MLB 2022: Pitchers Hit the Bench

[Hot Pepsi]

This isn’t like LIV. It’s not paying to lure the top players, as far as I can tell. It’s trying to develop local players from these countries.

MLB already has programs to gather prospects from countries other than the ones that normally play baseball. Larkin was involved with that, I think. He was instrumental in getting Gift Ngope to the US.

[Patrick Thistle]

There was a whole movie a few years back about trying to find a "million doliar arm" in India.

I know Ihere are political issues but I'm surprised MLB hasn't targeted China as a prospective market. I'm basing this on the popularity of the sport in Japan and Korea, which might be a mistake.

[Hot Pepsi]

There was a whole movie a few years back about trying to find a "million doliar arm" in India.

I know Ihere are political issues but I'm surprised MLB hasn't targeted China as a prospective market. I'm basing this on the popularity of the sport in Japan and Korea, which might be a mistake.

Yeah. Jon Hamm is good in that, but that project really didn't go anywhere. Neither of those guys made it to AA, as I recall, although one of them is making progress as a pro wrestler. More importantly, I don't think they tried to repeat that competition to find pitchers in India.

There is some effort in China and MLB is invested in it.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/2021...1bd66a009.html
https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/...l-pearl-media/

It's pretty big in Taiwan, however.

It's relative lack of success in China may be due to anti-Japan sentiment or anti-American sentiment or both. Or maybe it's just a historical lack of funding for the infrastructure, whereas basketball is a lot easier to set up and is in the Olympics, which makes a huge difference in the ability to get public funding.

I don't think MLB owners are especially enthusiastic about spending money on a lot of overseas development and fans don't like that. This is another case of people assuming that whatever the NBA does is what all the other sports should do. But it's much easier to build basketball courts than baseball fields and it is a lot easier for the NBA to let it's stars play in the Olympics than it is for MLB (or NHL) and the owners probably realize that their priority should be to shore-up baseball's fanbase in the places where it is established rather than worry about China or India.


There have been pre-season games in China, but I don't think they'll want to do any regular season games further away than London due to the time zone issue.

[ursus arctos]

The popularity of baseball in Taiwan makes the sport's expansion into the mainland particularly fraught politically

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, they couldn't combine their leagues, I suppose.

Speaking of that, has there ever been a move for a Pan Pacific Super League? Or are there just too many politics for Japan and Korea, especially, to do that?

[ursus arctos]

It has been discussed (especially given some overlapping ownership of clubs), but any kind of Japanese-Korean cooperation at the moment is extremely fraught.

The inherent conservatism of Japanese baseball (in both sporting and political terms) of Japanese baseball certainly doesn't help.

[Hot Pepsi]

Is it more fraught now than in the past?

[ursus arctos]

Yes, because of the Abe government's nationalism and repeated denial of well documented atrocities during the occupation and colonial periods - a position supported by the paper that owns the Giants (among others)

[Hot Pepsi]

I guess I didn't realize that it had gotten worse in the Abe era. I just thought it hadn't gotten better. Well, anyway, he's dead now.

I suppose that's a bit Disney owning the Angels or like Fox owning the Dodgers but, as far as I'm aware, they sold the Dodgers before word ever reached Murdoch that he owned them. In the end, they paid McCourt to take them off their hands and ended up with a nice bit of real estate in Boston for their trouble. What a weird saga.

After I saw some of Tokyo Vice, I read up a bit on Japanese newspapers. The guy in the show worked for Yomiuri Shimbun. Conservative, but not just in the ways we'd expect.

[ursus arctos]

Abe's dead ,but that particular line is still a winner for the LDP.

Though Russia and China are making them reconsider.

[Hot Pepsi]

Abe's dead ,but that particular line is still a winner for the LDP.

Though Russia and China are making them reconsider.

How is nasty nationalism in other countries making them reconsider their nationalism?

[ursus arctos]

Perceived risk of invasion focuses the mind.

Japan and Korea are currently doing joint military exercises (with the US) for the first time in several years.

[jefe]

Padres signed a 17 year old LHP from China today, oddly enough, or announced today at least.

[ursus arctos]

Zack Qin came out of the MLB China Academy and played this summer for Frederick in the same "draft league" that has a club in State College.

[danielmak]

Dodgers bullpen had 1 walk and one Brewer reach on a strike three passed ball during 29 outs across two games. They go ahead in the 11th. Then Kimbrel comes in and we all know what happens next. He has pitched in 44 innings and only has had a clean inning 9 times. That is not a WS winning closer.

[danielmak]

Jon Daniels relieved of duties as Rangers president. That's a big move. A lot of people who worked under him are now in charge of other teams (most notably the Padres and Twins).

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1560045055989014528?t=waVEUo6WpOBPtST81HlrlQ&s=19]

[caja-dglh]

To let Trout die like a dead fish at the Angels is one thing. To let someone who is likely going to destroy all records out there hang out there is another thing entirely.

But - where do you let Ohtani go with a major market without destroying the league (and all the East Coast folk claiming there isn't a market for him on the West can piss off and check time differences to Japan)

[danielmak]

To let Trout die like a dead fish at the Angels is one thing. To let someone who is likely going to destroy all records out there hang out there is another thing entirely.

But - where do you let Ohtani go with a major market without destroying the league (and all the East Coast folk claiming there isn't a market for him on the West can piss off and check time differences to Japan)

I 100% understand why the Angels didn't trade Ohtani at the deadline and why they wouldn't trade him in general. If I was Manasian (sp?), I might only trade him at the trade deadline just before his contract expires if I know he can't be re-signed. With that said, if they can get Rondon healthy, maybe they can basically give him away to clear up cost just as the Marlins did with Stanton. Then use that money+ for Ohtani. I would expect that he will try to stay in the west. There are larger Japanese communities and the reports are that he seems to like the ability to move unnoticed. Of course, there are always reports about what players want and then the guys go where the money is best.

But the Angels are a horror show. If you watch the highlights of the 8th and 9th inning from two nights (??) ago. Oh my, it is little league baseball at best. Error after error followed by no baseball sense at all. That team needs to be blown up.

[Hot Pepsi]

Zack Qin came out of the MLB China Academy and played this summer for Frederick in the same "draft league" that has a club in State College.

Maybe next year I will go to more of their games. But since they killed the NYPL, I’ve felt so negative about it, I’ve only been once.

The draft league is nothing more than another summer wood bat league now and not even an especially good one. As far as I can tell, nobody got drafted in the first four rounds. I’m not sure it’s really any better than the BigTen that we can see at the same stadium earlier in the year for a lower price.

The NYPL always had a least a handful of really good prospects and a few high draft picks.

To me, the best solution would be to just make college baseball last all summer. Most of the college players are just playing baseball in the summer anyway, so why not just keep them in school and make the college season start later and play a lot lot more games?

Of course, that would take away the SEC and ACC’s built in advantage, so they won’t go for it.

Yet another way in which the NCAA’s one-size-fits-all structure isn’t really helping anyone.

[Cal Alamein]

Fascinating.

https://twitter.com/MudHens/status/1560058232013553664

[danielmak]

That's nuts.

Kimbrel with another night and another non-clean inning, but avoids giving up a run. Meanwhile Chapman thinks that's not good enough and shows that he is no longer a dangerous closer. But the Rays' reliever wants to one up both of these fools and gives up a game losing grand slam to Donaldson.

[San Bernardhinault]

The Padres remain horribly inconsistent. They have pretty much the easiest August in the league, which will be followed by pretty much the hardest September and October - at least that’s what the announcers said by whatever metric they’re using. And yet the numbers have barely been over 500 since the break. Yesterday was an excellent game (and a road game where there were enough runs on the board to bring us to the bottom of the ninth!), but the bats have been sputtering - often there’ll be a fair number of hits, but it’s one cluster of three in the line-up and there’ll be runners on base but no actual runs. But I actually now begin to have a feeling it might come good. Josh Bell looks great but has been scoring really poorly - at least he has been pretty spectacular defensively from what I’ve seen. Soto genuinely looks like he’s having fun. Manny has now gone 8 consecutive games with at least two hits. Cronenworth seems to be maintaining form. And Ha Seong Kim is becoming one of my favourite players to watch - fantastic in the field, and while he’s not smacking many home runs he seems to get the ball off the bat at the right time and even his running seems to be spot on. They’ve shown a couple of day games recently (one on Peacock, one on MLB network) which I don’t normally get as they’re usually playing in the middle-of-the-night time zone, so it’s nice to begin to get a feel for how the team performs across a match rather than in the odd highlight the Padres put out on twitter.

[ursus arctos]

danielmak, how are you using "clean inning"?

The established definition is one in which a reliever comes in with no one on base and no outs, but that is exactly what Kimbrel did in the 9th against Milwaukee.

Are you using it for an inning when the closer retires all three batters he faces without any of them reaching base? I think that you will find that that is less common than you may think, even with closers other than Kimbrel.

[danielmak]

danielmak, how are you using "clean inning"?

The established definition is one in which a reliever comes in with no one on base and no outs, but that is exactly what Kimbrel did in the 9th against Milwaukee.

Are you using it for an inning when the closer retires all three batters he faces without any of them reaching base? I think that you will find that that is less common than you may think, even with closers other than Kimbrel.

I'm re-sharing what Joe Davis shared, which means 3 up, 3 down. Kimbrel's ERA is 4.8 or something like that. He never pitches more than one inning. He's rarely used during extra innings because he can't get the job done with a man on base already, although ERA does not account for the man on second during extra innings. So, that would suggest that Davis was using the phrase to say, three up and three down. If clean inning meant 0 runs and Kimbrel was 9/45 then his ERA would be in the 100s. I would not expect a closer to be in the upper percentile with that task, but, again, Kimbrel is now 9/45. I would expect better than that for a $16milllion closer who can't do anything else but close.

EDIT: I will add that the Dodgers announcers are good, but they are never critical. Hawk Harrelson was a total homer but when the White Sox made mistakes in the field he couldn't control himself and spoke like a fan. Last night was the first time I can remember that Nomar basically put Kimbrel on blast, to use the a phrase the kids would use today.


EDIT part 2: In between work things so this is on my mind. Anyway, I get that clean inning usually refers to a reliever coming in at the start of an inning. And clearly WHIP can account for the same general information since that stat deals with runners on base. If you click the WHIP carrot to sort based on WHIP at this site, Kimbrel is way down the list.

https://www.fantasypros.com/mlb/stats/rp.php?range=2022