Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue • Hacker News Board

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#31

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:18 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #24

bitsoda wrote: post #9

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams…

"The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership" Your linked article also carefully tiptoed around the other elephant in the room, that being, as the pix demonstrates, not just a sea of old people, but a sea of old white people except for one Hispanic (old) guy. As whites become a minority race and the average age of a MLB viewer goes up one year per year, the pro level will die out pretty soon. How thi…

Perhaps it's just that we have two good and popular teams in the Bay Area, but I don't recognize the problem you're talking whenever I attend a baseball game.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#32

Post by hyperliner » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:20 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #20

I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.

Also, more focus on the catchers. They take a beating too.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#33

Post by slayed0 » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:25 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #21

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the average salary is $3.8 million. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/major-league-...

The pay might be high but the average career is much shorter than that of a programmer. I bet the lifetime earnings aren't even that much different than the average person checking HN from California.

Average MLB Career is 5.6 years[1] * $3.8M/year = $21.28M

Divide that by 40 (assuming a career from 25-65) and you still have $532k/year.

[1] http://www.ramfg.com/RAM-Financial-Group-Solutions-Professio...

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#34

Post by rhino369 » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #20

I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.

I don't think the league needs to mandate anything. It's not like these are dropping dead. It is like a marathon, pacing yourself is just part of it.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#35

Post by Someone » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:42 PM UTC

MSM wrote: post #4

TwoBit wrote: post #2

I must not understand Baseball well, because it strikes me as one of the least fatiguing sports that there are.

I've had a few conversations with friends about which sport I'd choose to play if I could be a professional in any sport. I think baseball would be at the bottom of my list. You have to go to the ballpark nearly every single day for almost 8 months. I'm from Detroit and I'm looking at the Tiger's schedule right now. In September they have TWO days in the entire month without a game. By that time they will also be pla…

If "it requires extreme dedication" is a showstopper when deciding what sport you would want to play professionally, you probably shouldn't play any sport professionally. Even the 'easy' games such as darts or billiards require hours of practice every day.

But as to baseball: they have games. What are they complaining about? :)

If you pick an endurance sport such as cross country skiing, swimming, or rowing instead of a game (sport is "something with a start and a finish"; a game is something you play), you will easily be training every day for four hours or more for 8+ months in a stretch without ever entering a real competition.

All that for two or three races that count a year or, if you are really good, for one race every four years at the Olympics (rowing is extreme here, as it doesn't do races at different distances, and as it is rare for people to enter in more than one race in an event. Underperform in that race, and it is 4 years of training to get another try. Swimmers and cross-country skiers have it slightly better, as they typically enter in multiple races at an event).

The only plus these sports have over professional baseball is that sportsmen do not travel that much.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#36

Post by smeyer » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:56 PM UTC

chrisBob wrote: post #20

I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.

I think they focused on hitters because in general a lot more attention is already paid to fatigue with pitchers (carefully monitoring innings pitched, pitch counts, rest days, and so on). It's possible (although not guaranteed) that there is much more room for improvement in the way teams deal with fatigue for hitters.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#37

Post by jghn » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #13

bitsoda wrote: post #9

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams…

> by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to m…

I agree fully, although IMO there's another factor at work here (albeit a side effect of your point anyways).

Not only are there so many games, but they're all on TV. The NFL mostly stacks their games on Sunday so "football sunday" has become a social event for people. Leagues like the MLB, NBA and NHL spread their games all over the week and with modern cable packages on pretty much any given day you can find a game to watch - the specialness is lost.

This is one reason why I think it's a bad idea for the NFL to start spreading games around - sure there was always MNF but they've had TNF now for a while and there's always talk about adding more. They want those primetime slots but all it does is weaken The Event effect of sundays.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#38

Post by jdminhbg » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 11:05 PM UTC

slayed0 wrote: post #33

chrisBob wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay might be high but the average career is much shorter than that of a programmer. I bet the lifetime earnings aren't even that much different than the average person checking HN from California.

Average MLB Career is 5.6 years[1] * $3.8M/year = $21.28M Divide that by 40 (assuming a career from 25-65) and you still have $532k/year. [1] http://www.ramfg.com/RAM-Financial-Group-Solutions-Professio...

Taxes are skewed against people who make high annual earnings for short amounts of time, and you also have to take 10% or so out for your agent.

You'll still come out ahead with the baseball career, just not by quite as much.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#39

Post by twoodfin » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 11:11 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #13

bitsoda wrote: post #9

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams…

> by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to m…

The long season not only fits baseball's cultural niche as the lazy Summer, lose-today-but-lick-'em-tomorrow sport, it also has the nice effect of reducing the significance of lucky breaks and hot streaks. The season's long enough to have a long run: Better teams win and worse teams lose. Players' individual statistics are at least stable enough to usefully model and predict overall team wins.

I love the excitement and unpredictability of NFL football as much as the next red blooded American, but there's something a little bit unsatisfying about a team's entire season routinely hanging in the balance of a single referee's call or a ball bouncing right instead of left.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#40

Post by dmckeon » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

slayed0 wrote: post #33

chrisBob wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay might be high but the average career is much shorter than that of a programmer. I bet the lifetime earnings aren't even that much different than the average person checking HN from California.

Average MLB Career is 5.6 years[1] * $3.8M/year = $21.28M Divide that by 40 (assuming a career from 25-65) and you still have $532k/year. [1] http://www.ramfg.com/RAM-Financial-Group-Solutions-Professio...

For players in the minor leagues, trying to work their way to a spot in the show, the salary numbers are nowhere near as good:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/players-sue-for-better...

While major leaguers’ salaries have increased by more than 2,000 percent since 1976,” the lawsuit says, “minor leaguers’ salaries have, on average, increased only 75 percent since that time.”

That leaves minor league salaries typically ranging from $1,100 a month in short-season leagues to $2,150 a month for Triple-A, figures asserted in the lawsuit and confirmed by two major league front-office officials.