Waiting for the Hot Stove to Ignite

As the World Series plays out, I find myself eagerly looking forward to what I hope will be a transformative Hot Stove season for the New York Mets.

I haven't written much for the blog this month. I lost interest years ago in any MLB playoffs that don't include the Mets. Unfortunately, that is an all too common occurrence in my lifetime. Since the Mets fell to the Dodgers in the 1988 NLCS, they've completed 35 seasons, including this one, and made the playoffs only six times. There was a time when I would have some interest in the playoffs, rooting against teams like the Braves and Phillies, but I no longer feel strongly enough about any other team to waste the energy it takes to hate-watch their playoff series.

Playoffs Are Chaos

The Mayhem Guy loves
the MLB playoffs

All of the uncertainties and chaos of the MLB postseason are on full display this October.

All I kept hearing and reading, over and over again, was that the Mets were too timid at the trading deadline. They were a win-now team who should have gone all-in, even if it required parting with one or more of their top prospects to secure the players they needed to push them over the top. This was only amplified louder when the Mets played so poorly in Atlanta and lost the division, then fell rather meekly in their wildcard series against the Padres.

Rule Changes Aren’t Always the Correct Fix

Friday night, Atlanta's manager Brian Snitker removed his starting pitcher Ian Anderson after only 5 innings. This isn't at all unusual these days, particularly in the playoffs, but Anderson had yet to allow a hit and had only thrown 76 pitches. Baseball tradition would seem to demand that Anderson be allowed more of a chance to make history, but the likelihood of the Braves' righty accomplishing the feat was fairly remote. He had only thrown 39 of those pitches for strikes and had already walked 3 batters.

Solving the Strikeout Epidemic

One of the biggest stories in Major League Baseball this season is the dominance of pitchers over hitters. Through yesterday's games, MLB hitters have combined to slash .236/.312/.395. This is the kind of offense you might expect from a slick-fielding utility man. The average runs per game for all teams is 4.37. Teams have struck out an average of 8.95 times per game. The numbers are worse for the New York Mets. Mets hitters have slashed .233/.312/.364 over 51 games, though they are striking out a teensy bit less often than the MLB average, about 8.6 times per game.

The Worst Kind of Deja Vu

After living through all the awfulness of the MLB/Players Association attempts to play baseball this past year, it's not particularly comforting to see how negotiations are playing out in advance of the 2021 season. Everyone understands that it's to the benefit of both sides to have a DH in the National League this season — MLB wants to protect pitchers from injuries while batting and running the bases, the union wants those 15 DH positions — yet negotiations are going nowhere. The sticking point is that MLB wants to trade something both sides want, the universal DH, for expanded playoffs, which mainly benefit the owners.

Modern Baseball Trends and Making Adjustments

I'm a bit late in getting to this, but Eno Sarris had a very interesting piece in The Athletic last week about how the teams in this year's World Series reflect modern baseball strategy, and asking how this strategy might continue to evolve. There are several fascinating observations here concerning ball movement, velocity, pitching up in the zone, and how hitters might adjust to these trends. As I mentioned in Sunday's post, baseball is glacially slow in adapting to new trends, and once they do follow suit, it's hard for a lot of teams to move on - even if things aren't working as well for them quite as well anymore.

Who Needs a Day Off?

I haven't enjoyed all of the changes the 2020 season brought to baseball. I hated the extra inning rule. No matter what the sport, I'm never a fan of deciding a result in any other way than continuing to play the game until a team breaks a tie. Shootouts in hockey and soccer, putting a runner on second in baseball and all other gimmicks of that nature should never be seen at any level above youth sports, at least in my opinion. Seven-inning games in doubleheaders seemed like a necessary evil for this season, but I hope not to see this in future "normal" seasons. I'm more agnostic on the DH in the NL. I'll miss some of the strategy involved with pitchers hitting, but I won't miss watching those pathetic at bats that most of them had. I believe the rules needs to be the same in both leagues, and it seems quite unlikely that the AL would ever abandon the DH, so if I had a vote that mattered it would be to keep the DH in the National League, too.

Playoff Cash Shouldn't Disincentivize Greatness

I checked out some of the postseason contests this week, but I didn't watch any full games. I'd watch for a couple of innings and then I'll turn on something different. It's hard for me to really get into it, it's just a reminder of how low the bar was set for qualifying this season and how, once again, the Mets failed to clear it. Here's hoping that this almost yearly ritual is coming to an end with the departure of the Wilpons.