Stats only ruin MLB when a pitcher gets yanked in a no-hitter
Ted Berg writes the Morning Win newsletter for For The Win. Follow him on Twitter at @OGTedBerg or email AskTedBerg@gmail.com.
Look: The culture war regarding the use of analytics in baseball was overblown to begin with, and it is now very much over and dead.
Every single team is using all the tools it can find to assess players, players and front offices both rely on new technologies and precise measurements to improve performances, data-driven strategies that seemed controversial as recently as four years ago are now indelible parts of the game, and clubs are emboldened to implement - and copycat - shrewd and radical plans that once existed only in hypotheticals.
The baseball you're watching at the Major League level in 2019 is the best baseball that has ever been played, no matter what the stodgy old ex-ballplayer calling your favorite team's games says. You may not find the contemporary game as aesthetically interesting as it once was - there's certainly a case that fewer strikeouts and more balls in play made for more entertaining contests - but the changes in baseball in recent years undoubtedly reflect significant increases in skill and knowledge in clubhouses and front offices around the league.
It's all done in the interest of winning baseball games, and I happen to think winning at baseball is about the most noble and delightful of human pursuits. And one could pretty easily choose to ignore the stats that guide the game's inner workings and just enjoy some dingers.
But if there's one clear instance where the numbers suck the fun out of baseball, it was on display Monday night in Toronto. In a game between the Orioles and Blue Jays, brand new Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde pulled pitcher David Hess in the midst of a no-hitter. Hess had thrown only 82 pitches to get through 6 1/3 innings, and looked flabbergasted when Hyde took the ball from him.
After the game, Hyde said that pulling Hess was "the right thing for his health and the ballclub" and that "to extend him way past where he should finish, in my opinion, wasn't smart."
Early in the season, it's not uncommon for clubs to limit starters to around 75 pitches. And Hess - like many pitchers - has significantly worse numbers when facing an opposing batting order for the third time in a game and when reaching the upper limits of his pitch count. And while it was Hess' first start of the season, he was pitching on only three days' rest after a two-inning relief outing in the Orioles' opening day loss to the Yankees. Pulling him in that spot is a lot of things, but it's not stupid. Hyde's got to protect his players and win baseball games, even if no one's expecting much from the 2019 Orioles.
But something can be smart and at the same time kind of lame, and this is that. Everyone who ever pitches in any capacity anywhere dreams of someday throwing a no-hitter at the MLB level, and no-hitters are so rare and require so much good fortune that it's a good bet Hess never gets a better shot at one than he had Monday night. Guys will say the right things to back up their managers, but no pitcher ever, ever, ever wants to get yanked with all zeroes on the board.
On June 1 of 2012, Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in New York Mets franchise history. I spent the start of the game in the press box and the end of the game embraced in a bear hug with a Citi Field maintenance guy I had never met before. Santana needed 134 pitches to get through nine innings, manager Terry Collins called the game the worst night of his career, and many blamed Collins ( perhaps wrongly) when Santana's body broke down a month later.
But it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my entire life and I will never forget it for as long as I live. And so, yeah, if you want to decry the way the numbers are ruining baseball, you're mostly wrong, but in this one particular instance, go to town.
No-hitters are awesome. Maybe they're dangerous, and maybe they're too unlikely to merit changing up your game plan and risking your pitcher's health. But they're also transcendent and beautiful and joyous and totally dope. And ultimately, if that's not the point, what is?
Monday's big winner: Zion Williamson, again
Though Williamson's Blue Devils were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, busting so many brackets, the NBA megaprospect stayed healthy throughout the Madness and can now look forward to making gobs and gobs of money. A former sneaker exec said he expects Williamson will spark the biggest bidding war ever for an NBA rookie's shoe deal. Sadly for Williamson, the Knicks have the best chance of earning the No. 1 overall draft pick.
Quick hits: LaMelo, Tom Brady, Bryce Harper
- LaVar Ball said his son LaMelo will play overseas next year instead of going to college. I don't understand why every top-flight basketball recruit wouldn't do the same. If you're not planning to stick around and get a degree, why would you live in Kentucky and play for nothing when you could go live in Australia and play for $100,000?
- Tom Brady joined Twitter with a hamfisted April Fool's Day joke. It's the closest his fists have ever come to ham.
- D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted, then deleted, an image of Bryce Harper dressed as Benedict Arnold. It's dumb - calling athletes "traitors" for leaving in free agency is the childish dominion of the worst sports-talk radio callers - but it should endear her to her constituents. No MLB fanbase overreacts quite like the Nats' does.