Pivoting this point towards the above consideration (that hitters/pitchers have evolved differently in just 10 years)... pitchers routinely used to throw more than 200 innings/year. Some threw even more. Have humans devolved? Is there more wear/tear today thanks to longer training regimens? It's fascinating.
A lot of people used. Even players nobody ever would have guessed. Alou defied age with the best of them. Outside of his 94 season (when I'm convinced MLB was juicing balls or something), he was a very good player, but not a superstar. Then in his 30s he was flat out amazing. The injuries could have been a major reason why he essentially bloomed late. Bagwell gets the grief, but his age curve is pretty normal except for 1994. I think a lot of us would have questions about Hidalgo given his bulk up, but no way to know. I notice he wasn't mentioned though. Jeff Kent had a .269/.324/.455 line in his 20s with only one year over .800OPS (1994 again). He posted a .299/.370/.520 line after 30. He was better than the 1994 every single year of his 30s by a good margin. Berkman is probably the one guy I would be 100% shocked about of those names you mentioned.
Not at all and yes 200 IP shouldn't be an issue for most pitchers. However for a guy who was hurt last yr, and the most he's ever thrown in a single season at the major league level is 125 IP in '15 I would watch him closely.
Absolutely... hence why I mentioned how he'd take another 2015-like "break" for a few weeks around mid-season.
If you look at history, you see similar career arcs from different guys in different eras.... and you can still see those same arcs today in guys who are being tested. The outlier seasons (Sosa, McGwire, Bonds) remain suspicious no matter what the era... but guys improving into their 30's is not as big of a red flag as you think it is (especially with many of those players starting their big league careers in their advanced mid-20's).
You can say anything. I can say anything. I don't know what guys would do then. You don't know what guys then would do today. Only thing we know is how they compare with people of same era. We know somethings like zone is larger today and guys throw harder today. We can expect certain things, but not know. Saying Alou is a better hitter than Altuve has as much certainty as saying Reed could hit in 2001, but you only like make believe of comparing guys across eras that meet your preconceived idea of who is better. All we know is that the 2017 Astro hitters (only using limited sample size so far) compare better against their peers than all other Astros teams except the 1998 team.
But is the zone really larger today? 80's and 90's zones were incredible. I wasn't the one saying a guy who can't hit now would almost certainly have success back then. I do believe that guys who could hit the ball well in previous eras could do so now as well. Pitching is not that much better... and by many metrics, it's a tad less dominant. It's why baseball is as great as it is. You don't need to necessarily be bigger/stronger/faster (as is the case in how football and basketball players have evolved). Hand-eye coordination hasn't evolved past what it was 50+ years ago. The human shoulder also hasn't evolved either.
You said Alou was a better hitter than anyone we have now before my statement on Reed. This is as much make believe as Reed hitting in 2001, but you don't even realize it because of your preconceived notions. He didn't face the velocity we have now as regularly as hitters today do, didn't face the same strike zone, and the baseball expanded twice in 1990s (i.e. pitching was diluted). All we know is how guys compared to his peers. Alou may end up being a better hitter against his peers in his prime than anyone this year, but you don't want to compare guys against their peers. Without that, any statement about player in 2001 directly against a player today is make believe.
It's all about runners on, runners on, runners on. That's the job of the 4-hole. That's why I was b!tching.
Zone is definitely bigger now than 2009 (about 10%). I'm not finding data for the 2006 zone when Pitchfx started tracking data. Umpires zones started to expand because they were not calling the rule book strike zone. MLB had the data to try to get a consistent rule book zone. I can't be sure about zone for 80's and early 90s, but it is a very solid assumption that early 2000s zones were much smaller than today. There have been discussions that expansion and changing the strike zone are the only way to slow down the K rate. K Rate has generally increased over time with only recent notable decrease around the time mound was lowered and DH was implemented. It is not a case that this generation is the only generation has more contact issues than the preceding generation. Every generation in the last 100s years has had this problem.
Didn't see that tweet before. Now that is some fuzzy math! He took one great day and book-ended it with another great day and called the crap (0.217/0.333/0.217) in between good.
Any b!tching done before 4/23 except opening day and 4/10 was probably warranted. Today, b!tching may or not be warranted as long as it is directed at today's whipping boy.
I don't consider this generation to be all that different from 2001-2004ish... especially since there were still some players from those years currently playing (and in some cases -- Papi--- excelling). This is part of the same "era". K's have risen astronomically while batting average has dwindled significantly over the last few years. Some of that is by design, as metrics indicate the runs generated by swinging freely outweigh the negative effects of strikeouts (in only some circumstances)... but pitching is not all that better than it was in the early 2000's. Alou faced 98 mph fastballs... turned them around too. Hell, the Astros starting staff for the last 3 years has really only had 1 guy who could dial it up consistently (LMJ).
AJ Reed can turn around on sub 95 fastballs. On dialing it up, 2017 Astros pitchers are flame throwers to the early 2000s Astros pitchers even with having a soft tossing rotation for today. Bullpen, no question who throws harder. Early 2000s teams typically had 1-2 guys throwing softer than Keuchel and no one in the McCuller/Morton range. Oswalt brought the heat just a tad more than Musgrove. 2017 Astros hitters are better versus their peers than any team except the 1998 Stros. You can compare apples to oranges all you want, but it is just as make believe as Reed hitting in the early 2000s.
That's fine... my point is that the quality of peers, along with hitting overall, has taken a downturn in very recent years. I truly believe that Berkman, Kent, young Beltran, Bagwell, old Biggio, Alou etc. would be able to hit today's pitching quite well. When the original question was asked "when was the last time you could go deep in this lineup..." I don't feel 1998 was the most recent example. 2004 was not that long ago. Pitching is not that different now. There were plenty of flame throwers then.
This is all preconceived notion though that depends on accepting the quality of peers has taken a downturn. In other words, you are still in Mr. Rogers neighborhood. On pitching, there are about three times as many 95+ pitchers as there were in 2004. If you want to swing the talk back to how deep a lineup is without taking peers into account, we should be talking about end of lineup and not the top end talent. If we are going to ignore different eras/peers, I'll take Noki, Bregman, and Gurriel (or whover Hinch has in back of lineup in a given day) over Everett, Ausmus, and whoever the pitcher is that day for depth in a lineup. Even using unadjusted stats, 2017 kicks 2004's butt hard core.
The ceiling of the 2004 lineup outweighed the floor.... but yeah, i suppose playing Everett is equivalent to Hinch playing Marisnick. Vizcaino was actually the 2004 SS in the playoffs. How many of those 95+ pitchers are starters now? It's not a preconceived notion that hitters hit for lower average and strikeout more.... and its not just at the major league level. It's also why guys like Votto and Goldschmidt are not just great now, but would be great in any era (along with Berkman).... and again, today's baseball is not a different "era" than 2004... not when there are still guys playing in both eras.
