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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Thursday, September 08, 2022Major League Baseball competition committee to vote on rules changes Friday with eye on quickening pace of play, sources say
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: September 08, 2022 at 05:23 PM | 167 comment(s)
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The pitch clocks and the batter having a responsibility to do his part sound great, but it has to actually be enforced. I'm assuming an automatic strike if the batter isn't set at 8 seconds? We're going to get some really silly arguments in '23 but it's all part of the growing pains and adjustments. Hopefully it's less of an adjustment for upcoming prospects who are already playing with a clock.
Just enforce the current rule regarding time between pitches, I believe it's 12 seconds. Have the batter stay in the box.
Problem solved. A better game. Less swinging from the heels, less rearing back and throwing as hard as you can on every pitch.
Maybe MLB should employ Buehrle to show them how it's done?
Banning the shift is stupid, make hitters adjust if they can't hit through or over it.
Bigger bases should work out ok; haven't given it much thought.
That's sort of the rule as it already is. If the batter just won't get in the box, the umpire has the capacity to ask the pitcher to pitch and if/when he does, it's an automatic strike.
Balk rule - stolen bases will 2X or 3X pretty quickly
Anything that makes stolen bases easier and more frequent will reward OBP and that helps hitters not aiming for a homerun. Offense will go up. Limiting the shift will do this as well. That's fine, actually. Perhaps subsequently something can be done to the ball to even things up if things get out of hand.
I can imagine something silly like players starting in a sprinter-crouch at second base and then sprinting into their actual position as the pitch is thrown. Anyhow that would be interesting to watch.
I really hate all the other potential rules. Defensive players should be able to play wherever they think is best to get the batter out. There are still only 8 fielders in fair territory, so whatever the defensive alignment, the batters have as much space as before to place the ball for hits.
I understand that pitchers have to stay on the rubber to make the pitch clock effective, but it gives a baserunner too much of an advantage if they can't throw over/freeze the runner if they are faking a stolen base attempt.
We need safer bases, not larger bases. I do support putting a second base at first, in foul territory, and requiring the batter to use it. This eliminates the cheap out by hitting a runner inside the basepath garbage, reduces collisions between the batter and the first baseman, and allows better base construction that reduces leg injuries when batters hit first base wrong.
Agree banning the shift is awful, it's a more interesting game to let defenders position according to strategy, plus this new rule penalizes 'artistic' hitters who can go to all fields instead of just yanking everything to the pull side.
#14 - Yeah, but stolen bases are LOWER than they were when most of US came of baseball watching age (1970's-2000's), so that's what really matters. ;-)
Stolen bases without the risk of a caught stealing does not make the game more exciting. It makes it little league.
I don't like the rules limiting pickoffs. I wish there was a way you could eliminate truly pointless ones (or the even more pointless stepoffs) to address the pace issue, but I don't see how without making the game actually less interesting.
If they're faking a stolen base attempt, they're not going anyway, right? So what's the advantage?
I think making a third unsuccessful pickoff a balk is a step too far and I think a ball would be sufficient. But I'm not exactly lamenting something that gives an advantage to baserunners.
LOLing at the thought of bases covering an area of 15 in², or 3.9" on each side.
That's the thing that often gets lost. Yes, Joey Gallo may never learn to go the other way (and perhaps he shouldn't), but if the shift reduces the effectiveness of that type of player, then there should be fewer of them who are worth putting on the roster/playing.
Heck, maybe MLB should have considered prohibiting the construction of new ballparks with outfield dimensions that convince even ninth-place hitters to swing for the fences?
Except that shifts are legal now and obviously that hasn't led to this actually happening? What's happened instead is that teams decided they could just live with outs hit into the shift in order not to sacrifice power.
Now I agree that banning shifts probably won't make much difference here, but it's not like the preponderance of shifts has led to teams developing more spray hitters, even with defenses ceding half the field. In essence, this is MLB admitting defeat, and saying that since teams are going to run a bunch of pull hitters out there regardless, we might as well let them get a few more singles and thus more frequent baserunners.
All in all, it's probably going to end up being something that has little real effect and everyone forgets about pretty quickly.
The obvious solution here is to not have it reset when they step off. Once the pitcher gets the ball, the clock starts. (Doesn't solve the "catchers can waste time before throwing it back" problem though.)
But mostly I'm hung up on the fact that WE ALREADY HAVE A ####### PITCH CLOCK. How is proposing a pitch clock going to do anything when we've got a pitch clock and it doesn't do anything? A much simpler solution would be to tell umpires that their annual evaluations will include whether they enforced the clock that's already on the books. Get pitchers throwing within 12 seconds real fast if umpire's pay depends on it.
He may be incentivized to hit over it, but he's not going to be successful at that all the time. Balls he hits that would be base hits are turned into outs (in fact, that's why they do it) by the shift, and if you get rid of the shift more of the balls he doesn't hit over the fence will get through.
He's not going to greatly benefit from it, because he simply doesn't put enough balls in play for any type of scheme to do much. But getting rid of the shift will likely make him a better offensive player than he is now.
Certainly it isn't enough on its own to incentivize that. But it is still a move in the wrong direction.
I agree that banning the shift is, in some sense, a move in the wrong direction. "spray-type" hitters have it difficult enough nowadays with the presence of fungible flame-throwing relievers. My prediction:
a) There will be some creative positioning after the pitch is thrown that will effectively make this rule a lot less effective than at first glance. Will be interesting, at least, to see how that strategy evolves.
b) Even so, the aggregate BABIP will probably go up, which can only help line-drive hitters in contrast to hitters like Joey Gallo or Adam Dunn.
• A 15 second pitch clock with the bases empty and a 20 second clock with runners on.Simply enforce the written rule that already exists. If the pitcher isn't ready, call a ball. If the batter is delaying things and the pitcher pitches on time, call a strike if it crosses the plate.
• Two disengagements from the rubber - which includes pick-off attempts—per plate appearance.
Sure, whatever. Anything encouraging more base stealing is a good thing. But does this mean after a 2nd failed pickoff attempt that the runner can try to advance at any time and the pitcher must deliver a pitch instead of stepping off and making a play on the advancing runner?
• A requirement by hitters to be in the batter’s box and ‘alert’ with 8 seconds to go on the clock. Hitters are allowed one timeout per plate appearance.Fine with me if the batter waits until the pitcher is into his windup to jump into the box. Tell the ump to call any pitch a strike if it crosses the plate. The pitcher controls the flow of action, not the batter. If time isn't called, pitchers should be able to pitch as soon as they're ready (rules against quick-pitching aside).
• Only two infielders will be allowed on each side of second base with all four required to be on the dirt (or inner grass).
• Infielders cannot position themselves on the outfield grass before the pitch is thrown.
Boo. Solutions in search of problems.
• Bases will increase in size from 15 square inches to 18.Never understood what problem bigger bases are supposed to solve except for moving bang-bang plays 3" closer. I think this falls into another Manfredian non-solution to anything, like the auto-IBB.
No. A third pickoff can be made; but it must result in an out, or the runner is awarded the base.
"make the kids play" - enforce the clock and step-out rules
1. Three hour, seven minute average game time.
2. Rise in time between balls in play between 1985 and 2022 of a full minute.
3. A decrease in BABIP on hard-hit ground balls (86 MPH+) of 44 points (352-308) since the shifts got rolling in 2015. Twenty-eight point drop since 2019. (*)
4. Big impact on all-around, contra-oaf superstars. Joey Votto's GB BABIP has fallen from 246 to 187 as the shifts he's faced have risen from 19 to 54 percent. Mookie's has fallen 112 points (!!) as his faced shift percentage has risen from 1 to 61 percent between '15 and '22. Not that one is necessary, but this is a mic drop deal killer for the shift. Enough already.
5. As infielders have started to play weird, shifty, fake positions, the number of plays we see them make has fallen dramatically. Ozzie made 6 plays per game for the '82 Cardinals. Nico Hoerner, the defensive saves leader at SS this year, makes 3.7. I and a lot of us want to see shortstops make shortstop plays from shortstop areas of the field, and for clods to no longer be posted at second base because the spreadsheets (and the strikeouts, of course) can cover up their defensive deficiencies.
6. In 1992, 18 players stole 40 bases. Last year, two.
This one is interesting and makes some sense, if you believe the premises of plodding oafball. Small sample size, so I'm not ready to declare victory yet -- but pitcher injuries were down 26% in the minors post-pitch clock. Maybe that extra "recovery time" the pitcher gets while he just stands there interminably glazed-eyed staring leads to being able to give just that right amount of "extra" that at the margin, elbows blow. Certainly makes some intuitive sense.
(*) Everyone loves Walt Davis's analyses and postings and he's obviously not doing this on purpose, but he always uses the relatively tiny change on all GB BABIP when analyzing the shift's impact. The hard hit GB numbers tell an entirely different story.
My guess is batters are putting less balls on the ground and that probably has more to do with lower BABIP than the shift.
Strikeouts and flyballs are way up. Shift or no shift infielders are going to be making less plays.
cfb is 100% right about smaller gloves but I suspect that isn't even on anyone's radar.
Everyone always says, "Just adapt, just change your game." But we don't want people like Mookie Betts doing that. Why on Earth would we?
I don't know what the effect will be. As SoSH says, the dead-pull launch-angle LHBs are very likely to get a few extra singles out of the ban. I'm not sure that's going to fire up fanbases nationwide, but it's still going to look like baseball.
I do wonder though, if à la Mound Visits, they will have to add boxes on the scoreboard for Disengagements and Batter Timeout :)
Well, hopefully, as BABIP goes back up to proper levels on hard hit balls from regular, non-oafish swings, launch angle will revert back to its proper proportion of necessity and the oafs and the clods and the half-wits will be weeded out. Won't happen overnight, but will happen. The game will be far better as a result.
I wish they would just start with the one big, obvious change of enforcing the pitch clock and see how that goes first. (Well, I really wish they would have done it 5-10 years ago.) I have a feeling some of these other issues would then take care of themselves.
4. Big impact on all-around, contra-oaf superstars. Joey Votto's GB BABIP has fallen from 246 to 187 as the shifts he's faced have risen from 19 to 54 percent. Mookie's has fallen 112 points (!!) as his faced shift percentage has risen from 1 to 61 percent between '15 and '22. Not that one is necessary, but this is a mic drop deal killer for the shift. Enough already.
Can't find the article you're referring to, but something seems counterintuitive here, since Betts' overall batting average has only gone down 11 points from '15 to '22, and his GB% hasn't changed that much (38.0% to 34.4%).
5. As infielders have started to play weird, shifty, fake positions, the number of plays we see them make has fallen dramatically. Ozzie made 6 plays per game for the '82 Cardinals. Nico Hoerner, the defensive saves leader at SS this year, makes 3.7. I and a lot of us want to see shortstops make shortstop plays from shortstop areas of the field, and for clods to no longer be posted at second base because the spreadsheets (and the strikeouts, of course) can cover up their defensive deficiencies.
The point of the shift is to increase the number of plays made by the infielders, so I don't think that's the cause of the change you're noting above. I assume this has much more to do with more Ks, fewer balls-in-play and fewer ground balls as a % of BIP, and less to do with the shift.
It seems like people are really up in arms about using the existing pitch clock rules. While I'd love it as much as everyone else, it's not happening. They refuse to enforce it for whatever reason. The pitch clock they're implementing this year will be enforced, and apparently it's done wonders in the minor leagues. I'm really looking forward to it. The part about the batter being in the box and "alert" is a little bit weird - just let the pitcher throw the ball when he's ready and the call the pitch as you normally would. If the batter isn't "alert" then he's not going to be able to hit it. That's on him.
More stolen bases are good because stolen bases are fun in and of themselves, plus, as someone else mentioned, it enhances the value of players who reach base without hitting the ball over the fence. The larger bases and the pickoff attempt limitations will help with that.
I'm not convinced all of these are great ideas that are going to result in a fabulously more exciting game, but I do think all of them at least have a chance to help. And I don't think any of them will harm the game. I'm looking forward to seeing how the pitch clock in particular affects pitching - will it cause pitchers to throw a bit slower to conserve energy? Will we see more arm injuries than we already do if pitchers try to maintain their velocity?
--Like others, I'm concerned that the disengagement rule would upset the balance between baserunners and battery. Calling a ball after a third time is better than a balk, but I'd prefer merely switching the clock to the shorter bases-empty time.
--Infielders, especially SS/2B, started playing out on the grass for slow power hitters long before the shift became common. As others have said, a solution in search of a problem.
--Banning the shift might not do anything more than moving the shortstop's pre-pitch position 15 feet to the left.
Here are some results from how these rule changes worked in the minors. BABIP did go up six points in the Texas League with shift bans, and interestingly enough, right-handers enjoyed a greater bump. There is still some shifting.
Right, the pitch clock had no effect on game time in the minors until they instituted the pickoff rule.
Is it possible that Votto aging from 31 to 38 years old since shifting became prevalent had something to do with his reduced BABIP? Wouldn’t a reduction in BABIP be expected as a player went through his twilight years?
I agree with this. I think we'll see a big change in the game just because of the pitch clock rule. The game will be faster. The pitchers will be a little more tired by their 10th pitch of the inning and lose a couple of MPH off of their fastball. Which will result in fewer K's and more contact. Hopefully. People will say that it's because of the banning of the shift or the bases or whatever.
But I don't care. The changes other than the pitch clock are minor annoyances that I can live with. The game should be vastly improved in many ways with the pitch clock so I'm in favor of this.
As pointed out above, if they had implemented just the pitch clock 10 years ago, we would have seen if that single change had as big of an effect as I think it will and then we wouldn't need these other ones. But that's not where we are, so this is a good (not great, not perfect) step.
IIRC, they did this in the minors and it didn't really work? I guess you could emphasize it more, but do you really trust Angel Hernandez with this? I think removing the discretion from the umpires is a better idea, otherwise its going to be enforced haphazardly with a lot of ump show potential.
I don't think the excitement of the stolen base is ever returning to major league baseball. You can make them easier, which MLB seems determined to do, but a stolen base without the risk of a caught stealing is simply not exciting. And major league teams have decided that the risk of being put out on the base is simply not worth the reward of an extra base (much as they have come to similar conclusions about the sacrifice bunt and the unexciting base on balls).
I don't know what the particular breakeven point on an SB is at the moment, but teams seem to be using one far north of that.
So, sure you can make SBs much easier, but I don't think teams will try to steal more bases unless you've almost completely removed the risk. But if, and this is just a tossed out example, say 75 percent of future stolen base attempts resulted in no throw from the catcher, you wouldn't have a more exciting game*. You'd just have added a lot of catcher's indifference plays. I don't know what the exact number will be, but I'm pretty sure that the end result of these changes will not produce a more exciting baserunning environment, and I'm not sure anything will.
* Though, easier stolen bases does, as JAHV notes, increase the importance of reaching first, which can result in some indirect excitement gains.
Interestingly, the only MLB umpire in the recent past who has made any effort to speed up the game was Angel Hernandez. It wasn't well received.
I think you're overstating how easy steals will be, we're talking about an increase in the success rate from 75% to 77%
And if it doesn't increase the success rate much, it won't increase the attempt rate much. That's the point.
By the way, the anecdote in question, while not necessarily illustrative of the issue, did not produce more exciting baserunning.
If the pitcher and catcher can't get their signs set before the game, too bad. If the manager wants to take out the pitcher, just yell from the dugout.
Must.. resist...
Yes, I think back to TFA for one of these threads where the explicit rationale was that many balls hit to right field somehow "ought to" be hits; that the shift was unfairly eating them up. I dunno, I guess if they didn't allow fielders at all everything would be a hit, right? Why are people so concerned that fielders catch baseballs?
This is probably too many changes at once. if they were all implemented at the same time then umpires will have additional responsbilities to: manage the pitch clock, track the movement of infielders and stepping off/throwing over.
The biggest concern is that they will vote for all these changes, some of which probably wont really change the game much (bigger bases, banning shifts) along with some that we dont know the exact effect (3 throw overs), and then come May 1 they will stop enforcing the pitch clock. So you will get all the crap you didn't want or didnt really think was important and the one thing you did want, you wont get.
Because why are all these things up for consideration at the same time? That's very curious. Cant we just do the pitch clock thing and see what happens from there?
The article is unclear, are these being voted on as a package, or each change is being voted on individually?
But now that I think about it, knowing MLB they will vote this as a package and then throw up their hands when 2023 rolls around and people are getting balked to second at a record rate, and no one is enforcing the pitch clock, again.
The hitter must have both feet set in the batter’s box and be “alert to the pitcher” — meaning he has his eyes on the pitcher, and can quickly take a hitting stance — within eight seconds.
Does this mean the pitcher isn't allowed to pitch until the batter is "alert to the pitcher"?
I don't necessarily agree with your conclusions. I think teams might steal more if success was more likely. I love a stolen base - the announcer, especially on the radio, getting excited when a runner is on the move is one of those fun baseball things that I'll never tire of. That will be the case no matter how much the catcher throws down.
And I'm good with runners stealing bases at will - the indirect excitement gains are the greater good in my opinion anyway. More baserunners is a wonderful thing, so a rule like this that increases the value of runners getting on base is a positive.
https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1568280288341463041
Exactly the kind of noise you'd expect in the sample size.
Except to add that I truly don't understand, especially given how long things have been evolving in this direction, how people think you can reasonably "just enforce the current rule" without a pitch clock. (And I say that as someone who recoiled hard at the idea of a pitch clock when it was first being broached.)
Is the ump supposed to silently count, and practice to make sure he can count off in perfect time? Or does he also have to hold a stopwatch while he's paying attention to everything else? Does the stopwatch beep audibly when he starts the count and again when it expires? Does it vibrate after time expires so as to be less disruptive and give him leeway if it's fractions of a second?
None of it is practical and I'm tired of people saying how easy it is. It's not, not without a mechanism at this point.
Games used to be faster with less time between pitches not because the umps constantly kept track and enforced it on every pitch, but because that's just how people had learned to play and what everyone did, and maybe because they generally knew there was a rule about it. MLB shouldn't have let things drift so far away from that for so long, but they did. So now players have over many years learned to play in a different way, and to ignore that rule that was rarely actually enforced previously. So at this point, the genie doesn't go back in the bottle without a visible mechanism applied as uniformly as possible.
These rule changes threaten the status quo and therefore some players' jobs. That kind of thing tends not to be voted for. But, yes, there's a douche for douche sake factor involved too, for sure.
When the final verdict on this horrific era in baseball is written, I would commend the videotape of the Cincinnati Reds at Braves Suburb Park oafishly flailing with men in scoring position in extra innings in the 2020 playoffs. Aristedes Aquino's ABs were virtually beyond satire. I found myself nearly at the point of being personally offended, and if the game had been like the Iliad, Zeus and crew would have been been on the first train down from Mount Olympus. God would have turned the joint into a pillar of salt.
They found the pitch clock didn't work unless you limited pitchers from stepping off.
It's long overdue.
They found the pitch clock didn't work unless you limited pitchers from stepping off.
I think the rule should be that you can step off twice per at-bat, but if the batter takes a lead of more than a certain distance, you can step off again. Or, if you step off and actually throw the runner out, then it doesn't count against you. Something like that.
Agreed. While I guess technically SoSH is arguing that this will not increase: "exciting baserunning" it should increase the value of a single and put more emphasis on obp at the expense of power. So I guess that's good .
No, I mean I get that. Its all the other stuff: smaller bases, no shifts.
The obituaries of Liz 2 aren't this overwrought.
The minor-league umpires managed quite well. Remember, the umpires have literally nothing to do all day except officiate the games and study the rulebook.
The games need more action. I went to a game in-person last night, and it's remarkably difficult for the crowd itself to stay focused on the game.
or as Bill James said: there used to be a natural clock: it was called sunset.
That's the rule.
All those bugs are actually features. We want that to happen. We want singles to be encouraged, and this encourages them. Same with stolen bases.
Then don't go an "inch over." Just play it straight without a bunch of bullshit. Players in football, e.g., are an inch offsides and plays are negated. Same with soccer. Baseball's a game of inches, they say -- and now it is even more. Stop ########.
Nobody wants to see you "collect and reset." Players don't "collect and reset" in football, basketball, etc. They play. If you can't play without doing that, well -- the world need ditch diggers, too.
Exactly. And because of that, there was a built-in ethic to the game - if you screwed around and wasted time players would get on your case, or if you were a batter, the pitchers would throw at you. But what happened was this - players (both batters and pitchers) realized they performed better if they took more time, and as there was no clock and no other external impetus to speed things up, the peer-pressure disappeared as players informally agreed to extend a courtesy to each other not to try to hurrry things up. Umpires, being human, "went with the flow" because neither side, offense or defense, wanted things sped up - and this dynamic fed on itself till we have what we have today, where Steve Trachsel would be one of the faster workers in the game.
Question: Can we blame all our ills on Mike Hargrove?
Would love to see the ratio of balls to strikes as the game gets closer to being called.
Do you enjoy catcher's indifference plays?
A stolen base without any threat of an out is not very exciting. It's the possibility a runner will get gunned down, the risk, that makes the play - any baserunning play - the best part of the game. I don't know how anyone can possibly believe otherwise.
Now, I absolutely agree, and previously acknowledged, that if you turn a single into a double or triple by making the caught stealing virtually impossible, then that will undoubtedly increase the value of a single (which has value). But I'd rather MLB try to improve the value of putting the ball in play some other way than turning major league baseball into Forest Park Little League.
That's a significant exaggeration in two respects. First there won't be "any threat of an out" disappearing. That's a massive overbid. There will likely be "less of a threat of an out," and maybe even a material one -- but that's entirely different than "no threat."
Second, yes, a runner like Rickey getting so good a jump and being so fast that the catcher cries uncle and doesn't even throw is quite exciting.
(I guess there's a statistical third, which is that the threat of an out can't just be measured by percentage CS because that data point is dependent on attempts. If the easier SB elicits more attempts, the CS% may not even actually drop.)
Can't be on the grass. I also saw this morning that teams had to designate two "left side infielders" and two "right side infielders" who had to stay in those roles the entire game. Not sure if that made it through the final vote. I'm indifferent to this. If teams want to move a better fielding SS to 2B for the occasional LHB, have at it. Could be interesting strategy and the 2Bs who would ##### about "the team's lack of confidence" and whatnot is what we should be encouraging. I'm also fine with a game-long designation.
I'm ecstatic about these rule changes. Makes me way more into it. I'll probably be way more into it the rest of '22 even though I know I'm watching a vastly inferior version of the sport.
you have absolutely no idea what will happen when all these changes are implemented at the same time, and yet you continue to pontificate as if you know all. Remember when you offered 500:1 odds that Trump wouldn't do anything extra legal to challenge the election? or that there was no way Ortiz could play 1b when the WS moved to Denver? or that there was no way the ALJ could give ARod more than a 50 game suspension?
Baseball remembers.
As noted, I don't think the stolen base rate goes up meaningfully unless the threat really is virtually non-existent. Teams have largely abandoned the SB, the bunt and the IBB. They've done so becuase htey've concluded it's not the percentage play. I see no reason to believe pushing the SB success rate from 80 to 82 percent is going to move the needle much on attempts.
Not if it happens regularly, it isn't.
I don't think anything brings truly exciting baserunning back to MLB.
yeah I agree. I dont want to see them cheapen the ability to steal bases which seems very much a risk here.
McCoy asked for GBs, along with BAgb
2021 51,970 239
2019 53,574 238
2018 54,423 242
2017 55,990 245
2016 57,328 246
...
2011 58,885 237
2006 58,858 240
So GBs are down by 9.3% over the last 5 years and another 2-3% if we look back further. Again, you beat the shift by hitting it over the shift.
Votto (#GBs BAgb)
2015 174 224
2016 196 265
2017 192 245
2018 154 201
2019 153 203
2020 57 193
2021 108 148
2022 101 178
(Note the really small sample sizes; you'd expect BAgb to bounce around a lot.)
Interestingly, in 2014 in just 43 games. Votto went 6-71 on GBs. Note Votto has dropped from 650-700 PAs a year to 533 last year and probably under 450 for this year so that's a chunk of the drop in #GBs over the last couple of years. The big change there was 2018 (age 34) -- if they waited until then to shift on him or they shifted in better ways then he adjusted quickly by hitting the ball over the shift. Obviously the loss of GB singles didn't help but the big drop in value was that he hit 65 HRs in 2016-17 and just 27 in 2018-19. He bounced back to a 139 OPS+ in 2021 primarily because he bounced back to 36 HRs.
For his career, Votto always hit fewer GBs than the average batter (not by a lot) and pulled the ball (overall) slightly less than the average player. His success was hitting for reasonable power with a reasonable K-rate and a very good LD rate with an extremely low pop-up rate. If there was an effect of shifts on Votto's decline (which might have just been age), it's that hitting the ball over the shift led to more pop-ups.
At his peak, Votto was hitting LDs 35% of the time (when he made contact) which is crazy high. That's now down to 25% which is still above-average. Possibly those LDs to short RF started becoming outs and he stopped hitting them ... or maybe he got old and couldn't catch up to as much as he used to.
Honest question, was there ever talk in the 80s about stolen bases becoming too ubiquitous? You had Henderson and Coleman stealing over 100 bases with 80 percent steal rates and even guys Bill Doran and Gerald Perry could swipe 40 in a season.
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