Scott Dolan

Unfortunately, confidentiality agreements and non disclosure agreements are legally binding. Penalties for breaking them can be harsh.

I have some and they do create very, very minor scratches. But nothing that will cause playback issues.

OK, GA. Here are the official rules from MLB. Please show me where any of them say that any of the pitches we've seen are balks. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_8.jsp

Seriously?

Thanks for that! Yes, that was a balk too. Hahaha... No, it wasn't. But here, this is Greg Maddux "balking: And Nolan Ryan balking: And of course, Sandy Koufax…balking:

Again, his very low arm angle and long stride play more into that then the hop/slide step. Greinke's back foot comes down around 18" from the rubber. Capps looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30" max. So, a difference of maybe one foot. But release point, not foot placement, is what we're talking about here. From your quote: Does that give him an advantage? Of course. It's the same reason why Randy Johnson was so successful as well. What was he, 6'10" or something like that? Cat could hug a small building with the wing span he had. Greinke takes a much smaller stride angle, and is 3 inches shorter than Capps (6'2" vs 6'5"). Greinke also has a much higher arm angle. So, just in this particular example, Greinke has a tighter stride angle, higher arm angle, and is physically shorter (which logically would also lead to a shorter wing span). All of those are huge factors in the release point. I don't know if you saw the program, and I can't even remember what station it was on, but back when Joakim Soria was closing for the Royals he was absolutely dominant (I'm sure you remember that as he and Papelbon were two of the best closers in the game at the time, only your boy Papelbon was closing for championship teams). They interviewed a lot of batters that Soria regularly faced and they all basically said the same thing: that the ball, defying physics, seemed to "speed up" as it crossed the plate. So the folks that put this program together started looking into how that could be. What they found were all the factors I mentioned above. Longer stride, lower arm angle, etc... There was another pitcher they featured as well, though for the life of me I can't remember his name. But they did some kind of bizarre scientific analysis on it and found that the release point of Soria and this other cat were closer to the plate than other MLB pitchers. So it showed, for example, that Soria's 94mph fastball seemed more like 98-99mph to the batter. I read something the other day that said Capps' 98mph fastball was more like 103mph to the poor sap standing at the plate. It all makes sense, and yes that half-foot in the quote you posted does indeed make a difference. How big or how small is something I can't determine. They'd have to compare him to the pitchers with the half-foot shorter release point, I suppose. But, when you can throw as hard as he can, even the smallest advantage could be huge in the grand scheme. Would he be less effective without the hop/slide step? Probably. But how much?

He's closer to home plate (though not anywhere near 6ft closer) mostly due to his long stride and absurdly low arm angle. Kind of reminds me of Joakim Soria to a certain degree. But, I posted the video as a response to those who thought it was a balk simply because his back foot left the pitching rubber before the ball was released. The back foot has been leaving the pitching rubber before the ball is released since before I was born. None of this is to say that what he's doing won't be addressed in the offseason. But, as of right now, it's most definitely not a balk, and deemed a legal pitch by the league office.

GA, here is a slo-mo of Zack Greinke, one of the best pitchers in the game currently sporting 43.2 scoreless innings for the Dodgers. just as an example. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRPtVfEz4es

Actually, his foot is about 22-24" from the rubber. Not 60.

yes, they have declared it legal. "According to MLB.com, the delivery is fine as long as Capps moves laterally and drags his back foot rather than jumping straight up." http://www.businessinsider.com/carper-capps-pitching-motion-2015-4 Also, as I mentioned before: "The problem is that everyone violates the first part of this rule. Every pitcher's foot comes off the rubber before actually releasing the ball, so it's a rule that is pretty much just ignored."

Since they already declared it a legal pitch, the decision would likely cost you your job. Or at least a sizable chunk of change the first time around. If you're an umpire, you'd probably be well served to call the game the way your employers tell you to. Or keep a copy of your resume handy.

But why didn't you feel that way when every other pitcher pitching from the stretch wasn't getting called for balking when their back foot left the rubber before the ball left their hand?

Audio technology, as a whole, has come a long way since 1959. Anyone with a smart phone and even the most modest set of earbuds are getting sound quality that is far better than anything ever delivered by cassette or 8 track. And those two delivered better sound quality than AM radio.

First sentence = The End Second sentence = No, he didn't mean more than that. You've made some excellent points, and I've enjoyed reading them. But, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you stopped trying to conflate your comments with his. His comments are deragotory concerning digital sound quality, your comments are based in historical cultural influence. Your comments make sense and have an almost educational quality to them. His comments are laughable nonsense.

Which makes zero sense to me, but there it is. It's one thing that all pitchers extend forward, pushing off (and losing contact with) the rubber before releasing the ball. This guy leaps two plus feet forward. It makes a mockery of the rule and for MLB to give it the "a-ok" is total BS. But if you read that closely, the problem becomes apparent. As it clearly states, no pitcher pitching from the stretch has their back foot on the rubber at the release of the ball. So if they were to call a balk on Capps for that reason, then no pitcher would ever be able to pitch from the stretch. So they either unfairly call it on every pitch from the stretch, or they unfairly only call it on Capps. I read elsewhere tht they said his move is legal ONLY if he drags his back foot. If it leaves the ground, then they would call a balk. It's really odd, I'll say that. It's a unique loophole situation, and I don't see how MLB could have ruled any differently.

Since I wasn't alive for the 50's and 60's, and didn't start listening to Jazz until the mid 90's, I can't say. But, in the 90's (I didn't really pay attention to AM in the 70's and 80's), AM in Florida was pretty much all talk and Hispanic music/talk. With the exception of Friday night football games, and occasional Oldies programming, that was all there was. Our public station out of Fort Myers played classical during the day, and Jazz during the evening and overnight.

In Florida most of our Jazz on radio came via public stations low on the FM band. Usually between 88 and 92.

How is it a balk? He comes set, lifts his front foot first, and then delivers the ball to the plate.

I don't know. Not that I will dispute what you're saying, but it strikes me as a bit of golden age fallacy. Ramblings that usually kick off with, "when I was your age...", with a, "but you kids these days" epilogue. AM radio was in mono, and for the most part sounded pretty bad. Streaming is in full stereo, and from what I've heard doesn't sound bad at all. And I haven't heard any of the paid services that stream in higher quality from 256-320kbps. If I wanted to listen to Coltrane's Live At Birdland, I could instantly stream it. Where will I find it on AM radio? There are positives and negatives involved with everything we undertake in this world. Was there a random diversity in AM radio? Sure. Did it "kick streaming's ass" sonically? Not even close.

Well, just so long as you know you weren't truly translating for him, but making another (VERY!) loosely related point. There was absolutely no ambiguity in his statements.

It's interesting that you can paint it that way, but he's been carrying on about the supposedly crappy sound quality of digital for many years now. And his statements made it perfectly clear he was again whining about sound quality. He later went on to say: "It's not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent," Young wrote. "It's about sound quality. I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music." http://www.cnet.com/news/neil-young-to-pull-his-music-from-music-streaming-services/

Wow! I find that to be amazing. I don't know a single person who has done it since the days when Napster was a big thing. Maybe it's mostly the younger set?

Yes, they are. Radio pays far more than streaming (albeit in the US, only to those with songwriting credit). Back in the day when you (and many, many millions of others) were listening to the radio, so many records were being sold partly as a result of that radio exposure (and MTV, for those of a certain age) that there was a viable revenue stream relative to the real cost of creating music - which relates to whole careers of musicians and other professionals and very substantial marketing, not just recording costs. Lots of people made their living from that revenue stream, and it supported many middle class jobs of one kind or another as well as labels big and small and musicians big and small... not that it was perfect by any means. Now, consumer purchase of music is the exception rather than the rule, and a laughably small fraction of the revenue for listening without purchasing a copy makes it back to the people that made and invested up front in the music compared to before. Albums (the only format really relevant to jazz) have been hit particularly hard, currently making up about 1/3 the sales compared to the high in the 90s. That's across all formats including legit digital downloads. If this was all due to decreased consumption, I would have no fairness/ethics -based complaint. But consumption is as high as ever, it's just become a pirate economy where most of the income generated from the work of a few people goes to others who are positioned to sell data access and ads on the sidelines of the huge flow of pirated information. One major flaw here. "Pirated information". It's not pirated, it is licensed by the record labels to the streaming services. The record labels take 70% of the revenue from streaming. Want artists to receive more? Convince the labels to share some of that 3/4 of the pie they are walking off with. By pirated information I was referring to pirated information - illegally downloaded or copied with no licensing whatsoever. Streaming through Spotify, Pandora and such is legal, of course. It's also blatantly exploitative, but that is a different subject. How many people illegally download music anymore? Most softwares that were popular for that became all but unusable from viruses. And free streaming pretty much negates the need. I'd say the percentage of people still doing it would be on par with those who dubbed cassettes for their buddies back in the day. So, not very many, relatively speaking.

He was talking about sound quality. Not what was available on it. So you're telling me that the sound quality on AM radio was/is better than the sound quality of digital streaming?!

Interesting conversation piece, I suppose...