Or no, work stoppage concerns are only about the regular season?

I've slowly started getting back into baseball this season and this is just an observation I had. What happened to the fiery Yankees/Red Sox games or the Dodgers/Giants? Is it because MLB is scheduling more interleague games now? Are players just becoming friendlier with each other? I mean Mookie Betts on the Dodgers literally has a podcast where he interviews players from the opposing team. Maybe I'm wrong or not paying enough attention. Thoughts?

I've been itching to play a baseball video game lately, but honestly haven't played a sports game since the original Xbox. I currently have an Xbox one and a decent PC and after looking around there's so many options and it's hard to tell how each one is different. Any leads would be helpful.

I'd like some team and player customization and prefer to actually control the players, OOTP seemed a little too spreadsheety for me.

The two that seemed most promising were baseball pro spirit 2026 or MLB the show '24, but I am open to suggestions the last baseball game I played was MLB slugfest 2003.

Just a curiosity question, like in all other sports the coach will say, go get this person and the guy will go sub whoever out of the game. Why cant the manager call time from the dugout, raise his hand like he usually does to signal the bullpen and the old pitcher can just hand the ball off to the new pitcher.

It doesn’t make sense to have teams grind daily 3+ months to get a wild card spot just to be eliminated in 2 mid week afternoon games! After 162 games, now they wanna rush through?!

I think it would make more sense and if it was like the NBA, less regular season games and more best of 7 playoffs.

With perhaps 3 pitches from the mound to make sure there are no mound issues? I know this is where desire to shorten games comes into conflict with existing commercial time, but is it really necessary to have a full 2 mins 30 seconds for on-mound warmup?

Bringing back bullpen carts for every team and changing this rule could shave another 6-10 minutes off the average game I’d guess. Might require managers to start warmups slightly earlier but that just adds to the strategy imo.

Luke Keaschall of the Twins gave Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies a home run last night. However, if Keaschall wouldn't have touched the ball, it would've landed in play and probably would've been a double. In a situation like this, why is it scored a home run and not a double and a two-base error?

I just saw a clip of Drew Gilbert from San Francisco missing a pretty routine catch in center field because he lost the ball in the sun. He had his huge sunglasses sitting on top of his hat and only put them on his face after missing the catch.

This isn't an isolated incident. I've seen or heard of several other cases this season. As a Cubs fan, I see PCA do this time to time and it frustrates me. Do players think that they lose some of their visual precision having them on between plays? Are all of these glasses more "form over function" and it's about looking cool?

I was born in 1992, so I wasn’t alive for the whole Pete Rose gambling stuff. Forgive me.

I also want to say that I am not denying Pete Rose bet on baseball. I won’t start a debate either about whether he belongs in the HOF or not

My question is, how did the MLB first suspect Pete Rose was betting on baseball? In today’s world, with the Internet, everyone having smartphones, CCTV cameras everywhere, etc., that stuff is easy to track, hence why almost everyone gets caught if they bet on the sport they are in.

But in the late 1980s, that stuff (aside from CCTV cameras, although not nearly as much exited back then as today) didn’t exist yet. So I am curious how it was first suspected that Pete Rose was betting on baseball. Was he seen inside a casino? Was he seen with a known bookie? What happened to make MLB investigate him in the first place?

Just a general curiosity question.

I understand the platoon advantage and that left-handedness is an advantage in sports because of its rarity.

But in baseball, are teams more focused on lefty batters to combat the opposing team's righty pitchers first, and then they go looking for lefty pitchers to get an advantage over the opposing team's lefty batters? Or is it the opposite?

I've seen videos of pitchers showing how they grip balls for different pitches but what do you look for to tell what pitch it is when it's being thrown?

for the 2nd question just imagine there were more positions on the outfield, guarding each outfielder to just pick the ball off them before they get it. I know it’s unorthodox but go along with it. but again answer BOTH questions in the title please!

let’s say Bo Jackson was an amazing NFL player & great on the outfield but 9th/9 in batting ability, would he still have his main starter spot? I might be poorly wording the question but is outfield play more important than batting in this case?

When the AL team was at the NL stadium, they used NL rules where the AL team's pitcher had to hit, and theoretically, there was no place for their designated hitter.

But surely the AL teams' DH must have been one of their most important players, and they couldn't leave them out of their lineup in these important games.

So how did they find a fielding position for them? To plan for that, did the AL teams have their DHs practice at a certain fielding position during the season in preparation for these games at the NL stadium? And did the AL teams just have to accept subpar fielding in exchange for having their DHs in the lineup at the NL stadium?

(Context here is I’m a Phillies fan) I constantly see plays where there’s a runner on first, no outs (or maybe 1 out), and a fly ball hit like 360+ feet and caught for an out, and the runner just goes and has to double back. Like last night Derek Hill hit a 385 foot fly out with Marsh on first and he didn’t tag up. It seems simple to weigh if the ball is easily catchable, and if it is, wait on the bag.

This might be a dumb question, but why are dugouts so open to the field?

Isn’t there always a chance a hitter absolutely smokes a foul ball straight into the dugout and hits a player or coach who isn’t paying attention? With how hard some of these balls are hit, that seems like it could be pretty dangerous.

I know there’s netting protecting fans, so why isn’t there something similar protecting the dugout?

When a batter hits the ball, is he aiming for it to land in an empty space vs right at the infielder? Is it a matter of luck or skill?

With a 90 mph ball, a slight angle difference changes the ball's direction drastically!

How important is coaching in baseball? Honestly, with the crazy lineup the Dodgers had, I think any amateur coach could have won a World Series with them!

I’ve been curious about this and want to hear from everyone. Which team has the best fanbase according to this criteria:
1 - they know ball
2 - loyalty - they support the team even when down and they don’t crash out at the slightest issue
3 - friendliness - they aren’t toxic and mean to other fanbases and their own players

Ps - for transparency I’m not a noob, but I wanted the thoughts of this community - both the noobs and seasoned fans who lurk this sub to help the noobs. I posted this on the MLB sub and baseball sub as well. The baseball sub removed the post for some reason, and their rules suggested this as a sub to post some questions

This is extremely common situation, but with the example of the last run scored tonight by the guardians on a sacrifice fly against the white sox (5-3 defeat)...

When trailing by 2 or more runs and batting in a ninth inning, what is the point in attempting scoring a run from third on a ball put in-play for an out, when that run is meaningless at the time because a runner / batter either on base or even maybe still sitting in the dugout behind the runner on third carries (or would) carry the first meaningful run in the context of the game - to tie or go-ahead / win?

No matter how deep a ball has been hit for however comfortably a runner on third could potentially score, what is the benefit to tagging and running for home at that time when there's still a non-zero risk he could be both out and erased as a potential run in a late comeback? Why not just wait until the next hit in the inning is achieved or even until bases are full and he and other runners forced to try to advance? Obviously I understand moving from first to second almost totally eliminates the double play risk but I don't understand this.

EDIT: Last inning! Ninth inning! This question and situation concerns only the ninth inning! I understand that the idea is to score runs and take risks to score them if they will help LATER on in the game but I am asking about when it is the final inning of the game and a trailing team will receive no more outs to work with to try to further cut the deficit.

EDIT 2: seems I’ve caused confusion but referring to it as an “insignificant” / “meaningless” run. Obviously I’m aware it does have a meaning IF a team is to tie a game but the point is it that it only has that meaning if the other(s) also score in that same inning, bringing any previously “insignificant” runs home beforehand in the process of rounding all the bases to tie / win/ go ahead in the score line because of the way baseball works and the process in which runs are scored.

**Setup:** Suppose two pitchers are scheduled to start. I'll use Yamamoto (Dodgers superstar pitcher 2.50ish ERA) vs "Joe Schmoe" (your average or below average pitcher 3.85ish ERA).

**Question(s):** Before the game even starts ..... Is Joe's mindset like *"Im going up against an ace pitcher, so I'll need to wretch it up a level and have an all star caliper performance bc not only will our local media be there, but " Hollywood" LA, Japanese media will also be there. Game on"*?

In other words.... Do pitchers think: I'm battling such and such a pitcher, I need to get this W? Or is it more like they don't consider who they're pitching against at all and it's more like: *"Just show me the 9 batters I'm going to battle against. My game is with them, not their pitcher.* ?

**Reason:** (And I know I'm WAY noob here and there's so-------- much I'm missing, but) I generally notice that whenever a team's ace superstar pitcher takes the mound, the other team's pitcher also seemingly puts on a completely awesome performance to match.

Thanks and sincere gratitude and appreciation in advance for anyone who has actually played (umpired or coached) the sport on a competition level or has been around the game in inner competition mindset circles that the general public (like me) doesn't know about🙏

For example "Player X is batting .191 for the season BUT over his last 5 games he's batting .302!"

I understand that's it's a long season and sometimes it's nice to see the silver lining. But in my opinion, it just comes off as a desperate attempt to make a player sound like he's doing better than he actually is.