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[SlimySnake]

Baseball is having a record 2021 year. More no-hitters than ever. On pace to hit the Lowest team batting averages ever. Most strikeouts ever. No one can hit.

And it is because all the pitchers are cheating.

Over the last few years, MLB has turned a blind eye to pitchers using foreign substances to increase the spin rate on their balls. The higher the spin rate, the harder it is to hit the ball. This was not an issue a few years ago because the ball had been juiced up and was flying out of the ballparks but MLB fixed the ball last year and deadened it even more this year, and that combined with pitchers working with scientists to creating new chemicals to increase the spinrate has turned baseball into a joke.

Several pitchers like Trevor Bauer featured in the video below refused to cheat, but after seeing several Cy Young award winners take home hundred million dollar contracts, everyone has begun cheating. Hitters cant complain because the guy next to their locker is likely using those same substances. MLB has ignored this for years like they ignored the steroid usage in the 90s so everyone like Barry Bonds who didnt use steroids at first is now using it to stay relevant and be competitive.

This video does a great job of exploring this issue.

 

[ManaByte]

The Astros fucking cheated and won a World Series, and that pussy Manfred wouldn't touch the players responsible out of fear of the player's union.

 

[Termite]

Yes, and it is contributing in a big way to the ruining of the game. Pitchers being so good is what has us in the era of the three true outcomes. Most of the joy in baseball comes from when the ball is in play and you have that sudden burst of anticipation to see what will happen next with the fielding and baserunning. Instead it's all walks, strikeouts and home runs, and it's dire.

People will say "the game has peaks and troughs, and this stuff always balances out eventually", ignoring that the stuff that balances it or swings it in one way is rules changes (lowering mound etc) or cheating (steroids, substances etc).

I've been gone from the game a long time - ever since Loria was allowed to do the bullshit he did. It was clear the people in charge were totally asleep at the wheel. Judging by this and the Astros scandal they still are.

Game would need major changes to bring me back. I don't expect that to happen. Getting rid of these substances would be a start.

 

[SlimySnake]

Yes, and it is contributing in a big way to the ruining of the game. Pitchers being so good is what has us in the era of the three true outcomes. Most of the joy in baseball comes from when the ball is in play and you have that sudden burst of anticipation to see what will happen next with the fielding and baserunning. Instead it's all walks, strikeouts and home runs, and it's dire.

People will say "the game has peaks and troughs, and this stuff always balances out eventually", ignoring that the stuff that balances it or swings it in one way is rules changes (lowering mound etc) or cheating (steroids, substances etc).

I've been gone from the game a long time - ever since Loria was allowed to do the bullshit he did. It was clear the people in charge were totally asleep at the wheel. Judging by this and the Astros scandal they still are.

Game would need major changes to bring me back. I don't expect that to happen. Getting rid of these substances would be a start.

Yep. I have watched every game this season and I am bored out of my mind. The game is unwatchable. Don Mattingly said other ex-players dont watch baseball anymore.

It's so fucking bad. I thought hitters were just going up there to hit homeruns but Yankees pitching coach said we are not doing that anymore. I dont blame the hitters anymore after watching that vid because the extra spinrate has made hitting breaking balls impossible. the drop on those breaking pitches has never been better. Yankees faced a pitcher yesterday whose curveball was unhittable. hitters were hitting .076 against his curveball. you simply cannot score runs when you hit that low against breaking balls.

 

[Allforce]

Glad this is getting exposed (although I'm only seeing it on Twitter from some bloggers who have big followings but not the big media like ESPN or FOX and certainly not MLB Network).

It's like a catch 22, you got guys cheating and old guard writers and owners who won't allow a single change to the game to occur to combat this stuff because of "the integrity of the game". At least with steroids the guy still had to hit the fucking ball or throw the pitch...

 

[bigsnack]

I'm still a fan, but I agree in general and I wish the cheating and substances and whatnot would get completely nuked. I don't even understand people that can sleep at night after winning via cheating. How does that feel real to them? Obviously they don't care, but I would love some hard rules to be set and then have a few hammers come down.

 

[thefool]

Substances? Like something they rub in the ball?
(Dont know shit about baseball besides the neogeo game lmao)

 

[StormCell]

Baseball is just fucked every which way, and I'm really starting to hate it. And it's not just pitchers cheating. I'll list things I hate about modern baseball...

1. The strike zone has been squeezed with the advent of more cameras and actual strike zone/call tracking. Pitchers no longer live on the corners and north/south pitchers have excelled.
2. Defensive shifts have only contributed to pitching becoming dominant and have also destroyed some hitters careers. Advanced metrics and data analysis for teams has only contributed to making this worse with defensive placements and such. Hitters with certain tendencies to put the ball in certain places are fucked.
3. Baseball organizations figured out it's easier to find and draft pitchers who throw 95+ mph than it is to find pitchers with lots of smarts, hence the heavy reliance on bullpen arms who can throw 95+ mph and the normalizing of 4 to 5 pitchers pitching each game.
4. Hitters have more technology to help them hit the ball than ever before. Struggling with the slider? The pitching machine will give you countless excellent sliders to work against. While you're at it, watch hours of tape on tomorrow's starter so you can be sure to get a good launch angle on his slider.
5. K/9, K/bb, FIP, xFIP, blah blah blah. We get it, some pitchers can get most of the outs all by themselves, and pitchers who would let hitters get themselves out fucking suck. Whatever.
6. Fucking with the fucking baseball. It has actually hurt some pitchers who were still working on their stuff. Leave the baseball alone and focus on fixing the above issues.
7. Holy shit do great players go down for the most mundane reasons. Stubbed toe? miss a day or two. muscle tightness/back tightness? day to day. tight calf? miss a week. sore shoulder? out for months, possibly whole season.

Frankly, due to #7 I'm about ready for greenies to return to the game along with some PEDs aimed at keeping players healthy. Sick of the sore shoulders leading to pitchers being out for months to whole seasons with no specific injury event to point to. It's all ridiculous.

 

[SlimySnake]

Substances? Like something they rub in the ball?
(Dont know shit about baseball besides the neogeo game lmao)

Yes, pine tar, resin, but now thanks to scientists being recruited to evaluate every single aspect of baseball. Teams have their own army of scientists and chemical engineers developing different illegal substances by mixing stuff like melted Coke, glue and other weird compounds. Baseball was already being ruined by MiT grads bringing analytics in the game, but now we have straight up scientists helping teams corrupt the game.

How does that feel real to them? Obviously they don't care, but I would love some hard rules to be set and then have a few hammers come down.

Everyone is cheating. The video mentions how a survey showed 77% of pitchers were using illegal substances but players around the league were like nah, its way higher than that. So when everyone cheats, it becomes normal. Same exact thing happened with steroids. Bonds was the best played in the early 90s then by late 90s Sosa and McGuire turned baseball into a joke forcing Bonds into taking steroids and he immediately went from one the greats to the posting numbers that made him the greatest hitter that ever lived.

This is on MLB turning a blind eye to this problem for over half a decade. The video shows how Trevor Bauer tried to expose it for years before deciding he needed to join and now his spinrate is better than anyone's in baseball. Basically Bond 2.0.

 

[StormCell]

I'm still a fan, but I agree in general and I wish the cheating and substances and whatnot would get completely nuked. I don't even understand people that can sleep at night after winning via cheating. How does that feel real to them? Obviously they don't care, but I would love some hard rules to be set and then have a few hammers come down.

Baseball has never been a clean game. Guys have been finding holes in the rules since the inception of a set of standard rules for baseball. The idea that cheating has been ruining the game is actually preposterous when you consider how firmly enshrined in the hall cheating actually is. Some of baseball's most famous and notorious scenes have occured, or errupted rather, over scandals and cheating. And then some of its best stories have filtered out of the clubhouse where players have helped teammates avoid being caught (Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle, corked bat I think it was).

I'm all for a mostly level playing field. The only things that have ever truly pissed me off in baseball are umps who impact the outcomes of games and baseball stars who got so greedy that it became unnaturally apparent that they were abusing the sport via PEDs/cheating (examples: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens).

 

[SlimySnake]

Baseball is just fucked every which way, and I'm really starting to hate it. And it's not just pitchers cheating. I'll list things I hate about modern baseball...

1. The strike zone has been squeezed with the advent of more cameras and actual strike zone/call tracking. Pitchers no longer live on the corners and north/south pitchers have excelled.
2. Defensive shifts have only contributed to pitching becoming dominant and have also destroyed some hitters careers. Advanced metrics and data analysis for teams has only contributed to making this worse with defensive placements and such. Hitters with certain tendencies to put the ball in certain places are fucked.
3. Baseball organizations figured out it's easier to find and draft pitchers who throw 95+ mph than it is to find pitchers with lots of smarts, hence the heavy reliance on bullpen arms who can throw 95+ mph and the normalizing of 4 to 5 pitchers pitching each game.
4. Hitters have more technology to help them hit the ball than ever before. Struggling with the slider? The pitching machine will give you countless excellent sliders to work against. While you're at it, watch hours of tape on tomorrow's starter so you can be sure to get a good launch angle on his slider.
5. K/9, K/bb, FIP, xFIP, blah blah blah. We get it, some pitchers can get most of the outs all by themselves, and pitchers who would let hitters get themselves out fucking suck. Whatever.
6. Fucking with the fucking baseball. It has actually hurt some pitchers who were still working on their stuff. Leave the baseball alone and focus on fixing the above issues.
7. Holy shit do great players go down for the most mundane reasons. Stubbed toe? miss a day or two. muscle tightness/back tightness? day to day. tight calf? miss a week. sore shoulder? out for months, possibly whole season.

Frankly, due to #7 I'm about ready for greenies to return to the game along with some PEDs aimed at keeping players healthy. Sick of the sore shoulders leading to pitchers being out for months to whole seasons with no specific injury event to point to. It's all ridiculous.

LMAO. This post is basically what I do every other week bitching to my friends and brothers about the current state of baseball. It is completely fucked and none of it makes any sense.

I agree with bringing back PEDs. Hitters go down just swinging the bat. Like wtf. They dont even have to get hit or pull a hamstring running the bases. how do you get hurt doing what you have been doing since you were 5?

They are all into conditioning and lifting weights like they are into a body building competition. And yet they strain their quads every other week just swinging the bat. I told my brother how in the 60s and 70s no one was doing any of these fancy conditioning exercises and everyone played with a beer gut, and he said they were using horse tranqualizers and there are rumors that even Mickey Mantle took amphatemines. Bring them back I say. Allow pitchers to use them too if not just to stay healthy and play out their $300 million contracts without getting hurt every other year.

They need to ban shifts. I cant believe that you can hit the ball up the middle and not get a hit because the second basemen is positioned there. that was the best way to get a hit. the rays had four outfielders in the ALDS last year. WTF. how is that even allowed. no infield should be allowed out on the outfield. ever.

Now they are talking about moving the mound back. No, just ban the shifts, ban the illegal substances, stop fucking with the ball every year, and maybe force a limit on relief pitchers to 5. I hate there is army of 100mph pitchers in every team. i remember when chapman used to be the only one. now there is like four players on every team.

 

[StormCell]

LMAO. This post is basically what I do every other week bitching to my friends and brothers about the current state of baseball. It is completely fucked and none of it makes any sense.

I agree with bringing back PEDs. Hitters go down just swinging the bat. Like wtf. They dont even have to get hit or pull a hamstring running the bases. how do you get hurt doing what you have been doing since you were 5?

They are all into conditioning and lifting weights like they are into a body building competition. And yet they strain their quads every other week just swinging the bat. I told my brother how in the 60s and 70s no one was doing any of these fancy conditioning exercises and everyone played with a beer gut, and he said they were using horse tranqualizers and there are rumors that even Mickey Mantle took amphatemines. Bring them back I say. Allow pitchers to use them too if not just to stay healthy and play out their $300 million contracts without getting hurt every other year.

They need to ban shifts. I cant believe that you can hit the ball up the middle and not get a hit because the second basemen is positioned there. that was the best way to get a hit. the rays had four outfielders in the ALDS last year. WTF. how is that even allowed. no infield should be allowed out on the outfield. ever.

Now they are talking about moving the mound back. No, just ban the shifts, ban the illegal substances, stop fucking with the ball every year, and maybe force a limit on relief pitchers to 5. I hate there is army of 100mph pitchers in every team. i remember when chapman used to be the only one. now there is like four players on every team.

This x 1000.

Sometimes I think Manfred will succeed in destroying the sport. lol He is such a tool for the owners that they are likely getting way too much of what they want to the detriment of the game. The whole idea of moving the mound back seems just totally counter to the problem at hand. It will force pitchers to throw even harder. He is hands down the worst commissioner I've ever known.

 

[Shadowplay1979]

To be fair its the money holders pulling players for small things, most players would rather stay in the game.....meanwhile my man Pillar after getting nailed in the face just 2 weeks ago and getting nose chips removed in surgery

Warning: Hard to watch

 

[Rival]

I used to LOVE baseball. I’d literally watch every cardinals game. It was the most important hobby I had. Loved playing as a kid, loved going to games, collected cards, played every baseball video game, and now......nothing. I cannot stand the game as it is today.

 

[SlimySnake]

To be fair its the money holders pulling players for small things, most players would rather stay in the game.....meanwhile my man Pillar after getting nailed in the face just 2 weeks ago and getting nose chips removed in surgery







Warning: Hard to watch

yep. this is just another consequence of both the cheating and the analytics focusing on making pitchers throw as hard as possible. the last few years have set Hit by Pitch records, and by a big margin too.

I think we need to make hitting batters way more consequential. Have hitters get two bases instead of just one after getting hit by pitch and see how fast these asshole pitchers find the strike zone.

in fact, have walks grant two bases every time. something crazy like 60% of at bats result in either a strike out, a walk or a homerun nowadays. its boring as fuck. If you make walking a batter cost more than just one base, especially since walking batters with first base open is so fashionable nowadays, no one is gonna walk anyone.

I was thinking about how Bonds was effectively taken out of the game in 2002, 2003 and 2004 by pitchers simply pitching around him all the time. he had a 630 on base percentage. you allowed the best hitter in the game to get nuetrered. fans barely ever got to see him hit. Now if walking him meant everyone moves over two bases then no one would walk him, and baseball fans would get to see the best hitter hit instead of walk 250 times in a season.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

To be fair its the money holders pulling players for small things, most players would rather stay in the game.....meanwhile my man Pillar after getting nailed in the face just 2 weeks ago and getting nose chips removed in surgery







Warning: Hard to watch

Damn. You can hear the flesh getting squashed.

 

[dave_d]

I'm still a fan, but I agree in general and I wish the cheating and substances and whatnot would get completely nuked. I don't even understand people that can sleep at night after winning via cheating. How does that feel real to them? Obviously they don't care, but I would love some hard rules to be set and then have a few hammers come down.

Oh I can understand it. You should see people. They cheat all the time. Go watch youth sports. They're competing for basically nothing and they still cheat their asses off.(Saw this with my niece playing soccer and even the refs cheat.) If there's competition people cheat until you police the hell out of them so they can't.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Baseball is boring as a whole. I'd watch my share of Jays games in the 80s and 90s when they were good, but it's not the type of sport you want from beginning to end. You flip channels back and forth. Or you're doing something else like playing board games and have the game on in the background as filler noise.

Such a different sport for viewing. Baseball's 2.5-3 hr telecast has actually such little amounts of gameplay (pitching, batting, fielding) I bet a viewer only saw 20 minutes of actual play time. The rest is commercials and breaks between pitches.

Although I admit that baseball playoffs to me magically turn awesome. Even teams I dont give a shit about, the hype, telecast and choking makes it great to watch. Anyone else feel the same?

You guys make good points about the modern day of baseball which seems skewed to homeruns and fireball pitchers. I find it odd shifting defence seems like a modern day thing since stat tracking for batters pulling the ball have been around forever. But some reason coaches are taking it up much more now (Ryan Howard kind of thing).

I dont watch or follow baseball like I used to (the last time i did was probably 10 years ago doing office pools and man does that make you follow the sport!), but I think one thing that can boost some offence and action is allow runners to score on two outs (grounders) when a team gets the third out.

That would make fielders make a decision to gun home for an out at the plate for a player on third base instead of lazy throw to first for the third out.

Oh I can understand it. You should see people. They cheat all the time. Go watch youth sports. They're competing for basically nothing and they still cheat their asses off.(Saw this with my niece playing soccer and even the refs cheat.) If there's competition people cheat until you police the hell out of them so they can't.

Why the hell would refs cheat in youth sports? Parents paying them off or they got family members playing on a team?

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

Manfred, like Selig before him with roids, is complicit. At least with roids the pitchers and hitters were both sticking syringes in their asses.

This at bat was the epitome of roided out hitter vs roided out pitcher and it was AMAZING. Watching this live as a kid was pants shittingly great.



But ya, baseball has gone from the sport I watched/listened to almost non stop to watching maybe 2-3 games a week over the last 5-6 years.

The rule changes are mostly stupid and the one that makes sense (universal DH) hasn't been permanently implemented. Like mentioned above, the low rate of balls in play have really made games a whole lot less fun to watch.

To be fair its the money holders pulling players for small things, most players would rather stay in the game.....meanwhile my man Pillar after getting nailed in the face just 2 weeks ago and getting nose chips removed in surgery







Warning: Hard to watch

Pilar is a true throwback OG style gamer - plays all out every single play. As a Giants fan, I wanted them to resign him.

 

[dave_d]

Why the hell would refs cheat in youth sports? Parents paying them off or they got family members playing on a team?

I don't know, there's no good reason but they do which is amazing. Oh and they'll cheat for both sides but who knows why they do it. To be fair most of the time what the parents are complaining about is the refs being idiots but if you watch enough you'll see them cheat.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I don't know, there's no good reason but they do which is amazing. Oh and they'll cheat for both sides but who knows why they do it. To be fair most of the time what the parents are complaining about is the refs being idiots but if you watch enough you'll see them cheat.

I wish I had kids to watch this shit at games.

The stories my coworkers would tell me about kids league hockey and soccer with parents yelling would be amazingly funny to watch. The funny thing is the "angry hockey dad" isnt even true so much. My coworkers say the angrier parent is more from the mom! Who knew. You;d think it would beer dad yelling.

A bunch of 8 year olds who can barely play, where the parents care more about the sport than the actual fucking kid. Hilarious.

I played some kids soccer as a kid. My parents didn't show up once. They paid for league fees and cleats and shin pads and said go have fun. They didn't even know my game schedule. One of my older brothers drove me to the games. lol

 

[SlimySnake]

Baseball is boring as a whole. I'd watch my share of Jays games in the 80s and 90s when they were good, but it's not the type of sport you want from beginning to end. You flip channels back and forth. Or you're doing something else like playing board games and have the game on in the background as filler noise.

Such a different sport for viewing. Baseball's 2.5-3 hr telecast has actually such little amounts of gameplay (pitching, batting, fielding) I bet a viewer only saw 20 minutes of actual play time. The rest is commercials and breaks between pitches.

Although I admit that baseball playoffs to me magically turn awesome. Even teams I dont give a shit about, the hype, telecast and choking makes it great to watch. Anyone else feel the same?

You guys make good points about the modern day of baseball which seems skewed to homeruns and fireball pitchers. I find it odd shifting defence seems like a modern day thing since stat tracking for batters pulling the ball have been around forever. But some reason coaches are taking it up much more now (Ryan Howard kind of thing).

I dont watch or follow baseball like I used to (the last time i did was probably 10 years ago doing office pools and man does that make you follow the sport!), but I think one thing that can boost some offence and action is allow runners to score on two outs (grounders) when a team gets the third out.

That would make fielders make a decision to gun home for an out at the plate for a player on third base instead of lazy throw to first for the third out.


Why the hell would refs cheat in youth sports? Parents paying them off or they got family members playing on a team?

That's actually a fantastic idea.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That's actually a fantastic idea.

Some other random ideas. Although I'm too lazy to check frequency so maybe some dont move the needle.

1. Walks = automatic base runner advancement. Not only does the batter get first base, but all teammates on base advance one base no matter what. So a teammate on third base gets to advance home even though other bases are empty

2a. Hit by Pitch penalties. First time a team hits a batter = normal. A team beans another player that game = two bases. Team beans a third = 3 bases. Team beans a 4th(!) = automatic run

2b option. Make HBP similar to #1 Walks Advancement procedure

2c. Any batter hitting two players = automatically kicked out of game

3. Ground rule double/ball out of play on error/ball caught under a tarp etc... = all existing base runners score even guys on first base. Batter gets third base

 

[Hari Seldon]

I could give 2 shits what happens in that piece of shit league. Boring as fuck league with only a few relevant teams because of no cap. Fuck MLB.

 

[mango drank]

Only halfway through the video, and have only skimmed the thread, but: why were the other substances allowed in the first place? Pine tar, sunscreen, etc. Why is there this distinction between these "legal" substances and the newer secret "illegal" ones? Why not just ban the pitchers' use of substances altogether? Hose down pitchers naked at the start of each game. EDIT: ah never mind, I read the OP again more closely.

 

[WoJ]

I grew up a hard-core baseball fan and watched every game I could. I knew the starting rotations and lineups of every team.

These days I have zero interest in the actual sport for all the reasons listed above. Honestly I get my baseball fix from MLB The Show these days. Next year I'll pick up The Show 22, rebrand every team, create new stadiums and use fictional rosters and live in my own baseball universe since real life baseball socks these days.

 

[SlimySnake]

Only halfway through the video, and have only skimmed the thread, but: why were the other substances allowed in the first place? Pine tar, sunscreen, etc. Why is there this distinction between these "legal" substances and the newer secret "illegal" ones? Why not just ban the pitchers' use of substances altogether? Hose down pitchers naked at the start of each game. EDIT: ah never mind, I read the OP again more closely.

It's starting to happen. They have told the teams that the umps have the right to search the players.

 

[SlimySnake]

Some other random ideas. Although I'm too lazy to check frequency so maybe some dont move the needle.

1. Walks = automatic base runner advancement. Not only does the batter get first base, but all teammates on base advance one base no matter what. So a teammate on third base gets to advance home even though other bases are empty

2a. Hit by Pitch penalties. First time a team hits a batter = normal. A team beans another player that game = two bases. Team beans a third = 3 bases. Team beans a 4th(!) = automatic run

2b option. Make HBP similar to #1 Walks Advancement procedure

2c. Any batter hitting two players = automatically kicked out of game

3. Ground rule double/ball out of play on error/ball caught under a tarp etc... = all existing base runners score even guys on first base. Batter gets third base

I like em. Especially the ground rule double rule. It's extremely unfair to the batting side. Hitting is hard enough as it is. I find it bizarre that there are so many rules that benefit only pitchers.

There was a crazy game last month where this relief pitcher hit Bryce Harper in the head with his very first pitch. Harper had to leave the game with a concussion and hasnt been the same since. But whats worse is that the pitcher hit the next hitter with the very next pitch. Dont remember if it was in the head, but wtf. they didnt throw him out either.

Baseball needs to do something about wild pitchers.

 

[dorkimoe]

This bitch should have gotten in trouble 4 years ago

 

[dave_d]

I wish I had kids to watch this shit at games.

The stories my coworkers would tell me about kids league hockey and soccer with parents yelling would be amazingly funny to watch. The funny thing is the "angry hockey dad" isnt even true so much. My coworkers say the angrier parent is more from the mom! Who knew. You;d think it would beer dad yelling.

A bunch of 8 year olds who can barely play, where the parents care more about the sport than the actual fucking kid. Hilarious.

I played some kids soccer as a kid. My parents didn't show up once. They paid for league fees and cleats and shin pads and said go have fun. They didn't even know my game schedule. One of my older brothers drove me to the games. lol

Oh you'd love it. On top of all that you have the coaches flipping out and yelling at the ref. It's weird to think I've seen way more coaches get yellow cards than players.

 

[synchronicity]

Just part of the "get-mine" world. It's far more pervasive than just sport. Very few with real honor in the world imho.

I still love baseball, but it's a husk of its former glory because of the things mentioned.

 

[Allforce]

My buddy said they announced 10 game mandatory suspensions today for any pitcher using a substance but I can't find any news about this.

 

[BigBooper]

They probably trying to get some excitement in the game again. When's the last time a baseball player was a household name? Barry Bonds?

 

[MastaKiiLA]

I used to enjoy baseball as a kid. Was a Pirates fan up until the Marlins came into existence. Used to watch a decent number of Pirates games, as I was a huge Bo Brothers fan (Barry and Bobby). Went to a decent number of Marlins games. Watched games at old Yankee, and old Fenway. The best was getting to see a game at old 3 Rivers Stadium, and being in left-center seats to watch Andy Van Slyke run headlong into the centerfield fence, which was kinda his trademark. Played baseball for 3 years in hs too, including a game against ARod when he was at Westminster Christian.

Truth be told, the roid-driven HR record chase years were the best baseball I've ever seen. Not only did I follow the day-to-day goings on around the league, but the Homerun Derby was an epic event each year, with monster dongs being belted by some of the biggest, burliest dudes in the league. It was legit fun. I stopped watching the day Bonds retired. The game lost its luster, and I didn't appreciate the way those, that willingly turned a blind eye to the decades-long juicing crazy, villified the guys who helped to revive interest in the sport. They tried to pretend that the sport was clean, and that only a few guys were breaking the rules, when the truth is that there were lots of guys juicing, and for well over a decade.

Rubbing a foreign substance on the ball is no different. The only difference is that people aren't drawn to baseball for the great pitching, it's always been monster dongs that draw the crowds.

 

[WoJ]

I used to enjoy baseball as a kid. Was a Pirates fan up until the Marlins came into existence. Used to watch a decent number of Pirates games, as I was a huge Bo Brothers fan (Barry and Bobby). Went to a decent number of Marlins games. Watched games at old Yankee, and old Fenway. The best was getting to see a game at old 3 Rivers Stadium, and being in left-center seats to watch Andy Van Slyke run headlong into the centerfield fence, which was kinda his trademark. Played baseball for 3 years in hs too, including a game against ARod when he was at Westminster Christian.

Truth be told, the roid-driven HR record chase years were the best baseball I've ever seen. Not only did I follow the day-to-day goings on around the league, but the Homerun Derby was an epic event each year, with monster dongs being belted by some of the biggest, burliest dudes in the league. It was legit fun. I stopped watching the day Bonds retired. The game lost its luster, and I didn't appreciate the way those, that willingly turned a blind eye to the decades-long juicing crazy, villified the guys who helped to revive interest in the sport. They tried to pretend that the sport was clean, and that only a few guys were breaking the rules, when the truth is that there were lots of guys juicing, and for well over a decade.

Rubbing a foreign substance on the ball is no different. The only difference is that people aren't drawn to baseball for the great pitching, it's always been monster dongs that draw the crowds.

Yeah I've long since said that I thought the blow back over PEDs was insane. Say what you will about it, but the game was incredibly popular during that era. Bring back PED's.

 

[Neil Young]

The game evolves and devolves naturally, just keep our hands off of it. Control the cheating and the game will work itself out. That USED to be the beauty of the sport. They haven't changed the distance to first but you STILL have close plays. Hitters will need to adapt to the switch and hit opposite field, learn to lay down a bunt. Nah, we have to meddle with it and make rule changes every year. For comparison, the stats below are from 1978. Let it play out and stop micromanaging the game. Also....playoff hockey is on!!!! Watch that.

Guidry: 25-3, 1.74 ERA, 273⅔ IP, 248 SO, 9.6 WAR

Rice: .315/.370/.600, 46 HR, 139 RBIs, 121 R, 7.6 WAR

 

[Ixion]

Yeah, I was huge into baseball as a kid and in my teens (which was the mid-90s through the mid-2000s), but I stopped caring after that. I was drawn to the game as a kid because the game was filled with badass hitters who could, at any moment, hit a ball into the fucking night. It was mythical to watch. I loved watching Mike Piazza, Ken Griffey Jr, etc. I would go in my backyard as a kid and emulate the swings of all the big home run hitters with my wiffle ball bat (as I repeatedly hit balls into my neighbors yard lol).

Now when I think of baseball I think of boring analytics, 0.190 batting averages everywhere you look, and very few larger than life hitters.

I became a much bigger basketball fan as I cared less about baseball. Basketball ain't perfect either, but it's much more fast paced and dynamic, while still retaining a lot of strategy. And the NBA's rule changes have made the game a bit better instead of worse, such as the recent play-in tournament and the randomized lotto odds making the second half of the season a lot more competitive and less of a tank fest. And I like how the college game and the NBA are very different in a lot of good ways, so I watch both.

 

[Dthomp]

I used to follow baseball much more when I was young, but I can't bring myself to watch it these days. If you aren't bleeding baseball, I can't see why it would be fun. Pitches all above 95 MPH are a blur to see, and everything is home run or strikeout because there is no station to station play to keep things interesting. I miss the old days of MLB pre-steroid era (Just before)

 

[HoodWinked]

It's funny cause I don't even watch baseball but this stuff has been fascinating to learn about. This guy did some tests with the most common substances.

 

[DetectiveBananas]

It’s gotten so bad some teams have resorted to using sanitation equipment to balance the of justice. Crazy times we live in

 

[SlimySnake]

Just an update on this. It seems MLB has started to crack down on this and we are already seeing drastic reductions in spin rate and pitcher ERA. Cole's era in the last few starts is 4.5 after pitching almost 8 weeks with just a 1.7 ERA. Bauer's last start saw his spin rate drop 300 points BELOW the league average. This guy used to have the best spin rate in the league. He got hit too.

Of course, it hasnt helped the yankees who still suck at hitting, and now that their pitchers cant rely on foreign substances they are getting hit left and right. This shit will expose a lot of teams this year who spent millions on big name pitchers like Cole and Bauer, not to mention all the relief pitchers who are now going to realize that their 100 mph fastballs are gonna be super hittable now.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Just an update on this. It seems MLB has started to crack down on this and we are already seeing drastic reductions in spin rate and pitcher ERA. Cole's era in the last few starts is 4.5 after pitching almost 8 weeks with just a 1.7 ERA. Bauer's last start saw his spin rate drop 300 points BELOW the league average. This guy used to have the best spin rate in the league. He got hit too.

Of course, it hasnt helped the yankees who still suck at hitting, and now that their pitchers cant rely on foreign substances they are getting hit left and right. This shit will expose a lot of teams this year who spent millions on big name pitchers like Cole and Bauer, not to mention all the relief pitchers who are now going to realize that their 100 mph fastballs are gonna be super hittable now.

I never knew this was a thing in baseball (not to this extent).

How can the umps not know? Every once in a while they will handle th ball. If it's got sticky shit on it, then sketchiness is happening.

No doubt batters know too. If they are fielding the ball and its sticky, then they would know the pitcher is gumming it up.

So to me it's a weird thing. Batters complain, but IMO they got to know too. They touch the ball as well.

Unless the amount of chemicals is so faint, by the time it gets hit, thrown or rolls on the field it wipes off by the time anyone notices? But if its gummy, it should pick up dirt and grass bits.

Seems like a total scam by everyone???

 

[SlimySnake]

I never knew this was a thing in baseball (not to this extent).

How can the umps not know? Every once in a while they will handle th ball. If it's got sticky shit on it, then sketchiness is happening.

No doubt batters know too. If they are fielding the ball and its sticky, then they would know the pitcher is gumming it up.

So to me it's a weird thing. Batters complain, but IMO they got to know too. They touch the ball as well.

Unless the amount of chemicals is so faint, by the time it gets hit, thrown or rolls on the field it wipes off by the time anyone notices? But if its gummy, it should pick up dirt and grass bits.

Seems like a total scam by everyone???

It's all in the video I linked in the OP. Hitters thought that this was helping pitchers get a better grip which means more accurate pitchers which in turn means the hitters would get hit less by pitches. So they were ok with it initially.

Then around 2018 and 2019, MLB changed the baseball and combined with analytics teaching hitters about launch angles, it caused a huge boom in homeruns which kind of downplayed the spinrate. If hitters were getting homeruns despite the nasty spinrates then why would they complain?

Starting last year though, the analytics started exploiting hitters who relied on launch angles and this year MLB deadened the ball which is why it is finally becoming a big issue now. MLB knew about it. Umps knew about it. Hitters knew about it. Outfielders used to complain about balls being so sticky that they felt like they had glue on them. They just didnt do anything about it because all their teammates were doing it. EVERYONE was doing it. How do you complain about this stuff in post game interviews when literally the guy next to your locker is a pitcher who is using this stuff?

MLB didnt do anything about it because MLB admins suck.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's all in the video I linked in the OP. Hitters thought that this was helping pitchers get a better grip which means more accurate pitchers which in turn means the hitters would get hit less by pitches. So they were ok with it initially.

Then around 2018 and 2019, MLB changed the baseball and combined with analytics teaching hitters about launch angles, it caused a huge boom in homeruns which kind of downplayed the spinrate. If hitters were getting homeruns despite the nasty spinrates then why would they complain?

Starting last year though, the analytics started exploiting hitters who relied on launch angles and this year MLB deadened the ball which is why it is finally becoming a big issue now. MLB knew about it. Umps knew about it. Hitters knew about it. Outfielders used to complain about balls being so sticky that they felt like they had glue on them. They just didnt do anything about it because all their teammates were doing it. EVERYONE was doing it. How do you complain about this stuff in post game interviews when literally the guy next to your locker is a pitcher who is using this stuff?

MLB didnt do anything about it because MLB admins suck.

Ok thanks. I'll watch the video later tonight.

 

[ChanerRedone]

Yes, pine tar, resin, but now thanks to scientists being recruited to evaluate every single aspect of baseball. Teams have their own army of scientists and chemical engineers developing different illegal substances by mixing stuff like melted Coke, glue and other weird compounds. Baseball was already being ruined by MiT grads bringing analytics in the game, but now we have straight up scientists helping teams corrupt the game.


Everyone is cheating. The video mentions how a survey showed 77% of pitchers were using illegal substances but players around the league were like nah, its way higher than that. So when everyone cheats, it becomes normal. Same exact thing happened with steroids. Bonds was the best played in the early 90s then by late 90s Sosa and McGuire turned baseball into a joke forcing Bonds into taking steroids and he immediately went from one the greats to the posting numbers that made him the greatest hitter that ever lived.

This is on MLB turning a blind eye to this problem for over half a decade. The video shows how Trevor Bauer tried to expose it for years before deciding he needed to join and now his spinrate is better than anyone's in baseball. Basically Bond 2.0.

Can you explain what you mean by MIT ruining baseball?

 

[SlimySnake]

Can you explain what you mean by MIT ruining baseball?

Watch Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill plays an MIT grad with no previous experience in baseball who just looks at stats and tells Brad Pitt, the GM of the Oakland As, which players to buy. Brad Pitt ignores the advice of Scouts and managers and just looks at the numbers.

The problem is that the numbers dont tell you the entire story and these analytics guys are now running entire teams with managers hired as puppets. Hitters are taught to ignore the basics like hitting behind runners to move them to third. Bunting is out. Entire teams like Yankees are built to hit homeruns because some MIT nerds created algorithms that show that Homeruns wins you world series. Players are told to swing for the fences instead of shortening their swing with 2 strikes. Pitchers are taught to throw as hard as possible instead of pitch an intelligent game. This has led to a record increase in strikeouts and record low in runs.

There is A LOT of other shit they are doing that is making baseball very frustrating to watch. Too much to list but to give you an example, the yankees have run into 60 double plays this season. easily the most in the league. You would think analytics would see this and say ok, lets start the runners and do some hit and runs or steal second to avoid grounding into double plays, right? Wrong. They say the opposite. They believe their algorithms which indicate that everything will even out.

This breakdown makes this point really well. The rays are a big analytic driven team. Their manager believes in third time through the order. They dont want the same pitcher facing the hitters 3 times in a row. So they took out a guy hitting a 1 hit shutout only to bring in a guy who fucking sucks according to numbers. So they pick and choose the numbers they want to look at and its all algorithm driven so the fans look at these numbers and say wtf, but the algorithms we dont have access to say something else. This creates a lot of friction where baseball fans, baseball writers and even the tv announcers can no longer make sense of what the teams are doing.

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

This was interesting.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Hockey has a shitload of analytics now too. And to be fair a lot of it is cool and makes sense.

Hockey is a fast paced game though with players going on shifts every 30-60 seconds. Who knows how the hell these guys track each person's modern day analytic stats. They must have 100s of analysts watching every game recording (at some kind of birds eye view) every player's actions.

 

[teezzy]

My ex wife also had a major cheating problem

 

[StormCell]

Watch Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill plays an MIT grad with no previous experience in baseball who just looks at stats and tells Brad Pitt, the GM of the Oakland As, which players to buy. Brad Pitt ignores the advice of Scouts and managers and just looks at the numbers.

The problem is that the numbers dont tell you the entire story and these analytics guys are now running entire teams with managers hired as puppets. Hitters are taught to ignore the basics like hitting behind runners to move them to third. Bunting is out. Entire teams like Yankees are built to hit homeruns because some MIT nerds created algorithms that show that Homeruns wins you world series. Players are told to swing for the fences instead of shortening their swing with 2 strikes. Pitchers are taught to throw as hard as possible instead of pitch an intelligent game. This has led to a record increase in strikeouts and record low in runs.

There is A LOT of other shit they are doing that is making baseball very frustrating to watch. Too much to list but to give you an example, the yankees have run into 60 double plays this season. easily the most in the league. You would think analytics would see this and say ok, lets start the runners and do some hit and runs or steal second to avoid grounding into double plays, right? Wrong. They say the opposite. They believe their algorithms which indicate that everything will even out.

This breakdown makes this point really well. The rays are a big analytic driven team. Their manager believes in third time through the order. They dont want the same pitcher facing the hitters 3 times in a row. So they took out a guy hitting a 1 hit shutout only to bring in a guy who fucking sucks according to numbers. So they pick and choose the numbers they want to look at and its all algorithm driven so the fans look at these numbers and say wtf, but the algorithms we dont have access to say something else. This creates a lot of friction where baseball fans, baseball writers and even the tv announcers can no longer make sense of what the teams are doing.

Which just goes to show that analytically driven baseball is far less interesting and entertaining to watch. Point in fact, fans hate how long the games have gotten. Games have gotten a lot longer because of two big reasons. The first is the way that pitchers operate nowadays. They often are limited to just under 100 pitches, and they make all 100 of them within about 6 innings. That means they are throwing a lot of pitches that aren't resulting in putouts. The second problem is that teams are burning through relief pitchers in a game of chess to retire the other team. It's tiresome. Half the guys who enter the game have to be lifted an out or two later. Even if you are one of those fans who can look past the evolution here and find joy in the individual match ups, you have to admit that it makes for a much longer affair and lost in the mix are the match-ups of old. The last baseball game I got to attend, I still remember who the starting pitchers were. I got to see Tom Glavine vs Kerry Wood and the Cubs. Nowadays, if you attend a game you're probably much less interested in who is starting because they'll be gone before the 6th anyway.