Jack Morris Pitching to the Score, David Eckstein Doing All the Little Things: The Baseball Intangibles Thread

Also, same event, Rob Bradford interviewed Triston Casas about his rookie season and there were two segments that are relevant to this thread and intangibles, especially for young players joining the league and adjusting. Transcripts very bad (mine!) but have edited minimally:

Bradford: What was the thing that sort of clicked for you that you feel like was the biggest reason for why you were able to take off?

Casas: I think just honestly believing that I belonged there.

Bradford: Oh you didn’t believe that?

Casas: I didn’t believe it. I mean, I was proving it to myself, just like I was trying to prove to everyone else. I mean, .197 in September ‘22 isn’t exactly, like, you know convincing everybody that I’m a great player. .197 through the first two months isn’t either, so I think once I went one time through the league…I played against Trout, I played against Ohtani, even the guys from the Blue Jays, Bo Bichette and Vlad, those are guys I look up to. The thing is I’m a baseball rat, I’m a baseball historian, so all I do is watch MLB Network, ESPN. The problem with doing that is all they show is the highlights. So I associate Ohtani and all these greats with only hitting home runs, and only doing great things but when I finally played against them, they had bad at-bats! I saw them swinging at pitches in the dirt, I saw them roll over…So once I saw all these great players making the same mistakes I did, it kind of settled me down to where I was like, they’re just like me, I’m out on the same field as them competing, and …that just calmed me down.

Casas: You know it’s funny, I made a game-losing error against Colorado randomly, I want to say it was in the beginning of May*. It was battle-tested weather, rain coming down, I remember it was Joe Jacques’ debut. I don’t remember who hit a ground ball to me but it was a lefty-lefty matchup and I bobbled the ball. We lose by a run because we went down by 2…

I was just sitting on the bench during the rain delay** and Trevor Story comes over and he was hurt at the time, he wasn’t playing. He was like, you’re an important part of this team, you’re a part of what we’re trying to do for right now especially because you’re here for a reason but especially in the future. So we talked on the bench for an hour after my game-losing error, and he pretty much calmed me down, he instilled that confidence in me, he said that in the time he’d been injured he’d been having conversations with the front office and with other members of the staff and they believed in me, he instilled that in me, and I guess that calmed me down a little bit because from that point…I felt like it was only uphill from that ***.

Grissom, the team’s presumed starter at second base, quickly joined the plans after being traded from the Braves in exchange for Chris Sale at the end of December in an effort to build some chemistry with Story before camp opens in February.

_otoh, unless you have godlike ability (and even griffey jr. had his struggles coming up) it *does* take a certain mental toughness to deal with all the failure, the inevitable unfairness, etc. before reaching and remaining in the majors. but that toughness doesn't look the same in everyone, and baseball tends to look for it in only one way._.

Who’s the kid the dodgers keep on payroll for mental healthcare reasons? A happier outcome of the Sal Fansano incident

Andrew Toles. That was a great example.

Andrew Toles. That was a great example.

It's a celebrated day every year

Tolesy was electric coming up too, seemed he had a real career in front of him. Sad but glad the Dodgers continue to do right by him 6 years on

obviously there's a lot of failure in baseball -- you wear down, you fall into a slump, you get babipped, whatever -- but being a pitcher who can no longer throw strikes seems like a special kind of hell. the yips will fuck you up, sometimes forever

Career minor leaguer John Mincone made this response re the mentality of 162 and where players and fans differ that I’ve seen made repeatedly, but rarely all in one place:

If professional athletes let the emotions of fans affect them daily, they wouldn’t have the mental capacity necessary to go out and play day in and day out despite struggling. There is a reason why some very good players flame out early in their careers and some fringy guys may stick around longer than you think. You’re taught early on in professional ball, some in college if they have the right coaching, once the street clothes come off and uni goes on, whatever is bothering you in your personal life goes with it for the next few hours while you compete.. when the uni comes off and street clothes go back on, you wash the game, good or bad, and get ready for the next one. Struggles, slumps, low points will always happen in professional sports. I’m not sure why fans would rather they have emotional messes who sit around and cry with them after losses.. they’re not your friends, they’re professional athletes. Good or bad days, they still have things to be sad and happy about, just like the rest of us. Being upset over them smiling isn’t it.

When he's right, he's right. This is a really really rough look after another despicable loss. When they say "read the room"... the players should be able to "read the ballpark" too. Look around, it's dead, and will only get worse if this shit keeps up. https://t.co/e12OetmlRT

— The 7 Line (@The7Line) June 3, 2024

Made me think of this, of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Q0kp8CMFQ

The GM saying that is one thing, but fans can shove it imo

I've noticed that with fantasy sports too, so much vitriol towards specific players seems to happen only because they're underperforming in fantasy, can't remember who but there was one NFL player who said people were noticeably meaner towards professional athletes since fantasy sports really took off

but yeah we definitely put weird expectations on how these guys should *live their lives*, I mean when you're watching a game, especially a playoff game sometimes it's the only thing in the world that matters to you in that moment, but the next day your emotions on it have cooled quite a bit. I've been on teams myself and actually coach my son's soccer team now, it's the same thing, when you're playing you're only focused on the game, but after its over you go back to your life, idk maybe it's unreasonable to expect the pros to be different, in fact most of the stories you hear about guys who are constantly obsessing over the game are from people who flamed out early

I'm sure your last sentence is true, but there are also famous cases of great players who internalized every wasted AB and every poor pitch for days afterwards. Two prominent ones: Ted Williams and Tom Seaver (or at least for the first few years of his career--I think he acquired some equanimity as he got older).

And Cobb, of course...who may have been borderline psychotic.

there was one NFL player who said people were noticeably meaner towards professional athletes since fantasy sports really took off

All I can go by is general demeanour, but never-phased-by-anything counter-examples: Stan Musial (happy), Ernie Banks (happy), Greg Maddux (weirdly Zen-like).

edwin diaz was reported to have cried after one of his blown saves this year - that is, showed publicly that he cared.

of course, people came out of the woodwork to say that he should have 'manned up', real men don't cry etc. probably some of the same people who are approvingly liking that tweet, i'd bet

Reminded a bit of this from Joan Ryan’s amazing book about team chemistry:

“Clubhouse lawyers can do more friggin’ damage than anybody on a ball club,” Keith Hernandez told me. He played seventeen years in the major leagues, including on the 1986 World Series champion New York Mets. “Usually the clubhouse lawyer is someone who is dissatisfied himself. He’s not happy about how he’s being used, and he just can’t internalize it. He’s got to spread it like a weed, like a poison throughout the team. He needs to be traded as soon as possible.” The clubhouse lawyer is often a fading veteran riding the bench who pulls others into his bitch-fest. There’s always someone ready to be convinced that — yes! — he’s getting screwed, too. “That’s why you want character guys who won’t get sucked into the misery,” one coach said.

edwin diaz was reported to have cried after one of his blown saves this year - that is, showed publicly that he cared.

of course, people came out of the woodwork to say that he should have 'manned up', real men don't cry etc. probably some of the same people who are approvingly liking that tweet, i'd bet

“Sergio, he had his moments, sure,” Righetti said. “But here’s the thing: he’d come to you. You didn’t have to go to him. Some guys, if they get caught showing off out there, they get upset and embarrassed. They go backwards. You lose them. That wasn’t him. I never had to yell at him. It’s just, ‘C’mere, let’s go talk somewhere.'”

They had one of those talks on the mound in Game 3 of the 2010 NLDS at Atlanta. Romo replaced Jonathan Sánchez in the eighth inning with a runner on base and the Giants leading, 1-0. The two teams had split the first two games of the series. It was a pivotal moment and the most important appearance of Romo’s career. Troy Glaus had been announced as the pinch hitter to face Sánchez. After Bochy went to Romo, Braves manager Bobby Cox burned Glaus to get the left-handed matchup with Eric Hinske.

Hinske hit a towering, two-run home run.

“I went out there. I had to,” Righetti said. “He was crushed. You could see it all over his face. He thought he failed. I told him, ‘Hey, you’re gonna get the win. You’re not going to want the win, but you’re getting it.’ From then on, he never did that again.”

Even in 2012, when Romo gave up a walk-off home run in St. Louis to Kolten Wong as the Cardinals won Game 2 to tie the NLCS. The Giants went on to win the next three games. Romo didn’t allow another run the rest of the postseason.

“It didn’t affect him,” Righetti said. “He handled that well. And he had his signature moment (in 2012). But there were so many more moments. During our run, we were in a race every year. We didn’t have any margin for error. He was as dependable as it gets.

“Shoot, you look at his career, and he’s the best reliever I’ve had.”

I was looking over earlier posts in this thread, and an addendum to the detour on Kershaw's postseason ordeals. In his Kershaw fame-countdown entry, Posnanski has a list of how the best pitchers this century have fared in the postseason:

Randy Johnson, 7-9, 3.50 ERA (3-0 with 1.04 ERA in World Series)

Pedro Martinez, 6-4, 3.46 ERA

Justin Verlander, 17-12, 3.58 ERA (1-6 with 5.63 ERA in World Series)

Clayton Kershaw, 13-13, 4.49 ERA

Max Scherzer, 7-8, 3.78 ERA

Roger Clemens, 12-8, 3.75 ERA

Greg Maddux, 11-14, 3.27 ERA*

Zack Greinke, 4-6, 4.14 ERA (1.80 ERA without a decision in World Series)

Curt Schilling, 11-2, 2.23 ERA (4-1, 2.06 ERA in World Series)

Mike Mussina, 7-8, 3.42 ERA

Subtracting Schilling, who we will talk about in a minute, the overall postseason numbers for perhaps the nine best pitchers of the last 30 years: 84-82, 3.72 ERA in 1,430 innings...So, yes, Kershaw’s record is worse than any of the others. But it’s also marred by four absolutely calamitous innings where things just went very wrong (and relievers did not exactly bail him out). I mean, you can’t just erase those four bad innings, but if you could, his postseason ERA and general record would be right there with the rest of the group.

He also makes the point that Maddux gave up twenty-five unearned runs in the postseason (none of the others had more than 5), letting him off the hook to a degree.

Better note for gyac that he does mention Bumgarner:

"The exception is Schilling*, who is one of the greatest postseason pitchers ever and would be in the Hall of Fame if he wasn’t such a knucklehead.

*Of course, Madison Bumgarner has been incredible in the postseason, too, but he just couldn’t stay healthy and dominant long enough to be in this class."

That list is Smoltz erasure (15-4, 2.67 ERA over 209IP, NLCS MVP... and 4 saves!)

I agree. Also missing is Halladay, who, in a smaller sample, was great in the postseason. (No knock on Greinke, but I'd put Halladay and Smoltz ahead of him.) I think Joe eliminated a couple of guys who didn't support the point he wanted to make...

That’s cool but it wasn’t exactly what I was talking about.

I posted that in connection to discussion earlier in the thread, months ago--nothing to do with recent posting.

lol i can remember losing my first junior varsity basketball game when i was 13 or something and feeling *so* terrible about it on the bus ride home. partly because the coach was a dick, but mostly because i had fully internalized this sort of toxic fandom

high-level pro athletes are almost(?) pathologically competitive, or they wouldn't be where they are. in the NFL, you get the day after the game to mope if you want, then you generally have five more days to prepare for the next one. there's no time for moping in baseball

(that said, i don't think posting that photo after a loss was a wise move -- breaking your fans' illusions is rarely wise, no matter how dumbass they are)

I'd extend the football comparison to starting pitchers vs. position players (or frequently used relief pitchers); a starting pitcher, if he's vulnerable to negative thinking, has a few extra days to get inside his own head.

Yeah I’ve seen pitchers say that: you get lit up and you have to wait five days to turn the page. No wonder they’re the weirdest group of players.

field goal kickers maybe have it the worst there, idk if I can think of another position where one bad play at the worst possible time can ruin an entire career

I've noticed that with fantasy sports too, so much vitriol towards specific players seems to happen only because they're underperforming in fantasy, can't remember who but there was one NFL player who said people were noticeably meaner towards professional athletes since fantasy sports really took off

At first I thought you were talking about Tommy Pham but c.f Alex Avila firing up Scherzer with a bad fantasy trade. So that, too is a positive force that can be channeled productively.

Interesting roster move from the Red Sox today:

The #RedSox today placed RHP Chris Martin on the 15-Day Injured List, retroactive to June 2, due to anxiety.

To fill his spot on the active roster, the club recalled RHP Zack Kelly from Triple-A Worcester.

— Red Sox (@RedSox) June 5, 2024

I remember playing the game, going 0-for-4, going to the apartment, turning on the TV at midnight, watching the game again. I was gonna go 0-for-4 again and then in the morning, watch the game again and go 0-for-4 again. I feel like at that time, at that moment, the family suffered. It suffered a lot. As you guys know, Camila is the daughter of divorced parents. Probably early in my career, I didn't help my family to be as strong as it should be because there were a lot of demons, a lot of stuff going on in between the lines and in the clubhouse and out of baseball. That's why I tip her mom, Nilda, because she did an outstanding job after we separated. We got a great daughter, a daughter that's gonna kill it in the world because she's very strong. She has strong parents. We've been very honest about our situation, what we need to do for her to succeed, you know what l'm saying? We've been going through this for a while here as far as guys stepping up and being open about it.

He's gonna be okay. Whenever he's ready, he's ready, right? We don't know if it's short-term, long-term. We never know. We don't know about this. But I think with the team that's around, it's gonna surround him, and he's gonna be OK.

Regarding Chris Martin, several players (Jarren Duran in particular) have talked about how helpful Kenley Jansen has been in discussing his struggles with mental health.

Posnanski has a new silly stat, very pertinent to this thread: "the Eckstein" (suggested by a British reader).

The Eckstein! Brilliant Reader Alan took the long train ride to the Waterstones book signing--he brought with him my entire catalog of books, going all the way back to The Good Stuf--and he suggested a new statistic for the PosCast/JoeBlogs: The Eckstein.

To get an Eckstein, a player needs: 12 hit-by-pitches and 12 sacrifice bunts in a season.

This was something that gritty David Eckstein did three times in his remarkable career. This is the most Ecksteins of the Division Era (since 1969):

David Eckstein (3 times)

Ron Hunt (2 times)

Nine other players (1 time)

The last person to Eckstein was Nyjer Morgan, who did the deed in 2011, when he was hit by 14 pitches and successfully sacrificed 15 times. Juan Pierre Ecksteined the year before--they are the only two players to do it since Eck himself.

Is it possible? Yes, absolutely. The last two years, Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo had the requisite 12 sac hits--he just needed to lean into a few more pitches. Leonys Martin in 2013 had eight hit-by pitches and 12 sacrifice hits.

I don’t love sacrifice hits, and I don’t love hit-by-pitches, and yet I dream of a day when we will again see an Eckstein.

Mariners posted this graphic about hbps the other day

That indeed left a mark. pic.twitter.com/nK5slT5wcW

— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) June 8, 2024

The Athletic actually posted a series of articles today about their annual player survey and one of the questions was about criticisms of today’s game from former players that annoyed them:

1. Today’s hitters venting that former players don’t respect how difficult it is to hit modern pitching

2. Today’s pitchers venting that former players say modern pitchers do not know how to pitch and need to throw more strikes

Let’s start with the hitters:

“(People say) guys don’t care about putting the ball in play,” one National League infielder said. “Do you watch the (old) games on TV? The skill level of the game is (so much better now). The infielders are great. They have arm strength. Those pitchers (back in the day) stink. One of our Triple-A guys would have been like the best closer in baseball 15 years ago.”

Added a second National League infielder: “I don’t think former players appreciate how difficult hitting is now in today’s game. Not that it wasn’t hard back then, and not to discredit them. But it’s different. The state of the game is different.”

Said a third National League player: “We also have to face 100 mph every night.”

Many hitters were clearly of the belief that former players don’t understand how hard modern pitchers throw, how pervasive 100 mph fastballs have become, and how new technology has resulted in nasty breaking balls.

“They had three guys in the league who threw 95 and now the first guy in from the bullpen throws 100,” said a National League infielder.

Added another National League outfielder: “Every generation has unique things about it. … You can take a superstar of any generation and put them in a (different) generation and they’re going to figure out a way to do it. But obviously, we’ve seen a boom in velocity and a boom in certain stuff. … Comparing eras, it’s never apples to apples.”

Added another player: “I think the (most) irritating thing is, like, when some guy swings at a pitch in the dirt or chases a pitch, and they’re like, you know, ‘What was he looking for?’ Like, it’s a hard game. Sometimes … you see something and (the ball) does something different.”

Or as An American League player put it: “Do you think Babe Ruth ever saw a slider?”

One National League infielder said there was a clear “lack of respect for difference in pitching quality.”

Of course, today’s pitchers were also clearly vexed by criticism about not going deep into games, not throwing strikes, or not understanding the art of pitching. Among the responses:

“The zone has never been close to this small,” a National League pitcher said. “You can’t pitch up and can’t pitch in. You watch older guys’ 12- to 15-strikeout games, and it’s insane the calls they got.”

Said an American League starter: “You hear a lot of former starting pitchers say, ‘We used to go eight innings, nine innings every five days.’ I get it. I would love to do that. But the game has changed. There’s more strategy attached to building a pretty solid bullpen that is going to seal you the opportunity for a win. It’s a different strategy.”

Added a second National League pitcher: “The old guys just (say), ‘Just throw strikes.’ They had expanded strike zones. And, ‘Guys are walking too much, striking out too much.’ Well, it’s pretty hard in today’s game as far as velo and hitters striking out — the pitchers are just good now.”

“’Just throw strikes,’” a National League reliever mused. “Their strike zone was three times the size.”

Or, as another American League pitcher put it: “Just someone saying, ‘Throw strikes,’ like it’s automatic. Like yeah, no s—.”

Another common theme in the generational divide between today and yesterday was the use and presence of analytics. One player specifically mentioned the dismissal of plyo balls and other technology. One NL pitcher said some former players “view the game through a lens that’s archaic at this point.”

“There’s no malice behind it,” the pitcher said. “But (there’s) no attempt to understand training methods and analytics that exist today that didn’t exist back then.”

Not surprisingly, other responses will sound familiar to any longtime baseball fan:

“Complaining about pimping home runs.”

“The bat flips.”

“We’re having too much fun.”

“I think a lot of them say some guys don’t run hard. I think guys are a little bit better at managing their bodies.”

As with any cross-section of society, there was no unanimity in the responses.

One American League player was flummoxed that former players would even consider critiquing today’s players.

“I don’t even know what they would criticize,” he said. “I think the game is better.”

But other players were more forgiving.

“I kind of like some of the criticisms,” one National League infielder said. “I think I like some of them too much to say anything.”

Added another player in his early 30s:

“I agree with most of them,” he said. “The game is soft now.”

One more thing about the Eckstein. I think it's funny--funny-charming, not to be taken seriously--because the whole premise of this thread is that it's about all the things that can't be quantified but win games, and this is an attempt to quantify something.

Ron Hunt was something else--got hit 50 times one season, still a modern-day record.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/huntro01.shtml

Sometimes there is crying in baseball.

Wilyer Abreu was really emotional after that homer.

Hope everything is alright.

Jason Varitek gave him a big hug before he went back on the field pic.twitter.com/XKFh3MM1C3

— Tyler Milliken ⚾️ (@tylermilliken_) August 4, 2024

Trying to wrack my brain for another example, and all I could come up with--and this isn't what you mean--is Paul Molitor visibly in tears after the big melee broke up after Carter's HR in the '92 Series. It wasn't personal tragedy, but he had had an up-and-down career to that point--injuries, a drug problem--and came here to win a Series. Which he did, and he was quite overcome.

'93 Series, I mean...my memory is embellishing a bit. Looked at it again--go to 2:58:20--and it's more like Molitor's on the verge of tears than actually crying. Anyway, thrill-of-victory tears are probably pretty common; personal-tragedy tears, I don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1E8UIAqW4Y

My feeling is that football players are almost expected to play through personal tragedy and it gets played up on TV all the time, the person who died would have wanted them to play, etc.

In baseball, I think this stuff rarely gets talked about, the manager would just give the guy a day off and it wouldn't be questioned.

Baseball has paternity leave now (this didn't exist when I was growing up) and why not? The season isn't going to be won or lost based on missing a few games mid-season (especially not with 12-team playoff brackets), so just let these guys be with their families. Same goes for family emergencies, like Freddie Freeman's situation. If he was a football player, I think we'd be hearing about how he "missed practice on Thursday" but would be ready come Sunday. That's not a criticism really (well, maybe it is ...), it's just a different sport, and a different mentality. Another example (not a tragedy exactly): Tom Brady's divorce a few years back. He was away from the team (in preseason) and everyone basically knew why but couldn't talk about it, and everyone just wanted to know whether he'd really be ready for the start of the season. Give the guy some space, ffs.

Yeah hear you re space. I think it’s uncomfortable to see people crying in public but if the player has said they want to do it, manager can’t exactly tell them not to? There was a minor controversy last year when Garrett Whitlock, whose younger brother drowned in a terrible accident, went on bereavement leave and then came back and pitched immediately. Because the bullpen was so tapped, there was some concern that he’d been rushed back, but per Whitlock himself, that wasn’t the case at all.

On Garrett Whitlock's emotional return just a week after his brother's tragic death:https://t.co/5ApNZ85NTr

— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) September 11, 2023

Whitlock said pitching for the first time since his brother’s death served as a “good distraction,” as he was able to focus on individual hitters and pitches instead of the tough times his family are going through. After Whitlock completed his second inning of work, Cora and other members of the Red Sox greeted him with hugs in the home dugout.

Sorry, this'll be behind a paywall, but: "In times of heartache, athletes often cope by doing what they do best: playing"

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5683038/2024/08/06/athletes-playing-in-tragedy-wilyer-abreu-freddie-freeman-chris-paul/

Devers hitting Cole well is well known, but for the past month Devers has been in a slump like most of the Red Sox lineup. He’s been playing through an inflamed left shoulder since the beginning of the season and he banged up his right shoulder in July and it’s finally wearing on him. Striking out a lot, power outage, looking a bit lost.

First AB this game, Cole hits him. Assumed this was unintentional. Next AB, Yankees lead 1-0 in the top of the fourth, one out, bases empty. This happens:

Gerrit Cole Intentionally Walking Devers...

And Devers' reaction. pic.twitter.com/0FZG164uzn

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 14, 2024

Guarantee that Bill James agrees with you! (I had a long anecdote about an IBB in a Jays game a few weeks ago, but I've forgotten the details now; it started with an inexplicable IBB, the two broadcasters parried, disaster followed, and the one who was against the IBB ended with "You were saying?")

That intentional walk was literally brought up every.single.inning. It’s crazy how it changed the shape of the game, because it broke Cole right open - he’d been literally unhittable before that - and he didn’t end up finishing the fifth. Total intangibles thing.

I’m watching the postgames & Boone has said Cole was “overthinking” and made it clear it was his decision; Devers said “he’s a future Hall of Famer, I’m not sure why he did it, maybe he panicked a little,” Cora was mainly angry at the hbp in the first inning which he thought was intentional and Cole has yet to emerge to speak in the Yankees clubhouse.

It’s his first intentional walk in seven years btw

Gerrit Cole explains the decisions and planning behind intentionally walking Rafael Devers.#YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/uTEylUrAm1

— YES Network (@YESNetwork) September 14, 2024

Two minutes into that clip and I've paused: as weird/poor a decision as it was, it feels like the reporters are kind of hounding him.

Cole threw his rookie catcher under the bus by saying the move was discussed beforehand & the catcher (Austin Wells) had no idea it was coming, thought Cole was joking.

The Jays TV guys spent two-three minutes on this today.

What did they say?

I was in the other room, but I think the gist of it was how ill-advised the IBB was.