6 ms·

Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

32 points by peterkrieg 12y ago

bitsoda 12y ago
Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams with the first two rounds being a best out of 5, concluding with the NLCS/ALCS and World Series being a best out of 7, of course. It would get more fanbases interested in their team if they at least made a playoff appearance more often. The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership as the average age of your typical MLB viewer is ~54 years. [1]http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-baseballs-old-people-problem-with-merchandise-highlights http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-baseb...
- steverb 12y ago
  Personally, I've always thought they should put a speed limit on pitching. These days watching baseball feels like watching two guys play catch.
  - pokpokpok 12y ago
    if you mean that you want them to nerf pitching, I think that the appropriate way to do that is to lower the mound
    - bitsoda 12y ago
      I think he wants MLB to implement a timer between pitches, which already exists (it's 12 seconds), but is rarely enforced. Source: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_8.jsp http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_... (Rule 8.04)
    - steverb 12y ago
      Yes, nerfing pitching was what I was thinking, and I think lowering the mound would be an excellent idea. Not that MLB is listening to me. :-)
  - corin_ 12y ago
    There actually already is a rule on this, the pitcher has to release the ball within 12 seconds of receiving the ball, as long as the batter is ready to receive the pitch. It's just never enforced. But there has been a lot of talk about possibly starting to enforce this rule, primarily using a visible clock/timer in games - though I think MLB were talking about changing from 12 to 20 seconds if they do start enforcing it.
- grecy 12y ago
  > by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to me, makes it much more exciting because each win or loss really matters, and as a spectator I actually care.
  - bcantrill 12y ago
    You just haven't followed baseball closely enough. When it's September and you're in a close divisional or wildcard race, there is nothing more exciting in sports: every pitch counts and every at-bat counts -- and there are ~5-6 games per week. (And that only counts your team! Part of the terror of a close race is that you're also watching every pitch and every at-bat of your rivals.) If anything, it's almost exciting to a fault...
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - grecy 12y ago
      It was recently explained to me that Professional sports is watching other people have the time of their lives.... If you're at a bar drinking, or at the game, you're literally paying to watch other people have the time of their lives. Worth thinking about
  - Legion 12y ago
    In my opinion, the lockout-shortened 2012-13 NHL season (started in January, 48 game regular season) was the best thing ever. Particularly in a country where NFL football reigns supreme, the NHL starting an 82 game season in October is just a loser. Starting the compressed season in January, with the NFL regular season over, made so much more sense.
  - jghn 12y ago
    I agree fully, although IMO there's another factor at work here (albeit a side effect of your point anyways). Not only are there so many games, but they're all on TV. The NFL mostly stacks their games on Sunday so "football sunday" has become a social event for people. Leagues like the MLB, NBA and NHL spread their games all over the week and with modern cable packages on pretty much any given day you can find a game to watch - the specialness is lost. This is one reason why I think it's a bad idea for the NFL to start spreading games around - sure there was always MNF but they've had TNF now for a while and there's always talk about adding more. They want those primetime slots but all it does is weaken The Event effect of sundays.
- vivekpreddy 12y ago
  The problem as with reducing the number of games for any sport always comes down to money. Reducing a season by 62 games for each team is a huge loss in revenues which owners will never go along with, especially owners of the highest grossing teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Giants. I like the idea of off-setting that with more teams in the playoffs, but that would be the biggest hurdle to climb in terms of reducing the number of games in a season. You could argue that maybe the players union could strike, citing to grueling of a season, but their compensation is directly tied to revenues, so they'd be opposed to a reduction in games as well.
- bmj 12y ago
  The new MLB commissioner has responded to questions spurred by the WSJ report [0]. [0] http://deadspin.com/rob-manfred-wont-rule-out-a-shorter-baseball-season-1687725082 http://deadspin.com/rob-manfred-wont-rule-out-a-shorter-base...
- VLM 12y ago
  "The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership" Your linked article also carefully tiptoed around the other elephant in the room, that being, as the pix demonstrates, not just a sea of old people, but a sea of old white people except for one Hispanic (old) guy. As whites become a minority race and the average age of a MLB viewer goes up one year per year, the pro level will die out pretty soon. How this interacts with billion dollar municipal bond offerings to pay for stadiums and such is interesting to contemplate. Note, its probably a net gain to the sport overall, even if only 5% of the couch potatoes join or attend a local amateur game or take their kids to little league after MLB shuts down. Even if only 1% take a ball to a local park, it'll still be a net gain for the game overall.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Perhaps it's just that we have two good and popular teams in the Bay Area, but I don't recognize the problem you're talking whenever I attend a baseball game.
TwoBit 12y ago
I must not understand Baseball well, because it strikes me as one of the least fatiguing sports that there are.
- carsongross 12y ago
  Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal human, can keep this up for about one hour, before you collapse of exhaustion or hurt yourself. That the super humans who play professional baseball are able to do this day in and day out for more than half a year is insane.
  - UnethicalHacks 12y ago
    No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.
    - parfe 12y ago
      >I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. You mean kilometers, not miles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/20/how-far-do-world-cup-soccer-players-run-during-a-match/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06...
    - DerekH 12y ago
      In general, the public has a poor understanding of being a professional athlete. Typically, when I try to explain it to others, I usually just say "it's a job like any other" - the same as staying on top of your game in the music industry, running a startup, etc. It's easy for us to dismiss the effort professional athletes put out when you only see them on TV a few times. However, it's somehow different when we see Steve Jobs or Tim Cook on stage a couple times each year. We recognize all of the hard work Steve/Tim likely put in behind the scenes. For some reason, a lot of people don't recognize that same level of effort for professional athletes. They just assume they show up for the game and perform at a high level. For every hour on the field, there's probably two hours of study (mental preparation) and two hours of treatment and/or rehab (physical maintenance). Pair that with a rigid schedule every day, fatigue is a real concern. We all know the overnight success myth. The myth exists for professional athletes as well. Athletes that make it to the highest level didn't simply wake up one morning and have all the tools to succeed. Hours and hours and hours of training, both mental and physical, had to occur. It's like anything else - you don't simply get good. It takes practice. It also takes commitment, dedication, and perseverance to succeed at a professional level - just like everything else in this world.
VLM 12y ago
No one wants to comment on the blindingly obvious startup aspects? When dealing with millions of dollars, experienced professionals don't get shoved like sardines into the smallest possible space, don't even try to produce at world class level for 16 hours a day 7 days a week for years, don't turn to energy drinks and potato chips as a primary source of nutrition... Apparently pro-ball is the "anti-startup" despite the similar focus on individual rock stars and teamwork and millions of dollars on the line. Perhaps they're just dumb jocks, or maybe, just maybe, startup culture is wrong? Obviously its one or the other.
chrisBob 12y ago
I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.
- hyperliner 12y ago
  Also, more focus on the catchers. They take a beating too.
- rhino369 12y ago
  I don't think the league needs to mandate anything. It's not like these are dropping dead. It is like a marathon, pacing yourself is just part of it.
- smeyer 12y ago
  I think they focused on hitters because in general a lot more attention is already paid to fatigue with pitchers (carefully monitoring innings pitched, pitch counts, rest days, and so on). It's possible (although not guaranteed) that there is much more room for improvement in the way teams deal with fatigue for hitters.
snappy173 12y ago
baseball, as with all sports, has a long and storied history with using various performance enhancing drugs to cope with injury and fatigue. amphetamines were commonplace in ball four ... bouton casually discusses greenies, players' coffee vs. regular coffee, etc. there was a sporting news snippet from the 1910's (that i can't find right now) that discussed pitchers dealing with arm fatigue ... the takeaway was that some pitchers preferred cocaine injections, while others preferred morphine. and then there was the steroid era ... lots of attention of course to creating cartoonishly large players, but most of these drugs were to shorten recovery from workouts ... you don't magically get huge from taking steroids.

32 points by peterkrieg 12y ago

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams with the first two rounds being a best out of 5, concluding with the NLCS/ALCS and World Series being a best out of 7, of course. It would get more fanbases interested in their team if they at least made a playoff appearance more often. The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership as the average age of your typical MLB viewer is ~54 years. [1]http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-baseballs-old-people-problem-with-merchandise-highlights http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-baseb...

steverb 12y ago
Personally, I've always thought they should put a speed limit on pitching. These days watching baseball feels like watching two guys play catch.
- pokpokpok 12y ago
  if you mean that you want them to nerf pitching, I think that the appropriate way to do that is to lower the mound
  - bitsoda 12y ago
    I think he wants MLB to implement a timer between pitches, which already exists (it's 12 seconds), but is rarely enforced. Source: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_8.jsp http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_... (Rule 8.04)
  - steverb 12y ago
    Yes, nerfing pitching was what I was thinking, and I think lowering the mound would be an excellent idea. Not that MLB is listening to me. :-)
- corin_ 12y ago
  There actually already is a rule on this, the pitcher has to release the ball within 12 seconds of receiving the ball, as long as the batter is ready to receive the pitch. It's just never enforced. But there has been a lot of talk about possibly starting to enforce this rule, primarily using a visible clock/timer in games - though I think MLB were talking about changing from 12 to 20 seconds if they do start enforcing it.
grecy 12y ago
> by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to me, makes it much more exciting because each win or loss really matters, and as a spectator I actually care.
- bcantrill 12y ago
  You just haven't followed baseball closely enough. When it's September and you're in a close divisional or wildcard race, there is nothing more exciting in sports: every pitch counts and every at-bat counts -- and there are ~5-6 games per week. (And that only counts your team! Part of the terror of a close race is that you're also watching every pitch and every at-bat of your rivals.) If anything, it's almost exciting to a fault...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - grecy 12y ago
    It was recently explained to me that Professional sports is watching other people have the time of their lives.... If you're at a bar drinking, or at the game, you're literally paying to watch other people have the time of their lives. Worth thinking about
- Legion 12y ago
  In my opinion, the lockout-shortened 2012-13 NHL season (started in January, 48 game regular season) was the best thing ever. Particularly in a country where NFL football reigns supreme, the NHL starting an 82 game season in October is just a loser. Starting the compressed season in January, with the NFL regular season over, made so much more sense.
- jghn 12y ago
  I agree fully, although IMO there's another factor at work here (albeit a side effect of your point anyways). Not only are there so many games, but they're all on TV. The NFL mostly stacks their games on Sunday so "football sunday" has become a social event for people. Leagues like the MLB, NBA and NHL spread their games all over the week and with modern cable packages on pretty much any given day you can find a game to watch - the specialness is lost. This is one reason why I think it's a bad idea for the NFL to start spreading games around - sure there was always MNF but they've had TNF now for a while and there's always talk about adding more. They want those primetime slots but all it does is weaken The Event effect of sundays.
vivekpreddy 12y ago
The problem as with reducing the number of games for any sport always comes down to money. Reducing a season by 62 games for each team is a huge loss in revenues which owners will never go along with, especially owners of the highest grossing teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Giants. I like the idea of off-setting that with more teams in the playoffs, but that would be the biggest hurdle to climb in terms of reducing the number of games in a season. You could argue that maybe the players union could strike, citing to grueling of a season, but their compensation is directly tied to revenues, so they'd be opposed to a reduction in games as well.
bmj 12y ago
The new MLB commissioner has responded to questions spurred by the WSJ report [0]. [0] http://deadspin.com/rob-manfred-wont-rule-out-a-shorter-baseball-season-1687725082 http://deadspin.com/rob-manfred-wont-rule-out-a-shorter-base...
VLM 12y ago
"The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership" Your linked article also carefully tiptoed around the other elephant in the room, that being, as the pix demonstrates, not just a sea of old people, but a sea of old white people except for one Hispanic (old) guy. As whites become a minority race and the average age of a MLB viewer goes up one year per year, the pro level will die out pretty soon. How this interacts with billion dollar municipal bond offerings to pay for stadiums and such is interesting to contemplate. Note, its probably a net gain to the sport overall, even if only 5% of the couch potatoes join or attend a local amateur game or take their kids to little league after MLB shuts down. Even if only 1% take a ball to a local park, it'll still be a net gain for the game overall.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Perhaps it's just that we have two good and popular teams in the Bay Area, but I don't recognize the problem you're talking whenever I attend a baseball game.

TwoBit 12y ago

I must not understand Baseball well, because it strikes me as one of the least fatiguing sports that there are.

carsongross 12y ago
Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal human, can keep this up for about one hour, before you collapse of exhaustion or hurt yourself. That the super humans who play professional baseball are able to do this day in and day out for more than half a year is insane.
- UnethicalHacks 12y ago
  No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.
  - parfe 12y ago
    >I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. You mean kilometers, not miles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06/20/how-far-do-world-cup-soccer-players-run-during-a-match/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/06...
  - DerekH 12y ago
    In general, the public has a poor understanding of being a professional athlete. Typically, when I try to explain it to others, I usually just say "it's a job like any other" - the same as staying on top of your game in the music industry, running a startup, etc. It's easy for us to dismiss the effort professional athletes put out when you only see them on TV a few times. However, it's somehow different when we see Steve Jobs or Tim Cook on stage a couple times each year. We recognize all of the hard work Steve/Tim likely put in behind the scenes. For some reason, a lot of people don't recognize that same level of effort for professional athletes. They just assume they show up for the game and perform at a high level. For every hour on the field, there's probably two hours of study (mental preparation) and two hours of treatment and/or rehab (physical maintenance). Pair that with a rigid schedule every day, fatigue is a real concern. We all know the overnight success myth. The myth exists for professional athletes as well. Athletes that make it to the highest level didn't simply wake up one morning and have all the tools to succeed. Hours and hours and hours of training, both mental and physical, had to occur. It's like anything else - you don't simply get good. It takes practice. It also takes commitment, dedication, and perseverance to succeed at a professional level - just like everything else in this world.

VLM 12y ago

No one wants to comment on the blindingly obvious startup aspects? When dealing with millions of dollars, experienced professionals don't get shoved like sardines into the smallest possible space, don't even try to produce at world class level for 16 hours a day 7 days a week for years, don't turn to energy drinks and potato chips as a primary source of nutrition... Apparently pro-ball is the "anti-startup" despite the similar focus on individual rock stars and teamwork and millions of dollars on the line. Perhaps they're just dumb jocks, or maybe, just maybe, startup culture is wrong? Obviously its one or the other.

chrisBob 12y ago

I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.

hyperliner 12y ago
Also, more focus on the catchers. They take a beating too.
rhino369 12y ago
I don't think the league needs to mandate anything. It's not like these are dropping dead. It is like a marathon, pacing yourself is just part of it.
smeyer 12y ago
I think they focused on hitters because in general a lot more attention is already paid to fatigue with pitchers (carefully monitoring innings pitched, pitch counts, rest days, and so on). It's possible (although not guaranteed) that there is much more room for improvement in the way teams deal with fatigue for hitters.

snappy173 12y ago

baseball, as with all sports, has a long and storied history with using various performance enhancing drugs to cope with injury and fatigue. amphetamines were commonplace in ball four ... bouton casually discusses greenies, players' coffee vs. regular coffee, etc. there was a sporting news snippet from the 1910's (that i can't find right now) that discussed pitchers dealing with arm fatigue ... the takeaway was that some pitchers preferred cocaine injections, while others preferred morphine. and then there was the steroid era ... lots of attention of course to creating cartoonishly large players, but most of these drugs were to shorten recovery from workouts ... you don't magically get huge from taking steroids.