Wednesday, May 15, 2013
BPro: Listen to What the Heyman Said
(www.baseballprospectus.com)
With the Yang-Mills existence problem seemingly solved…we now move on to the Heyman existence problem. Or something.
Read More...And sometimes there isn’t much you can do. I wrote what I did about Hawk Harrelson and The Will To Win because at some point, you have to come to the conclusion that someone isn’t worth talking to anymore. Hawk’s problem wasn’t that he was wrong, it was that he was stuck in a frame of mind that starts from conclusions and will, when it cares to, circle back around to ...
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1 2 >Matt Vasgersian's PBP of the A's on MLBN was quite good.
Ultimately the regular radio teams for SF and TV guys for Detroit and Oakland would be even better. Buy we have had so much worse that I'm not too critical of TBS
Does he expect us to forget he's responsible for Deadspin?
Really? I find Ripken mumbles and is hard to follow. I don't like him in the booth at all.
I think Buck Martinez is that bad.
You and I have the same pet peeve. Do people really go to baseball games to watch the manager spit and look at people in the crowd? Silly me, I go to watch the players and I like to see what pitch is coming next. There are ways they could improve it - show the 3B coach giving signs when the batter steps out, show the outfield and infield positioning. Just stop showing random people in the crowd, please.
I don't have TBS, so I've been listening to the radio teams on MLBTV and I agree, the Giants guys are very good. My only complaint is the booth is a bit crowded. Dave Fleming is pretty good, but seems extraneous with Kuiper and Krukow already there. Is that just because its post-season?
insist on showing 125 different camera shots between every pitch
You and I have the same pet peeve. Do people really go to baseball games to watch the manager spit and look at people in the crowd? Silly me, I go to watch the players and I like to see what pitch is coming next. There are ways they could improve it - show the 3B coach giving signs when the batter steps out, show the outfield and infield positioning. Just stop showing random people in the crowd, please.
12. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted:
Sure. TBS could certainly be BETTER. But they pick this behavior up from FOX. Doesn't excuse it but it isn't unique to TBS.
And despite being a pitcher, Smoltz will acknowledge when the plate umpire is doing a pitcher favors, which puts him way ahead of the 90% of announcers who pretend that a pitch was borderline when the pitch-trax shows it six inches off the plate.
This, too. As usual, the home plate umpiring has been borderline dreadful. The three ugliest words in baseball: Personalized strike zone.
Darling is one of the best color guys working today. Smoltz knows his stuff and can relate it to the audience well. Ripken was surpirsingly informative and has a good calm demeanor that works off Smoltz and Ernie Johnson (I say surprisingly because I've never heard Cal in the booth and I expected him to be an amateur, has he worked games before?). I also like that they show the pitch/fx all the time and not just randomly, and keep the previous pitches up.
They may not be the best, but they are definitely the best national teams I have seen in years since ESPN is no better than FOX, and they're probably in the 75th percentile of local teams. Yeah, there are definitely some teams like the Giants where it's a real step down, but consider having to watch the O's with Sterling and Waldman.
Craig Sager makes me laugh.
He looks better during the regular year.
That'd definitely be quite a comedown, but Sterling and Waldman are radio announcers only.
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I will say that Craig Sager is awful and every time they show him I wonder for a second if they're showing a clip from a 1970's baseball broadcast.
He's not on the air enough to be that much of a distraction, but his appearance reminds me of a group of mid-1960's used car salesmen in Durham, North Carolina who used to sport Beatles wigs and Madras jackets in order to look "mod". That hairpiece of his almost makes Donald Trump's look inconspicuous by comparison.
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They went out of their way to make excuses for the Yankees. Teixeira boots an easy ground ball and "there's a bad hop the average fan doesn't see."
The average fan doesn't see it for the same reason the average ballplayer doesn't field it cleanly: It happens in a blink, and the ball's diversion is just enough to make it miss the glove but not enough to be obvious from the stands. That's exactly the kind of play that a ballplayer can pick out but many other announcers would miss.
Oh, so baseball is his vocation now?
#kevinbutler
I can't speak for how Brenly's done on TBS, but this is still a terrible insult. Brenly, IMO, has become one of the better color guys around. Maybe a lot of that is due to Len Kasper, but the Brenly Cubs fans gets is very open to new ideas and ways of thinking, he usually provides valuable commentary and critique (which had to be hard with this year's team), and has gotten really comfortable behind the mic. I always dread the offseason when his name is linked to open manager positions because I'd hate to see the Cubs lose him. His reputation as a poor manager preceded him, but he's been completely different as an announcer.
Was it Buck who said that Dombrowski convinced Ilitch to open up his wallet to sign Fielder when the accepted view is that Boras bypassed the GM and contacted the owner directly?
This is what pisses me off more than anything else in baseball. The concept being that it is normal for umpires to have their own version of the strike zone and that they should be able to interpret it as they like, as if they were Michaelangelo working on the Sistine Chapel. The definition of the strike zone is written and if the umpire can't come close to it 90% of the time, they need a new umpire. This "he'll call that pitch six inches outside a strike everytime" stuff is unacceptable.
Hammels pitched well, was a recent addition to the Os, spent years in Colorado, had a mid-season operation, was wearing a knee brace, and hadn't pitched in a month. Couldn't those be topics to pursue? Chen is a Taiwanese import, had pitched in Japan for 4 years. Was there any film from over there? How did Dan Douquette get him over the competition? How was his adjustment to American baseball and culture.He is a national hero back home with much press coverage.
Instead we got lots of camera views of sweaty Sabathia, the canny veteran and intense Andy Petitte, the veteran gamer.Lots of best hitter in baseball chatter about Cano and how Jeter and Tex never make errors. blah, blah
I'd be a lot more receptive to this argument if this strike zone issue hadn't been going on since prety much the game's inception. Hell, when I was a wee lad and Andy was already an old man, it was common knowledge that the two leagues had different strike zones. Players have long said they were OK with this as long as the application of the strike zone was consistent throughout the game.
The only thing that's changed on the strike zone front is the box in the corner of the screen.
From the way both Cal and Billy Ripken talk, Cal Sr. must have really known his stuff, and learned 'is boys good. Cal's the better analyst, but that may just be because Billy does too much blow with Dan Plesac before every episode of MLB Tonight.
I was watching the season-ending Cardinals/Reds series, and I hate the StL TV broadcasters so I always choose the opposing team's broadcast, and my god is he terrible!!!!
It starts with the phony "deep announcer voice" that makes me think of a little kid trying on his dad's too-big shoes.
But the second anything positive happens for the Reds his voice rises up into a crescendo, which would be awful enough if I didn't understand a word of english, but since I do, I get to hear him booming about a catch/base hit/strikeout as if it not only saved Game 7 of the World Series, but all of humanity as well.
I used to think Chip Caray was worse---he actually shares all the exact same negative attributes of Brennaman---but Brennaman tops him due to his sheer lack of restraint.
EDIT: And I know neither of these guys are involved in the current broadcasts, but the impression left on me by the recent exposure to Brennaman is still so vivid...
Big +1. Even when it's clear he doesn't fully embrace some of the more obscure statistics (i.e. you could pick up this during some of the "Stat Sundays" WGN did during Cubs games this season), he doesn't berate them and at least makes an attempt to see their merit. And hell, I'll say it, he's usually good for a few chuckle-worthy comments during every game.
Yeah, he's not terrible or anything, but I can't hear his voice during an MLB game without thinking, "Who is the NBA guy filling in for here?"
Thom also goes to the far other end of the spectrum at the drop of a hat, way worse than his dad.
Todd Frazier strikes out with runners on 2nd and 3rd, 1 out, in the 3rd inning of a scoreless game, Thom will say:
"And that's pathetic. You have to put the ball in play there, give your self a chance to score a run. If the Reds don't get to Garcia this inning when they have this tremendous scoring chance, then good luck scoring at all today. I mean, you have to pick up your pitcher in those spots, give him something to work with. You know what I'm saying Cowboy? Leake is pitching a hell of a game so far, and Frazier's inability to execute the simplest of tasks is putting all the pressure in the ballpark on Mike. I know he's trying, but he just made Garcia look like vintage Tom Seaver. Inexcusable."
And that will continue on, much like that, through the rest of the inning.
Yes, it is. Normally, Kuiper and Krukow do TV, while Flemming (two m's) and Jon Miller do radio.
Those backstories sound like "Up Close and Personal" Olympic coverage. It might draw casual fans. I wouldn't mind that myself. Of course, you couldn't do four minutes, but 15-30 seconds of video of a player in another country, in the minors, on another team would be the right length.
And, has been suggested in previous years, the national broadcasts ought to have a local announcer from each team in the booth, rather than two national jocks. I realize this might be subjecting myself to Hawk if the Chisox get back in the playoffs again.
That was because the NL umps wore their chest protectors inside their jackets, and as a result couldn't bend over as far, and wound up with a higher strike zone. But there's a big difference between having to adjust your hitting zone when you get traded to the other league or play in a World Series, and having to adjust it every goddam day.
Players have long said they were OK with this as long as the application of the strike zone was consistent throughout the game.
Some players have, and other players have asked the perfectly sensible question: Why should they have to re-learn a rule that's taught to them ever since Little League just because of an umpire's peculiar take on it?
It's true that you'll never be able to uniformly enforce the rule book strike zone without causing our sensitive umpires to call a #### strike, but that's why balls and strikes should be called by robots. It never ceases to amaze me that so much fuss is made about the once-in-a-blue moon atrocious call on the basepaths or the foul line, to the point where the game has to be stopped for a replay, while for every blown call like that, there are scores of poorly called balls and strikes that affect the outcome of a game far more.
Damn, that's a lot of points.
And Dick Stockton does surprisingly well, in my opinion.
I don't notice Ripken delivering much insight. He was in the booth for a few innings of an O's game near the end of the year, I think when his statue was unveiled, and part of the banter with Thorne/Bordick was about his upcoming TBS debut and him asking them whether it was better to watch the field or the monitor, etc. He could be a lot worse for how unpolished he is, but that doesn't make him good yet, to me. And he needs to stop calling all the players by their first names.
No, Andy, they haven't. You might have been you saying it, but that's an entirely different thing. And they haven't been saying it because major league players have been dealing with inconsisent applications of the strike zone since Little League. I find it bizarre that a 700-year-old baseball fan such as yourself is just now discovering that umpires have these demonic personalized strike zones, but that's the way it is. We just have better technology to track it, that's all.
Personally, I love this kind of booth construction, when the guys are good announcers. Jim Kaat and Ken Singleton were fantastic together, as are Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling. You get distinctly different analyses of the same at-bats and it's often fascinating. But there are always exceptions (I'm looking at you Larry Andersen and Sarge...)
That's actually the best (only good?) part of the Hawk Harrelson/Steve Stone pairing.
That is a fantastic series.
This. Anything but showing the batter stepping out, putting his bat under his shoulder, adjusting his helmet, and then unfastening and refastening his batting gloves *when he didn't even swing at the g**damn pitch.* This sadly ubiquitous little tic grates on me more and more with each passing day. Yep, getting old.
Other than him, I've found the TBS crew to be pretty good.
I'd love to see something other than the crowd and the bench as well. From the baseball broadcasting history I know (mostly from my own VHS and DVD collection), I blame that phenomenon on ABC in the mid-1980s. FOX shoulders most of the blame for the closeups of the pitcher's nose.
Of course, watching NBC games from before 1990 will make you weep and long for what we once had. Particularly games directed by Harry Coyle. If more fans knew what they were missing, they'd be outraged. Believe it or not, there was once a time when networks only showed a replay if there was a point to it, when the slow parts of the game were punctuated by shots of the fielding alignment, and when the play-by-play guy had a great love of the game and actually did his homework.
The funny thing is that you could actually follow the game and the score then without having the box up in the upper left-hand corner.
What??? Don't you want the networks to bring us the HUMAN STORY??!!
Vin Scully calling the games, for one. Game 5 of the '84 Series remains a cherished possession of mine. (And Game 6 of '86, too.)
No, Andy, they haven't. You might have been you saying it, but that's an entirely different thing.
Actually I think the player I had in mind there was Wade Boggs or some other noteworthy Major Leaguer. I didn't quote him by name only because I didn't feel like tracking down the quote.
But beyond the mild ad hominen, what exactly is wrong with roboumps for balls and strikes? I can see the argument that the technology isn't yet perfect, but any other objection is purely sentimental horsecrap.
Unlike replay, which I detest, a roboump wouldn't result in game delays, and you also would be rid of the sort of personalized strike zones that not only vary from ump to ump, but also between scrubs and superstars, who frequently benefit from them. If we're supposed to adjust to personalized strike zones, why not just "adjust" to things like personalized foul lines or personalized bad calls in general? Why insist upon game delaying technology to overrule the tiny percentage of bad calls that take place after a ball is hit, and refuse to employ time-neutral technology that can stop the overwhelming majority of bad calls from being made in the first place?
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