giants 2: Shohei Ohtani hit a homer in the fourth inning that went 446 feet, over the fence in “Triples Alley” in right center field of Oracle Park. It was the longest homer in that park in a couple of years. “That’s Barry territory,” said Dave Roberts, referring, of course, to Mr. Bonds. Ohtani also had an RBI double on his three-hit night. The homer came in a four-run inning in which Gavin Lux hit an RBI triple. I didn’t see if that one went to Triples Alley, but if it did I at least laud Lux for following the rules and adhering to norms, unlike that transgressive and provocative Ohtani character.

As if yet another loss to their rival wasn’t bad enough, they got some bad news about Jung Hoo Lee, who injured his shoulder trying to rob a homer the other night: his MRI showed “structural damage.” He will seek a second opinion from Dr. Neil ElAttrache in Los Angeles on Thursday, but Dr. ElAttrache is not known for prescribing ice packs and a little rest. Odds are that surgery is in the offing and that the Giants’ biggest offseason acquisition will be on the shelf until 2025.

Blue Jays vs. Orioles — POSTPONED:

🎶 Just yesterday mornin', they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again 🎶

The Daily Briefing

Saving the Starting Pitcher

Yesterday at The Athletic Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark published three stories about how starting pitching and staring pitchers have been marginalized due to both injuries and team philosophies about pitcher use.

The first article is an overview of the problem. The second features interviews with two throwback war horses, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. The third sets forth 12 rule change ideas that might fix the problem.

I wanted to look at the proposed rules changes piece for a bit and see how many if any of these ideas make sense. The bullet points are the rules as proposed by Rosenthal and Stark.

• Require every starter to pitch six innings

Oof, we’re not starting well! You can’t solve a problem that is the product of a couple of decades of multifaceted game evolution (or devolution) with a simple diktat to not do that thing. The piece suggests a number of exceptions which would allow pitchers to be removed before six innings in the interests of health, safety, or aesthetics, but it’s easy to see how the gamesmanship and dishonesty that would be deployed to take advantage of those exceptions would quickly swallow the rule.

• The double hook

This would be a rule in which a team loses its DH when the starting pitcher is pulled or, alternatively, a team loses its DH if the starter doesn’t go five innings or whatever. They’ve toyed with this in the Atlantic League but the fact that we haven’t heard much about it since suggests that it’s not something the powers that be much care for. My gut tells me that, if faced with this rule, teams would shoehorn guys who they’d DH now into a defensive position and put a weak, disposable hitter in at DH who would not be missed if he gets yanked. You’d then get a parade of pinch-hitters and relievers for the bulk of the game, with reduced overall offense in the long run. MLB went to a universal DH for a reason. Who the hell wants to go backwards on that?

• No more than six relievers per team

I like it, but I figure GMs and players and everyone else would bitch. Their bitching would be couched in terms of pitcher health, and I get that, but that just tiptoes around the real problem, which is that pitchers throw too hard and throw way too much elbow-shredding stuff these days. That’s what limits and hurts starters. That’s what makes one-inning relievers so hard to hit, leading to too many strikeouts. We assumed the pitch clock would require pitchers to pace themselves more but it hasn’t so far. I feel like the same thing would happen with a limited bullpen too, but this is one that I would at least be willing to consider. I mean, something has to encourage teams to get guys to back off on the max-effort, executed-pitch bullshit, right?

• Ban the sweeper

There is anecdotal evidence that baseball’s hottest pitch is bad news for elbows. I question whether we’ll ever get definitive, objective evidence that it is, however. And of course what harms some pitchers won’t harm others. Some pitchers are physical freaks, some aren’t. And that’s before you get into the often-semantical conversation about what is and what isn’t a sweeper or a slurve or whatever. Sometimes that stuff bleeds together. There used to be guys in baseball who threw forkballs, but you don’t hear about them too much these days, even if there are tons of guys who throw split-finger fastballs. Are the the same pitch? Not precisely, but they’re close. Can you imagine an umpire competently enforcing a rule that requires him to make such distinctions? Not on your life. Imagine the arguments, the delays in the game, and all of that.

• Outlaw every pitch over 94 mph

I drive a pokey old 2014 Subaru Forester. It will go 85 mph on the freeway if I want it to, but it sounds like it’s in pain if I do it for too long and it’s a terrible and unsafe idea to do it. I used to drive a BMW 330i that practically yelled at me in annoyance if I didn’t go 85 on the freeway. Like, I had to work to keep it down around the speed limit. Just as some cars are built different, so too are some pitchers. Some are Subarus and some are BMWs. The idea shouldn’t be to make them all be Subarus. It should be to make sure the ones who Subarus pitch like it. To coach them to stay in their comfort zones rather than go all-out all the time, even if their engines can’t take it.

That being said, at least this addresses the central problem I mentioned above: guys throw too hard, most of them can’t really handle it, and they shouldn’t be encouraged to do so.

While we’re on the topic of velocity, my friend Ron — a certified Baseball Knower™ and Cup of Coffee subscriber — texted me yesterday and suggested that teams should scout for knuckleballers or coach guys to throw them. I replied that the incentives aren’t there because teams know velocity rules and consider pitchers to be fungible. Pitchers, in contrast, know that if they can JUST stay healthy, but can still throw 98, they have a huge payday in store thus take the max-effort gamble. Ron makes the good point that it would just take an outside-the-box baseball operations department and one or two success stories along these lines for the idea to take root, and that pitchers would take to it once they saw that the ability to throw 250 innings or whatever meant big paydays.

I dunno. I like the idea, but I worry that hitters are just too good now to let a knuckleballer find success. Of course, the only guys who have thrown knuckleballers recently have been marginal guys to begin with. Maybe it’d be better if better pitchers picked it up. For that matter, what if we returned to the idea of the 1940s and 50s in which a lot of guys simply mixed in knuckleballs as one of many pitches, keeping hitters off balance and taking about 25-30 stressful pitches off the odometer each game? Might work?

• When your starter goes six, your team gets a bonus sub

Sort of the reverse double-hook, in which teams are incentivized to keep pitchers in longer rather than penalized if they don’t. I don’t have a giant problem with this as long as there are protections in place to keep managers from stretching tired pitchers to get a minor advantage, but I also think they’d appreciate how minor that advantage is. In the age of larger active rosters and more guys who can play multiple positions, how often do managers empty their benches? How valuable would a bonus sub really be?

• If the starter goes six innings, he gets a free timeout

Or extra time on the pitch clock or whatever. Sort of an acknowledgment that he’s pushing himself and could use a blow. Fine I guess, but the problem we have at the moment is that guys are tiring themselves out before they get to six. If they still do that the extra 15 seconds here or there aren’t going to help much. And I’m guessing managers and GMs aren’t going to believe it will, so the rule wouldn’t create much of an incentive.

• You can use only three pitchers in the first nine innings

I don’t think this would incentivize starting pitchers going deeper into games. I think it would incentivize the use of old-school long relievers — not the worst thing! — or, perversely, it would reduce the role of the starting pitcher even further. Teams would carry like two reliable starters, fill out the rest of staff with 2-3 inning guys, and we’d have only slightly-modified bullpen games multiple times a week. It’d be like hockey lines but for pitching. The First Line goes Tuesday, the Second Line goes Wednesday, etc. etc.

• Raise the three-batter minimum for relievers

Rosenthal and Stark suggest a six-batter minimum. Again, I see how this might incentivize using relievers with greater stamina but I’m not sure what it does for restoring the starting pitcher as the game’s main character.

• Shorten the season

Spencer Strider blew out his elbow in Atlanta’s sixth game of the year. I don’t think anyone would accept shortening it that much. Less flippantly, we’ve had a 162-game season for over 60 years now. In that time the number of games and innings a given starter throws has dramatically decreased, with that decrease becoming particularly sharp in the last 20-25 years or so. Pitcher injuries and relief pitcher usage have gone up, however. Shortening the season proposals are about schedules and playoff money. They would not change a thing about pitcher injuries or usage.

• Friday is Ace Night

This is cute name for their idea that teams play only six games a week — never seven — and go to six-man rotations. The “Ace Night” thing is about featuring your best pitchers on a given night to make it destination viewing. I like this, as long as we accept the fact that teams will try to get their aces to avoid other teams’ aces so they can have clearer advantages on a given night. That aside, this is a lot like its done in Japan. We often hear, when a Japanese pitcher comes over, that our system will be harder on them, but I would like to know if the once-a-week system does, in fact, reduce injuries.

• Start paying those inning-eaters

The final idea is to try to get teams to pay more for pitching volume than pitching excellence. I sorta feel like they do so already? There’s a reason besides Scott Boras’ unrealistic ask why Blake Snell didn’t sign until after the season started. If a pitcher can eat innings at an even slightly above-average level, they’ll get paid. Teams want those guys. They just won’t do the things — like coaching and counseling better pacing — to make more of them.

OK, that’s a lot of words, but I think you get where I’m coming from. For the most part, arbitrary and artificial rules aren’t gonna work or, in some cases they’re cause more problems than they’ll solve. The key to all of this is finding a way to get guys to dial it back a bit on the velocity and the max-effort. Which, I acknowledge, is much easier said than done.

Great Moments in Screaming Into The Void

The latest dispatch from a sad and lonely Mexican hotel room:

Watching Bauer process all of this over the past year or two has been like watching someone go through the stages of grief. The only difference is that he’s not doing it in the expected order. He went from years of denial to like five minutes of bargaining back in February or March and now he’s in some sort of hybrid anger/depression cycle. I doubt he ever gets to acceptance — he’s gonna be like Uncle Rico when he’s 46 years old, telling people that he could still get hitters out if only someone would gave him a chance — but I suppose some pliant reporter will help him craft something that looks like acceptance one day, even if he doesn’t really mean it.

“The Natural”

Movie critic and Friend of the Newsletter Stephen Silver reviewed “The Natural” in his newsletter, The SS Ben Hecht, yesterday.

I agree with Stephen’s take on “The Natural” as a movie that doesn’t make sense in about 500 different ways. But it looks good, sounds good, has some good performances, and sometimes you just sit back and enjoy things without thinking too hard about them. At least if it’s not actively insulting your intelligence like some baseball movies I could name.

That being said, Stephen offers one line in his review that not only sums up the whole movie but sums up almost everything that was happening artistically, socially, culturally, and politically at the time “The Natural” movie came out:

“But back in 1984, not many people seemed to much mind.”

Sticking with baseball movies and movie critics . . .

I neglected to write about this yesterday, but yesterday was the release of movie critic and Friend of the Newsletter Noah Gittel’s book, Baseball: The Movie. I wrote last month:

As the title suggests, Baseball: The Movie is about baseball movies. But it’s not some cursory, blog-style “here are the best baseball movies of all time!” kind of thing. It’s an in-depth exploration of baseball movies and where they fit in the pop cultural and historical context of their times. More than a collection of reviews, it’s a definitive history of the baseball movie, what they mean, and what they say about America at various points in time.

It’s a great read and a great resource. Do yourself a favor and order it today.

Some followup from yesterday

In yesterday’s recaps I mused that a complete game shutout with a ton of pitches should be called a “Ryan” after Nolan Ryan who, thanks to strikeouts and walks, was known for high pitch counts, even if he was often unhittable. Because I’m lazy, I suggested that someone besides me do the research on that. I mean, I’ve tried like hell to teach my kids that laziness never pays off, but that’s a lie. It pays off for me ALL THE TIME. And it did so again here, as a couple of you came through for us.

One of you was Jason Lukehart, the man who invented the “Maddux” stat. I should not have been surprised that he’d deliver. From the comments:

Since MLB began tracking pitch counts in 1988, the leaders for most shutouts with 130+ pitches are Roger Clemens with 17 and Randy Johnson with 16. No one else has more than 5 such games. 
 
There have been only two such games in the last decade, both thrown by Mike Fiers, in 2015 and 2019, so that’s a neat bit of trivia for you Mike Fiers super-fans. 
 
There have been 49 complete game shutouts with 140+ pitches, and only 4 with 150+ pitches (including 2 by Clemens), with the granddaddy of them all being a 166-pitch shutout by David Cone in 1992.

Subscriber Skinny Pete gave us some Nolan Ryan context, noting that his highest “official” (i.e. post-1987) pitch count was 164 in only 8 innings and that he threw 130 in a shutout against Oakland a year later. Pete concurred in the Roger Clemens/David Cone findings.

Personally, I’d hate to name anything after Roger Clemens because he’s a bad guy, so I’m choosing to call a complete game shutout in which the pitcher throws 130+ pitches a “Ryan.” Not that we’re likely to have too many of them going forward.  

Other Stuff

I’m totally gonna get burnt but I don’t care

There’s a scene in “Avengers: Infinity War” in which Thor is explaining to the Guardians of the Galaxy that he plans to obtain a weapon which can kill Thanos. Star-Lord suggests that maybe it’d be a good idea for everyone on the team to have such a weapon. Thor responds in the negative:

Thor: "You simply lack the strength to wield it. Your bodies would crumple as your minds collapsed into madness."

Rocket Raccoon: “Is it weird that I wanna do it even more now?”

Thor : “Mmm, a little bit, yeah.”

This is basically my take every time I see another still or clip of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” a teaser trailer for which dropped yesterday:

This is either going to be an amazing movie or the worst, most horrific train wreck of a movie from a major director in cinematic history. There can be no in between. I’m gonna go see it the first possible day that I can.

J.D. Vance’s place in the universe

I read yesterday that my senator — and the public figure I loathe more than any other this side of actual depraved criminals, but then only some of them — J.D. Vance, attended Donald Trump’s trial the other day. He had no reason to be there, of course. But he, like a number of other mid-level GOP windbags, desperately wants to remain in Trump’s favor and to become his vice presidential nominee. So off to a Manhattan courtroom Vance trekked to do whatever he could to please Trump short of literally performing fellatio on him. Not that I’m accusing Vance of ruling out any options.

Vance showing up in the gallery at Trump's trial is the funniest thing ever. I realize that he’s an utterly spineless, principle-free sociopath who will never feel humiliated at debasing himself the way he has over the past several years, but we know it and, in an unjust and uncaring world, that’s about as much comfort as we can get.

But in addition to funny, it’s oh so telling.

My local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, ran a story yesterday headlined “How JD Vance landed on Trump's VP shortlist.” That story mostly sets forth the facts, however, and anyone who has obsessively, angrily, and exasperatingly followed Vance’s rise, his Trumpy pivot, and his subsequent higher rise as closely as I have know those facts well. There will no doubt be many, many more stories like that if, as I suspect and predict he will, Trump does indeed choose Vance to be his VP candidate.

All of those stories will, like the Dispatch story, make mention of the fact that at one time Vance was a vocal critic of Trump’s. About how back in 2015 and 2016 Vance referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler” how he wrote a whole damn column in The Atlantic characterizing Trump as “cultural heroin” who will lead America to ruin, and how he praised Barak Obama and his family as setting forth the ideal moral example. They will also note that Vance’s political rise was 100% a function of him shamelessly repudiating those comments before groveling for Trump’s endorsement, which he ultimately received and without which he would never have won the Ohio Senate primary in 2022.

But if coverage of Vance’s 2022 Senate run and his early Senate career is any guide, most of those stories will merely refer to that stuff for flavor while spending far more time focusing on Vance’s potential fundraising appeal, the fact that he’s young, the fact that he’s connected to the conservative and libertarian elements of Silicon Valley, and the fact that he speaks to constituencies in the GOP which aren’t always a gung-ho about Trump as the MAGA hat brigade happens to be. I get that. The political press tends to footnote and then back-burner old stuff in favor of new stuff, even if the old stuff explains more about a politician’s character and motivations. And they, misguidedly in my view, believe that information which speaks to a politician’s core character is “personal” or “gossip” or “dirt” while talking about their alliances or philosophical approaches of the moment makes them feel savvy.

All of that is overthinking it, though. Vance is where he is — the leader in the clubhouse to be Donald Trump’s V.P. nominee — because he bent the knee to Donald Trump in a more humiliating fashion than just about any other Republican has thus far done. To be sure, almost all of them have bent the knee, but Vance did so after being lionized for criticizing Trump and for, however briefly, being held up as articulating a non-Trump way forward for conservatives. Trump values fealty to the exclusion of all other things, but the fealty of former critics and those who made him look bad is far more delicious, especially if that fealty is accompanied by the humiliation and debasement of the one who offers it. It’s total victory in a way that the supplication of those who were never so bold is not.

I honestly do not think that there is any other way to properly view J.D. Vance. To do so through any other lens obscures more than it reveals.

I don’t know what they expected

There is a visual art installation that links Dublin, Ireland to New York City via a 24/7 video livestream. It’s a big, circular screen/camera/portal deal that sits out on the sidewalk and allows people in Dublin see what’s going on in New York, and vice-versa, in real-time.

There’s only one problem. People are people:

The portals opened last week in both cities, with many people enjoying the ability to interact with passers-by on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. However on Monday, Irish and US media reported inappropriate behaviour over the weekend at the Dublin portal.

Videos circulating online included clips of a man "mooning" and others apparently pretending to take drugs. A caller to RTÉ told of a woman suspected of being under the influence of alcohol being led away by gardaí (Irish police) after dancing provocatively against the portal screen.

Personally, I love this. I mean, if you’re gonna install art and/or technology with the explicit purpose of linking humanity, you can’t very well be upset when humans act like humans always act and have done so since the dawn of time.

Bloody Charlie

Yesterday the Royal Family unveiled the first official portrait of King Charles since his coronation. This is it:

Yeah, people are making jokes, but allow me to say that I, quite honestly, like non-photorealistic portraiture like this and like those portraits of the Obamas and some others we’ve seen in recent years.

It’s not the 17th century anymore. These days even kids in art school can paint a great-looking bookcase in the background, accented by remarkable simulated natural lighting. I want art that evokes something, even if a relative art moron like me can’t always immediately articulate what is being evoked. I’ll leave it to the art experts to offer a proper critique about old King Charles here, do my best to learn from it, and then make a decision as to whether I think the artist was successful in achieving his or her mission. And, of course, whether I like it on a subjective level.

That said, I have a feeling I know what inspired the striking color palette.

Sorry.

[Editor: No you’re not]

You’re right. I’m not.

OK, I wasn’t sorry for the joke but I am more than a little sorry for inflicting a Warrant power ballad from 1990’s “Cherry Pie” album on ya. But RIP to Ohio’s own Jani Lane. Whose real name was John Kennedy Oswald. Which was a hell of a thing given that he was born just a couple of months after the JFK assassination.

Have a great day everyone.

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