So the extra innings rule, the shift rule and the pitch clock should make things interesting this year. Glad to see them stay with the extra innings rule.
MLB.TV announces their first fan-friendly change for 2023. No, they haven’t solved their blackout rules thing just yet.
But…all MLB.TV subscribers in 2023 will also get every game that streams on MiLB.TV. So yeah, you can check on those prospects in AAA and AA to your heart’s content, if that’s your thing.
That’s cool. I’ve considered checking out MiLB.tv a couple times but it was something like 50 bucks? Not expensive, but also didn’t feel like I’d get that much value out of it.
They’re even including it with At Bat which is their audio feed offering - though the price on that is $30 now. Still a great deal.
This and the related limit to number of pitchers on a roster still feel like solutions in search of a problem. My bold hot take is we’ll see a team forfeit a blowout in next ten years instead of having to bring in one of their starters.
Why? In a blow out you bring in your backup infielder.
Now imagine a blowout where you’re down 6 or 7.
That happens now. So what is so different. You bring in your lowest used reliever and if things get worse you go to the infielder.
Then you call up some guy from the minors like you would now.
Also, weren’t the roster limitations only because of the strike? Is there anything that says they continue?
Yep, and hey, not just Diamond Sports Group, either anymore:
Coming soon to the RSN that has local rights to your favorite team. Yes, even you, Red Sox and Yankee fans.
LINK FIXED. (They changed it! Not me!)
Link is broken.
That’d bring the number of teams with issues up to 17. I wonder if there’d be any significance to the league owning the broadcast rights to over half the teams?
RIP Tim McCarver. Grew up watching him play, then in the broadcast booth. He was, for a time, Steve Carlton’s personal catcher.
This sucks.
Tim loved baseball. He loved being a Cardinal. He loved being a Phillie and being Steve Carlton’s designated catcher. He loved the Mets.
One of his most important roles? McCarver was a white guy from Memphis. He came up onto a Cardinals team in the early 1960s playing baseball in a pretty segregated city, on a team with Bob Gibson, Bill White, Curt Flood and Lou Brock. And thanks to McCarver (and another unlikely source – rural Missouri Ozarks-born Ken Boyer), the 1960s Cardinals were kind of a model of racial harmony throughout that decade.
St. Louis is still fucked up racially in a lot of ways. But I like to think it’s less fucked up than it could have been had McCarver and company not set such a shining example in a turbulent time.
6 or 7 there’s a chance of a huge inning still. It’s about 1/500, but a chance.
sigh I was gonna just let this sit but man, some of y’all have very poor imaginations :)
Suppose you’re a manager in the middle of a long stretch with no off days. Your starter didn’t go deep yesterday so most of your bullpen guys had to work but that’s ok, your ace is starting today. And… he gets lit up. It happens, even to the best pitchers. Or he gets injured. You’ve got a bunch of guys in your pen who are gassed that can maybe give you an inning. One of your 'pen guys is injured, but minor enough that a day or two of rest and he’ll be ok. Not a big enough deal to throw him on the IL and lose him for 15 days. Your lineup hasn’t got anything going all game and suddenly it’s 7-1 in the eighth.
Do you: put in your next day starter, further wrecking your rotation and have to call someone up who likely will lose you another game - plus may not give you length and exacerbate your current bullpen issues? Or forfeit a game that you have a less than 1% chance of winning while keeping your rotation intact? I suppose there’s a third option of leaving your last pitcher in and intentionally walking two in to trigger the 8 run rule but the optics on that are only marginally better than a forfeit.
I’m not even saying it’ll happen often. But the rule is dumb and I can easily see it happening at least once. Maybe there are some provisions for when you’re only down to starters (but then you’d have to define what a starter is…). As reported it’s bad.
They were agreed upon before the 2019 season and should have been put into effect for 2020; they didn’t actually go into effect until last year. Pitchers have a minimum 15-day IL vs 10 for position players so there needs to be a designation which is fine. There doesn’t need to be a limit.
Always thought McCarver was a horrible color/analyst.
— Alan
He completely changed the way color analysis was done for baseball. He was John Madden for MLB, and his stint in the early 1980s with the Mets was just unbelievably good in the booth. He tailed off pretty badly at the end of his career on the national network broadcasts, but in his prime, no one could touch him.
I mean, this was just classic:
https://twitter.com/_justinddiamond/status/1240838550322581504?s=20
Yeah, I should have added–in the last few years. Sorry about that.
— Alan