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Fly balls to right field in Anaheim will be a lot more interesting from now on. The Angels announced yesterday that they are lowering the yellow line from 18 feet to 8 feet. This they are doing for two reasons. First, to “increase the fan experience at Angel Stadium“, which means a new scoreboard out here that takes up more room for game info...and for larger and more glorious ads between innings. That should help with revenues, I suppose.
Second, the change is to create “an environment that is equitable for both hitters and pitchers“, which is being done due to “philosophical changes“. In other words, left-hand hitting sluggers Shohei Ohtani, and Kole Calhoun. Without yet any official proclamation, the Oh-zone is expected to be in the RF pavilion seating. This will certainly result in more home runs to RF and will have an impact on the hitter- versus pitcher-friendly metrics for Anaheim, typically at or near the pitcher-friendly end of the spectrum.
But now, since all they are doing is moving the line, we will have one of those dumb HR controversy honey traps. Let’s all pause while the umpires go to New York for the incredibly slow review as to whether the fly ball hit an inch above or just barely on the line.
Finally, it will also encourage fielders to make more attempts on fly balls at the wall. That should make for more excitement. Hopefully without injury risks.
Have some Lowering-for-Expectations-Spring-Training-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
How much money does a guy really need? Jered Weaver went down to San Diego, came face to face with what he rest of baseball already knew, and now is totally digging retirement. Without regrets..........
Let’s talk mound visits and Pace-of-Play. Martin Maldonado is now on record that he is going to the mound if he feels it necessary, fines be damned. Then I read this David Adler tweet, that umpires could simply force the Angels to replace the pitcher if Maldy did something like that, and went and looked more closely at the actual regs on visits. Adler is an official MLB writer so one would think he knows. Olney also has a tweet that suggest game ejections, and was quoted elsewhere saying same. But I don’t see it written anywhere that umpires have that latitude so maybe all the details are not being published to us fans (isn’t that why we are supposed to have a media with access???)......What I did find, though, is that umpires would allow extra visits if it was obvious that the pitcher and catcher were not communicating well and the catcher got crossed up on a pitch. So let’s pretend two things: (A) that Adler is correct after all, and (B) that the players are really pissed about all this. So you are a battery that wants an extra mound visit. You do this..........
This is how clever Billy Eppler is. In three quick moves over the weekend he shifted infield depth to outfield depth, then plugged back up the potential DH/1B hole that C.J. Cron occupied should something bad happen, and all the while cleared the way for Shohei Ohtani to get more playing time..........
Some quick hits: our new double-play combo in action.....J.C. Ramirez feeling strong.....Great moments in LAA history............Albert Pujols, good guy..........
Everywhere In Baseball
Bryce Harper is in the NL East, with the Marlins. Also, he IS a Scott Boras client. So it should come as little surprise that Harper would notice the Marlins’ pivot to tanking..........On the other side is Don Mattingly, the guy who signed up to manage this catastrophe but still is not one to shy away from anybody. Mattingly calls on Harper to mind his own dugout...........
One day, when I grow up, I’m gonna get me a job like this. One where I can be considered the best at something that nobody can measure. Like Jeff Mathis, who is still going strong based on baseball’s belief in The Force...........
If Yu Darvish was tipping pitches, the Cubs batters failed to get the memo. Darvish showcased against them and left them bedazzled. I, for one, am happy to see him out of the AL West, AND SoCal. His career line against the Angels is .207/.300/.343. Yikes!.........
Tom Verducci is at it again. He has this pet theory that young pitchers who go through a bucket of innings in one season are abnormally prone to injury the following season. he calls it “The Year After Effect”. Nevermind that people better at math than he have demonstrated multiple times (one....two....two and a half....three....four....etc.) that Verducci is wrong, Ol’ Tom is sticking to his empty guns. I love how he throws out there that some AL team has a category that they name after him. As if that validates everything.........
Imagine a time before Moneyball, when there was a real math whiz cracking open the internals of baseball analytics less as an abstract exercise such as Bill James, and ore as a practical application. You would be imagining Sherri Nichols..........
Tony Gwynn died in 2014. His family blames chewing tobacco. The tobacco industry being heavily staffed by lawyers, things have taken long. They family finally got a court date. It’s September. Not this September. September of 2019..........
Pace of Play needs to be a larger conversation. There is a real and meaningful content experience phenomenon at play in the world. And that world is large. Sports is only a part of that world, but will be impacted along with all other content by the same phenomenon. I am talking, of course, about consumption and the churn speeds which are accelerating. We do not yet know how cyclical it all is, so reacting and overreacting are major issues. But Baseball, being one of our major sports, is wise to be paying attention. Baseball players need to pay attention as well. So, IMHO, we need our analysts to be thinking a shitload deeper than this...........(On the upside, it’s kinda cool to read in the footnotes that a media outlet such as The StarTribune has created a new analytics beat!)..........
I think we already know not to pay attention to Spring Training stats, right?..........
CBS going OOT now. Wouldn’t that be kinda like CBS going over the top of CBS?............
Hot Stove
The Phillies actually DO have gobs of money. It’s the war chest that their fans are drooling over in their hopes for Bryce Harper or Mike Trout (or both!). But Philadelphia remains adamant that the Jake Arrietas of the world will come to them. And maybe they are right.........The Rangers are going all in on #OneTexas. Maybe they moved Houston to North Mexico?..........
Scott Boras sees the Free Agency system as “upside down”. That’s a good term. Boras has made a killing off of the way that Baseball has too long blown big budgets on aging stars by rewarding past performance. He ain’t happy that such a spigot of dumb is being shut off. he will be happy again once everybody figures out how to finish moving that money to players for current performance (which will almost be definition, be the younger players). Boras will be fine with leaving behind his current constituency............
And Boras ain’t stupid, He knows full well that his future lies with the younger constituency. Which is why he goes out and says something like this..........
J.D. Martinez was remade alright. He was remade into David Ortiz 2.0..........What is odd to me though, is the theory that Martinez is not about getting to October, but being in October. The guy is a liability as a position player, and the NL doesn’t allow a Red Sox team to use a DH in an NL ballpark...........
More notes to take. Write these names down and bookmark the authors. Brisbee then Normandin then McIntosh. These are the ones who are now banging the drums so loudly for the application of past market results within a current market reality. I am happy to grant them the clicks but perhaps not for the desired reason. 100% of the time we have eventually seen the unfortunate results of the very large veteran deals these authors want. Those results are bound to happen again. This class is not the talent outlier that will break the old molds. Going forward and thinking about future markets, this offseason does not define the next one. I believe that, if anything, it is exactly the opposite is true and the next offseason is what defined this one............
Ryan Romano, though, goes all scorched-earth on the Rays. Nothing subtle about it. Yes, the Rays are screwing up pretty bad by not getting fair returns for what they are discarding, which was fairly true until yesterdays’ 3-way. (So Romano shot his wad a day too soon. Oh, and I take exception to categorizing C.J. Cron as an “over-the-hill has-been”.) He is pretty pissed that the Rays are not spending money on payroll. I can see his point, but I wonder whether Romano should temper his arguments by considering a longer strategy. If the Rays are holding onto the 7th-best farm in baseball, and we know that such a position has the franchise for success in a window that opens up in 2 seasons, might there be a plan to position what lesser amount of payroll they have for some bigger spends in another market? At least the question should be asked...........
The Duffle Bag
(h/t UniWatch) The Twins make a bold statement to be different, and chooses to do the same thing so many other teams are doing..........Are the Angels in on this?..............David Price remains butthurt in Boston. Boston fans will certainly enter this season believing Price is now worth fresh boos...........Need a job? Move to New York and work for Fred Wilpon!..........Orlando Cepeda in the hospital..........
OT: The very definition of First World Problems..........