Spring Training Day One

Spring training began today with pitchers and catchers reporting throughout Florida and Arizona (the Grapefruit and Cactus circuits, respectively). This is my first time to attend. I can safely say nothing happened. I was out there for two hours in the morning and then an hour and a half this afternoon.

I saw Cliff Lee and Ryan Madsen doing a short long-toss session around 10:30 this morning and a couple players running steps inside Bright House Field, but otherwise no one showed up for any of us to view (although Jesse Biddle and Brody Colvin showed up in Brody's white pickup truck to do a bit of throwing on one of the Carpenter Complex fields and were turned away).

What I did see, however, were interesting fans being...somewhat hilarious. I got to Richie Ashburn Field just before 10:00. There were a handful of fans peering through fences to see if any players might show up on the field. And then there was the group of mid-twenties yahoos dressed in Phillies garb to the nines, a bleacher level lined with brown dead soldier beer bottles. All five were chugging away on what had to be their third or fourth brews, yelping loudly, bragging about running over turtles and stomping on lizards at their hotel.

A security guard came over and told them in no uncertain terms that they were not allowed to have beer on the property. Actual surprise and dis-belief by the kids, then they packed up and galumphed out to the parking lot where they attempted to perform a quick, makeshift tailgate party...and were again, gently nudged off the property.

What I liked most was that here you had edgy, lost Philadelphians doing what they thought was just fine (drinking massive quantities of beer out in the open at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning in front of several families with young kids) and we also had security guards gently and matter of factly shooing them away. Not a hint of disgust, anger, or hostility coming from these wise and gentle men. Not even incredulity or surprise (I'm sure they've seen it time and time again over the years). It was goofy and a reminder that I might have driven 1,018 miles south of Philadelphia but that Philly still lives where ever I go, but it was also a very intelligent and wise moment of grace by these men facing down these fools.

I wish I'd had enough Philly in me to take a picture. It was truly funny and sweet at the same time.

Autograph Seekers, waiting...

As soon as Lee and Madsen finished throwing, one of the dads in the group started yelling across the field, "Cliff! Ryan! Are you signing today?" The guy didn't get that he needed to be standing up at the top of the field near the player's parking lot waiting for autographs. "Come on! Cliff? Ryan? Are you guys signing?" He picked up his kid and pointed to him then held up a ball. I was actually more offended by this behavior (a Philly transplant by the way) than the beer drinking fluffheads.

All of this struck me. I was there because I love the game and because I love this team and because this team loves Jesse Biddle. I love baseball more than anything else in life. Everyone was gone by 10:45 but I sat there on those bleachers just staring at the empty fields, feeling the sun on my face and the wind coming out of the east rustle my hair and I felt so content and quiet.

Monday morning's crowd got an eye full. 

But what was it that so enveloped autograph hounds and party animals alike to show up and be so frivolously demonstrative? What do people need out of this behavior and this frenzied buzz of exuberance that they could let themselves be so doggedly willing to come so close to the line over which is self-debasement? I'm not asking out of a sense of superiority or as if I'm the adult in the game of baseball. I'm not an adult, for sure. But the dedication to collecting or to being drunk off your ass at 10:00 on a Sunday morning and there for the start of yet another season for your team... ? Wow. Amazing.

See you out there bright and early tomorrow morning. Wear sunscreen.

End of Composite Bat Offenses?

New performance standards for non-wood bats are now in effect in the NCAA. These same rules will have an impact on high school players beginning in 2012.  Baseball America's fabulous little 32-page online publication called Bat Guide came out in November and there's no better resource. It's all there. You couldn't ask for anything more comprehensive and intelligent.

The new operating term is Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR). The old Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) just wasn't a good enough test for high-tech, hollow composite super bats. The NCAA knew they had a problem and outlawed these bats in 2009 when it became clear that over time they got hotter and that, in fact, players had learned how to "roll" their bats mechanically to break down the interior support systems that limited the trampoline effect. 

With the rolling problem in mind, bats must now also pass a test called the Accelerated Break-in (ABI) test. Go here to the Baseball Research Center at the University of Massachusetts - Lowell website for more on both the BBCOR and the ABI tests.

The old BESR was supposed to limit the speed of the ball coming off a bat to no more than 97 mph. But with break-in and rolling, coaches were seeing balls travel 105 - 110 mph regularly. Not a huge difference -- maybe 5% or so, but still, when milliseconds and inches count, far too much power for the safety of fielders and pitchers. 

Here's the most salient points to all these changes in a nutshell:

1. All NCAA players must switch to the BBCOR standards for composite bats this year. Composite bats, in theory, will now be no different than wood ones (caution: we've heard this before).

2. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has decided to allow a one year grace period for these changes. The old BESR standard bats will still be legal in 2011. Come 2012, though, high school players too will need to use BBCOR standardized bats. See the NFHS website for a list of bats acceptable this year only.

3. If you're a young hitter and you're interested in playing with the big boys, it's time to upgrade your bat. Don't wait for 2012. When it's cold out, use wood (of course), but if you feel like you need to use metal, swing a new BBCOR and understand that hitting is not about the bat but the hitter.

Here's a good place to start looking for the new bats online:

JustBats.com

Why does this matter? For starters, the new performance standards for composite material bats in college have dramatically reduced the oomph that the old super bats had. In a September Baseball America article, "Knock on Wood," Augie Garrido (Texas Longhorns) is quoted as saying: "..we might have hit 15 or 20 balls out in batting practice before, we're now hitting five or six balls out..." See this video from the North Texas Baseball Academy for a good synopsis of the rules.

It's very likely then that not only will home runs diminish in NCAA baseball, but fielding will again become a premium in the game...and speed...and pitching. Nice, huh? It is, if you like baseball...

Implications for Amateur Baseball?
To me there are two interesting outcomes to all of this so far. The first is that the NCAA has still not made any real effort to re-examine going back to wood bats. Changes were supposedly made to bat standards in the early 2000s that fixed the super bat problem. Very possibly the industry (and its marketing directors) figured out, slowly, how to get around the problem by engineering bats that would pass initial tests and then get hotter over time. Perhaps this wasn't wholly intentional. Or perhaps, like steroids, when one company began the process everyone else realized they needed to join in or lose out. It would be nice to see -- when the industry slowly works its way around these new rules (because it probably will) -- the NCAA at least consider moving to some version of wood bats (I'm going to post something here shortly on a number of new wood-based bats that are less prone to breakage).

The other point that sticks out is that there is more than a tacit admission by coaches who have a problem with these changes that the "nuclear sticks" of old (2009 and before) were indeed blessed with powers that made the offensive game truly offensive (to many of us). While it seems like the majority of college and high school coaches understand and agree that hot bats pollute the game, there are a number of holdouts (I've chosen not to identify them, but if you do some research online you'll be able to track many of them down) who -- legitimately concerned about the popularity of college baseball -- point out that there's a chance fans will lose interest in the game because there aren't enough long balls.

I suppose it all really remains to be seen -- and Little League Baseball should take note of this -- are home runs exciting because there are so many of them, or because they are rare and exemplify profound skill?

And should we just tell pitchers when they go out there: "Tough luck, kid. You know as well as anyone that we want to see as many hits as possible. If it's going to increase the chances that you get a serious injury -- or die -- at least you're helping out with ticket sales." The NCAA and NFHS have done something very intelligent and revolutionary here. Let's hope the bat industry has learned it's lesson. Next time around, I'm predicting the only real solution is returning to wood.

See you out on the field real soon. 

Big Leaguer in the Making...note wood bats

 

This post is a draft of a video that Conor Biddle, Jesse's brother, is working on. Intelligent comments and critiques are welcome. Quality of this image is reduced while Conor continues to perfect his work. Sorry...

South Philadelphia Field of Dreams

Check out this video clip on Steve Koplove's Sunoco Field, home of the Philadelphia Senators. Jesse Biddle, Tyler Young, Slater McCue, Jon McAllister, and Ed Rooney, to name just a few learned to play with their hair on fire right here in the heart of the city's famed oil refinery complex.

See you on the field.

Call It Prescience

I have become the father of a professional pitcher. A professional left-handed pitcher, to be precise. Jesse Biddle is now pitching for the Gulf Coast League Phillies out of Clearwater, Florida. He's trying to earn his living sawing off wood bats and making batters whiff with wood in their hands.

We watched pieces of the college world series over the past two weeks. It made me sick watching pop flies to the outfield sail over the home run fence. Batters all excited along with their teammates left me sad and bereft, as if someone were dangling the game of baseball over a sea of stomach acid and half-eaten hot dogs and popcorn crumbs.

Jesse went pro and gave up a life-changing experience at the University of Oregon where he probably would have been the Duck's ace starter by his sophomore year -- if not earlier as a freshman. It would have been a phenomenal and heart-warming experience to take that sojourn before turning to professional baseball. But he also would have been throwing 120-140 pitches a game and learning to focus on pitches that literally can't be hit because with metal the only solution is to not let a batter touch the ball.

You need the same approach in pro baseball, of course. As a pitcher, you can't help thinking that it's a severe slight against you as a player that anyone would touch your fastball. But at the same time, pro hitters are the best of the best -- even in the GCL. Good hitters find a way of making contact. And wood is different than metal. It's predictable. Unless a hitter truly barrels up on the ball with full force, most times contact isn't true and the ball gets fielded for an out.

You learn, I am told, not so much to pitch to contact, as to pitch at the batter's weaknesses. This is the way the game is meant to be played. A .300 average in pro baseball on any level is a good average. In college, it's what 7 and 8 hole hitters should expect.

Yesterday, Jesse pitched a fine 1-2-3 first followed by a glitchy second giving up a homer, hitting a batter and then giving up a triple...before settling down to three straight outs and then another three straight in the third. The homer surprised him. It was a big-time downtown shot and the report is that he and his catcher exchanged big-eyed "Wows!" as the batter jogged the base path. On the phone yesterday afternoon Jesse said, "My catcher called for a fastball inside and set up perfectly to get that sucker out. And I just threw it right down the middle." He giggled. "Wham! See ya!" It took the kid two more batters to settle down. And he gave up his first runs since April pitching as a high schooler. What strikes me though is that Jesse knew he'd been had by the batter and knew he deserved what he got. I imagine if he were to watch film of his efforts he'd see what he did wrong. And he'd also see that the triple was legit as well. But he'd also see real hitters focused on not letting him take advantage of them.

In college they run 'em out to 120--140 pitches, like I said. Yesterday with the GCL Phillies, Jesse ran up to a pitch count of about 45 and he was done for the day. What's most important here is to see that the pitcher knows he made mistakes and that good hitters took advantage of those mistakes. If he'd been throwing against metal, it would have been impossible to know how much was mistake and how much the magic bat.

See you out there on the field.


Thanks to Joe Wombough for the photo! Keep takin' 'em Joe!

Leslie Gudel Reports on Jesse Biddle

Longer, finished piece with my favorite, Leslie Gudel running point.

Latest video clip on Jesse "#27 Pick" Biddle. Very short and you get to see his brand of humor.

Press conference at Citizens Bank Park tomorrow afternoon. Contract signing before that. Dinner and a game from the owner's box. Graduation on Friday morning. The following Tuesday he flies down to Tampa to join teammates at rookie camp and then begin pitching in the Gulf Coast League.

Go Phillies!

Jesse Biddle is one of many young players about to have his life changed next week

Draft day 2010 is drawing near. Video below will show why I've not been able to keep up with this blog like I should. Once you start the video, don't click on it. Watch all the way through. We're working on a better cut...

Maple Getting Minor League Treatment

Maple bat restrictions are getting some serious play in the minors this season. See this article from the news section at Minor League baseball's website: "Bat Rules Being Implemented for 2010."

In essence, results from last year's limitations (see my entry here for more on that) tally up to a one-third reduction in broken maple. Ash and maple both break, but maple can be more dangerous due to the explosive nature of breaks (ash more fractures or shreds over time).

What this may mean for the amateur player is the availability of more maple than you can shake a stick at...albeit, maple bats with out of spec, narrow handles and/or barrels in excess of 2.61" in diameter. I'd start calling up my favorite manufacturer and ask if they have bats they'd intended for pros that aren't going to meet the new standards.

Real Kids Doing Real Science

The Public Broadcasting System's Dragonfly TV show for kids ran a great little piece on wood vs. metal bats a while back. You can see it on YouTube by clicking the title of this post or by going here to their website.

I won't spoil the results of Nick's and Reed's experiment. It's a short watch -- about eight and half minutes.

Thanks to Jarrod Brissenden of JustWoodBats.com for bringing this to our attention.