I wonder if Tepera is going to pull a Fiers this season. "Hey, Joe, this has nothing to do with the Astros coming to town, but my arm hurts and I don't think I can pitch the next 3 days...."
Doubt it. He had the appearance of faking an injury last year and not just because we joke about him not wanting to face the Astros. The last injury report released said the doctor found nothing wrong with him.
Interesting that they are finally testing out electronic pitch signaling devices this year in Spring Training for select games.
While it is true doctors are not perfect, using an incident 40 years ago is not the best argument for that. Athletes are scanned way more today with much more diligence with regard to medical check ups.
One thing that is certainly coming is every time our SS misses a play, some will say Correa would have made it. Whoever is our full time SS is going to be under some scrutiny, for sure.
Would he have given the fans a refund if he hadn't won? I don't think so. It just made a good story about confidence.
McCormick might have done the same training as Bellinger during the off season. He's striking out alot as well.
Minor League Baseball moving second base during the 2022 season Spoiler “I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” a minor-league instructor said to me the other day, “but they’re moving second base.” Wait. What? They’re moving second base? Where would it be moving, exactly? Into a VIP suite? Into a cool little beach house? No, no, no. It isn’t that big a move, it turns out. But sources tell The Athletic that in the second half of this season, baseball will be moving second base inward — so it will be closer to first base and third base, by about 13.5 inches. Not in the big leagues, at least not yet. But this will happen in most ballparks at every level of the minor leagues, as part of sweeping minor-league rule-change experiments that will include pitch clocks, shift limits and robot umps — all of which could be coming to a big-league ballpark near you one of these years. Or not. But how did the location of second base get mixed up in all this? Well, there isn’t one quick explanation. It isn’t to mess with Jose Altuve or Ozzie Albies. It’s not some mysterious curse that traces back to the ghost of Rogers Hornsby or something. So let’s lay it out this way: The reason — traces back more than a century to the weirdness of where second base was originally located on the diamond. Spoiler alert: There has never been a distance of 90 feet between first base and second base, or between second and third, for that matter. That’s part of this. I’ll explain. But first … The goal — is to create a shorter distance between the bases. And what’s the point of that? To encourage more base stealing and maybe even more thrilling first-to-third base-running action. What else? I can help you with how that would work, too. But before I do … You should know that there will be some math here. It’s unavoidable, but I promise to try to keep it as simple as possible. Now what do you say we begin with … Why second base has always been lost Ever hired a contractor who made a seemingly logical assumption about the dimensions of your yard or living room, and then the work turned out to be slightly off center? That’s kind of what happened to second base. Did you know that for 135 years, this bag has always been in the wrong darned spot on the field? If you’d like to delve far deeper into this glitch, I refer you to this fascinating analysis by baseball researcher Tom Shieber from 2010. But here’s the upshot: Since 1887, second base has never been positioned quite the same way as the other bases. How can that be, you ask? I asked the same question. Just take a look at this diagram from the official rulebook of baseball. Hopefully, you’ll see that one of these base things is not like the others. See where first base and third base are located? They’re nestled into their natural corners on each side of the diamond. But now check out second base. It looks lovely, positioned aesthetically in the middle of the infield. Just one problem. It’s not nestled into its own natural corner of the diamond. Instead, it’s too deep (geometrically speaking), positioned so that the imaginary corner runs right through the middle of the bag. Why? How even? I knew you’d ask. The short explanation is that first base and third base were repositioned to help umpires make fair/foul calls. How? Because once they were moved to their current locales, any ball that hit the bag was obviously fair. Very helpful. Joe West’s thank you note is in the mail. But that’s not an issue with second base, since no fair/foul lines run through the middle of the field. So when first base and third base were moved in the late 19th century, second base stayed put. That honestly doesn’t matter for pretty much any reason, except this: It has created an opportunity for baseball. And now this sport is about to take advantage of it. But why? That’s the important part. So here’s … Why second base is on the move Pay attention now. This is what’s about to happen in the second half of the season, across the minor leagues: Second base will move inward, so that the outer edges of the bag will (finally) line up with the imaginary corner of the diamond mentioned earlier. And why, exactly? What’s the point? There is always a point. Everyone out there who thinks the rules of baseball were once handed down to Moses — or possibly Abner Doubleday — on a stone tablet should remember that. The point is that the effective distance between first and second base will shrink by more than a foot. Remember, it was never really 90 feet in the first place. So it will work like this: “Old” distance — 88 feet, 1.5 inches “New” distance* — 87 feet That asterisk involves another minor-league rule experiment you should keep in mind. At every full-season level of the minors, the size of the bases will increase from 15 inches square to 18 inches square at the start of the season. Now these two changes will work together. Here is how: Just those larger bases alone were always going to shorten the distance between first and second base. Now the combination of larger bases plus moving second base will combine to reduce that distance even more — to that total of 13.5 inches. And once it does … Let the track meet begin So is baseball making all the right moves? That would be the pivotal question. We can’t answer it yet. But that’s exactly the reason to experiment with this in the minor leagues. So everyone can find out. The funny thing is, baseball also tried this, on a limited basis, last season. Did you even know that? Did anyone? I didn’t. I’ve read the small print on every announced minor-league rule change for the past two years. I’ve talked to numerous baseball officials about the thinking behind those changes. And … Nobody ever mentioned this. Not once. But it turns out baseball moved second base in the second half of last season in what used to be the Pacific Coast League (known last year as “Triple-A West”). That league also tried out the larger, 18-inch bases in 2021, so it made sense. And the result was … Well, almost nothing of significance. The success rate on stolen bases increased from 74.8 percent to 77.0 percent. But the rate of base-stealing attempts barely changed at all. There’s a logical reason for that. Because this change was done quietly, with zero fanfare, teams never dug into the possibilities. So virtually none of the base-running incentives that were supposed to be created wound up happening. But this year, that figures to be different. All 30 organizations were alerted to this change — and to its potential significance — by Major League Baseball this month. So now this gets interesting. What’s so interesting about it, you ask? Let’s sum it up this way: In the big leagues in recent years, base-stealing has transformed itself from an art to a math equation. So instead of signing some Vince Coleman type and letting him run wild, teams mostly just calculate the percentages. They know the speed of the runner on first base. They know all about how easy it is to run on the pitcher on the mound. They know exactly what the average pop time is of the catcher behind the plate. If all that tells them that the runner on first has a great mathematical chance of stealing second, off he goes. But now think about how it changes that math if second base is more than a foot closer to first base. Seems logical that you’ll see more base stealing, right? And hopefully more first-to-third derring-do on balls that drop in the outfield, wouldn’t you think? We can’t be certain of that — yet. But guess what? In the second half of this season, we’re about to find out. So … does everyone understand this now? It’s a subtle, imperceptible change — one you might not even have noticed if I hadn’t just broken this news. But now you know why baseball is looking at that second-base bag, innocently hanging out in the middle of the infield just the way it always has, and saying: It’s your move!
