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MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

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Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#191

Post by impossiblefork »

next_xibalba wrote: post #108
jorvi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every sport hits this sort of threshold where they ban optimization. Swimming did it with 'sharkskin' suits and long distance running with Nike's Alphafly and Vaporfly shoes. Maybe that's where advanced baseball bats will end up eventually.

Which is so silly. I would love to watch a sport where all the athletes are on cutting edge, dangerously experimental PEDs and all the equipment is engineered to the very limits of nature. We draw oddly arbitrary lines what is and isn’t ok in sports.

But it wouldn't be fun. It wouldn't be a good sport to participate. It would just be blood entertainment for the viewers.

Sports should be for those doing them, and then if people end up caring and commercial competitions end up viable, then that's a bonus but we shouldn't design them for entertainment of the audience.

Customization of equipment should always be fine unless it increases injury risk or completely destroys the game.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#192

Post by dylan604 »

91bananas wrote: post #69
fishpen0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every player ends up with a bat custom tailored to their swing this will get very interesting.

FWIW they already for the most part do have bats tailored to what they like to feel in their swings as far as where weight is, where the barrel begins, what shape it is, what the grip/knob feels like. I can't say how much data goes in to deciding what is used vs what they like to feel, this feels like more of a renaissance in attempting to use data somewhere else than brilliance in design. My intuition tells me this…

That would be an interesting Show HN. A camera(s) setup with something like OpenCV and some ML processing to analyze a batter's swing, find their best bat shape, then use some sort of automated lathe to cut their bat based on the findings. Lather, rinse, repeat until you've iterated through to the "perfect" bat for that hitter.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#193

Post by next_xibalba »

rglullis wrote: post #111
next_xibalba wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so silly. I would love to watch a sport where all the athletes are on cutting edge, dangerously experimental PEDs and all the equipment is engineered to the very limits of nature. We draw oddly arbitrary lines what is and isn’t ok in sports.

> dangerously experimental PEDs Would you be willing to be the guinea pig?

No more than I'm willing to drive a race car 200+ mph (i.e. formula 1) nor step in a boxing ring and accumulate a bunch of micro-concussions. But I'll happily tune in for the many that would be willing to do it if the money was right.

Why in the world would this have any bearing on the conversation? What point are you trying to make?

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#194

Post by jgalt212 »

whycome wrote: post #134

Are we entering the F1 stage of baseball and other sports? I bet there’s room for optimization with gloves and shoes and uniforms. I’m surprised teams haven’t made use of mobile recovery units when visiting away teams (instead of hotels). And there’s still gotta be ways to work around fatigue related to travel and time zone changes. I’m still surprised how basic and limited home team locker rooms can be. There are pr…

> I bet there’s room for optimization with gloves

Maybe so, but the demand is just not there with so many play ending up as home runs or strikeouts.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#195

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #125
SkyPuncher wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the Yankees get access to this, the rest of the league will simply vote to outlaw it. You see something similar going on in football, right now, with a play known as the "tush push". It's not a particularly complex play, but for some reason the Philadelphia Eagles can pull it off astoundingly better than anyone else in the league. In response, several teams are petitioning rules to outlaw it. All it takes is…

One additional wrinkle to the tush push is that it WAS illegal until the mid-2000s. Sort of like the 3 point line in basketball, it has taken many years for a team to take advantage of the new rule to its fullest extent. I think people generally take the perspective of "it used to be illegal, so it's reasonable to make it illegal again" in a way they don't when a team is just doing something new.

It's like when people started to freak out about the "pitch clock" and how it was ruining baseball. The thing is, the pitch clock _always_ existed in the rulebook, it was just never enforced due to lack of technology and just generally never really being a problem.

And then pitchers started taking 1 minute+ to throw a dang pitch and it was ruining the flow of the game. So they started enforcing it.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#196

Post by tshaddox »

next_xibalba wrote: post #108
jorvi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every sport hits this sort of threshold where they ban optimization. Swimming did it with 'sharkskin' suits and long distance running with Nike's Alphafly and Vaporfly shoes. Maybe that's where advanced baseball bats will end up eventually.

Which is so silly. I would love to watch a sport where all the athletes are on cutting edge, dangerously experimental PEDs and all the equipment is engineered to the very limits of nature. We draw oddly arbitrary lines what is and isn’t ok in sports.

I mean, the "arbitrary" lines are what makes a sport what it is. The reason that you can't pick up the ball and run with it in football (soccer) isn't because they arbitrarily banned this "optimization" after some brilliant coach invented it.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#197

Post by bena »

jparishy wrote: post #14

I think it's quite cool (disclaimer: I am indeed a dirty Yankees fan) Hitting is really hard. If you feel up to it, and can find a public batting cage near you that has a fast pitch machine (usually maxes out 75-85mph which is 20+ mph less than your typical MLB fastball), give it a shot. When you hit the ball away from the sweet spot, especially on the parts closer to your hands, it really freaking hurts and throws o…

You can just be shitty and get the same experience. My wife and I went to a batting cage once and tried to hit some balls.

There is a marked difference between hitting it in the sweet spot and not.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#198

Post by dylan604 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #191
next_xibalba wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so silly. I would love to watch a sport where all the athletes are on cutting edge, dangerously experimental PEDs and all the equipment is engineered to the very limits of nature. We draw oddly arbitrary lines what is and isn’t ok in sports.

But it wouldn't be fun. It wouldn't be a good sport to participate. It would just be blood entertainment for the viewers. Sports should be for those doing them, and then if people end up caring and commercial competitions end up viable, then that's a bonus but we shouldn't design them for entertainment of the audience. Customization of equipment should always be fine unless it increases injury risk or completely dest…

Professional sports are all about entertaining the fans. If they can live a gladiator's life and ask "are you not entertained" and want to die in the lions den, then might as well let them.

Amateur sports like colleges or olympics could continue to have the traditional rules to keep things "competitive", but might as well let the pro-sports just go full tilt.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#199

Post by perlgeek »

kaycebasques wrote: post #12

If only the Yankees get access to it (e.g. they patented it and won't let other teams use it) then I could see it as an unfair advantage. In most other areas of America life, though, this innovation would be allowed or even celebrated. I imagine it will go the way of the brilliant strategic innovation a few years back of shifting defenders heavily depending on the batter's statistical hitting patterns. It'll get bann…

> If home runs happen all the time, they lose their excitement.

So you're saying baseball gets more boring when people get better hitting the ball?

Sounds like there's something fundamentally wrong with the sport.

Re: MLB says Yankees’ new “torpedo bats” are legal and likely coming

#200

Post by dylan604 »

rglullis wrote: post #111
next_xibalba wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so silly. I would love to watch a sport where all the athletes are on cutting edge, dangerously experimental PEDs and all the equipment is engineered to the very limits of nature. We draw oddly arbitrary lines what is and isn’t ok in sports.

> dangerously experimental PEDs Would you be willing to be the guinea pig?

Why would you ask someone reading HN that question? That's like asking a 'roided up athlete if they wanted to rewrite grep in Rust. Ask the athlete if they'd be willing to take PEDs if it would be allowed.
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