Talkin' Baseball: Opening Week and Pace of Play

49er16: Well all the teams in baseball have had their home openers now and what are your first impressions of the season?

The Colonel: My impressions/questions so far: 1. Are the Royals really this good? 2. Is the AL West really that mediocre? 3. Same old Giants on offense 4. Are the Nationals really that bad defensively? 5. Atlanta really isn't that good, are they?

49er16: To answer your last question, no I don't think they are. Plus they've played both the Marlins (twice) and Mets to start the year. Sorry if I don't quite buy into the Braves yet. The Royals are the most intriguing team. We knew they could defend and pitch, but now they're mashing home runs. They definitely won't keep up with this pace but if they're improved at the plate they might be one of the best teams in baseball this season.

The Colonel: I really don't know why people are surprised their bullpen is still good. The Giants have had the same 4 relievers(Casilla, Romo, Affeldt, Lopez) for 3 championships and have been fine. Good pitchers even if they're relievers will stay good at least for a few years.


49er16: I think the problem is Sabmetrics writers have told themselves so long about how bullpen pitchers are highly capable of having a good year then having bad year without taking a look at who the pitchers are. I might be wrong there but there have been countless relievers who've had long careers pitching very well. If you look at the Royals bullpen, those guys have a history of pitching well year after year.

The Colonel: Basically what we're saying is the Royals should be good for the entire year and the AL Central should be one hell of a fun race between them and the Tigers and still possibly the White Sox/Indians.

49er16: The fucking Giants still can't score any fucking runs. They stranded 12 fucking runners on base, 8 alone in the first two innings yesterday.

The Colonel: I'm not going to talk about them yet.

49er16: Then let's talk about the pace of play rules that were implemented this year. THEY APPEAR TO BE WORKING! SMALL SAMPLE SIZE BUT GAME TIMES HAVE BEEN TRIMMED BY 8 MINUTES AND GAMES AREN'T LASTING 3 HOURS!

The Colonel: The one rule they implemented that they needed for a long time was the coming back from a commercial break and the pitcher and batter are immediately ready rule. Nothing was more annoying then the game coming back from commercials and the hitter and batter are still goofing around for another minute before the first pitch is thrown.

49er16: Sadly the thing that really slows down games and it won't ever get changed is the pitching changes. Nothing slows down a game more than when a manager brings in a reliever during an inning in the later innings. Brings the games to a complete stop.

The Colonel: Oh if they didn't have pitching changes I bet games would last 2 and a half hours then. They would be the length of basketball games. You're right though, we're so far down the road with pitch counts and pitching changes that there's no need to even look back now.

49er16: Haven't heard that many complaints from hitters whining about having to stay in the batters box since David Ortiz whined about it. And he whines about everything.

The Colonel: Like you said, he whines about everything. I haven't heard other batters complain about that rule so I'm going to assume the batters don't care which is good for everyone.

49er16: We need to anything else or are we done here?

The Colonel: We're done.

49er16: Have a good week, people.