1. I wrote off the Washington Nationals* in the bottom of the 7th inning of their first game. Down a run, they let the starting pitcher bat. That told me how little confidence they have in their bullpen. A very bad sign.
*not the team that I root for. I did grow up in the St. Louis area, where the fans understand and appreciate baseball.
2. How similar are the Nats to the 1965 Dodgers? Like those Dodgers, the Nationals appear to have three main starting pitchers and one top-flight reliever. Statistically, the Nationals have better hitters, but if they played in Dodger stadium (as well as the other parks that prevailed in 1965) with the pitcher’s mound at 1965 levels and the ball with 1965 aerodynamics, those differences might narrow considerably.
But the reason that the 1965 Dodgers won 97 games and went to the World Series (which they took in 7 games) is that they got most of their innings pitched from their four best pitchers. Apart from Koufax, Drysdale, Osteen, and Perranoski, the Dodgers needed other pitchers to account for only 442 of their 1476 total innings. That is 48 games’ worth.
If you assume the same number of total innings and that Scherzer, Strasburg, Corbin, and Doolittle each pitch the same number of innings as they did last year, the other pitchers on the Nats will have to account for 881 innings. That is 98 games’ worth. If you figure that your best pitchers give you a 2/3 chance of winning and the rest give you only a 1/3 chance, then the Nats will not even win 80 games. They would win 100 if their best pitchers could match the innings of the 1965 Dodgers.
I suspect that the Nationals’ problem is organizational. I don’t believe that the organization is very smart. Although Bryce Harper is hard to replace (his personality seems childish, but he is a darn good hitter), other organizations would have the depth of quality players to carry on.
3. If you want to speed up the game, bring back Bob Gibson. He would not let the catcher or the manager come to talk to him on the mound. If a batter took too much time getting ready, Gibson would hit him with a pitch. He got his business done. When Gibson was pitching, you could go to a game on a school night, and even if it took 45 minutes to get home afterward, you could be asleep by 11.
4. If you want to improve the game, I continue to say use a slightly larger baseball. This would have a higher drag coefficient, making it harder to hit out of the park. It would be harder for pitchers to grip, reducing the velocity of fastballs and the spin on breaking pitches.
Pitchers would find it harder to get strikeouts but easier to keep the ball in the park. They could throw more strikes to most hitters, knowing that it is harder to hit a home run. Pitch counts would come down, because the first hit-able pitch would be put in play more often. That might reduce the need to change pitchers so often.
Hitters would find it easier to make contact and harder to hit home runs. They could more easily hit to the opposite field, beating the shift.
I don’t know whether the net result would favor offense of defense (you can always tweak that by expanding or contracting the strike zone). It would definitely favor more balls in play. That would make the game at least seem to go much faster.
It’s always interesting to compare MLB performance between eras. A couple of observations:
1. Gibson’s approach of dusting off hitters would not be as effective these days because of the development of protective armor for hitters and the greater latitude of umpires to eject pitchers who they suspect are throwing at hitters.
2. Hitting technique has improved substantially since 1965. In that era, video recording and analysis of a baseball player’s swing was rare. Golf swing instruction was just starting video analysis at that time and remained ahead of baseball swing instruction in that area until relatively recently. Nowadays, video analysis of a player’s swing is commonplace and performed in connection with each plate appearance. As a result, the players’ understanding of correct hitting technique is far better than in 1965.
3. Pitchers are not allowed to pitch as many innings nowadays as compared to 1965 because clubs have a better understanding of the injury risk in regard to their investment in pitchers. Given the far higher investment in MLB players nowadays in comparison to 1965, clubs are careful to protect that investment by restricting IP’s.
At last, a topic that will elicit much passion from your readers! (t.i.c.) A few points based on the fact that I am a baseball purist.
1. Bring back the intentional walk. I know it’s time consuming, but every once in a while, throwing four outside pitches affects the game.
2. Get rid of the DH… or bring the DH to the National League. Currently, it’s ridiculous bringing AL starting pitchers up to bat at away games in the World Series.
3. Prohibit batting gloves. What a time sink!
I sympathize with the desire to reduce homerun-hitting and to put more balls in play, but I think the game needs homers to hold on to its dwindling fan-base. The organizations think, probably correctly, that most of the fans are more interested in homers than in the field-play and base-running enjoyed by purists.
“I suspect that the Nationals’ problem is organizational. I don’t believe that the organization is very smart. ”
The Mets are another organization that is not very smart. As well as the US government.
Have you ever watched cricket in any of its formats? I got hooked on T20 in Australia and I think I would prefer watching it to any US baseball.
Probably every Baseball fan always return to early days of Baseball, and often thinks this era as the best ever and wishes they would return to those days. And as great of as the 1960s was with the pitchers, who were historically great, the offense was dreadful and attendance was historically poor, especially in the late 1960s. Sorry I grew in 1980s and loved that lead-off players could be Rickey Henderson that great on and around bases whereas in the 1960s Luis Apracio was considered a good lead-off hitter. And I wish we would see the defensive likes of Mark Belanger or Ozzie Smith as no shortstop is nowhere near their quality. (The quality of defensive of third baseman compared to 1980 is beyond bad today.)
At the heart, I do wish:
1) They would increase the height of the strike zone and especially make a high fastball and more inside pitches strikes. Lord knows how medicore Bob Gibson and Jim Palmer would be after 1993 and end up with 220 innings instead of 280+.
2) I still wonder if the best or worst thing about Brian Downing (I know 1980s baseball) was lifting weights. His career was the definition of creative destruction that he was mediocre catcher with decent hitting becoming an effective Left Fielder by lifting weights and hitting more homers.
3) Given baseball today and since 1993, I do find it astounding that 1982 (or 1980s Cardinals) could win the World Series with great defense and ability to get on and around the bases.
(And yes 1980s baseball was not perfect given: 1) There was real dynasty of the decade and frankly Davey Johnson really F-up with the 1980s Mets who should have won several Series 2) For whatever reason, there was no real great starting pitchers that started from 1975 – 1985 compared to other eras. There was the Guidrys or Valenzuela who had their moments but the best two pitchers starting in the era were lower borderline HOF like Morris (in) and Stieb (out). Of course Gooden should have been here though.)