Towards the end of every week, the Defensive
Specialist makes a special effort to sort through the masses of emails that
flood into the Deep in the Hole inbox. It’s a laborious task but it gives the
Defensive Specialist a chance to tune into what the readers are thinking.
Meticulously working through each email, the Defensive Specialist encounters
hate mail, fan mail, marriage proposals, requests for advice and from time to
time some solid little rumours that make for interesting thought.
Last week the Defensive Specialist stumbled across one
such nugget from a chap going by the name of Victorian Flamethrower. Here’s
what he had to say:
Defensive Specialist,
Thought you might like to know that apparently your
beloved WA / Perth State league competition is about to be announced as a tin
bat league after a president’s vote in the last few days. It was said that wood
bats have made baseball boring and tin is the way to revive it.
Apparently there will be restrictions on pro and ex
pro guys using tin.
Interesting decision when the ABL, a wood league is
about to start.
I’m sure your skills as a word wizz will be able to
write a masterpiece.
Cheers.
Thank you
Victorian Flamethrower.
Of course the Defensive Specialist spent at least 30 minutes trying to
figure out who the author was since no one has come out of Victoria throwing
hard in quite some time! After deciding that the author must be playing a gag
with the name, the Defensive Specialist began to chew over the core of the
email.
Why on earth would a state association decide to go back to metal bats
at their top level? Especially now with the all-wood ABL set to launch and the
use of wooden bats firmly entrenched for at least 5 years?
The Defensive Specialist decided to ask the Victorian Flamethrower for
his thoughts:
I think it’s a joke, it will be detrimental to the
kids trying to make it and goes against the ABL’s efforts to grow the sport and
develop kids / young men into solid pro guys. I agree it’s exciting but I think
it may be dangerous after so many years of wood/composite. I wouldn’t want to
throw my 90mph fastball to a Lachie Dale or Trent D’Antonio let alone Pat Maat,
Luke Hughes or a Kennelly brother. Furthermore if they impose restrictions on
pro guys or ex pro guys it becomes an unlevel playing field, games will be
15-25 blowouts, 3 + hours.
The Defensive Specialist was quick to add that the decision will serve
to discourage a 17-year-old from taking the ball at that level for fear of
giving up screaming line drives and 10 run innings.
The Victorian Flamethrower responded:
I completely agree, huge discouragement for a
youngster, especially coming out of juniors where his 82mph is legit, it’s BP
with tin. It also takes away the inside part of the plate and will encourage
kids to pitch around, there will be no focus on strike/ ball ratios, 3 pitch or
less counts or pitching to the hole (a philosophy of essentially pitching to
between the shin guards of the catcher -lower part of the strike zone being our
focus but the hole is also wherever your out pitch is expected to go, high and
tight or bounced on the plate etc).
So the first thing the Defensive Specialist did was
look into whether the ruling had been passed. Short of calling the league office
(ok, it was lazy journalism to not do so), the general consensus was that the
idea is yet to be voted on, but will definitely be tabled. The second thing the
Defensive Specialist did was wonder why on earth such a decision would be made.
The statement that the game is boring and that metal
bats will help revive it is a bit rich for a number of reasons. 1) The only
people showing up to watch a state league baseball game other than parents are
long-term club members. These people show up no matter what the players are
swinging. Introducing 18-10 run ballgames is not going to see people flooding
to local baseball fields to take in all the action. 2) If people want to see
fireworks, show up for batting practice. High scoring games happen from time to
time but if you enable good hitters even further by equipping them with metal light
sabres, you are inevitably going to see pitchers nibbling more (in order to
avoid solid contact) which will increase walks and guarantee that games drag on
for longer. A 4 hour baseball game is not exciting unless its 1-1 in the top of
the 14th inning with the go ahead run on second.
The decision to go away from wood is strange when you
consider that we’re about to see the ABL launch. The state league may be
somewhat depleted with players moving up to the ABL but it is also a feeder
league to that competition. Why have players using a tool that they will not
have access to at the higher level? Additionally the under 18 state team uses
wood. Now all of a sudden we have our best kids using aluminium bats all season
and then switch to wood for that tournament? Not the best preparation in any
way shape or form.
There is an argument that perhaps kids are being lost
to the game because they are having less success using wooden bats. So you arm
those kids with metal and all of a sudden they can hit a fisted ball over
second base for a rinky dink single. Is that what we want? And what about the
young pitchers? As discussed above, imagine a 17-year-old kid and his 82 mph
fastball going up against some of the better hitters in the league who’d feast
on that with wooden bats let alone metal bats. The local baseball field ends up
looking like an artillery zone as good hitters start teeing off. So a few young
hitters feel better about themselves. What about the young pitchers?
The Defensive Specialist has had a really tough time
coming up with any good reason to make the switch. It must be said however that
one of the key decision-makers at Baseball WA is Geoff Hooker who also happens
to own the number one baseball store in the state. After some cursory research,
the Defensive Specialist found that composite wooden bats currently retail for
$335. On the other hand, the higher quality Easton metal bats are on sale for
$495- $525. It is safe to say that both the composite wood and the metal bats
are good for about one season. So right off the bat (faster if the bat happens
to be aluminium), it is fairly obvious that there is a significant financial
windfall for Hooker and his business if this decision goes through*.
*Now
before we all pile on to Hooker and Fielders Choice (his store), it should be
acknowledged that he and his business have been MASSIVE supporters of baseball
in Western Australia and his contributions shouldn’t be understated or
undersold.
It just all seems like a backwards step to the
Defensive Specialist. The ABL is a professional league that will have young
players excited about baseball and aspiring to reach that level and beyond. We
want young kids to flock to ABL games and beg their parents to sign them up for
baseball. By the time they demonstrate the skill and ability to play at the
highest level it’s time to separate the men from the boys anyway. Why give them
false hope with metal bats when they should be measuring themselves with wood?
Why would lessening the baseball at the level below the ABL be a good thing for
the game? Why make it easier for the hitters and tougher for the pitchers?
As you can see, the Defensive Specialist has a lot of
questions. If you have the answers, the Defensive Specialist is all ears…..
Ping! State Leagues are boring! Why..? As a spectator you want to see action! Offense is action, home runs are action, 8-10 scorelines are action. For the mum or dad who never played baseball but have kids in U8's or U10's, they don't want to come and watch a ballgame with a score of 1-0 or 1-2. A long term fan with a good understanding of the game does appreciate it, but mum and dad, mates from down the pub, no they don't.
ReplyDeleteMetal bats will generate more extra base hits, more home runs... Effectively more offense, more action, and more fans. Take Cricket for example, who shows up to watch a Sheffield shield game? nobody right. But take the 20-20 as a comparison, sold out full house. Now I am not saying that if we allow metal bats the local club will have mass attendance, but will certainly help increase spectators.
82 mph fastballs are not legit, and deserve to be hit 400ft. Allowing metal bats allows more players to hit that pitch 400ft.
People want to see home runs, everbody, except pitchers. Follow the yellow brick road, take the tin man with you, and you may just find what all State League clubs are looking for, more attendance, more return, and action packed ballgames, more members.
DS,
ReplyDeleteWhile I think it would be good to get some of mine back, I came into the top grade as a pitcher in the days of tin and now hit in the top grade with some high quality ash, It would be insane for any states top league to go back to metal bats for several reasons,
1. Safety, I have personally witnessed two line drives hit with tin bounce off pitchers heads, one in a trial game and one in a beer league game, both resulted in the pitcher having an overnight stay with some folk in white coats, these pitches were not delivered in the mid eighties to nineties nor were they hit by top level hitters but the damage was incredible. Ratchet it up a level and not only are pitchers in danger but so are corner infielders (and perhaps base coaches) its a lawsuit waiting to happen.
2. Swinging wood makes hitters better, I remember back in my younger days almost everyone was a power hitter, just getting up there and letting it fly and hoping that they would run into one with that augmented sweet spot they had, these days there is more of an emphasis on getting "good wood" on it and using the whole field to pick up your hits, this translates into the higher talented younger ones being more easily able to take the step into pro baseball (and the abl) there are some that say that our kids head over to the states better prepared to hit in the minors as they have already been swinging timber while most seppo kids swing tin all through high school and college.
3. There is some chance of reward for pitchers, when pitching against metal bat you are almost exclusively looking for the stike out as even a miss hit can often go for extra bases due to a fat sweet spot and increased bat speed, wood bats are not nearly as forgiving meaning pitchers get rewarded for the ability to pound the zone with a decent two seam fastball and or cutter as well as off speed pithes.
4. Good hitters will still get a bucket load of hits, its the ordinary ones that see their averages suffer. True to say that all hitters may lose some pop but miss hits with tin that carry to the left fielder drop in the hole with wood, and while the power numbers may go down, if you square one up with wood its still going out of the yard.
Going back to tin would be a rather large step backwards I would think both for W.A. baseball and Australian baseball, for the sake of the younger generation of both hitters ang pitchers this propsal must not be approved
Ask Clay Calvert or Grant Reynolds if tin bats should be re-introduced. Anyone who witnessed Darren Phillips (a former pro) bounce a line drive off Calvert's skull back in the mid 90's ABL (Giants vs Cougars) would cringe at the thought... and it took Reynolds a year or 2 before he ever released his 90+ fastball again after wearing one in college. You could see the fear in his eyes every time he stepped on the bump during that time.
ReplyDelete