How to fix baseball

[G-Snarls]

Hell no! Way too physically dangerous for the pitchers.

 

Oh yeah, and pitchers, LOL

[bigpaulie]

I was at an inter county game, where during batting practise a player started to use a wooden bat, then switched to a composite softball bat, man oh man what a difference, my 8 year old son still talks about it, and that got me thinking, I know the increased speed off the bat is an issue for pitchers and fans on the base lines, but the distances increased off the bats was crazy.

 

I am of the age where 95% of my baseball life has only ever used aluminum, and now composite bats. I wonder if done right if it would increase interest in the game.

[GeorgiaPeach]

Shorten the game... way too much dead time in baseball.

 

Maybe you could shave a little time off the game, but not drastic changes.

[GeorgiaPeach]

How does a team like the Astros, who had a new stadium built in 2000, say their woes are from the stadium?

 

Can't be the quality of the park. It's one of my favourites.

[GeorgiaPeach]

I agree games are too long, but what they should do, given the obvious limiting factor of needing advertising revenue, is manage the gameplay itself better. You can step out of the box or ask for time only once an AB, or be awarded a strike against you for any further transgressions. The pitcher only has a few seconds (indeterminate - whatever a study shows is adequate) to get set and deliver the ball to the plate. This will end all the dancing around nonsense. Walking around the mound. The batters will not have time to do their touch the helmet 3 times, adjust the left glove, adjust the right glove, adjust the left glove again, twist the left testicle clockwise, twist the right testicle counter-clockwise (two times), twirl around in a circle with your head on the bat, and say the Pledge of Allegiance pre-pitch routines.

 

I'm not a fan of rushing the game.

[bigpaulie]

They're never going to get rid of divisions or the unbalanced schedule. They want the Yankees and Red Sox to play as many times as possible. They're more interested in making money over parity. At the end of the day I'm sick of hearing everyone complain that its not fair. Tampa can do it. If we had capable management we could do it as well. They can move us out of the AL East but were still going to have to beat them. Right now we can't.

 

To me its not a fair thing, its more to do with playing the same teams too many times in one year, do we really need to play the yanks, red sox, orioles, rays 16 times yet we don't play Detroit more then one series, they are 5 hours away and could be a huge rival

 

It would make more sense to me to spread the big draw teams out through out the league, I am sure seattle and Detroit would like to see them more

[GeorgiaPeach]

I was at an inter county game, where during batting practise a player started to use a wooden bat, then switched to a composite softball bat, man oh man what a difference, my 8 year old son still talks about it, and that got me thinking, I know the increased speed off the bat is an issue for pitchers and fans on the base lines, but the distances increased off the bats was crazy.

 

I am of the age where 95% of my baseball life has only ever used aluminum, and now composite bats. I wonder if done right if it would increase interest in the game.

 

Seeing as baseball history on its own is bigger and more referred to than the NFL, NHL & NBA combined. I don't think it would take them a second to turn this idea down, they may not even answer.

 

You would essentially have to start keeping new records and separate the record books if this ever happened.

[bigpaulie]

Seeing as baseball history on its own is bigger and more referred to than the NFL, NHL & NBA combined. I don't think it would take them a second to turn this idea down, they may not even answer.

 

You would essentially have to start keeping new records and separate the record books if this ever happened.

 

The more I think about it the more I agree, it would create the headaches for records, stats, HOF that the steroid era created, but its interesting that an 8 year old noticed the difference, he heard the difference then asked why he was now hitting into the softball fields

[bigpaulie]

when I attend games, because I am going with my wife and kids, tend to pick faster pace pitchers, loved mark and RA last year for that. I believe my kids and wife enjoy the games more if there are less stoppages in play that are not needed

 

could not stand Guzman as a kid going to games, he made exciting games grind to a halt in my opinion

[Dick_Pole]

Agree to the minimum pitching rule of three batters or to the end of the inning. Another version of this rule would be to limit the roster size of pitchers to 11 or 12. This would force managers to think and make strategic decisions instead of bringing out a LOOGY whenever an opportunity presents itself.

 

Also agree to reasonable measures for pitchers and batters to abide by to lessen time between pitches. This gets tricky though because there's always a work around like throwing to first if there's a runner on.

 

Disagree to the reduction/elimination of warm up pitches for starters/relievers. As someone who use to be a pitcher (not a good one so I'm not bragging), you need a feel for the mound and depending on what happened during your team's half inning and the weather, you may need those warm up pitches to get loose again. A hitter has a batter's box to warm up so it's only fair a pitcher gets the same privilege, right?

 

Disagree STRONGLY to the infield fly rule being changed. It was implemented over a hundred years ago for a reason. Any quick Wikipedia check will show you why.

 

Disagree STRONGLY to the aluminum bats, for the reasons that other posters succinctly posted already.

 

I would approve of eliminating interleague games, however its not going to happen especially with 15 teams in each league.

 

I agree with the 15-day contract rule brought up. Another idea for games that go beyond a certain point, say 14 innings, you get to access a "reserve player" or allow for one or two players taken out to be put back in. If there's a great 17 inning pitching duel, I don't think anyone wants to see it end because a non-pitcher has to pitch.

 

I agree that the Blue Jays should be playing the Tigers and Indians more than or equal to the Yankees and Sox. Those are the this team's natural rivals. However baseball wants to implement that is up to them. Maybe Oakland moves to Brooklyn, Minnesota moves to the west and the Jays to the central and it all works itself out.

 

I agree that teams should be able to trade draft picks. At least picks for picks on draft day so teams have the flexibility to move up if they really covet a player.

[TheHurl]

Just read the first page and will pick up the rest later. The issue with changing draft systems is that someone always finds away around the new rules. Someone said that no player is going to take a $100K cut to play with a good org. Might be true. But what player won't take a $500K cut to have a guaranteed 40 man spot within a year (the Chris Sale bonus). Would a last place team want to rush their prospects like this...probably not but a Cardinals or others might.

[GeorgiaPeach]

when I attend games, because I am going with my wife and kids, tend to pick faster pace pitchers, loved mark and RA last year for that. I believe my kids and wife enjoy the games more if there are less stoppages in play that are not needed

 

could not stand Guzman as a kid going to games, he made exciting games grind to a halt in my opinion

 

In all the times I've ever gone to games I've never thought of getting in and out as quick as possible before I went to the game and only felt rushed for the game to be over during the game maybe a few times. Twice it was to get to the 2nd game of a double header and the other time while in Miami the game had gone late due to a 2+ hour rain delay and I was late returning a rental car.

 

I expect to be at a game for 3+ hours and if it goes longer......great.

[GeorgiaPeach]

Try taking a young kid in whom you're trying to spur interest in the sport, and whose interest is crucial in continuing to nurture the sport. You may have the free time and attention span ... but it's not the case for many.

 

I understand your comments, but it appears to have been a pet peeve of bigpaulie when he was a child himself when he referenced Guzman being slow.

 

I don't have children, but if I did and my kid was getting antsy and wanting to leave early, I wouldn't force them to stay. I understand the whole dynamic of what you're doing revolves around the child.

 

But to change the rules of baseball to accommodate people who don't like a game which is close to as long as an NFL game and slightly longer than an NHL or NBA game what's the difference? Shaving a few minutes off the game by altering things that've been going on for decades isn't cool with me.

[NorthOf49]

I don't have any problem with the length of a game. Watching baseball is a different experience than watching other sports and I like that. You're not going to get non-stop action no matter how restrictive the time rules are. But I can understand why it annoys some. You'd still have to go to commercial for mid-inning pitching changes since it takes a while for the guy to run in from the bullpen. But limiting the new pitcher to two or three warm-ups (and thus the commercial break to a minute) makes sense. I wouldn't remove a pitcher's right to leave the mound mid-inning.

 

There's no way to limit the number of pitchers a team can carry since there's no definition to use for "pitcher." It wouldn't be possible to legislate that without coming up with a bunch of new rules that go against the basic framework of the game.

 

I'd also get rid of the DH but I don't want to open that whole can of worms lol. It's been discussed at length before to no conclusion.

[Boxcar]

No49 has some pretty terrible ideas for baseball in this thread.

[bigpaulie]

As Shrek says "change is good Donkey"

 

If it was not for changes to our pastime we would not have night games, colored ball players etc. etc. The younger generations do not have the attention spans that adults have, hell some adults find the game entertaining but too long, you don't have to change the game to speed it up.

 

Juan Guzman was called the "human rain delay" for a reason, I remember being at an important game in the fall of 92 or 93, where he took an entertaining game and made it impossible to get into, and fan support, interest suffer because of this

[GeorgiaPeach]

There are 16 regular season NFL games. Mostly on weekends. Often on Sundays when you're relaxing, and there isn't much else to do. Your team plays once a week. Much of it is during colder months when you're more apt to stay in and stay warm. It's also more of an excuse to "party" and get together with friends and have fun.

 

MLB has 162 games. Your team is playing about 6 times a week. Similar game times for MLB v. NFL means 10 times the time commitment. During the summer, when the sun's still out and there are plenty of other things to do. And during the week, mostly.

 

I'm not sure why you're trying to frame this as a "this is the way baseball is" sort of thing. It's not. It's the way it's become ... recently. This length of a baseball game, and the reasons for it are recent modifications. Increased offense, meaningless self-indulgent pacing by players, more frequent pitching changes and more TV exposure and lengthened commercial breaks are the primary reasons for this.

 

I have no problem with how long a baseball game takes to play today or in the past.

 

I want to go back to the old way of playing the game. Now, I'm a realist, and understand that there's no way MLB is going to cut short-term revenues via fewer commercials in order to possibly help spur on long-term interest, so that's not really an area to address this.

 

Agreed.

 

I would really hate to see MLB make noticeable changes to the game by quickening the pace to appease the complaints from fans. Because you know as well as I do, if MLB was able to shave an extra 5-10 minutes off a game, not too long after more advertising/commercials/TV time would fill that void.

 

{quote]Expand the strike zone.

 

Expand it? Why not have MLB pressure umpires to call the zone of what its structured to be called as? And if its a problem doing that, implement a bonus into umpires contracts where the umpires calls who most reflect the strike zone from picthf/x get the bigger bonus?

 

The actual pace of play ... it's total unnecessary bullpoo. As a pitcher, after yelling at them to get their ass back in the box so they can swing and miss like a man, I would drill every single batter who stepped out to adjust their equipment multiple times an AB.

 

And maybe some batters who got drilled for stepping out, Bert Campeneris' the pitcher's ass for stepping off the mound to play with the rosin bag. What's fair is fair.

 

Game times have increased by more than 20 minutes, and up to over 30 minutes longer in some seasons, in the last 40 years. A game played at a 2 hour, 30 minute pace is still a wonderfully leisurely and complex event. It's not "rushing" anything. It's playing ball. It's playing catch and taking your hacks. It's a fabulous, beautiful thing. And even as offense is waning, game lengths are starting to increase again, so despite what some may say, increased offensive output is not the primary driver of average game times.

 

I don't see how another 20-30 minutes bothers people?

 

And it just so happens to be necessary to get back to that to help spur on and revive interest in the sport.

 

You talk about reviving interest. IMO the biggest thing that caused people to lose interest in baseball was the '94 work stoppage. If the lengthened time of a game has caused a hardcore fan to lose interest, its news to me.

[GeorgiaPeach]

As Shrek says "change is good Donkey"

 

If it was not for changes to our pastime we would not have night games, colored ball players etc. etc. The younger generations do not have the attention spans that adults have, hell some adults find the game entertaining but too long, you don't have to change the game to speed it up.

 

Those changes you identified were good for baseball. As for the younger generations having attention spans and interests that change on a whim....sorry I'm not a fan of MLB making changes to the game to appease those fans. If they want to pander to fans like that, make the ballpark experience more interactive.

 

*Have a team/fan interactive auction at every game at every park where game used baseballs, broken bats....ballpark seats get auctioned off by fans using their smart phones and bidding on items.

 

Juan Guzman was called the "human rain delay" for a reason, I remember being at an important game in the fall of 92 or 93, where he took an entertaining game and made it impossible to get into, and fan support, interest suffer because of this

 

Trust me, it isn't causing hardcore baseball fans to turn their interests elsewhere.

[Cooler Heads Prevail]

Baseball is at a nice peak in terms of fan interest and success. So I'm not sure why it has to be fixed. If Toronto ownership is unwilling to spend money to contend, despite our big market, increasing league revenues, and possibly growing fan interest, that's more a corporate strategy then anything to do with baseball. So our team situation isn't really typical of most.

 

I suppose an argument could be made that the luxury tax doesn't work when a team like the Yankees claims it's more profitable to blow through the tax and win then not.

[Smedley Butler]

Without the infield fly rule, it would be, essentially, the only situation where a team would benefit from an intentional failure to make a play. It would be an automatic double play by simply dropping the lazy pop fly. It's not hard to understand.

 

Can't believe you actually had to point this out. Good times.

[NorthOf49]

Can't believe you actually had to point this out. Good times.

I obviously know what the infield fly rule prevents.

 

I'm just asking why we need to prevent fly ball double plays. If it's an aesthetics thing, what makes the aesthetics bad? Everyone's fine with the other double play forms.

 

Edit -

 

Also, there's another situation in which the defense benefits from not making a play:

 

Runner on third, less than two outs, deep fly ball into playable foul territory. If the game situation is such that getting an out is not worth sacrificing a run (i.e., the defense is leading by one run late), the defense should let the ball drop.

[KingKat]

I obviously know what the infield fly rule prevents.

 

I'm just asking why we need to prevent fly ball double plays. If it's an aesthetics thing, what makes the aesthetics bad? Everyone's fine with the other double play forms.

 

It's not an esthetic thing. If every pop up becomes an automatic double play, you would seriously sap offense. It also would create terrible confusion among the runners. If you break for 2nd, they make the catch and double you off a first. If you stay put, you get thrown out at 2nd. The infield fly is there because baseball just doesn't work without it. You're not fixing baseball. You're reinventing the wheel.

[Smedley Butler]

The same way I view the sun as a big fiery ball of gas because it's a big fiery ball of gas.

 

Plasma ain't a gas. The sun is a Z-pinch.

[G-Snarls]

It's not an esthetic thing. If every pop up becomes an automatic double play, you would seriously sap offense. It also would create terrible confusion among the runners. If you break for 2nd, they make the catch and double you off a first. If you stay put, you get thrown out at 2nd.

 

imagines this situation with Brett Lawrie, Anthony Gose and Moises Sierra on the bases

 

[Smedley Butler]

what makes the aesthetics bad? Everyone's fine with the other double play forms.

 

Because as some have already pointed out to you in this thread, it would reward failure in the sense that NOT making the catch would be the right play for the defence. All other double plays reward the defence for GOOD play, not intentionally BAD play. It's not complicated, man. Stop being stubborn and just admit that you typed before you thought, stop digging. ;-)

[NorthOf49]

Because as some have already pointed out to you in this thread, it would reward failure in the sense that NOT making the catch would be the right play for the defence. All other double plays reward the defence for GOOD play, not intentionally BAD play. It's not complicated, man. Stop being stubborn and just admit that you typed before you thought, stop digging. ;-)

I understand. Letting a ball drop intentionally goes against the spirit of the game. That's fair.

 

But it was no typing mistake, I've actually been thinking about this for a while lol.

[GeorgiaPeach]

When folks talk about "expanding the strike zone" they are referring to getting umpires to call the zone as it's written in the rule books, which is not done today. They are not referring to changing the strike zone in the rule books.

 

I had difficulty picking up on that seeing as this entire thread is taking about making changes to baseball, not enforcing current rules or guidelines.

 

Then just accept that it does, because it does. That it doesn't bother you, personally, doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to understand how it would bother others.

 

It appears that most people who complain either have an outside influence that allows it to affect them. Or they're a casual fan and don't really have a reason to complain because they don't really care for baseball enough to not be classed a casual fan.

 

It's sad where someone has dedicated 3-4 hours to go watch a baseball game in person is put off by an extra 20 or 30 minutes

 

Apparently it is. But, going forward, it won't be.

 

I can't think of any baseball fans I know who complain about the length of a baseball game.

[Smedley Butler]

I can't wait until all baseballs come with embedded RFID chips, and RFID chips delineate the edges of the plate, and RFID chips are embedded within uniforms at the knees and beltline, creating a virtual strike zone. No ump required behind the plate, guaranteed precise ball/strike calls.

 

Maybe they could even embed them in players' shoes and gloves, and the bases, so that we don't need umpires anymore, period.

[GeorgiaPeach]

I can't wait until all baseballs come with embedded RFID chips, and RFID chips delineate the edges of the plate, and RFID chips are embedded within uniforms at the knees and beltline, creating a virtual strike zone. No ump required behind the plate, guaranteed precise ball/strike calls.

 

Maybe they could even embed them in players' shoes and gloves, and the bases, so that we don't need umpires anymore, period.

 

If the accuracy was guaranteed that would be a phenomenal idea. Long ways away though.

[Smedley Butler]

If the accuracy was guaranteed that would be a phenomenal idea. Long ways away though.

 

Ehhhh not really. Honestly, I think it would be feasible right now, unless someone with more knowledge on the subject knows something I don't? RFID is pretty old tech at this point.

 

It would be sweet though, eh? Man.......