the AL has 14 teams and the NL has 16, so a division is going to have a even number of teams

So that you don’t need to have one team taking a game off in each league every day. Otherwise the schedule would run longer. Of course, now that there’s interleague, they could get around the problem by having the two ‘off’ teams play each other throughout the year rather than having all the interleague games at one time.

The original plan was to get up to 32 teams, but obviously that’s just not deasible. Need a much larger market to profitably run a baseball team than any other major sport, and at this point, the only market without a team (sort of) that could actually support one is the San Bernardino Valley.

The Royals aren’t bad mouthed for being cheap?

because baseball progresses at a glacial speed. why is that? i believe there’s something about baseball being such an old, ingrained game that the powers that be feel a need to ‘respect tradition and purity’ instead of, as they see it, ‘changing the game’ and potentially starting down a ‘slippery slope.’

btw, i totally agree with you.

i couldn’t agree w/ you more.

And he doesn’t do anything right. He’s also a staunch traditionalist.

train year round whether they are required or not. There are some lazy guys, but being lazy in the offseason is usually followed by a down year.

They’re the Orioles

then third day is a long toss session and the day before they start they have a bullpen session

First, it’s actually up to the official scorer if he thinks the batter was trying to sacrifice or not. He could (but rarely does) say he was bunting for a hit and not give him the SH.

This plays into the second point. On the assumption that a bunt is an intentional giving oneself up, there is absolutely no way to know (or even presume) that a fly ball was “on purpose.” More likely, the guy was trying to get a hit and he’s settling for moving the runners along.

The same year that SF’s became non-AB’s and game-ending homers became guaranteed (used to be only the required number of runs to win would count).

I don’t know the history of the rule change.

I do know a little about this as a local guy is currently an ump in A ball. On average, it takes 10-12 years of umpiring before one calls a game in the big leagues.

that don’t understand the sport

And they can’t really be used for much else other than baseball.

and a lack of ability to really adjust to the wooden bat

While it’s the same person, the idea is that pitching stats shouldn’t be negatively affected by the actions of bad fielding.

And in a way, this does make sense. If a pitcher commits an error, should his stats that are supposed to show how good he is at pitching take a hit? (This just shows how silly the ER/R/ERA stuff can be)

“Joe Morgan ruin our lives EVERY Sunday night”… at least he’s consistent!

I believe this is in part due to so much use of the DH in the minor leagues. I have noticed anecdotally that the best-hitting pitchers seem to have spent less time in the minors…so they don’t have as much time to forget how to hit. Mike Leake, for example, looks anything but helpless at the plate.
FWIW, I do kinda wish both major leagues operated under the same rules.

You can watch the AL instead. Personally I love watching the different strategies used in a NL game.

The DH is an abortion.

I know Hockey does, but I don’t know why other sports haven’t adoped a minor league system.

Same with the NHL. The other leagues didn’t start until collective bargaining, and the players generally won’t concede that point. The NFL and NBA have tried to make half-ass minor leagues, but haven’t been too successful with it, in part because of collective bargaining issues.

Football and Basketball rely so much on athletic ability. Youre most athletic when youre young, so the guys are ready to come straight out of college (even high school before the NBA changed the rule) and are able to not only play but in some cases excel.

Still, unless its a pitcher bunting, early-game bunts make little/no sense.

Because she can.

You chalk the not-so-talented guy dogging it up to “he’s just not very good.” You chalk the very talented guy dogging it up to “he’s not trying hard.”

I’m not completely sure if he KNEW it was going to be a wild pitch, but the pitch was WAAAAAAAAY out of the zone and he hacked at it anyway, then reached first.

I still remember some pretty ridiculous strike zones before MLB started forcing the umpires to call the strike zone and the “high” strike.

I’d also like to point out that the umpires have slowly but surely gone back to doing what they want to do regardless of what MLB tells them to do.

Some people are just not at all receptive to the idea of CHANGING anything about the game of baseball. These people have not given up on the DH, even though certain players have now made the position relevant and important.

are usually players with really good physical talents, but who don’t have good baseball skills. These guys usually have everything about them taught once they get into their teams system. Swings can be changed, mechanics changed, and everything else can also be changed about them. They are usuallt taught by the minor league coaches and sometimes outside coaches hired by the team specifically for teaching them. Some organizitions do seem like they are better at fixing these guys. The team that jumped to my head was the Twins and maybe a team like Colorado who both have had some really raw players who ended up looking good.

A lot of a player’s development is made or broken down by the actual instruction he receives in the minors. The only thing I would think is more important is the will of the player to work as hard as they can to be a good player.

You can move the pitchers spot down or up in the order to potentially avoid using a pinch hitter for the pitchers spot at a later point in the game/ reduce the number of times the pitchers spot would get a plate appearance.

I just looked this up because I thought that a DH could be used for anyone. Looks like in the major leagues (and I’m guessing minor leagues) the DH needs to be the pitcher. In amateur leagues the DH can be for the weakest hitting player.