An Idiot Asks: Baseball Edition

[San Bernardhinault]

Thanks guys, as always.

Amor - I hadn't even thought that there might be a game situation where it mattered, but that makes a lot of sense. It wasn't the case here, but I can see how it could change what the fielder should be doing.

[danielmak]

One more thing about the "young player" tag at 24 or 25. We saw a radical shift the past two years (esp. this past year) with free agents getting no attention once the players are past 30. I understand that the new concerns about the luxury tax among the super powers, the rise of analytics, and the fact that at least 1/3 of the teams are tanking has impacted the marketplace. But we're seeing a super short window now where a "young talent" quickly escalates to a veteran and then over the hill. The window seems to be about 7 years. Given the true emergence of young talent, I get it, but I also feel for a player like Mustakas who really has developed and had no interested in the open market.

[Levin]

It may be worth it's own american sports unions thread but I do struggle to understand free agency and that the player unions are willing accept that some of their members will be massively underpaid (based on what they can get when they are free agents).

Does it benefit the majority in the long run? In which case I applaud it and am amazed. But it seems like a gamble to have to wait to be healthy in your thirties to really make money. I also feel aggrieved for Ohtani that he seems to be being paid less than he would be in an open market.

[ursus arctos]

The dynamics of American sports union negotiations are highly complex and difficult to model, but there is a significant tendency for the outcomes to favour “stars” over the collective as a whole (the NBA is a counterexample, as their system results in genuine superstars being underpaid).

The key issue that the players face in the next round of bargaining is that the model that had characterised the era since free agency was established and stabilised is no longer accepted by a large majority of clubs. That model was grounded in attractive free agents being given long term contracts under which all parties anticipated that the player’s compensation for the later years of the contract would outweigh the value of his production in those years (sometimes significantly, see Albert Pujols for a prime current example). The players understood that model as compensating them for the money they had to forego while they were accumulating the service time needed to become free agents.

It wasn’t that there was no interest in Mike Moustakis, rather it was that there were no teams interested in giving him the eight figure p.a./seven or eight year contract that his agent Scott Boras had convinced him was “market” based on the most player-friendly historical contracts and inflation. If the clubs are going to continue to refuse to backload free agent contracts in the way they had been doing, one would expect the players to insist on shortening the period before they qualify for free agency inan attempt to balance the scales. How that comes out is anyone’s guess.

Ohtani’s situation is quite unique, and is essentially the result of him being caught in a transition period during which two oligopolies (MLB and NPB) are in the process of changing the terms under which they allow players to move between them. The best that can be said is that he was very much aware of the hit that he would be taking in salary, and still chose to absorb that rather than staying in Japan for a few more seasons after which a more favourable regime will come into effect. My guess is that he thought his performance on the larger stage would allow him to make up much of the shortfall through endorsements and the like, and early results would indicate that that wasn’t a bad bet.

[danielmak]

It wasn’t that there was no interest in Mike Moustakis, rather it was that there were no teams interested in giving him the eight figure p.a./seven or eight year contract that his agent Scott Boras had convinced him was “market” based on the most player-friendly historical contracts and inflation.

That was an overstatement on my part in that "no" interest is harsh, but realistically there was very minimal interest, and I don't think the years were the big factor, since he might have challenged his agent if a 3-4 year deal came up. The reality is that there were probably three ideal options for him: Angels, Giants, and Mets. The Giants traded for another established veteran (although I think they will regret that move). The Angels are certainly gun shy about longer deals (although they re-upped Upton--which I also think will be a mistake). And the Mets were clearly bargain hunting. The bigger spenders were set or avoiding luxury tax: Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees (turned out the Yankees were more set than expected). And the rest of the teams weren't going to spend money just to be crap either way. For the Royals, $6million for a key member of their WS-winning team at least shows the fans something. Given all of that, had Boras sought 3 years at $15million, do you think he Moose would have had more options, UA? I still don't think so. Next year maybe since Manny is going to cost way too much (although who knows where he will end up given the Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox being set), Donaldson seems to have dropped off a cliff with injuries--teams would be crazy to sign him for more than 2 years. So Moose might look like a cheaper bargain.

[ursus arctos]

As a matter of fact, I do

Moustakas turned down a so-called qualifying offer worth $17.4 million. Early in the offseason, according to two league sources, he and his agent, Scott Boras, turned down a three-year deal from the Angels worth around $45 million.

Boras of course denies that, but he has every reason to do so.

I still think my characterization of the situation is more accurate.

[danielmak]

As a matter of fact, I do



Boras of course denies that, but he has every reason to do so.

I still think my characterization of the situation is more accurate.

The qualifying offers are bad news in general for players but players are also stupid about these things in that they seem to want to make sure they make more than the qualifying offer or at least equal to it in terms of AAV. If he did have a three year deal from the Angels on the table, he blew it. He's from Southern California and I would think there would be a realistic willingness to leave some money on the table (although there was nothing to bargain with in his case) to be back home.

[Janik]

We often rely on the opinion of experts. If the players' agent is telling him the deal on the table is low-balling him and the agent is sure he could get a better deal elsewhere, it would be harsh to blame the player for listening to that professional advice.

[ursus arctos]

And that is particularly true of Boras, who has spent decades convincing players that he will always be the smatest guy in the room by a significant margin.

[Hot Pepsi]

And all of it is screwing over the majority of "professional" players.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/09/m...baseball-union

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/4...-scott-kingery

[ursus arctos]

Absolutely

That’s the first point I was going to make if Levin started his thread.

[San Bernardhinault]

Let's bring this back for the new season, although I have fewer questions to ask.

Anyway - why is a strikeout marked as a backwards K?

[Hot Pepsi]

It’s only a backwards K if the batter looked at the third strike without swinging. A strikeout where the batter swings and misses is a regular K.

These are sometimes marked K-L or K-S.

[San Bernardhinault]

OK. I guess that explains part of it. I assumed some broadcasters used a forwards K and some a backwards K, or maybe some teams used forwards and some back, or maybe AL did one and NL did the other.

But I still don't have an answer to the main question - which I guess I didn't know how to ask... which is: Why a K at all? The fifth letter in "strike" seem an odd one to choose.

[Greenlander]

Is it the same idea as scoring Killer when playing darts? One line for each strike making a K. It's the only letter in "strike" that works.

[jefe]

Probably more that it's a comparatively rare letter and more unique. S could be strikeout, or steal, or save. R could be run. E is error. O is out, etc

[ursus arctos]

And the final letter in struck

Although these days score cards use lines to indicate base hits, Chadwick used an S for single, a D for double, and so on. When it came to making an out at the plate, Chadwick needed an abbreviation for what was known at the time as having "struck three times" and made an out. Since S was taken, he went with K, the last letter in "struck."

The forwards/backwards convention is much newer. When I learned to score, a strikeout with a called third strike was a forwards K with a subscript C.

[Flynnie]

Part of keeping score is coming up with your own symbols that few others use. My old baseball coach taught me 9!, the exclamation point being for something caught on the warning track.

The decline of keeping score at ballgames is a moral panic I can get behind.

[Exiled off Main Street]

I worked for Howe Sportsdata (in Boston) as a Baseball Statistician for 1.5 baseball seasons (1990/91). I saw a few variations from scorers around the leagues - our preferred variety was the backwards K,

[Hot Pepsi]

Part of keeping score is coming up with your own symbols that few others use. My old baseball coach taught me 9!, the exclamation point being for something caught on the warning track.

The decline of keeping score at ballgames is a moral panic I can get behind.

I’ve thought of taking it up again just for the hell of it.

[KyleRoteJr.]

But I still don't have an answer to the main question - which I guess I didn't know how to ask... which is: Why a K at all? The fifth letter in "strike" seem an odd one to choose.

My guess (haven't researched it) is that the K comes from boxing, from knockout, or KO, of course. Similarly, when the batter strikes out, he is knocked out (of his turn at batting).

The big professional sports in the U.S. in the late 1800s and very early 1900s, when the nomenclature was established, were boxing and baseball, with horse racing coming in third, so it stands to reason that the "K" came from boxing.

[ursus arctos]

Welcome, Kyle.

Your namesake could play a bit, though he was always more dominant on Superstars than on the NASL pitch.

[KyleRoteJr.]

Your namesake could play a bit, though he was always more dominant on Superstars than on the NASL pitch.

Heh. I was wondering if someone here would know about Kyle Rote Jr., especially on a discussion forum that is predominantly British. You'd have to be an American of a certain age (over 50 years) to get the reference, or someone who is extremely knowledgeable about the history of American soccer.

For those who don't know, Kyle Rote Jr. was the first homegrown American soccer star, coming of age during the era of the North American Soccer League and leading the league in scoring in 1973. I was a kid at the time, and I remember him getting endorsement gigs (plugging cereal during the Saturday morning cartoons or a sports drink in an ad in Boys' Life magazine) – even though the general public had no idea who he was and knew even less about soccer. Ironically, his father, Kyle Rote, was a football (gridiron) star in college and the NFL.

[ursus arctos]

Ha

I am both old and American.

Which allowed me to see Rote play at least twice for Dallas Tornado. He even led the league in scoring one year.

But he was completely dominant in Superstars.

[Hot Pepsi]

I remember seeing an ad with Kyle Rote Jr or maybe some kind of “stay in school, don’t smoke” propaganda featuring him. I don’t really remember the actual NASL.