Then and Now

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DOUGHBOYS
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Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Then and Now

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:15 am

I'm very grateful to have been born when I was. I got to see the Golden Age of baseball in the 1960's. In my mind, the best decade of baseball EVER.
It started with Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth's home run record and ended with the 1.12 ERA of Bob Gibson and the year of the pitcher in 1968.
Baseball has evolved since then in many different ways.
Some good.
Most bad.
There was a purity to the game then. Players did not care for other players when playing for different teams.
It was an honor to be an All Star. Players would never NOT go to an All Star game.
They also hated the other league and wanted to win the game as badly as a Win for their own team.
They wanted to play every day. They wanted to pitch every day.
They wanted to complete what they started and throw the whole game.

Since, politics has changed everything.
The players are under one Union and buddy buddy with each other no matter what team they play for.
Baseball has entwined the National League and American League so much that winning an All Star game has become meh for both players and fans.
Nobody cares about the outcome.
The players opt out of the game. It's no longer a big honor as much as it is more money in their pockets from contract language.
They receive the money for being an All Star whether playing or not.
We count pitches now.
We rest players now.
Why?
I don't know.
We have a record number of players hitting the DL
We have pitchers with more sore arms than ever before.
Even in the 90's, Maddox, Smoltz, and Glavine would seldom have arm problems in throwing many, many innings.
Now though, there is a system.
A system that has never worked. The counting of pitches.
Yet, politics dictate that it is the right thing to do.
Worse, when pitch counts started, 125 pitches was allowable.
Now, we seldom see a pitcher throw over 110 pitches.
The agents love the pitch count and continually will push for lower counts.
Less pitches, less chance of injury for their clients.
Meanwhile, the $$$ remain on an upward trajectory.
Who could blame them?

In 1962, Maury Wills broke Ty Cobb's stolen base record.
Wills was the ultimate PITA (Pain In The Ass)
Pitchers hated it when he was on first base. He terrorized them.
Their focus became half on the hitter, half on Wills.
There is no Maury Wills in our game today.
Really, not even a PITA remains.
If Whit Merrifield is on first base, their is no rising crowd roar in anticipation of the pitcher being frustrated.
Merrifield may not even run.
The crowds KNEW that Wills would run....and so did the pitcher.
Nowadays, the SB is minimized.
Pitchers use a slide step or timing to diffuse a baserunner and if the runner goes, they don't care, they've done their job in stopping the runner.
No big deal if somebody steals a base.

A friend called me and said that Jake deGrom was having a Bob Gibson type season.
I let him have it.
Sure, deGrom has pitched great this season.
Undoubtedly, the best pitcher in baseball.
But, besides his ERA being close to Gibson's 1.12, his year has been nothing like Gibson's.
Gibson completed 28 of 34 games.
Gibson finished one inning shy of AVERAGING nine innings per start.
Gibson threw 12 innings in one Start.
11 innings in two other Starts.
Gibson threw five consecutive Complete Game shutouts.
DeGrom has one Complete Game.
Twice thrown over seven innings.
Gibson never had a game in which he did not throw at least seven innings.
He has arrived at his ERA in a completely different way than Gibson.
A great season for deGrom.
But besides the ERA, in no way like that of Gibson.
Besides, Gibson was pitching from a mound five inches higher than deGrom.
A large advantage over what deGrom has now.
And the hitters?
Gibson faced PITA's in almost every game.
DeGrom faces flailers that play right into his hands.
These two pitchers have such different circumstances that really, the only thing they have in common is their low ERA's.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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