231–240 of 432 posts
A new tech will be allowed to stand if everyone can take advantage of it equally AND it does not make the sport too boring.
Gotta get that ad and sponsor money.
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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…
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I don't quite get what the difference is between now and when Sosa, Bonds, and McGuire were hitting homers, where apparently homers are monotonous. Are we pretending that wasn’t peak baseball? I mean I find the whole infield outside of maybe a triple play more boring than all or nothing home run, intentional walk, and strikeout. There are no grand slams without base hits true, but without the home runs base hits are…
Close plays on the base paths are pretty exciting. > I mean I find the whole infield outside of maybe a triple play more boring than all or nothing home run, intentional walk, and strikeout. The problem is that the strikeout or walk is much more common than the home run.
Descriptions of close plays are fun. Homers are flashy to watch and easy to understand. The latter may catch more casual-viewer eyeballs.
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…
I think it's an interesting mixup.
From a marketing standpoint;
- If certain batters have their 'ridge' in a specific spot/range, it adds marketability. e.x. 'This is the bat ????[0] uses'.
- OTOH the first danger with this is that most folks don't have the same stature/etc as the hitter in question, so it doesn't mean much.
- Lots of fan dollars to be made here though.
From a Game Standpoint:
- It vaguely detracts from accessibility; if this goes full, that means that 'pros' get a sort of custom bat that other leagues don't get, and from my view that impacts how folks are viewed.
- It's also a challenge of 'doing well with a good standard' vs 'doing well with a custom thing that happens to fit regs'. I suppose examples of other sports having similar (where a 'custom' item per player that fits regs, is legal for the sport and provides clear benefit) would make me feel a little better about this, maybe.
The Weird/offball:
- Saw a youtube video recently claiming some countries/municipalites have specific laws about not being allowed to carry a bat unless there was a glove and/or ball also involved in the process, would these also fall into it? (I said it was weird/offball, no I don't live in such a region [1], just morbid curiosity.)
[0] - It's been a minute since I've looked at Tigers stats who the hell are these folks and no wonder my family doesn't talk about baseball anymore
[1] - Per [0] I can at best tell funny stories about DPD and potato launchers I designed and had to explain to the police and non-authorized users and how same precinct gave specific advice as to "if we had to use a firearm in a home invasion, here is how we treat as self defense".
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To be fair, a pitching machine is pretty unnatural compared to a human pitcher (can’t see when it’s about to launch) and they are typically closer than 60 feet. On the other hand, a real MLB pitcher is not just throwing fastballs down the middle.
Very true. I dream to be able to hit off one of the fancy ones the players have at the facilities
How cheap could one prototype a 'programmable' pitch machine that can handle the scenarios one would want to practice against?
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…
The bat will add probably 0.2-0.5% longer bombs statistically but it’s still a skill of the player at bat that makes the difference.
Baseball is the king of misleading small samples. It’s usually best not to jump to any conclusions as the article does so early in the season (ban them! After 3 games?!). There is a lot of randomness in the data. And if the season proves that these bats are indeed juicier than others? Probably MLB will let it lie. Offense is down enough already and all of the recent rules changes are intended to support offense.
Have they been using them in spring training? That's still early but a much better sample size if so.
Also, we haven’t given pitchers a chance to adapt. Perhaps pitching outside (now a thinner part of the bat) will take the force out of the hit leading to softer contact.
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> If you're a batter and can't hit the ball with the right part of the bat But that is what they are doing? The bat is within size and volume limits. Many bats come in slightly odd shapes or weight distributions. Is it because this is "optimized" that it's bad?
It feels like one of those things where even though it’s within the limits of the rules, it just shows they need to tighten the rules. The end result is everyone having their own customised bat and it’s just a big waste of time. Better to tighten up the rules. If I had my way there would be one legal bat that everyone had to use. Sport should be about the athlete, not the tool.
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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.
>where they ban optimization Always wondered why the NFL doesn't ban sticky gloves.
Two players used the bats. I'm not a Yankees fan, but all these articles are making it seem like the bats are the reason. That does not explain why the rest of the lineup went off. Perhaps poor pitching is the better explanation. Too much is being made of these bats. Also, golf club technology basically does the same thing. Everything is about making a bigger sweet spot. Oversize drivers and irons didn't seem to ruin…
There’s a lot of debate in golf if the game had been spoiled at professional levels because of modern gear. Courses have been made longer to accommodate and it’s very likely there’s less reliance on skill today. All the optimizations are around speed today because with such huge faces and low MoIs guys won’t miss when swinging even harder. In fact you could argue golf should be more like baseball in that lower skille…
I briefly looked into it after playing Golf Story on the Switch, which features an area where you have to use a set of historical clubs (sometimes with different names from the modern versions!) and found such leagues.
