• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

MiLB General Discussion (Official Thread)

That's next on my list of Minor league stadiums to visit
Quote, unquote “Best Minor League Ballpark in America”. There’s been many built in the 20+ years since its inception but it’s top class and largely what others were modeled after. Still top notch. Amazing what they’ve done.

My dad worked as a business manager for the team in the late 80s/early 90s- the Indians/Expos days of Andres Gallaraga and Randy Johnson. Spent time as a kid running around Bush Stadium. This beats the heck out of that ballpark, but that place had some character :lol:

Tickets and a beer on me if anyone is ever in the area.
 
Upvote 0
Quote, unquote “Best Minor League Ballpark in America”. There’s been many built in the 20+ years since its inception but it’s top class and largely what others were modeled after. Still top notch. Amazing what they’ve done.

My dad worked as a business manager for the team in the late 80s/early 90s- the Indians/Expos days of Andres Gallaraga and Randy Johnson. Spent time as a kid running around Bush Stadium. This beats the heck out of that ballpark, but that place had some character :lol:

Tickets and a beer on me if anyone is ever in the area.

I will def hit u up on that one! And I'll return the favor for anyone who hasn't been to Huntington park
 
Upvote 0
Longtime minor leaguer Cody Decker belts walk-off home run, promptly retires
ec8759a0-3b70-11e9-9b21-5b94d92ef51b

Sam Cooper
Yahoo SportsJul 8, 2019, 12:39 PM



814fdbf0-a19e-11e9-bee3-eae7c5826503

After 1,033 games in the minors and just eight in the big leagues, Cody Decker is calling it a career. (Getty Images)
Cody Decker went out on his own terms.

Decker, a 32-year-old first baseman who has spent all but eight of his 1,000-plus games played as a professional baseball player in the minor leagues, blasted a walk-off home run for the Reno Aces, the Triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, late Friday night.




In all, Decker played for 13 different professional teams before his career culminated with Friday night’s heroics, a real-life “Bull Durham” moment. It was a moment Decker says he will always cherish.




“I never really knew I’d get the chance to do it,” Decker said. “It was a really special night and one of the best of my career, something I’ll never forget. The fact I got to share it with these teammates, you can’t beat it. That moment coming off the field is something I never knew would happen. Getting all those hugs at home, then having a curtain call from the fans. It wasn’t just the fans which is amazing, it was my teammates on the top step both giving me a standing ovation.”



Decker got a brief call-up to the big leagues for the Padres in 2015, when he went 0-for-11 with an RBI. Other than that, he finishes his minor league career with a .260 average and 645 RBIs in 1,033 games over the course of 11 seasons.

https://sports.yahoo.com/longtime-m...koff-home-run-promptly-retires-163935245.html

 
Upvote 0
Kalamazoo Growlers' 6-year-old 'Coach Drake' unleashes a fiery post-ejection tirade

The Kalamazoo Growlers of the Northwoods League — a summer league for college players — have the most adorable coach in the game. But don’t doubt his fire … it won’t end well for the umpires.

The 6-year-old assistant coach, known as “Coach Drake,” became a social media star last week when his mound visit with starter David Toth went viral on Twitter.

This week, though, Coach Drake was back in action, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the umpiring crew at all.



Entire article: https://usatodayhss.com/2019/watch-kalamazoo-growlers-6-year-old-coach-drake-ejected
 
Upvote 0
Kalamazoo Growlers' 6-year-old 'Coach Drake' unleashes a fiery post-ejection tirade

The Kalamazoo Growlers of the Northwoods League — a summer league for college players — have the most adorable coach in the game. But don’t doubt his fire … it won’t end well for the umpires.

The 6-year-old assistant coach, known as “Coach Drake,” became a social media star last week when his mound visit with starter David Toth went viral on Twitter.

This week, though, Coach Drake was back in action, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the umpiring crew at all.



Entire article: https://usatodayhss.com/2019/watch-kalamazoo-growlers-6-year-old-coach-drake-ejected



better than David Bell already
 
Upvote 0
Minor League Baseball cancels 2020 season; here's what it means for prospects and teams

The Minor League season will not happen in 2020

Minor League Baseball made official on Tuesday what has seemed obvious for weeks: MiLB's season has been canceled because of the spread of the novel coronavirus. Minor League Baseball made the announcement Tuesday afternoon.
.
.
.
5. What happens next with the minors?
Change. And lots of it.

MLB is expected to get its way, which would mean more than 40 teams losing affiliate status. The minors would be realigned, with the bottom levels eliminated. Team and league affiliates would be modified, and so on and so forth.

The exact parameters remain to be seen, but it's fair to write that the odds are the minors will not look as they did at the end of the 2019 season.

Entire article: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/...-heres-what-it-means-for-prospects-and-teams/
 
Upvote 0
Automated strike zone coming to minors but a while from MLB

If a minor league player says an umpire is acting like a robot this year, he might be right.

Computer umpires for balls and strikes are coming to a low-level minor league but are a while away from the big leagues.

Major League Baseball plans to use Automated Ball-Strike technology (ABS) in eight of nine ballparks at the Low-A Southeast League, which starts play May 4 across Florida as minor league baseball resumes after a one-year break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
.
.
.
Minor league experiments this year also include pitch timers at Triple-A, Double-A and Low-A (15 seconds with bases empty, 20 seconds with runners), a limit of two pickoff attempts per plate appearance at Low-A with an automatic balk for a failed attempt on a third, a requirement pitchers must step off the rubber before pickoffs at High-A, a requirement infielders at Double-A have both feet on the infield dirt and an option to require two infielders on each side of second base; and 18-inch bases instead of 15-inch at Triple-A.

Marinak said players subject to the ABS will be measured before their first game, and the top of the strike zone will be 56% of their height and the bottom 28%. The strike zone will be measured two-dimensionally at the front of home plate.

Entire article: https://www.foxnews.com/sports/automated-strike-zone-coming-to-minors-but-a-while-from-mlb
 
Upvote 0
MLB to test electronic device for catchers to give signals to pitchers

The practice of catchers using their fingers to flash a combination of signs for pitchers to decipher, a strategy that is almost as old as the sport itself, could be on the verge of becoming obsolete.

Major League Baseball will begin testing new technology that allows catchers to electronically communicate signs to pitchers at one of the lower minor league levels within the next couple of weeks, a system designed to both quicken the pace of play and suppress illegal sign-stealing methods.

A memo introducing the new system, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN, was sent to officials of the eight teams that make up the Class A California League on Friday. In it, MLB announced plans to begin testing on Aug. 3 a pitcher-catcher communication device developed by a company called PitchCom.

i


Entire article: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...ctronic-device-catchers-give-signals-pitchers
 
Upvote 0
MLB Is Testing Ways to Fix Baseball’s Boredom Problem

The league is using the independent Atlantic League as a laboratory for changes that could speed up games and add more drama.

Players and coaches in baseball’s Atlantic League had been dreading the change for more than a year. “I don’t understand why they’re doing it,” Danny Barnes, a relief pitcher for the Long Island Ducks, told me during batting practice a week before its debut at the beginning of August. “That’s a tough one,” said fellow reliever Joe Iorio. “We don’t want it to create injuries.” Ducks manager Wally Backman had heard these complaints and more. “The only reactions I have heard from the players are bad,” he said, sitting at his clubhouse desk at the Ducks home park in Central Islip, N.Y. Backman, who played for 14 seasons in the major leagues and won a World Series with the New York Mets, then mimed zipping his lips before he said too much.

When it happened, the big change was tough to spot from the stands. At an Aug. 11 game between the Ducks and the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, I pointed it out to the father and son seated beside me: The groundskeepers had moved the pitching rubber back a foot farther from home plate. Since 1893, the white strip where the pitcher stands has been set at 60 feet, 6 inches, but now, in the Atlantic League, it was 61 feet, 6 inches. They were surprised to learn this, but the conversation quickly returned to how nice it was to go to a baseball game without spending hundreds of dollars.

The extended pitching rubber, hotly contested in clubhouses and barely noticeable to fans, is part of a wave of experimentation that Major League Baseball executives are hoping will drag their sport into the 21st century. Since 2019, MLB has been using the low-profile Atlantic League, whose players aren’t unionized and have little power to object, as a test lab for rules changes aimed at making games shorter and more exciting. These tweaks have included letting batters try to steal first base, making the bases bigger and easier to reach, strictly limiting visits to the mound by coaches, and using an Automated Ball-Strike system—robot umpires—to call pitches at the plate. MLB has already adopted some of the changes at the big-league level. If they work as intended, others will follow.

Baseball has a bloat problem. With every season, games take longer and less happens on the field. Over the past half-century, the average length of an MLB game has risen from about 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours and 11 minutes. The number of balls in play, meanwhile, has dwindled. Hits are near historic lows, strikeouts at historic highs. In 1980, roughly 1 in 8 trips to the plate ended in a strikeout. This season, the rate was twice that. This makes for long lulls in the action. According to the league, the time between batted balls has reached an average of nearly four minutes, up by almost a minute from two decades ago. It’s a worrisome trend for a sport that’s competing for attention with instantly refreshed social media feeds and eight-second viral videos.
.
.
.
continued

Entire article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-businessweek

Since 2019, MLB has been using the low-profile Atlantic League, whose players aren’t unionized and have little power to object, as a test lab for rules changes aimed at making games shorter and more exciting

:lol:
 
Upvote 0


Minor League Baseball Team Brings 75-Year-Old Red Sox Pitcher Out And He Actually Strikes Out A Batter


savannah-bananas-bill-lee-75-years-old-strikes-out-batter.png


Former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee was a force to be reckoned with in his heyday. The former MLB All-Star was elected to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame after pitching for the team between 1969-78 and finishing his MLB career with a 119–90 (3.62 ERA) record. He’s now 75-years-old and striking out batters for the Savannah Bananas.

I don’t know if you guys have heard, but the Savannah Bananas are killing it with promos lately. Earlier this week (video below) they introduced a new rule where a fan in the stands caught a foul ball that counted as an actual out in the game. Now they’re back with this Bill Lee story.

The Savannah Bananas brought out Bill Lee to throw some pitches and the former left-handed pitcher for the Red Sox was able to actually record a strikeout against an MiLB batter. It took some finessing with Bill Lee throwing the strikeout pitch at an incredibly high arc but it worked. And it’s spectacular.

Entire article: https://brobible.com/sports/article/savannah-bananas-bill-lee-75-years-old-strikes-out-batter/
 
Upvote 0
Back
Top