You Have to Hit the Ball to Win

Let's face it. Some of our best players left their bats back in spring training.
Arron Judge .222 W/ 1 HR
Bryce Harper 0214 W/ 1HR
Alex Bregman .143
Cal Raleigh .000
Bobby Witt .250
Team batting average .250
OBP .368
OPS 796
Don't win many games with those stats.
The Dominican Republic on the other hand ripped the hyde off the ball.
They hit at .300, had a OBP of .430 and and OPS over 1.000 and had a horrible call take the bat taken out of a batters had to finished the game with runners in scoring position.

And DeRosa benched the guy that was hitting in the final game - Gunnar Henderson.

Baseball is no longer the game it used to be. In today's game it's not uncommon to see guys strikeout 20-25% of the time- what happened to putting the ball in play and advancing the runner? Intricate aspects of baseball that made the game interesting has disappeared- no one bunts anymore, very few players steal bases, no one hits and runs either. You can see it in player stats when you play in alot of real stats leagues like I do. Today's players suck compared to the greats of the past- is it because the pitching is that much better today than it was, is it that the best athletes don't choose to play baseball anymore or is it that emphasis on compiling Strikeouts and Home Runs that result in big money contracts that have ruined the game? Whatever it is, the game of baseball is no longer what it used to be and I think that is pretty sad.

It is not what is used to be in the USA, where everyone acts like a game is just a HR derby. Watching the USA is like watching Captain Caveman, big bearded guys with clubs. I don’t get Schwarber being in the middle of the lineup, a human K machine, HR or nothing with a career .231 BA.

This is why the USA didn’t win, didn’t deserve to win and why I struggled to root for them.

Brian Kenny's 'Ahead of the Curve' book turns 10 this year, is the best breakdown I've come across and I consume a TON of baseball stuff.

Basically, the pitchers are just too good, and too plentiful. Forgive me for paraphrasing, but basically, you'll have seen more different pitchers (with their varied arsenals) by the end of your second season than Ted Williams faced in the entirety of his 19 year career.

They have ALL the info on you too...What you're weak at, what to use against you etc. and they deploy that, over and over...

On offense, teams stopped caring about AVG entirely because it's a 'flawed metric'...it weights all hits as the same..where obviously, some are more valuable than others.

Average goes down every year because they don't care about it. Everyone from the time they start getting serious about pro ball, is coached to go for XBH at all times. To be honest, I don't blame any of them, because if there was some magical pivot to contact that a team won with in a big way, it would have happened by now, and cost a lot less as power hitting is so in demand and where the $$ is.

It's a terrific book, and all the elements addressed in it have only escalated in the decade since.

First off. The terrible call that killed the DR was one of a slew of terrible strike calls vs both teams that night.
2nd, to find it hard to root for the USA I don't understand because they are nothing but a bunch of bearded brutes who can only homer. I don't get that. The DR did nothing but hit HR's. They just hit a lot of them against bad pitching.
The same with Italy vs the US.
I give Venezuela credit. Who by the way homered last night as well for 1 of their 3 runs. Their pitching in those last 2 games was stellar. And their RP in the last 3 games especially.
3rd, if you think Gunner Henderson was going to make a difference last night that's nuts. No one could touch those pitchers except for one pitch.
If they puled that game out no one would be saying boo. That's why the MLB playoffs are 7 games. Anything can happen in one.
There ya go. Have at it.

Or, to put it another way: It is what it is........

Hall of famer Wee Willie Keeler who stood 5 ft 4 and weighed 140 lbs soaking wet said it best around 130 years ago , hit em where they aint .

I have no problem with guys trying to hit homeruns. However, what I have a problem with is the approach with two strikes that most hitters take nowadays. It used to be shorten your swing and foul off a pitch or pitches until you are able to put one in play. Now, very few hitters shorten their swing to avoid the strikeout. Instead, they swing just as hard with two strikes as they do up (2-1, 2-0, etc.) in the count.
Plus, teams are now using 8-man bullpens where everyone throws 95+. The average starter is only pitching 5-6 innings before turning it over to 3-4 relievers to finish the game.

One useful stat that I used to like to calculate when I played alot of Strat-O-Matic was a statistic I called "unproductive out percentage". Unproductive outs are the following...

* Strike Outs
* Pop Ups
* Lineouts
* Force Outs (In Strat these were GB-B's)
* Double Play Balls (In Strat these were GB- A's)
* Flyball C's (Shallow flys were no runners can advance)

I would imagine that most of today's players have unproductive out ratios that are well north of 50% and in many case approach 60%. That's pretty sad. Bunting may not seem to be very exciting but it's a heck of alot more useful than a strikeout or a pop fly when you have a runner on first with no outs.

because none of these results in the runners moving or