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How would you fix baseball?
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 8:50:27 GMT -5
With the baseball season winding down, the Red Sox out of contention and the ratings continually souring and being a topic of sports radio, I was curious as to what others think would help improve the product on the field. Here are a few thoughts I had (and may sound better in theory than practicality):
1. Pitching clock. I think this is an obvious one. 2. Batters aren't allowed to call time (or maybe get one timeout) 3. End the juice ball era. I want to see hitters not try to crank home runs every at bat and just turning the game into a HR derby. Christian Vazquez should not have 22 HR. 4. Shrink the strike zone a bit to keep the ball in play more often than not. 5. End the shift. I want more balls in play and this increases a hitters aptitude to not worry about launch angles as much. 6. Go back to 4 pitch IBB. This is a small one, but this isn't a time saver and I like seeing the odd instance of a pitcher screwing up and throwing the ball away. 7. bullpen arms need to face a minimal of 3 hitters. If they leave the game via injury, they're not eligible to pitch for the next day or two. 8. End inter-league play happening whenever. Go back to making it a unique thing where it happens for 2-3 weeks out of the year at the same time or just end it entirely. It'll improve the All-Star game and the mystique of the World Series. 9. Homer-esque Red Sox take - Extend the trade deadline 2 weeks if you're going to have 2 Wild Card teams. 10. Create punishments that result in loss of draft picks for teams that lose x amount of games. There's no reason why a team who tries to put out a competitive product should lose 100+ games a season. That, or just go with an equal lottery system for all non-playoff teams. This opens a slippery slope of teams trying to take themselves out of playoff contention if they don't believe in their team.
Nothing I don't think that is super crazy that changes the overall fundamentals of the game like making it a 7 inning affair, putting a runner on 2B in extras, or shortening the season. I love the current playoff format.
Baseball's off-seasons are the most excruciating things on the planet. I used to love the Winter Meetings, but now nothing happens anymore. Maybe just for appearance sake they should have all off-season trades announced during this meeting or on day 1 of ST. This would give the fans something to look forward to in the off-season. Not this, "we traded for, but can't officially announce until" crap. Teams should be forced to keep a tight lid on it. They also need to figure out a way to get free agents to sign either immediately or on a specified day as well. The Bryce Harper and Manny Machado signings were super anti-climatic because of how long they drew out.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 25, 2019 8:59:19 GMT -5
5. End the shift. I want more balls in play and this increases a hitters aptitude to not worry about launch angles as much. Please realize this would have the opposite effect. If a team is overshifting, then a hitter has more motivation to focus on bat control and "hit 'em where they aint." If a team can't overshift, it's more likely that a hitter's mistake will be a single, and therefore there's less motivation to do anything other than just swing as hard as they can. Think of Jackie Bradley. The criticism of Bradley is that he doesn't adjust for the shift, that he swings for the fences and too many of his hard-hit balls in play turn into outs. If you made fewer of those balls in play into outs, he'd have even LESS motivation to shift his focus from a power-hitting approach. Eliminating the shift will lead to more homers and strikeouts.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 9:18:31 GMT -5
5. End the shift. I want more balls in play and this increases a hitters aptitude to not worry about launch angles as much. Please realize this would have the opposite effect. If a team is overshifting, then a hitter has more motivation to focus on bat control and "hit 'em where they aint." If a team can't overshift, it's more likely that a hitter's mistake will be a single, and therefore there's less motivation to do anything other than just swing as hard as they can. Think of Jackie Bradley. The criticism of Bradley is that he doesn't adjust for the shift, that he swings for the fences and too many of his hard-hit balls in play turn into outs. If you made fewer of those balls in play into outs, he'd have even LESS motivation to shift his focus from a power-hitting approach. Eliminating the shift will lead to more homers and strikeouts. I kind of disagree here only because the hitters are very inept at hitting the ball to that side of the field to begin with. If they were open to trying to get the ball over to the 3B side, we'd see more bunts, but we don't. If there's less people in their hit zone then less line drives and ground balls would go for outs.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 25, 2019 9:47:07 GMT -5
But in the course of trying to change a few outs on balls in play into singles, you'd have the effect of fewer balls in play. You'd see players who can use the whole field be valued less because their opponents have to run the same or similar defensive alignment out on guys who hit the ball harder but into specific lanes. You'd get more power hitters having their mishits go for singles, which changes their value relative to Jarren Duran, an example of player who you aren't going to overshift on, which will lead to more power hitters being valuable, which will lead to more homers and strikeouts and fewer balls in play.
I understand people getting mad at the shift because they see balls that might be singles turned into outs and people want more rallies that aren't just homers and more singles seem like a positive. But banning the shift to get more non-homer rallies is a short-sighted fix. It will turn some ground balls from outs into hits but will have the effect of changing batting approach so that an all-or-nothing focus is actually more effective.
EDIT: I'll use an example. Suppose Duran turns into a .300/.350/.440 type with 10 homers a year and 110 strikeouts in 650 PA who uses his speed and bat control to be a .360 BABIP as the source of his value. Now take another guy who his a .255/.330/480 player who hits 35 homers a year, strikes out 150 times in those same 650 PA. Despite a slight OBP advantage, I'd argue Duran's big advantage in OBP makes him the superior player, and the fact that he's probably a 30 SB guy is only going to add to that advantage. Now take Player B and give him six more singles, one ground ball a month turning from an out to a hit. That's going to raise his OPS about 20 points, and probably pushes him past Duran. You've added six hits a year to player B, but what you've really done is taken 65 balls out of play because you changed who the more valuable player is.
Now, in reality, both those guys are probably MLB starters and going to get playing time, so this is something of an extreme example. But the relative value of the guy who hits the ball into specific lanes - a trait that is more specific to players who focus on power/exit velocity/etc, - will change in contrast to a player who uses the whole field. The guys who the shift works against are the power hitters.
Getting back to the pre-2016 baseball and eliminating the material motivations for tanking are the biggest issues.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 25, 2019 10:34:23 GMT -5
The thing about banning the shift is that hitters are all optimizing for hard contact anyway; the kind of contact that yields good results no matter where the defenders are standing. The value of a home run versus every other possible outcome is just too great for hitters to care about anything else.
It's hard to show that the shift even does very much. League-wide BABIPs have essentially not moved at all from the pre-shift era.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 10:38:04 GMT -5
But in the course of trying to change a few outs on balls in play into singles, you'd have the effect of fewer balls in play. You'd see players who can use the whole field be valued less because their opponents have to run the same or similar defensive alignment out on guys who hit the ball harder but into specific lanes. You'd get more power hitters having their mishits go for singles, which changes their value relative to Jarren Duran, an example of player who you aren't going to overshift on, which will lead to more power hitters being valuable, which will lead to more homers and strikeouts and fewer balls in play. I understand people getting mad at the shift because they see balls that might be singles turned into outs and people want more rallies that aren't just homers and more singles seem like a positive. But banning the shift to get more non-homer rallies is a short-sighted fix. It will turn some ground balls from outs into hits but will have the effect of changing batting approach so that an all-or-nothing focus is actually more effective. EDIT: I'll use an example. Suppose Duran turns into a .300/.350/.440 type with 10 homers a year and 110 strikeouts in 650 PA who uses his speed and bat control to be a .360 BABIP as the source of his value. Now take another guy who his a .255/.330/480 player who hits 35 homers a year, strikes out 150 times in those same 650 PA. Despite a slight OBP advantage, I'd argue Duran's big advantage in OBP makes him the superior player, and the fact that he's probably a 30 SB guy is only going to add to that advantage. Now take Player B and give him six more singles, one ground ball a month turning from an out to a hit. That's going to raise his OPS about 20 points, and probably pushes him past Duran. You've added six hits a year to player B, but what you've really done is taken 65 balls out of play because you changed who the more valuable player is. Now, in reality, both those guys are probably MLB starters and going to get playing time, so this is something of an extreme example. But the relative value of the guy who hits the ball into specific lanes - a trait that is more specific to players who focus on power/exit velocity/etc, - will change in contrast to a player who uses the whole field. The guys who the shift works against are the power hitters. Getting back to the pre-2016 baseball and eliminating the material motivations for tanking are the biggest issues. I see your counter argument now. It puts more premium on the power hitters so the pure hitters will suffer more and thus, more players will attempt to develop their power game instead of the fundamentals of hitting the ball to all fields. Makes sense. I did forget to add a point about stopping tanking. That is a killer in all sports right now. Football is suffering tremendously by having no teams even really trying right now outside of 4-6.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 25, 2019 10:42:47 GMT -5
My SABR committee has been talking about this. The sharp decline in attendance is largely being driven by a reduction in PAs that end in contact. Walks are even worse for attendance than strikeouts, so shrinking the strike zone is unlikely to help.
The solution we've come up with is to make the ball heavier enough to reduce FB velo by 2 or even 3 mph. By adding the weight to the outer layers, you also reduce spin rate and hence movement. K rates go back to where they were some years ago. You adjust the "bounciness" of the ball to reduce homers to the point where offense is optimum.
Funny thing, I just got an email last night from Rob Neyer who heard these ideas at the SABR conference. We have a lot more research to do on the idea so it's unclear whether he's going to write it up just now. But I want to get it out there soon after the WS.
This is my first post from my phone and naturally I have a big list of other ideas to improve the game -- on my hard drive at home. Time to put a copy of all that in the cloud!
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 25, 2019 10:44:41 GMT -5
The thing about banning the shift is that hitters are all optimizing for hard contact anyway; the kind of contact that yields good results no matter where the defenders are standing. The value of a home run versus every other possible outcome is just too great for hitters to care about anything else. It's hard to show that the shift even does very much. League-wide BABIPs have essentially not moved at all from the pre-shift era. Not that hitters are Ted Williams, but his thought was that instead of going the other way, he was going to go over the shift, or as you're saying, aim to hit a HR. That's why it was such a big deal in the 46 Series when Ted Williams actually laid down a bunt down the 3b line. That was so out of his character. I think like you said, a lot of guys, struggle to hit the ball the other way and figure, what's the point of a dinky single that I may or may not have enough bat control to do, when I could mash one against or over the wall, or still find a gap if the exit velocity is good enough that it's still in between fielders. Personally I don't have an issue with the shift because it forces hitters to make a decision: I'm either going for the fences or I'm going to be an all-fields hitters. Some guys will opt for power but not have enough of it to justify their .210 BA while others will be invaluable for the way they can spray the ball around and set the table more often. At some point "rarities" such as singles will matter more. I mean if you have a runner on 2b or 3b with two outs in a tight game, a run scoring single can be pretty damn valuable as opposed to a guy swinging from his heels striking out in his all or nothing at all approach.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 25, 2019 10:47:20 GMT -5
But in the course of trying to change a few outs on balls in play into singles, you'd have the effect of fewer balls in play. You'd see players who can use the whole field be valued less because their opponents have to run the same or similar defensive alignment out on guys who hit the ball harder but into specific lanes. You'd get more power hitters having their mishits go for singles, which changes their value relative to Jarren Duran, an example of player who you aren't going to overshift on, which will lead to more power hitters being valuable, which will lead to more homers and strikeouts and fewer balls in play. I understand people getting mad at the shift because they see balls that might be singles turned into outs and people want more rallies that aren't just homers and more singles seem like a positive. But banning the shift to get more non-homer rallies is a short-sighted fix. It will turn some ground balls from outs into hits but will have the effect of changing batting approach so that an all-or-nothing focus is actually more effective. EDIT: I'll use an example. Suppose Duran turns into a .300/.350/.440 type with 10 homers a year and 110 strikeouts in 650 PA who uses his speed and bat control to be a .360 BABIP as the source of his value. Now take another guy who his a .255/.330/480 player who hits 35 homers a year, strikes out 150 times in those same 650 PA. Despite a slight OBP advantage, I'd argue Duran's big advantage in OBP makes him the superior player, and the fact that he's probably a 30 SB guy is only going to add to that advantage. Now take Player B and give him six more singles, one ground ball a month turning from an out to a hit. That's going to raise his OPS about 20 points, and probably pushes him past Duran. You've added six hits a year to player B, but what you've really done is taken 65 balls out of play because you changed who the more valuable player is. Now, in reality, both those guys are probably MLB starters and going to get playing time, so this is something of an extreme example. But the relative value of the guy who hits the ball into specific lanes - a trait that is more specific to players who focus on power/exit velocity/etc, - will change in contrast to a player who uses the whole field. The guys who the shift works against are the power hitters. Getting back to the pre-2016 baseball and eliminating the material motivations for tanking are the biggest issues. I see your counter argument now. It puts more premium on the power hitters so the pure hitters will suffer more and thus, more players will attempt to develop their power game instead of the fundamentals of hitting the ball to all fields. Makes sense. I did forget to add a point about stopping tanking. That is a killer in all sports right now. Football is suffering tremendously by having no teams even really trying right now outside of 4-6. Maybe a salary floor (as opposed to a cap) would help with the tanking aspect? Maybe the ping-pong balls they use in basketball could create situations where it's not as profitable for a team going 48-114? Maybe the top ten teams would be subject to the ping-pong balls so that theoretically a 48-114 team could wind up picking 10th in the draft while a 70-92 team could be the team that picks first.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 25, 2019 10:57:03 GMT -5
The thing about banning the shift is that hitters are all optimizing for hard contact anyway; the kind of contact that yields good results no matter where the defenders are standing. The value of a home run versus every other possible outcome is just too great for hitters to care about anything else. It's hard to show that the shift even does very much. League-wide BABIPs have essentially not moved at all from the pre-shift era. And that's been the case for a long time, but the calculus for who is in the league is altered if that best possible outcome is also a too-likely outcome. There have been 6,590 homers this year, as opposed to 4,186 in 2014, and there are too many players out here who just aren't so good if you take 33% of their homers away. If you bring Kole Calhoun's homers from 33 to 22 but stabilize his BABIP he goes from .235/.326/.476 to .220/.313/.399. And then maybe the guy you replace him with is also trying to hit homers, but is maybe better at not striking out and it makes him a better overall baseball player as well as making the game more fun to watch. Or maybe Calhoun sells out for power a little less with two strikes and ends up with 25 fewer strikeouts and like four fewer homers but is an overall better player. And the huge increase in Triple-A homers in one year just with the change in the ball they're using says to me that this doesn't have anything to do with "launch angle revolution." They're just using a baseball that's too easy to hit out of the park.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 25, 2019 10:59:59 GMT -5
My other fave idea is the "best of both worlds" DH rule. It's simple: you play by AL rules for 6 innings and then switch to NL.
The first time the DH spot comes up in the 7th or later, you have the choice of having the pitcher hit, or hitting for him, with the only twist being, of course, you can have the existing DH be the pinch-hitter. After that you continue exactly as if there had never been a DH.
It removes the awful farce of watching pitchers hit and of walking the number 8 hitter and thus rendering bottom of the order rallies so difficult. But it not only keeps all the double switch strategy, it adds strategy of where to bat the DH and whether to move him into the field, when he's likely a worse fielder but a better hitter than the guy he'd replace.
You'd want to expand rosters by one more, but they should be 27 anyway.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 25, 2019 11:31:23 GMT -5
The thing about banning the shift is that hitters are all optimizing for hard contact anyway; the kind of contact that yields good results no matter where the defenders are standing. The value of a home run versus every other possible outcome is just too great for hitters to care about anything else. It's hard to show that the shift even does very much. League-wide BABIPs have essentially not moved at all from the pre-shift era. And that's been the case for a long time, but the calculus for who is in the league is altered if that best possible outcome is also a too-likely outcome. There have been 6,590 homers this year, as opposed to 4,186 in 2014, and there are too many players out here who just aren't so good if you take 33% of their homers away. If you bring Kole Calhoun's homers from 33 to 22 but stabilize his BABIP he goes from .235/.326/.476 to .220/.313/.399. And then maybe the guy you replace him with is also trying to hit homers, but is maybe better at not striking out and it makes him a better overall baseball player as well as making the game more fun to watch. Or maybe Calhoun sells out for power a little less with two strikes and ends up with 25 fewer strikeouts and like four fewer homers but is an overall better player.And the huge increase in Triple-A homers in one year just with the change in the ball they're using says to me that this doesn't have anything to do with "launch angle revolution." They're just using a baseball that's too easy to hit out of the park. I wonder if that adjustment is actually there to be made, though. Look at the Jose Ramirez saga this year: blogs.fangraphs.com/the-old-school-approach-failed-jose-ramirez/I don't see how this adjustment goes any better for Ramirez with a less lively ball. It's possible (likely in my view) that hitters are taking the approach they are because it's the best adjustment they can make to modern pitching regardless of the ball. This implies a much trickier situation for baseball, because "fixing" the ball could end up taking us back to the lowest levels of run scoring since the mound was lowered.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 25, 2019 11:49:21 GMT -5
Ramirez is such a weird player though, because he already didn't strike out much. He was hitting for that power with contact rates that were outstanding for really any era. So he's the type of player who the lively ball was hurting in a relative sense. Maybe he hits 10 fewer homers in 2018, but those 10 homers were just a smaller chunk of the value of a player like him. Ramirez is still going to be great.
It's hard to see the league falling back to like 1968 run-scoring levels because offensive strategy has improved so much since then. There aren't three or four guys in a lineup who just can't hit anymore, partially because the relative importance of offense is something that teams understand now, partially because the game becoming international has improved the talent base to just a much higher level. Teams don't bunt with a guy hitting .300 anymore. If it does over-correct and run scoring drops too far? As Charlie Manuel said, we can burn that bridge when we get to it.
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Post by Guidas on Sept 25, 2019 12:35:25 GMT -5
1. Automated Strike Zone.
2. DH in both leagues.
3. Mound visits only for injury and pitcher removal.
4. Batters must stay in box between pitches unless injury/equipment failure (i.e. cracked bat, etc.)
5. 2 time outs per team per 9 innings. 2 per team in extras.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 12:39:24 GMT -5
1. Automated Strike Zone. 2. DH in both leagues.
3. Mound visits only for injury and pitcher removal. 4. Batters must stay in box between pitches unless injury/equipment failure (i.e. cracked bat, etc.) 5. 2 time outs per team per 9 innings. 2 per team in extras. I know this is silly, but I like having a unique rule difference between the leagues. I find it to be more exciting and fun to be the same, but different. As for number 3, to avoid all this sign stealing, mound visit nonsense, why not use earpieces?
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Sept 25, 2019 13:43:39 GMT -5
1. Pitching clock. I think this is an obvious one. 2. Batters aren't allowed to call time (or maybe get one timeout) - I think 1 and 2 are redundant, or at least if you implement 1 you don't need 2. Most of the annoying timeouts batters call are because pitchers take a long time to pitch and hitters' timing gets disrupted. I don't want to ban hitter timeouts because they should be allowed to call it if there's something that genuinely started nagging at them.3. End the juice ball era. I want to see hitters not try to crank home runs every at bat and just turning the game into a HR derby. Christian Vazquez should not have 22 HR. 4. Shrink the strike zone a bit to keep the ball in play more often than not. - Yeah, no. The umps are bad enough, let's not fundamentally alter their entire job by making them call a new zone. This would be an entire nightmare.5. End the shift. I want more balls in play and this increases a hitters aptitude to not worry about launch angles as much. - James already tackled this one.5. Go back to 4 pitch IBB. This is a small one, but this isn't a time saver and I like seeing the odd instance of a pitcher screwing up and throwing the ball away. - This isn't as bad as some of the first ideas you proposed but this also isn't something that would "fix" baseball. I'm not going to all of a sudden start buying tickets because pitchers have to throw intentional walks.6. bullpen arms need to face a minimal of 3 hitters. If they leave the game via injury, they're not eligible to pitch for the next day or two. - This is just a reach, because what if someone actually does tweak something? They shouldn't be punished for feeling pain. I understand the concept behind a minimum (not minimal) number of batters for a pitcher, but the idea of taking eligibility away is not logical at all.7. End inter-league play happening whenever. Go back to making it a unique thing where it happens for 2-3 weeks out of the year at the same time or just end it entirely. It'll improve the All-Star game and the mystique of the World Series. - Again, this doesn't fix baseball. In fact, I'm not sure it would really help at all. I mean, if you're a Red Sox fan in St. Louis who only has summers off I guess having summer-only interleague play is cool because it guarantees when the Sox come you can go, but that's such a niche and anecdotal reason, I'm not sure the widespread change would actually have any effect.8. Homer-esque Red Sox take - Extend the trade deadline 2 weeks if you're going to have 2 Wild Card teams. - Very homer take, doesn't really make any sense.9. Create punishments that result in loss of draft picks for teams that lose x amount of games. There's no reason why a team who tries to put out a competitive product should lose 100+ games a season. That, or just go with an equal lottery system for all non-playoff teams. This opens a slippery slope of teams trying to take themselves out of playoff contention if they don't believe in their team. - This might be your worst one, this would make baseball actively worse.Read more: forum.soxprospects.com/thread/5258/fix-baseball?page=1#ixzz60YxtWsAi
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 25, 2019 13:51:31 GMT -5
The only thing I want for certain is to go back to a normal baseball.
I'd also like to explore re-aligning the AL & NL geographically, get rid of or drastically reduce interleague play and reduce playing every team in the same division 19 times while only playing other teams in the same league just 6.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 14:12:50 GMT -5
1. Pitching clock. I think this is an obvious one. 2. Batters aren't allowed to call time (or maybe get one timeout) - I think 1 and 2 are redundant, or at least if you implement 1 you don't need 2. Most of the annoying timeouts batters call are because pitchers take a long time to pitch and hitters' timing gets disrupted. I don't want to ban hitter timeouts because they should be allowed to call it if there's something that genuinely started nagging at them.3. End the juice ball era. I want to see hitters not try to crank home runs every at bat and just turning the game into a HR derby. Christian Vazquez should not have 22 HR. 4. Shrink the strike zone a bit to keep the ball in play more often than not. - Yeah, no. The umps are bad enough, let's not fundamentally alter their entire job by making them call a new zone. This would be an entire nightmare.5. End the shift. I want more balls in play and this increases a hitters aptitude to not worry about launch angles as much. - James already tackled this one.5. Go back to 4 pitch IBB. This is a small one, but this isn't a time saver and I like seeing the odd instance of a pitcher screwing up and throwing the ball away. - This isn't as bad as some of the first ideas you proposed but this also isn't something that would "fix" baseball. I'm not going to all of a sudden start buying tickets because pitchers have to throw intentional walks.6. bullpen arms need to face a minimal of 3 hitters. If they leave the game via injury, they're not eligible to pitch for the next day or two. - This is just a reach, because what if someone actually does tweak something? They shouldn't be punished for feeling pain. I understand the concept behind a minimum (not minimal) number of batters for a pitcher, but the idea of taking eligibility away is not logical at all.7. End inter-league play happening whenever. Go back to making it a unique thing where it happens for 2-3 weeks out of the year at the same time or just end it entirely. It'll improve the All-Star game and the mystique of the World Series. - Again, this doesn't fix baseball. In fact, I'm not sure it would really help at all. I mean, if you're a Red Sox fan in St. Louis who only has summers off I guess having summer-only interleague play is cool because it guarantees when the Sox come you can go, but that's such a niche and anecdotal reason, I'm not sure the widespread change would actually have any effect.8. Homer-esque Red Sox take - Extend the trade deadline 2 weeks if you're going to have 2 Wild Card teams. - Very homer take, doesn't really make any sense.9. Create punishments that result in loss of draft picks for teams that lose x amount of games. There's no reason why a team who tries to put out a competitive product should lose 100+ games a season. That, or just go with an equal lottery system for all non-playoff teams. This opens a slippery slope of teams trying to take themselves out of playoff contention if they don't believe in their team. - This might be your worst one, this would make baseball actively worse.1&2 - Not necessarily redundant. A hitter could easily screw up a pitcher's rhythm by stepping out and calling for time. They're being rushed to get the pitch off and then would need to go through the motions again after the hitter calls time. There might be less hitters calling time, but I could see them stepping out to cause the pitcher to get out of rhythm. 3 - I see we're in agreement here. 4 - That's a fair argument. I don't think these ump are really good at their jobs. The idea is to force the pitchers into throwing the ball in the zone more and tightening the window a bit to make it easier on the hitter. I'd rather a walk than a strike out to get the excitement of runners on. I don't want a scenario where hitters are going up there to specifically look for walks so it's a tight rope to say the least. Expanding the zone like I've heard suggested will make it harder on the hitters. 5 - I'm still not sure I'm completely sold. I get the idea that this increases the value of pure power hitters, but if the ball isn't juiced the faux power hitters will go back to hitting doubles and line drives. I want to see more base hits. If the shift didn't matter, teams wouldn't do it. They have data on each hitter and align their positional fielders accordingly. It might not force them to change their approaches, but they'll get a few more hits out of it. 6 - I wouldn't expect this to save baseball at all. I just like the odd, brain fart that costs a team. It gives something to talk about. 7 - If they tweak something then they're likely not going to play tomorrow or the day after either. How else would you propose stopping teams from just faking injuries just to get better situational matchups? Yes. They should be sat down if they have to leave the game for a tweak or something. One to two games isn't a stretch. 8 - I've lost all interest in the All-Star game because of how often the two divisions play each other. I used to at least find the scheduled month or so that Bud had set up to be kind of fun. Now, it's just any other game. That's why I like the separation, to build the mystique. If you're a Sox fan in St. Louis it's not like you're seeing them play all that often anyways. 9 - How does it not make any sense? Really? That's flabbergasting to me. If you have more playoff spots then more teams are going to be in contention. If more teams are in contention then less teams are going to sell. Look at the Red Sox this year; the deadline being moved up 2-3 weeks would have drastically changed how they operated. They were still in tight contention and then lost 9 straight. If the WC2 never existed then they would have been pretty much dead in the water anyways and would have likely sold on July 31st. The second WC2 screwed them in that they would/could have sold pieces rather than standing pat and seeing what happens. 10 - Oh yes, baseball is at its best when you have 4-5 teams losing 100 games in a single season. Edit: I stand corrected. I just looked up the standings and noticed the following: Blue Jays - 94 losses Orioles - 106 losses Royals - 100 losses Tigers - 110 losses Mariners - 91 losses Marlins - 102 losses Pirates - 91 losses 90 losses is simply embarrassing for a franchise, but you have 7 teams (with a few more joining in) and one team that has 110 losses? How is that a good product? Nevermind the records of other teams who were kind of in contention and then gave up in the second half. Pre / Post: White Sox: 42-44 / 26-44 Red Sox: 49-41 / 33-34 Angels: 45-46 / 26-40 Rangers: 48-42 / 27-40 Phillies: 47-43 / 32-35 Pirates: 44-45 / 22-46 Rockies: 44-45 / 24-44 Padres: 45-45 / 25-42
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Sept 25, 2019 14:18:25 GMT -5
I'm all for the automated strike zones, no time outs, and whatever.
MLB has got to do something with extra innings and make it end at a certain point.
Ohh and the games last too long. The pitch clock will help, but not much I think.
The best idea I've seen to make games go shorter, is to not change anything, but the count. 3 balls take a walk. 2 strikes and you're out. It tells the batter to be more aggresive because he has fewer mistakes to make. It increases the action of the game. It would also allow starting pitching to be more relevant. All of a sudden, starters can go longer because they're throwing fewer pitches. This also leads to less pitching changes and such. It's the only fair thing that I can come up with that doesn't change anything but the count of the batter.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 15:17:26 GMT -5
I'm all for the automated strike zones, no time outs, and whatever. MLB has got to do something with extra innings and make it end at a certain point. Ohh and the games last too long. The pitch clock will help, but not much I think. The best idea I've seen to make games go shorter, is to not change anything, but the count. 3 balls take a walk. 2 strikes and you're out. It tells the batter to be more aggresive because he has fewer mistakes to make. It increases the action of the game. It would also allow starting pitching to be more relevant. All of a sudden, starters can go longer because they're throwing fewer pitches. This also leads to less pitching changes and such. It's the only fair thing that I can come up with that doesn't change anything but the count of the batter. I don't care about game length, and I don't think most people do either, if there's stuff going on. It's the dead time that makes baseball unbearable to watch. Like, a 13-12 game is going to be naturally long. There's nothing you can really do about it. A 3-2 game shouldn't last 4 hours. I don't think you can mess with balls and strike counts. It's too fundamentally changing and it's culturally ingrained. In fact, so much that our legal system uses it; ergo, "Three Strikes" Sentencing Laws. Ties suck too. Maybe after 12 innings they should put a runner on 2B or even 3B. It just kind of becomes hokey like the shootout in hockey. Though the equivalent would be to end the game on a home run derby.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 25, 2019 15:48:39 GMT -5
Maybe they should just get rid of pitchers and let players hit off a tee. And the players in the field should be forced to tweet in between every batter.
Just testing to see if I could come up with worse ideas.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Sept 25, 2019 17:57:00 GMT -5
The easiest way to hit a ball to the opposite field is to have a hittable pitch on the outer half. The singular reason JBJ doesn't go the other way all that often, is because they bust him in, where he has had a hole in his swing his career. Plus, he just isn't that good a hitter.
I just can't believe that banning the shift wouldn't improve the game. MLB might have 2 or 3 guys that will have 200 hits this year, that isn't good. Hits equals offense, offense equals excitement. the shift was a philosophy designed to prevent offense / runs, but now banning it will prevent offense / runs ?
Whatever the pendulum or changes in player approaches, it is one reason that game has turned into a more 3 true outcomes competition. I would welcome some type of regulatory action against the shift.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Sept 25, 2019 18:22:38 GMT -5
The easiest way to hit a ball to the opposite field is to have a hittable pitch on the outer half. The singular reason JBJ doesn't go the other way all that often, is because they bust him in, where he has had a hole in his swing his career. Plus, he just isn't that good a hitter. I just can't believe that banning the shift wouldn't improve the game. MLB might have 2 or 3 guys that will have 200 hits this year, that isn't good. Hits equals offense, offense equals excitement. the shift was a philosophy designed to prevent offense / runs, but now banning it will prevent offense / runs ? Whatever the pendulum or changes in player approaches, it is one reason that game has turned into a more 3 true outcomes competition. I would welcome some type of regulatory action against the shift. I never said I wanted to decrease offense? I want more people to get on base and get base hits instead of it being just the home run derby every game and every situation.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 25, 2019 20:42:39 GMT -5
Maybe they should just get rid of pitchers and let players hit off a tee. And the players in the field should be forced to tweet in between every batter. Just testing to see if I could come up with worse ideas. "Why can't you just let other people have their opinions?" -jimed from maybe a day ago I'm mocking people who argue with everything said by anyone constantly and then say that anyone who argues with them won't allow them to have an opinion.
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Post by imnothipp on Sept 25, 2019 20:50:20 GMT -5
7 inning games Regular season April 15-Labor Day 6 games a week.
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