Welcome to the Snyder Op-Ed! Here I pontificate on Major League Baseball-related topics each week. Some topics will be pressing issues, others may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will fall somewhere in between. The great thing about this website is that it’s free and you’re allowed to click around. If you stick around, you’ll get smarter, though. It’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
Have you ever had a little rant that doesn’t require more than a sentence or two? Sure. It might not necessarily be a “rant,” but a general observation about which you have a little reluctance or a hearty endorsement. Or maybe just something tongue-in-cheek for the hell of it?
Here are some of mine collected during the 2024 season.
- “THE MLBSome of the other three-letter sports have ruined us here. Think of “the NFL” and “the National Football League.” Both work. Same with NBA Or NHL. Major League Baseball doesn’t work. If you don’t say “Major League Baseball,” you can’t say “the MLB.” Stop. I’m not even asking nicely, because it’s so stupid that it doesn’t deserve kindness.
- You can’t use “BP” as shorthand for bullpen. Baseball already has a “BP” and it’s had it for a long time. batting practice. Anyone who has played at any level has heard “BP” and knows it. “What time is BP?” is an incredibly common phrase among players at many levels. It’s not “what time do we throw the bullpen?” Stop using “BP” as shorthand on social media. Yes, I realize there are sometimes character constraints that mean you can use “RP.” It stands for relief pitcher(s) and can easily stand in for the relief pitching corps, which is the bullpen. If you want to say “the bullpen sucks,” you can type “the RP sucks,” and every baseball fan in the world will know what you mean. Stop using “the BP” for the bullpen.
- I want to hear “that was a good hit” about a prodigious home run. Isn’t that a great hit? We like to say “good hit” when a batter hits a ball to the opposite field and it barely falls for a base hit, but a better hit is one that absolutely destroys an error for a three-run bomb. Seriously, I understand the sentiment behind the common use of “good hit,” which is to say that it was a good adjustment by the batter to get a hit on a well-executed pitch. I’m just having fun with the concept. Let’s make a deal to try this one sometime: Aaron Judge He destroys a baseball at 500 feet, and we all say, “My God, what a great hit!”
- Oven mitts on the basepaths, especially for guys who steal bases, just don’t hold up. I understand if a player wants to slide headfirst and has problems with fingers getting caught or even broken; it’s necessary to guard against such things in baseball, where every finger is incredibly important. Having a glove add extra inches is starting to get unfair. We already have bigger bases, now the player can add about six more inches with a glove? Why not just make them about two feet long? Get out of here. In fact, until there’s a specific rule in place, I demand a specialist like The White Sox beginner Duke Ellis wear a glove that reaches down past his knee when he is standing still.
- Does the entire infield really have to go to the mound every time a pitching coach comes to talk to the pitcher? When I was growing up—oh no, that’s dangerously close to “back in my day,” and it drove me crazy—the mound meetings would involve the catcher, the pitcher, and a coach. Sometimes they’d call in an infielder. If it was an important part of the game where, say, the infielder had to hit a runner at home plate, the mound meeting might involve the entire infield. I think at some point, around the turn of the millennium, a group of infielders decided that they had to be present at every mound meeting. Why? Sometimes a pitcher is mad and just needs a second to calm down and the pitching coach will just say a few talking points or even mention non-baseball stuff to take his mind off the pressure. Does the third baseman really need to hear every word? Just stay in your position unless the receiver or coach specifically calls you.
- Playing with the helmet on while they’re running hard to the bases is probably a tic that players don’t think about, but it’s something that slows them down. Earlier this season, I swear I saw Nick Madrigal Grab the visor of his helmet while trying to beat a pitch to first base. But what does it matter? If the helmet is going to fall off your head while you’re running to the bases, gentlemen, let him. Anything else will slow you down. Or, you can always pull a Gary Matthews Sr. (shout out to the sergeant!) and purposely knock your helmet off the box quickly so you don’t get bothered by him while you’re running. That was the rule when he did that.
- Why does the “sacrifice” stat ignore groundouts? It’s easy to understand the concept of intentionally laying down a bunt to sacrifice yourself, but how is a hit separated from batting average when bringing a runner home via a hit isn’t? Has anyone considered this? Sometimes you have to hit the ball to the outfield to score the runner, whether it’s a hit or a base hit, but other times simply putting the ball in play scores a run. Somehow we’ve determined that hitting a hit to score a run is inherently more valuable or more player-controllable than hitting a hit in a spot that will score a run.
- Enough with this “ghost runner” crap. Damn. Didn’t you use “ghost runner” when you were a kid playing catch with your friends? It means there is an imaginary runner who doesn’t actually exist as a human. The extra innings rule puts real players on second base. If they were ghost runners, there wouldn’t be any bodies there and we’d just be imagining where the runner would be when the balls were put in play. Come on, man. This is elementary. I should point out that I’ve complained about this many times before, but the problem seems to be spreading instead of shrinking. Please join me in trying to eradicate this abomination.
- It seems, from watching TV and trying to listen, when possible, in person, that MLB players say “I got it!” instead of “mine!” on fly balls/pop-ups. Throughout high school and college, my teams always used “mine” instead, and I thought it was so much better. It’s only one syllable and much easier to repeat over and over again when you’re chasing a fly ball between two players, desperately hoping that your nearby teammates will hear you and avoid a collision. As an added layer in the major leagues, teaching someone who doesn’t know English very well one syllable instead of three seems to be the game. So why is “I got it” the preferred MLB call? I asked a former player and he said he thought it was mostly a personal preference. So let’s get this out of the way, guys. “Mine” is much more effective!
