Are You Perhaps Seeing the Problem Here?

 

This week alone, we have seen Shane Bieber, Spencer Strider, Justin Steele and Jonathan Loiasiga pitch some absolutely beautiful stuff and then promptly undergo testing to determine internal issues. Bieber is missing the rest of the season, Steele will be out for a while, Loiasiga is missing the rest of the season, Strider...I'm not sure but it's not looking good.

That's...three, maybe four excellent pitchers gone by Week 1. The goal, need I remind you, is for this shit to not happen.

I feel like I bring this up on the blog now every three weeks, but it's a genuinely flagrant issue. Every pitcher feels the need to throw hard on every pitch, and that is not as sustainable as it used to be. Not everyone is built like Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson, and not everybody can just do that. So if the human body is relied upon to do that every game, there is going to be even more wear and tear.

Now, as for why it's happening more frequently now than ever? Well, the commissioner implemented two rules that are reasonably unfair to one's pitching arm. One is the ban on tack, and substances that can help pitchers gain leverage without overexerting themselves. Gerrit Cole famously would use tack, and once the ban was instituted he continued at the same pace and this season, surprise surprise, had arm issues. It should be clear that some pitchers use these sort of things not to cheat, but to make sure they don't blow their arm out. This is why Gaylord Perry pitched for 20 years, because he used sticky substances, and it helped him stay afloat in the 70s and 80s. 

The other, of course, is the pitch clock, which forces pitchers to speed up their windups and call for less time in between pitches. If you're throwing that hard over and over with less buffer time between, there is going to be wear and tear. And there's no coincidence that both this season and last season, you've seen so many pitching injuries to people acclimating to the pitch clock in March and April.

Rob Manfred is the latest example of a businessman who thinks they know what makes something great trying to dictate decisions over people who actually have first-hand experience. This is happening all over right now. The president of Warner Brothers is a charts-and-ratings guy who's writing off entire films that don't fit his exact business model, and he's pissing off all the creatives that actually know what movies are supposed to be. Hell, even in baseball, the owner of the A's has no idea what the fanbase wants and won't spend money on the team, hence pissing off everybody and moving the team to Sacramento. This never works, even if the idea of the current economy depends on what makes money instead of what is viable and ethical. 

And as much as people have criticized Rob Manfred for cutting costs and making rules the players don't support and forcing a lockout because he lets the owners have whatever they want, he's not going anywhere. He's stated that he'll be done when his contract expires, which is the equivalent of a mobster dying of natural causes. It's likely that whoever takes over as commissioner will be someone who has a lot of the same ideas about baseball as he does, and won't make any fundamental changes, as much as the fans, and the players, complain.

I have no idea what the straw that will break the camel's back will be. If there will be anybody brave enough to properly say, 'hey, we're all getting injured because the commissioner keeps putting in rules that don't respect the players'. Maybe Strider, given how smart he is. But logically, no one will want to rock the  boat so soon after the lockout, and everything will keep going on as normal, despite everything clearly being done incorrectly and sacrificing player health for exciting product.

Shane Bieber deserves better than this. Baseball deserves better than this. I'm exhausted.

Coming Tomorrow [?]: A star outfielder I figured would be gone by now, but here he is helping his team dominate in April for a second straight year. 

Tuve or Not Tuve

 You know, it's never BAD players who turn heel, is it?

Come to think of it, it's always guys who are at the top of their game and really good that are easier to hate, and that take on the fully villainous persona. Jose Bautista embraced it during his Blue Jays heyday. Manny Ramirez graciously became the fun, villainous jester during the 2004 and 2007 playoff seasons. Players like Cody Ross, David Freese, even Brian Wilson, got their reputation for being big, exceptional players whose abilities feel like a smack in the face when they happen to you. It's never happened to anyone untalented, though a case can be made with Cody Ross [that is a joke, for the record].

Jose Altuve's decent into baseball infamy may be the most heartbreaking of all though.

The first stretch of his career feature contact numbers like no one else in the game at the time. 4 straight 200+ hit seasons, 5 straight .300+ average seasons, a 30.2 WAR between 2014 and 2018. These numbers were making Altuve look like a future hall of famer, and one of the most fun 2nd baseman to watch in years. 

Then, starting in 2019, Altuve began to instead take after 2nd basemen like Jeff Kent and Roberto Alomar. First of all, he shifts to being a power bat, rakes in 31 homers and only 149 hits. Then, at the end of the 2019 season, it's revealed how much of a stake Altuve had in the stolen 2017 World Series, and the telltale jersey-tug that spoiled the whole thing. And as Altuve is barely even punished for his actions, he decides to play up the infamy and continue his reign. After a weak year in 2020, Altuve returns to glory, with 16 home runs so far, a .298 average, 38 RBIs and a 2.6 WAR. 

Altuve is getting good again...specifically so we'll all be forced to like him once more. And if we don't...he can keep being this good, and we can hate him for it. If we don't want Altuve to be Batman, that's fine. He can very easily become the Joker.

And that's where Altuve and the Astros are at. Still good, still a few games behind the A's, still powered by the same, unpunished core that's still good, and still the scourge of the rest of the MLB. Pitchers who are losing spin rate thanks to the tack reparations Manfred is laying down have pointed to his lack of punishment for the Astros as a way of saying that Manfred doesn't have the game's best interest in mind, and I agree with them. What Rob Manfred is doing is making the game more palatable to people who hate baseball, him included. Nobody cares about pace of play, or pitchers getting a good grip on the ball, or how dead the ball actually is. And when something we do care about comes along, like a team legitimately cheating and stealing signs to win a World Series, we're told not to care at all. 

And so the Astros are good again, and it's good for baseball somehow, and we're supposed to be okay with it. And Jose Altuve might be an All Star again, and maybe a Hall of Famer, and we're supposed to be okay with it. And pitchers are blowing out their arms and hindering their careers getting around this substance ban, and we're supposed to be okay with it. 

Cause this is baseball. Why overthink baseball?, says Manfred. Why take something as something other than face value? Why go against the natural order of all things? If Manfred doesn't punish people who interfere with the sanctity of the game...what does that say about the rest of society? That people will do illegal shit and get away with it because they're rich and talented and that's the way life's supposed to go? Meanwhile, there's people who start from the bottom and do it with honesty and integrity and they suffer and lose out to people like the Astros. Is Manfred saying that they don't matter?

...I'm sorry, this very quickly became about something other than baseball. Or Jose Altuve. But it's all valid.

The game's broken, Manfred's not fixing it, Jose Altuve could see the playoffs again. What does it matter? It's only a game. 

Isn't it?

Coming Tonight: A happier post, I hope. A sharp pitcher for a team clawing their way back up the ladder.