Smallball

I would like to go "off-topic" in this post to talk about this website I have known about for the past 10 years and have used for the past 5 years. It is called www.smallball.com . This site allows you to train your own baseball or soccer team and then play them in simulated games.

This game is good for the player who does not want to play a whole bunch of games or rely on your own keyboard skills.

S.O.S to Major League Baseball and Bud Selig

This post today is an S.O.S to MLB and Bud Selig to fix the slowly sinking ship called baseball.... If you have not seen it by now, there was a conversational play in the Tampa Bay/Texas game on Monday night in which Marty Foster called Ben Zobrist. In one of my previous posts here, I talked about how Bud Selig is out of touch with the fans and implementing new technology and this incident proves once again the need for instant replay in baseball.

We have a commissioner in baseball that cares more about some fantasy image of baseball as it was in the 1960's than the progress of the game today. Selig thinks that people will plop down $50+ minimum including all costs to watch the games calls get botched. He would rather hear baseball get bashed in the media for 2 days with bad publicity and shave 2 minutes off the game now without instant replay than get the call right.

Would you go to a bank that does not use a computer system to keep track of the books? Would you go in there and open up an account if you saw someone working all day with a pencil and ledger paper? This is how Bud Selig has run baseball, like bank that is behind the times and has not caught up with the times, without modernization, there are bound to be big mistakes.

I'm really unsure what the big fear is about instant replay, you get the call right, you don't have controversy and it takes some stress off the umpires. Personally, I would not be asking to replay every single play in the game, give each manager two replays a game which would only add 8 minutes maximum and everybody goes home happy.

Peoples livelihood's are the on the line with each and every missed called. There are large amounts of money that gets moved with each and every play whether on the betting counters or on the playing field, someone gets affected by the wrong code. It is essential that baseball should take every realistic step to ensure that no call is blown.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, it is time for Bud Selig to step down as commissioner of MLB and find someone who will relate to what the fans are saying, relate to the younger generation and keep the integrity of the game. I know being the commissioner of MLB can not be an easy job and I would not want the job, but how much more will the fans endure before they stop showing up at the ballpark?

Baseball Pitchers, how much do they really pitch

With baseball spring training in full swing and the games finally being played, it is the annual start of baseball announcers starting talking about how managers should not overwork their pitchers because you will need them later. We will hear announcers state that there is no reason to go in the 7th inning with only 80 pitches, no reason to get the extra batter out, no reason to keep moving. This is what I hear through-out the year, during...

• Spring Training - "You don't want overwork your pitchers before the games that count"
• April/May - "It is still early in the season, you don't want to overwork players that you will need summer, plus not all your pitchers are in full swing"
• June/July - "Don't let your pitchers pitch too longer, since you will need them in the stretch run"
• August/September - "Don't overwork the pitchers now because you might need them for the playoffs"  

While I do agree that in spring training pitchers should not have to over do it since the games really do not count, the spring training games should be preparing yourself to extended innings for the regular season. I mean if you can not use your pitchers for extended times during each month for the reasons stated above, then when can you? Not everybody makes the playoffs.

My other concern is the uncounted innings that occur on pitching arms today that do not count in the offical stats, do contribute to shorting pitching appearances and causing the less inning/more injuries. It seems that pitchers are pitching more "off the books" with side sessions, simulated games, off season work outs, rehab games and fall/winter leagues it seems that pitchers never seem to have time off to truly rest their arms. I'm sure if you took all the above into account of the total innings pitched, more starting pitchers pitch more than 300 innings a season.

I think the advent of the 5 man pitching rotation has contributed to the the above issues. While the 5 many rotation does allow more time to rest, it give the pitcher more time to throw "undocumented" innings pitched, more time for injury.

Now I don't have 100% proof that what I'm saying in the above two paragraphs is what is really occurring, just my opinion, but if baseball keeps going with starting pitchers pitching as few innings as they do, then we can no longer call them starters, can we? We will need to start calling the starting pitcher the "first 3 inning thrower", followed by the "2 inning middle starter".

PED's in Baseball will never end

Another day, another PED's scandal, this time in Baseball with reports that Ryan Braun was on a list for the lab Biogenesis along many other MLB players. This story goes to prove that baseball has a long way to go to remove PED's from the game.

The rewards outweigh the risk right now in the MLB. Players that are using get larger contracts, more rewards and more advertisement. If you happen to get caught, you spend 50 games on the bench which is nothing considering how much money players bring in on a good year. The key element of baseball, hitting, is individual element of the game.

No other major professional league in the United States puts an emphasis on sure a single element of the game. In other professional leagues, one player can not dominate with at least some assistance from the surrounding cast or PED's do not give them the advantage they need. In football, there are too many other players on the field, basketball players do not need more muscles to shoot, and hockey players need the ability to skate.

The penalties are too light, they do not deter players, 50 games.... so what? For most players, they come back, face a media onslaught for a little bit and return to their normal life's. There are long term affects for future awards and any Hall of Fame consideration, but when you are making tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, you do not care about the Hall of Fame.

To start making a dent in the issue of PED's, baseball needs to take drastic actions in the penalties. For starters, increase the suspension from baseball to two calendar years starting after all appeals have been exhausted along with a fine of all money the player made for the two years prior to being caught. This should deter players from even thinking about using any PED's or cheating equivalent based the loss of 4 years worth of income.

Do I see this really happening? No, especially with the commissioner today in MLB with the game running him instead of him running the game. He can not stand up to the umpires, what makes you think he will have any power over the players? The game has been cleaned up somewhat better than 10 years ago, but if anybody thinks we were out of the woods, this story proved that we were all sorely mistaken.

Baseball

When does baseball start again?