Tag Archives: MLB

Interleague Baseball must be Stopped

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Interleague Baseball

Gird your loins, hold onto your hat, brace yourself, man or woman up, put on your big-girl/boy pants, it’s time for an old man rant and the subject this time is interleague baseball. It sucks. I hate it. It must be stopped. Interleague baseball is a sign of the rapture, it’s destroying the world, dogs and cats are in agreement on the subject.

Ok, I may be going a bit overboard but I cannot begin to tell you how much I hate interleague baseball. It’s killing what little enjoyment I still get from the game.

What is Interleague Baseball?

For many of my legion of younger readers the concept of interleague baseball might be something they don’t fully understand. Way back in time, 1997 to be precise, Major League Baseball (MLB) introduced the concept of interleague baseball. That is to say, teams from the American League playing teams from the National League as part of the regular schedule.

It was initially met with great excitement as fans from both leagues never got a chance to see the stars from the other league playing against their hometown heroes. The Cardinals playing the Yankees in the regular season sounded like a great idea. Spoiler, it wasn’t.

Prior to 1997 the two leagues played entirely separate schedules, the only time an American League team played a National League team was in the World Series although the stars faced off in the annual All-Star game.

Why does Interleague Baseball Merit an Old Man Rant?

I’m a St. Louis Cardinal fan and this is the home schedule for my beloved birds this year. Home Opener against Tampa Bay of the American League East. Next up is the New York Mets, at least a National League team. On the road for the heated rivalry, insert sarcasm emoji, with the American League Central Detroit Tigers. More National League East with the Washington Nationals. Next six home games against American League East Boston Red Sox and American League Central Cleveland Indians.

The Cardinals play in the National League Central division and are battling traditional rivals like the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates with whom we’ve been in the same division since I was born a million and a half years ago. We also compete against the Cincinnati Reds and the Milwaukee Brewers. Two weeks into the season and not a single game against any one of our divisional rivals.

We play each of those teams thirteen times in a season. Thirteen, in case you aren’t a math wizard, is an odd number. Can’t have the same number of home and away games. One team gets an extra home game.

Back in ancient times, when dirt was new and hope and dreams glinted in my youthful eye, we played divisional rivals eighteen times a season. That’s 90 games, out of 162, against your divisional rivals. That creates interest, hatred even. Damn you, evil Cubbies, damn you to hell!

We now play 48 interleague games. 48 games that I just do not care about and hopefully this old man is not alone in his indifference.

The schedule is a disaster. Teams go months without playing their direct divisional rivals. It’s so boring. Rivalries die. Rivalries drive interest. This dilution of traditional rivals isn’t unique to baseball and is largely driven by revenue schemes, don’t even get me started on the death of double-headers. It pains me to quote Cubbie legend Ernie Banks but, yeah, Let’s play two!

Conclusion

I do not care about the Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, or the Cleveland Guardians. I care slightly more about the New York Mets but largely because they used to be a heated divisional rival. Rivalry drives interest and my interest in baseball is dying because of the dilution of those rivalries. Interleague baseball is not the only culprit but it’s a big one.

Shakes fist at sky!

Old Man Tom Liberman

Can Rules Fix the Shift in Baseball

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The Shift

Baseball season is upon us and that’s good news for everyone but fans of The Shift. You see, baseball has new rules in place to prevent teams from using The Shift. Ah, the good old tried and true method of fixing of a problem by creating a complicated and almost unenforceable rule. Of course, by tried and true I mean tried and failed.

Will the new rules fix the problem or will they just create a myriad of other problems without really addressing the underlying issue? Is this, in fact, a microcosm of the overly ruled and regulated society in which we find ourselves?

What is the Shift?

In 2003 the Oakland A’s achieved success with an analytic based player analysis system. Since then, most of the other teams in the league followed along. This system heavily values power hitting, that is to say home runs and doubles. This resulted in several changes to the way baseball is generally played.

One change resulting from this is how hitters now swing. In order to get greater power numbers, players began to swing harder. This led to a great deal of what is called pull-hitting. A right-handed batter will almost exclusively hit the ball to the left and vice-versa for a left-handed player.

Teams began to clue in on this and instead of arraying their infielders in a traditional pattern, fairly evenly dispersed over the field, they began to align them heavily toward the expected position of the batted ball.

The Shift Rule

The executives in charge of Major League Baseball view the shift as too effective. The players who swing hard and get doubles and home runs were now grounding out far too often. Well, at least far too often for the league’s preference.

In order to rectify this problem, they created a new rule. Now teams are not allowed to have more than two infielders on either side of second base. The rule is a little more complex than that, but that is the gist of it.

The Response

Naturally, teams try to get around the intent of the rule. They place outfielders close in to the infield. The players crowd near to second base without quite going over the invisible line, adding to the burden of umpires who have plenty to do as it is.

I’m sure other ways to defeat the intent of the rule will be found as the season progresses. I’m sure MLB will institute tweaks to the rule in future season.

Why the Shift Rule is Stupid

The shift rule is dumb. If a team wants to play seven players on the infield near where the batter is likely to hit the ball, good for them. I doubt there are many cricket fans in my audience but those who follow the sport know that’s exactly how it works in that sport. The defensive team can position their players largely where they’re likely to succeed.

If a team thinks their hitters are grounding out too often, there’s a simple solution. Stop trying to hit a home run every time you’re at bat. Draft some players who spray the ball around the field.

The cat and mouse game that is professional sports largely polices itself. When a team has success doing something a particular way, other team follow. Then along comes a new way that defeats the old and round and round we go.

Conclusion

I’m not against rule changes categorically but I don’t think such changes should be based on a heavy-handed attempt to modify the strategy of the game.

Let game strategy police itself. You want to stop the shift, get players who pull the ball to the opposite field.

Tom Liberman

Joe West does Tony LaRussa a Solid

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Joe West

The Situation

Umpire Joe West, owner of the Major League record for most games umpired, decided to confiscate St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Giovanny Gallegos’s hat. There is a rule against pitchers using foreign substances and West wants to pretend he simply enforced that rule.

Major League announced at the beginning of the season they planned to crack down on such foreign substances. As of yet, despite record no-hitters, out of control spin rates, and many, many sightings of such material on gloves, hats, forearms, and everywhere else, this is first time we’ve seen a player’s equipment confiscated.

What Really Happened

Joe West and Tony LaRussa go way back. They are long-time associates and LaRussa’s team, the White Sox, were on the verge of sweeping the Cardinals whom LaRussa managed for many years. In the first two games of the series the White Sox pretty much led the entire game. In this third game the Cardinals were a run ahead when Joe West suddenly had his moral epiphany.

Joe West hoped to do his friend a solid by rattling Gallegos before he started pitching. It’s that simple. I’m certainly not suggesting Gallegos didn’t have a foreign substance on his hat. I’m saying every pitcher in the series did exactly the same thing and Joe West chose the most opportune moment to intervene on behalf of his friend.

Joe West now takes the morally repugnant stance that he attempted to do Gallegos a favor by not immediately ejecting the pitcher from the game. Ha. If Joe West had an ounce of moral integrity, a teaspoon of personal responsibility, he’d get up on the podium, announce he made a terrible error in judgment, retire from the game, and not speak again until he publishes his memoirs, which will remain silent on this particular subject.

Conclusion

I want to be clear that I’m of the opinion Gallegos likely had a foreign substance on his hat, probably suntan lotion, rosin, and who knows what else. I’m just saying that he isn’t doing anything different than almost every other pitcher in major league baseball. Joe West along with all the other umpires well know it.

It’s the timing of this incident that galls me. It’s clear to me it was an attempt to influence the game by the umpire and that’s a serious problem.

Tom Liberman

Ryan Braun's So-Called Mistake

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Ryan BraunThe big news in sports this morning is Ryan Braun’s suspension for PED use. The reason it is such big news is that Braun tested positive for PED use over a year ago and defended himself with strong words. I want to examine two things: the so-called rage of fans and the idea that he made a mistake.

First a quick look at why everyone is so upset by this particular suspension. Braun was exonerated in another case thanks to the fact that the sample was not mailed immediately to Major League Baseball because it was collected on a Sunday. This was a technical violation of the rules for storing samples. It was never disputed that the sample showed PED use.

There is a lot of hate for Braun this morning because previously he lied and blamed other people for his predicament; even now he tells us how difficult the situation has been for he and his family. It is quite similar to the Lance Armstrong story. It’s a combination of PED use and lies told with absolute conviction.

First to my complaint with Braun has nothing to do with his PED use or even the lies he told. This was his statement late yesterday after the suspension was announced:

As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect. I realize now that I have made some mistakes. I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions.

I’m tired of people claiming they made mistakes only after they are caught. They calculated the various advantages of action A and action B and willfully chose one or the other. This is not a mistake. This so-called mistake has served him very well. He signed a contract extension worth $105 million over the next five years. If he hadn’t taken PEDs and allowed players of lesser talent to have better statistics than him he would not make nearly this amount.

He won the Most Valuable Player award in 2011 and the Rookie of the Year award in 2007. He won these in part thanks to PEDs. His choice to use PEDs was anything but a mistake. That choice gained him adulation and riches.

This is the choice almost all athletes in the sporting world today face. One of the most decorated young players in the NFL, Von Miller of the Denver Broncos, faces a four-day suspension for his first PED violation, which means his third positive test.

If the modern athlete does not take PEDs they fall behind players who do use them. Players without as much talent. The masking agents make it extremely difficult to be caught using PEDs. The doctors and masking agents are far ahead of the detection techniques. Braun was caught not by a failed test but by notes taken at the laboratory where he received his treatments. Many baseball players are facing suspension from these notes made at a company called Biogenesis.

The fans of Braun, Armstrong, Miller and others are actually thrilled by the so-called mistake these players make. They love the performance. Well, that performance is brought to you by PEDs. If you’re mad at Ryan Braun, if you somehow pretend that Braun’s lies fooled you, frankly, you’re stupid. He was clearly guilty the first time and you wanted to believe his lies.

If you choose to believe obvious lies then I have as much time for your so-called outrage as I do for Braun’s so-called mistake.

If Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina test positive for PEDs next week I won’t be surprised. I won’t be outraged. It’s the culture that we the fans have helped create.

Ryan Braun can claim that his choice to use PEDs was a mistake but I, for one, know better. Fans can scream, shout, and pretend outrage but they are doing the same thing Braun did. They were caught in a lie and are now feigning outrage to cover their culpability.

They knew Braun was guilty and willfully chose to believe him despite all evidence to the contrary.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
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