With over 40 years as a major league player, manager and broadcaster, Buck Martinez has experienced baseball from all angles. Now in his role as the Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play announcer, Buck is taking your questions in his weekly blog for sportsnet.ca, Ask Buck Martinez.
Chad asks…
Hi Buck, a buddy and myself were wondering if you might enlighten us fans with a description of what a simulated game entails for both a hitter and a pitcher?
Who participates, what parts of the game are and are not simulated? We hear the term all the time, but I don’t know if anyone has ever really has explained this to the fans.
Buck: Chad, that is a great question that probably has a lot of fans wondering the same thing.
Most of the time the "simulated" game is for a pitcher who’s starting their season or coming back from injury and designed to get him comfortable facing hitters again in a controlled environment.
The progression goes from flat ground throwing to off the mound bullpen sessions, to simulated game situations, to short-inning game outings and finally, the green light to go all out.
A simulated game will recreate innings for a pitcher facing his own hitters. The catcher will call the pitches and the batters may or may not want to know what’s coming.
The catcher also serves as the umpire and the innings will consist of three outs at which time the pitchers will sit down as if his team were hitting.
After 10 minutes he gets back on the mound, warms up and goes through another inning. The length of the outing varies according to how much work a guy needs. If all goes well, the next step would be to send the pitcher to a minor league team for a rehab assignment that could last up to 20 days.
Then the player has to rejoin the big league club or be optioned to the minors.
I always wanted my pitchers to simulate shutouts so they would have nothing put positive vibes.
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Jonathan asks…
Hi Buck. Great to see you back in the booth.
As a catcher, do you have to change the approach in the event a warning is issued to the pitcher and the benches? What would you tell your pitcher in this scenario?
Buck: Jonathan, after an umpire has issued a warning, I wouldn’t a pitcher to change a thing. If you put the idea of pitching carefully in their head, you may create more problems than the risk of the ejection.
When I went to the mound for a visit I always tried to maintain a positive approach, never wanting to put negative thoughts or doubt into my pitcher’s head.
"Hey, remember the umpire has issued a warning and we can’t pitch inside," would be totally counter productive in my mind. I would continue to pitch the same way and live with the consequences if we should happen to hit a batter.
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Raymond asks…
Have you been able to sort out the real story about the confusion concerning Jorge Posada? This whole thing seems unsettling. Posada is a true Yankee and unless there is something truly wrong, I think the Yankees
are treating him badly. What do you think?
Buck: Raymond, I think this whole mess is unfortunate as both Posada and the Yankees are in a tough spot.
We may have seen this coming four years ago when the club signed him to the four-year $52.4 million deal. He was 35-years-old then.
Posada had a great year in 2007 hitting .338 with 20 homers and driving in 90, but we all knew that was going to taper off dramatically. He was hurt in ‘08 and his at-bats in 2009 and 2010 topped out at 383 each season so his playing time was falling off. I know he bounced back in 2009 with 22 homers and 81 RBIs, but that was about the end of the line.
The club got a lot out of the deal and Jorge was paid handsomely for his work. What is happening now is a bad scene, but I think Posada was wrong in taking himself out of the lineup. He has a duty to perform and he chose not to.
Jeter tried to back up his pal, but he was called into the principal office as well. The team must always come first and the Joe Girardi wasn’t trying to embarrass Jorge, he was trying to win a game.
I think it has blown over.
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Kevin asks…
Hi Buck, love your work! Sometimes I realize umpires miss the call when the ball is clearly in the strike-zone. Do they know they made a wrong call when the crowd is booing them? Also, some umpires have a very large
strike-zone and some of them have a tight one. Do teams scout umpires before the game?
Buck: Kevin, the umpiring has improved with all of the monitoring MLB has done over the last several years. The strike zone grids and the post-game reviews of an umpire’s game have done what they were designed to do: make them aware that they are being graded.
The problem we have is that every call is replayed from every possible angle with frame-by-frame slow motion. We can ridicule an umpire after we slow it down and look at it from five different cameras, but the ump has to make a snap decision in a split second.
Overall, I think the strike zone has gotten more narrow and shorter over the years and the pitchers have been penalized as a result, but looking at some of the early returns this year, they may be catching up.
I am not a big umpire basher as I worked very close to them for a long time, but just like players, there are super stars, average umps and ones that seem to always be in a jam.
As for teams scouting umpires, I don’t think anybody changes their game plan because of the umpiring crew assigned to a series, but you will see the daily umpire rotation posted in many dugouts during the season just to make sure you call him by his name when you are getting on him for a bad call.
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Ryan asks…
Hey Buck, quick question: Having watched nearly every Jays game this season, one thing I have noticed are the numerous base-running blunders made by Jays players. At last count, there have been over 15 major blunders leading to unnecessary outs.
In your opinion, what accounts for all of these base-running mistakes?
Buck: Ryan, I think you are pretty close in your count of the base running mistakes, but it is OK with skipper John Farrell.
Of course, he doesn’t want his players to make stupid mistakes, but he wants them to be aggressive and force the running game.
You probably remember Corey Patterson getting caught going from second to third in Boston. Farrell thought it was a good gamble at the time to make something happen.
Felix Doubront guessed right with Corey and used the inside move to throw him out. Jose Bautista has been caught off base a couple of times when he should have been more conservative.
But overall, the Jays are going to run whenever they can and gamble to score runs. Farrell believes the current makeup of the team dictates that type of aggressive offense.
As the year goes on and the players become more used to the style, I think you will see fewer and fewer base running blunders, but don’t expect the approach to change.
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