[Official] Spring Training Thread

Tamarez averaging 96 today seems better than what I remember from him last season.

 

Melendez has got some juice if he can keep it in the right zip code.

 

Baseball is weird. Lots of daytime games during the week and 160 games. If you have are a fan of a particular pitcher, then you may only get a chance to see him 10 times a year at home.

 

His fastball seems so hittable. Very traditional trajectory and isn't touching triple digits. There is no funk to it at all. Like a pitching machine throwing you 96-97 mph down the middle.

 

Yes, it appears quite hittable to me.

I am sure there are things they will try to do with it, but it needs to be a secondary offering and he needs excellent command of it, because it is a grapefruit.

 

To me it appeared to be a sinker, which is not the fastball shape I thought he threw; I thought he threw a traditional four seamer. Yesterday, he started most of his fastballs at the top of the zone with what seemed to be like arm-side fading sink. If you start that pitch high, it usually ends middle middle with a trajectory that lends itself to easy barrels and good launch angle. It reminded me of a poor-man's McCullers fastball, and I don't like the rich man's version of that pitch either. I did not like the fastball I saw from him yesterday at all. The curve seemed to have good bite and the slider looked sweepy with late movement, so both of those pitches looked like they could play. But if yesterday's fastball is his fastball, he's not even a major league reliever, I'm sorry to say.

 

It was. In his post game interview, he did say was throwing a 2 seamer.

 

The game of baseball is not shorter. The time spent watching as the camera guy shows players adjust their balls and spit, Altuve chew on his finger nails, Dusty chew on his toothpick, and fans with corny signs has been eliminated. Is this really going to be missed?

 

Has anyone heard anything about Brantley?

 

And at least watching golf they constantly switch from one golfer to another, TV wise there is actually a lot less down time watching golf

In a couple years no one will be saying a word about it. Remember the awful sentiment when we first moved to the AL. Astro nation seems to be fine

 

Is the extra velo from Garcia possibly because he is further ahead in his throwing because he is getting ready for the WBC?

 

Hopefully Stroman is correct.

 

I do like all of that stuff. Not as much watching on tv, but just being at the stadium. But, looking back to when I was a kid at so many games in the 80's, the average game was 2:40, about 25 minutes less than recent years.
Going back to the 1940's, the average game was around 2:05, but in the 50's increased quickly to 2:30 where it stayed for 3 decades. I would say the pick offs and time between pitches were probably similar to the 80's & 90's, but the MAIN reason games were so much shorter was that there were no pitching changes, no guys jogging in from the bullpen throwing 8 warm up pitches. Starting in the 80's & 90's and even more so in the 2000's that happened on average probably 7 times a game (just a guess. I don't know the #'s for this)
If pitchers are throwing a complete game and no relievers or just a closer is used, then the game will be much shorter, even with no limit on pick offs and no pitch clock.
So, really we are speeding up parts of the game that have never really had a major effect on the length.
And I hate starting runners on second in extra innings. That has never been part of the game and shouldn't be in my opinion.

 

Guess not.

 

I heard he's finally swinging a bat, though not in anger yet. Taking reps in the infield.

 

I was gonna say I’ve seen him pump it 97-98 in the playoffs

 

It’s gonna be so awesome now that all these people that don’t like baseball are going to start watching baseball bc the games are about 26 mins shorter.