thatsmell wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2019 2:52 pm
pcowlax wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:09 pm
Don't disagree with any of this but it is pure offseason bloviating. They are never going to "deescalate" the stick technology. This is like pining for wood or aluminum tennis rackets. Absolutely the move to graphite and ceramic changed tennis but it made it easier for lesser players to play well. That is what manufacturers care about. Same with golf tech, the new balls and stick have rendered obsolete many historic courses. However, they make it easier for hackers to fly it 300 yards, thus increasing the popularity of the game. Equipment rules aren't driven by the performance of the best players. They don't make money selling lax sticks to Pat Spencer, they make it by selling them to 10s of thousands of lesser players. If tricking out the sticks makes it easier for those others to imitate great players and not get frustrated dropping the ball, then there you go. From the manufacturers perspective, as for the D, they got titanium shafts and they will have to pocket that and be happy. The only instance I can think of in the history of sports where some new innovation that made the game easier was subsequently banned because it was distorting the game was the crazy full body swim suits they had in the Olympics 10 or 12 years ago. You are going to have to pry offsets out of their cold, dead hands.
MLB has kept the metal bats out of their game to keep statistics more relevant.
That and for safety reasons, there has always been concerns about pitchers being killed by line drives off the metal bats of MLB players. Certainly consistency in MLB stats is more important to them than to lax. People have listed many good reasons why they would like to change the sticks but I don't really think stats have much to do with it. A few crazy games this year aside, I'm not sure how much goals per game have changed over the years, here is the data since 2002, pretty interesting actually, sorry for the terrible format. With the shot clock this was the highest scoring years since 2002 but really by just 1 goal.
Season ^Teams &Games Goals Assists Points Shots Pct. SOG Pct. Goals Att. Pct. Balls TO TO Saves Pct.
2002 55 #13.98 9.79 5.70 15.49 — — *22.25 — *1.43 *4.56 .313 — — — *12.46 .564
2003 #54 14.36 9.28 5.54 14.82 — — 21.33 — 1.29 4.24 .304 — — — 12.05 *.571
2004 #54 14.30 9.32 5.38 14.70 — — 21.29 — 1.23 4.18 .294 — — — 11.97 .564
2005 56 14.24 9.30 5.26 14.56 — — 20.44 — 1.29 4.25 .303 — — — 11.14 .548
2006 56 14.50 #9.09 5.32 14.41 — — #19.99 — 1.18 3.85 .307 — — — 10.90 .547
2007 56 14.57 9.36 5.27 14.63 — — 20.52 — 1.20 4.10 #.292 — — — 11.16 .546
2008 56 14.88 9.09 #5.15 #14.24 — — 20.14 — 1.21 3.94 .307 — — — 11.04 .553
2009 57 15.09 9.35 5.24 14.59 — — 20.27 — #1.14 3.48 .327 *30.75 — — 10.92 .540
2010 58 14.95 10.00 5.77 15.77 34.26 *.292 20.90 *.610 1.30 3.81 .341 30.27 *17.15 7.73 10.90 .522
2011 60 15.02 9.59 5.28 14.87 #34.10 #.281 19.99 .586 1.20 3.79 .317 30.10 16.63 *7.84 #10.40 .523
2012 61 14.98 9.92 5.79 15.71 34.16 .290 20.37 .596 1.20 #3.44 *.348 #29.31 15.46 #7.29 10.46 .513
2013 *63 *15.13 *10.29 *5.86 *16.15 *36.58 .281 21.37 #.584 1.22 3.57 .342 30.55 #15.08 7.42 11.39 #.511