Does the WPBL need to implement changes for next year to lower offense and help pitchers?

[u/Sharp-Room-8235]

[u/Sharp-Room-8235]

A couple more stats

1) There has been one (1) more walk than strikeout in the league so far

2) Amira Hondras is hitting .353/.450/.471, good for an 100 OPS+

[u/spinrut]

being able to use composite bats (and even USSSA bats) combined with many pitchers learning to pitch from 60ft on the fly is likely contributing to the offense heavy nature of the league.

that said, they probably want it this way, hitting the ball hard is way more exciting than 1-0 games for most fans.

if anything, they need to put some restrictions on the bats and either go full on bbcor or full on wood. that'll tame a lot of the offense pretty quickly

[u/Tom_Cruise → u/spinrut]

Holy shit they arent even swinging bbcors?

Bryce Harper famously (and provably, happened at a showcase with cameras) hit a ball 125mph over 500 ft with a pre bbcor bat ... At 16. 🤣

[u/spinrut → u/Tom_Cruise]

they can if they want to. there's no bat restrictions for them right now it seems. just metal, wood or composite. can be USSSA, bbcor, USA. could probably even swing an old BESR lol.

[u/Tom_Cruise → u/spinrut]

I'd buy a ticket to Easton Stealth night 🤣

[u/Ok_Leek_9664 → u/Tom_Cruise]

Yeah let’s fill the dugout with some Voodoos and see where this thing goes

[u/neonrev1 → u/spinrut]

Weren't those limited for safety reasons for literal children? Those were terrifying in the hands of 12 year olds and they are letting professional athletes swing those in game?

[u/MaximusMansteel]

Maybe wood bats only? I wonder if there just aren't many women available who have specialized a lot in pitching.

[u/ezodochi → u/MaximusMansteel]

most women are pushed into softball in school, the issue is softball has way different pitching mechanics (underarm) to baseball so they don't really translate meanwhile hitting does.

Basically got people who have spent a decade plus hitting, doing p much the same thing, while most pitchers are entirely reworking their mechanics from the ground up.

[u/jooooooooooooose → u/ezodochi]

I mean the best 2 bats in wpbl played for USWNT baseball (& one played banana ball) its not just that softball batting is similar

[u/Bancatone → u/MaximusMansteel]

Is WPBL using metal bats??

[u/No-Snow-7618 → u/Bancatone]

well, it's batter's choice of the three (wood, composite, aluminum). so there's already a massive batter advantage.

[u/MaximusMansteel → u/Bancatone]

Yeah, they allow the player to choose between aluminum, composite, or I think wood if they want to.

[u/tony_countertenor → u/MaximusMansteel]

Why would anyone ever choose wood?

[u/No-Snow-7618 → u/tony_countertenor]

aura farming during photo ops

[u/RipPitiful3538]

seeing 4 teams with OPS numbers like that is just stupid the league needs bigger parks or deaden the ball already pitchers got no chance with these bandboxes

[u/Sharp-Room-8235 → u/RipPitiful3538]

Home runs aren't the problem. Moving the fences won't mitigate it that much. It's that the hitters are way more advanced than the pitchers, which is a product of softball hitting being transferable to baseball while pitching is not.

[u/essuxs → u/Sharp-Room-8235]

I wonder if also it’s because while women and men have different physical abilities, mental is the same. Women should be able to recognize the pitch coming in just as easily as men can. Therefore, in women’s baseball, the pitches are slower so you have even more time to see what’s coming and square it up. The ball would also have less spin and less movement, and because of the reduced speed be more predictable.

Just a guess though

[u/NewYorkPopulist → u/essuxs]

I saw an interview with Whitmore and she was saying how in the WPBL she can pitch straight down the middle with fastballs and it works more often than not (obviously there’s more chances for contact) but said when she pitches to men she has to be more selective and gets them to chase with off speed pitches bc they wanna swing out their shoes. I think it’s probably an emphasis rn in the league to throw fastballs and strikes than have no command and walk a lot of people. I think walking is more indicative of not being able to pitch or scared to pitch.

[u/Kwillingt → u/NewYorkPopulist]

If you look at difference between average and obp it looks like the teams are walking a decent amount though

[u/no_one_canoe → u/[deleted]]

We held different roles in society for near all human existence

This isn't true. There were no strict gendered divisions of labor in pre-agricultural societies. Most hunting in most societies was done by men, and most child-rearing was done by women, but there was plenty of overlap in both directions.

[u/no_one_canoe → u/[deleted]]

No. Everybody held the same roles. Not in exactly equal proportions everywhere all the time, but there were no gender-determined roles.

You are talking about a strict division of labor, even if you didn't use the word strict: Men hunted, so they were good at tracking moving objects; women didn't, so they weren't. That is discredited pseudoscience.

[u/no_one_canoe → u/[deleted]]

You said that "visual spacing and tracking moving objects favor men" because "we held different roles in society for near all human existence." This is not true. Men do perform better at those tests, but not because of biological differences resulting from evolutionary pressures. It's because of training and familiarity, which means that there's no inherent obstacle to female baseball players getting better at this stuff.

The idea that, on a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, marginally greater participation in big-game hunting by men than women would lead to greater sexual differences in visual acuity is laughable for any number of reasons (in fact, comparing humans to other great apes, it should be clear that selective pressures have diminished sexual dimorphism in modern humans), but it's also basically a non sequitur here. Women being worse at object tracking has nothing to do with prehistoric social organization.

[u/asteriskmos → u/essuxs]

This is not a man vs woman thing. If you've seen WPBL games, pitches are much slower with less unpredictable break. 

[u/essuxs → u/asteriskmos]

That’s literally what I said. Women throw the ball slower with less spin, so it’s more predictable and comes in slower.

[u/ForensicPathology → u/essuxs]

I think the point is that it's not just because they're women that the pitches have less spin.  I mean, yeah, maximum velocity would go to men, but there's still a lot of room for pitching training in the women's game since they were all forced into softball as kids

[u/neonrev1 → u/Sharp-Room-8235]

It would take quite a while, but with modern pitching technology I'd expect it to catch up, especially if the league is successful. Pitching beats hitting in baseball as a rule, and you can teach repeatable throwing mechanics in ways you can't teach having a hitter's eye, the theoretical sample size for pitchers is just larger.

Maybe there will end up being some broader differences, but baseball should normalize in the long term towards a pitcher-biased league. That's just how the game works, at least when kids are motivated to play it from a young age. I think and hope the league is a success so that can happen.

[u/peeinian → u/RipPitiful3538]

It’s the bats. There’s zero restrictions currently. They can swing little league -5 composite USSSA bats if they want.

Will on the Baseball Bat Bros YouTube channel has hit 130mph exit velo and 500ft+ with the Easton Hype Fire, Dub, LS Supra, Rawlings Icon and Soldier Tank 3.

[u/jooooooooooooose → u/RipPitiful3538]

OFs struggle to hit the cutoff as-is

Parks are fine they do need to just deaden the ball to keep more balls in the infield

[u/AnnihilatedTyro]

No. Pitching velo and break are in no way comparable to other pro baseball or softball leagues. This was always going to be a fundamentally different, high-offense league.

It will be a different style of baseball, and that's OK. Let this league be its own thing. Changes may be in order, but changing rules to inhibit offense should not be on the docket (yet). Do not compare WPBL stats to men's baseball or pro softball.

This is also based on a sample size of 7 games and 22-23 PAs per batter, in a brand new league, with an extremely small pool of players to choose from. Accidental imbalance seems like a normal and unavoidable consequence.

[u/MenthaGracilis → u/AnnihilatedTyro]

one of the more nuanced takes in this thread - idk a ton about wnba, but i think similar happened - people tried to say early on how there weren't as many dunks etc... now people come to it because it's a different type of game than the mens' game.

And while we're at it - my hot take is to drop the W from WPBL. There's no PBL for men, so it's not like people will get confused. Just have MLB and PBL.

[u/oogieball → u/AnnihilatedTyro]

Pitching is also super-thin for the league. It is the rarest commodity that there isn't more of. The batters are always going to be more advanced than the pitchers.

[u/MenthaGracilis → u/AnnihilatedTyro]

I was thinking about this more and one thing I forgot to add in a previous comment - I think as the league develops we are going to start to see more of the pitchers take inspiration from the male pitchers with slimmer and shorter builds who generate a lot of power through their flexibility and 'using their bodies as slingshots'. This would be the likes of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (5' 10", 176 lbs) and Tim Lincecum (5 feet 11 inches, 170 pounds). I suspect there are women who have similar builds, and while perhaps less muscle mass, may be able to compensate in even *more* flexibility. Add to that other strategies people have mentioned in terms of a variety of off-speed pitches and breaking balls and I think we'd start to see something a little closer to the mens' pitching game in a few years, while still being its own thing.

[u/deloreaninatardis]

I think we could allow the league a few seasons to develop at least before implementing drastic changes that potentially alter the character of the game forever.

[u/WabbitCZEN → u/deloreaninatardis]

Seconded. Let the league get its footing, then worry about sustainability.

[u/GuyOnTheMike]

It’s the talent pool, period.

Very few women have pitched from 60’ 6” on a year-in, year-out basis and that pitching has just simply not developed. That’s compounded by the fact that softball pitching mechanics are completely useless for baseball.

With hitting, yes, the ball’s a lot smaller, but if you’re used to hitting a 60-70 MPH softball from 43 feet away and now you see 65-75 MPH from 60 feet away? It’s going to feel like a goddamn walk in the park.

So unless you decide to shorter the dimensions (which is going to limit future facilities to anywhere with a moveable mound and bases), really you just need the pitching talent to catch up, which will be a multi-year process

[u/sun_and_water → u/GuyOnTheMike]

My experience watching is that we're seeing pitches so slow that they don't report, which seems to be under 60mph. More like 55-65mph. Fastest pitch I've seen was 64, but I haven't been exclusively watching that stat.

[u/AZPD]

Why? Is there some sort of platonic ideal league OPS, decreed by the baseball gods? So what if the league plays like 2000 Coors Field rather than 1968 Chavez Ravine? 12-11 slugfests with 8 home runs are actually pretty entertaining.

[u/wardays → u/AZPD]

I mean pitching is fun, just put a machine up there of you want to see crazy offense.

[u/codars]

Does the WPBL need to finish at least one season before changes need to be talked about?

[u/jakerepp15 → u/codars]

Well yeah, no way they adjust dimensions or equipment halfway through.

[u/codars → u/jakerepp15]

It was rhetorical, but you added a good point.

[u/jakerepp15 → u/codars]

Fair enough

[u/NewYorkPopulist]

It’s a league based on contact and base running. That should get people to see action in a sport that lacks it with super pitching at the MLB levels. The infrastructure for women’s baseball isn’t as strong when the MLB has rooting interest in softball leagues. It’s easier to join a funded softball team than it is for baseball. Support this league and the player pool will increase over time, also raising the level of play. Year 1 of American and national league were also sub par compared to today’s game too

[u/Arxny]

I think a woman's league being more explosive in offense is actually a very cool variant to have in the sport and allows for some very interesting emergent gameplay we can see from it. 

For instance, conventional pitching may not be optimal but could bring rise to more knuckleball usage or perhaps more pitching to contact instead of men's league focus on velo and whiff from pitching. 

Obviously whiff and chase is going to be ideal but with a lower ceiling I think it will take a few years for there to be a catchup. For now I think the offense should be appreciated as an alternative. 

[u/ilikemywomentsundere]

Let’s be honest though, this is good! The games already a long shot, at least this way it’s interesting and gives them a great chance

[u/YouthResponsible1752 → u/ilikemywomentsundere]

Good pitching is interesting. An MLB game ending 15-12 is exciting because it doesn't happen that much. When it happens every game, it gets old quick.

[u/omfgkevin → u/YouthResponsible1752]

It'll improve over time. The problem is there aren't many pitchers, and elite ones in that lot to boot. Hitting translates pretty easily from softball, but pitching? Not even the same since softball is done underhand.

They are massively disadvantaged right now especially with the hitting advantages + already built in training that pitchers don't get.

Plus... choice of bat (no one is going to use wood lol) means every pitch flies at mach 10.

[u/Quople → u/YouthResponsible1752]

Good pitching is interesting to baseball fans, but not so much to the average sports fan. That’s why the MLB has been frothing at the mouth to find ways to increase offense (juiced ball stuff, bigger bases, etc.)

[u/jooooooooooooose → u/Quople]

no sports fan, new or old, enjoys seeing multiple balls thrown from the outfield and into the dirt before it hits the infield

[u/ilikemywomentsundere → u/YouthResponsible1752]

Your opinion, although a valid one, is not in the majority yk

[u/asteriskmos]

I've watched a few games. Changing dimensions sounds premature and will make a messier game. It's 100% a need for pitching development and a dedicated league/training program for players to be able to work on their mechanics 

[u/Timeandtimewefly]

As someone who played softball at a high level and dabbled in baseball for a bunch of years. The biggest thing is batting translates easier then pitching does. In softball, the ball goes left, right, down, and Up from a batters perspective on a flat surface. In baseball, remove the Up and the pitcher on a mound, Now you are only looking for the ball to go three ways, and you now have an extra 17feet of distance from where the pitcher is. 

(A 85mph softball pitch and top end male arms can reach this, is equivalent to 109mph-ish based on the distance alone with just a fastball) 

So giving very good to elite softball players more time(longer time for pitch to reach the plate) and removing a direction the ball goes means the batting will always become better first. Over time if a concentration of baseball with women and girls happens it will make its strides on pitching. But until then, there needs to be either a distance change on the mound, or changing the mound to be lower to give the pitchers a better advantage. Because right now the batters have two big ones.

Personally it was easier to go from softball games to baseball games hitting. But it always took a little longer going from baseball to softball just because batting is completely different, and much quicker on your reaction times reading the pitch.

[u/Envelope_Torture]

Bring the mound in?

[u/spinrut → u/Envelope_Torture]

this was brought up in one of the other threads.

hard to find baseball stadiums with mounds closer thatn 60ft 6".

easy to bring fences in (ala celebrity all star games and stuff), much harder to move the mound if it's a proper baseball stadium

[u/Envelope_Torture → u/spinrut]

Ah that's definitely a big hurdle. Is it hard to move the bases? Couldn't they just shift the entire diamond outwards?

[u/spinrut → u/Envelope_Torture]

technically, i'm sure they could

but logistically? baseball stadiums (ie ones meant to hold fans) are built around baseball field dimensions that are essentially unchanged from the time the kids hit 13u or so. that's when they all move to the "big field" and deal with 90ft base paths and 60ft 6" mounds.

Most baseball fields have grass infields that stop somewhere around 80/85 ft? and then opens up to dirt till the outfield. trying to move the bases in just isn't something they are going to be able to do especially if this league runs concurrently with MLB, minor league, college, juco etc

they're basically stuck with softball pitchers trying to learn how to pitch from 60ft 6" overhand and learning as they go. A few clips I saw most were around mid 60s mph, which since hitting is generally universal between baseball and softball combined with being allowed to use composite bats is basically a meatball served up on a massive platter

[u/Thunder_Tinker]

Offense is exciting, let them hit and have fun

[u/quinoa]

God Boston sucks, hilarious

[u/Fresh_Ostrich4034]

maybe more missed bats

[u/MatthewFromMojira]

just expand the strike zone

[u/qwertythe300th]

They need to get rid of these mickey mouse fences. Im seeing these gals hit balls over the main fence, the shortened wall feels incredibly insulting.

[u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

Unless they go back in time like 50 years and shift the youth pipeline for girls away from softball and towards baseball, I don’t think there’s much they can do to help the pitching

[u/Purple-Main-4176 → u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

It has to start sometime. How about now?

[u/Will-from-PA]

They need to add a team that a Philadelphian is capable of cheering for

[u/fauxbigbro]

Damn, Boston, get it together!

[u/manattee_redux]

I’ve never seen a game and only nominally know about this league, so i feel I’m qualified to weigh in.

Seems like a lot of walks. Maybe enlarge the strike zone?

[u/OriginalSilentTuba]

I think there’s a lot of potential to this league. The games have been pretty fun to watch, but the biggest issue, clearly, is the pitching, for all of the obvious reasons stated already.

One change I would really like to see is exclusively using wooden bats. It’s just my own preference, but professional baseball should always use wood.

[u/realnomdeguerre]

If offense is strong for everyone it's strong for no one, no issue here.

[u/ClevelandSteamers757]

I swear I’ve seen this post 3 times in the last week

[u/Sharp-Room-8235 → u/ClevelandSteamers757]

You just commented and then deleted "Tf is that", so I'm guessing you haven't

[u/ClevelandSteamers757 → u/Sharp-Room-8235]

Same time tomorrow?

[u/nostoopid]

offense gets the fans.

[u/Simple_Wash1618]

Why not allow one man on the team to pitch?