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@dewrock_PSN said in No defensive shifts next year:

@OreoRockstar_PSN said in No defensive shifts next year:

@the_dragon1912 said in No defensive shifts next year:

The way pitchers are today is why the hitters couldn't adjust and go the other way. When it was regular to take the ball the other way Pitchers weren't throwing 100 mph sinkers on the hands. It was mostly about control. Shifts also used to exclusively used on lefty power hitters(Dunn, Travis Hafner, Big Papi, Thome etc.) shifts these days are used on every hitter in baseball. No shifting still isn't going to effect guys like Gallo much because he doesn't put the ball on the Ground. Singles up the middle are almost non existent anymore. That's mostly what this is about

This guy gets it. The game has changed with analytics and the shift. The ground ball has been killed by it, this created launch angle and the strike out extravaganza we see.

If the best hitters can’t go the other way on 98 in on your hands, that says something. But us armchair baseball fans love to explain how to beat the shift ( yet the best managers in the bigs aren’t as smart as us, right??)

Exactly right. I can't stand the simplistic argument, "why can't the hitters just figure out how to adjust?" Obviously it's not that easy, or they would have done so. The pitchers are different in this era. Everyone throws hard. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports and the batters are expected to just "figure it out". Then it's whining about how hitters just want to hit homeruns and worry about launch angle. Maybe they're worrying about launch angle because they're trying to hit the ball over 6 fielders on one side of the field?

It's not like hitters just all of a sudden became this way. This is them trying to adjust to something that is only advantageous to the defense. It's akin to the defense in football knowing the exact play the offense is going to run every time and detractors saying, "the offense needs to adjust".

My belief is that it's been determined through analytics that singles arent as beneficial as HRs. People dont bunt against the shift because the outcome is "only" one base. I dont actually believe it's because they cant do it. It's the same as how analytics determined the risk/reward of stolen bases arent worth it anymore, as well as sacrificing runners over.

Terrible change. Absolutely hate it.

It would be weird considering he never played MLB, but Sadaharu Oh would be cool.

They have done some stupid card choices before. Ramirez already mentioned, but they also had 2x 99 versions of Vlad and Harper last year.

Looks like Mike Schmidt to me

This is quite the necro

Mike Ehrmantraut

@pscrabro_psn said in Is Derek Jeter The Most Overrated Player Ever?:

@kovz88_psn said in Is Derek Jeter The Most Overrated Player Ever?:

If you wanna say his defense is overrated I can definitely get behind that but as an overall player? No. I don't think you can call anyone with a career .310 batting average overrated.

There's a lot of shortstops that had a career avg. of .300+ though. Nobody is saying he was not top 50, but definitely not top 5. His defense was average at best and wasn't a great hitter, just a good hitter. Nomar had better offensive numbers and was a lot better defensively, but nobody is saying he was great.

I was curious about your first statement so just did some research on that. There are 212 overall players that have a qualifying career batting average of .300 or better. 17 of those played shortstop, but that's including players like Rogers Hornsby or Harvey Kuenn that played SS for 5 seasons or less. Of those 17, only 3 played after 1966 (Jeter, Garciaparra, Trae Turner). 12 of them had careers ending before 1950.

Jeter is 116th all time in career batting average, and 10th or so among shortstops, depending on how many games/seasons at SS you want to use as a baseline for inclusion into the discussion.

@random_schmuck_psn said in Which is your favorite Baseball Movie or best you feel was ever made?:

Bingo Long’s Traveling All Stars

A made for TV movie with Billy Dee a Williams, Richard Pryor, James Earl Jones, and Mabel King with fictitious representations of Satchel Page and George Foster on a barnstorming Negro League team.

Honorable mention to Ken Burns’ Baseball.

I didnt realize Richard Pryor did any other baseball related films other than Brewsters Millions. I might have to check that one out.

@gixxerryder750 said in Which is your favorite Baseball Movie or best you feel was ever made?:

Hardball guys...the answer is Hardball. LOL

I honestly don't know of a bad baseball movie. They're all great in their own way.

Trouble with the Curve is a pretty terrible baseball movie. I love Amy Adams but I will probably never watch that one again.

@the_dragon1912 said in J-Ram Or Nado:

There have been exactly 0 POTM lightning cards that have had a 90+ live series. It will be Lopez or Gilbert

Assuming you mean LS rating at the time the PotM card was released. Corbin Burnes last year ended as a 91 LS, with his PotM rated 93. Either way, the point you bring up is a good one, and you're probably correct.

Is the pitcher still the hardest out against the CPU? They were always the hardest to K as they fouled off everything.

I've brought up Clarkson a couple times on here. Hes a legend to those who have played www.whatifsports.com

@kovz88_psn said in New legend:

Is it me or do people beg for cards one year then call them underwhelming the next year when they are announced?
Last year was MVP Mookie Betts and Alfonso Soriano. Everyone was asking for those cards in 20 then saw a bunch of people bashing them in 21.
I'm not saying the legends have been great this year but I feel like there is never consistency to the complaints on this forum

That is always the case. They want Pedro, Soriano, Vinny Castilla or whoever, and then dont use them anyway. I see all the begging for Manny/McGwire to be humorous also. They would end up being bench bats for those people. As soon as they get them, they wouldnt be fast enough, or play good enough defense to make their lineups.

SDS pulling out all the stops for player rights. Underwhelming choices so far.

That has to be an Onion article.

Still Ross Detwiler 1/1. I started using him for Conquest and vs CPU because he always pitched from the stretch, and it was so early on that I didnt even have LS Corbin Burnes yet, lol.

@dewrock_psn said in CBA progress:

@poksey_mlbts said in CBA progress:

@xelrojo44x_mlbts said in CBA progress:

@poksey_mlbts said in CBA progress:

They better not ban the shift. Straight up taking the cowardly way out.

How is banning the shift a "cowardly way out"? I am all for [restricting] the shift, it rewards athleticism for the position and makes the game more entertaining (ie. The Wiz). Noboby wants to see the ball hit to a wall of 5-6 defenders multiple times a game... boring.

I mentioned this earlier. It's similar to when the NBA decided to make zone defenses illegal, because it was leading to low scoring games. They ended up allowing it again because players and teams found ways to exploit the zone defense , mostly shooting over it, or having big men get better at passing, especially from the foul line area.

The shift is similar. There are inherent disadvantages to the shift. It leaves large areas open. Instead of taking advantages of those gaps, the more desired route has been attempting to go over the shift. It wouldnt be boring if players used the created gaps, rather than strictly focus on launch angles over the reinforced areas, with contact being deemed largely irrelevant.

I get the argument about hitting where the defense isn’t. But guys don’t become dead pull hitters because they just don’t feel like hitting to all fields. If it was so easy to just hit against the shift, guys like Joey Gallo would surely do that.

But that's the point isnt it? The shift is played because of a batters tendencies. They are positioning defenders for the maximum chances for outs. It would be insane to ban that just because some players cant adjust their swing. It would be like changing the rules when everyone was doing the Hack-a-Shaq because he couldnt hit free throws. The NBA realized it would be dumb to change the rules for players that are inadequate at certain things, rather than make the player adjust, or get better at what they are inadequate at.

@xelrojo44x_mlbts said in CBA progress:

@poksey_mlbts said in CBA progress:

They better not ban the shift. Straight up taking the cowardly way out.

How is banning the shift a "cowardly way out"? I am all for [restricting] the shift, it rewards athleticism for the position and makes the game more entertaining (ie. The Wiz). Noboby wants to see the ball hit to a wall of 5-6 defenders multiple times a game... boring.

I mentioned this earlier. It's similar to when the NBA decided to make zone defenses illegal, because it was leading to low scoring games. They ended up allowing it again because players and teams found ways to exploit the zone defense , mostly shooting over it, or having big men get better at passing, especially from the foul line area.

The shift is similar. There are inherent disadvantages to the shift. It leaves large areas open. Instead of taking advantages of those gaps, the more desired route has been attempting to go over the shift. It wouldnt be boring if players used the created gaps, rather than strictly focus on launch angles over the reinforced areas, with contact being deemed largely irrelevant.

Both the PCI and PAR changes sound like good ones to me.