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Post by jimed14 on Mar 20, 2022 13:36:23 GMT -5
If there's another thread for this, feel free to move it. This is the first concept to reduce game length I absolutely love as it would remove many of the mound visits which are primarily for changing signs these days. I don't really have a problem with long games, though watching Clay Buchholz pitch against the Yankees on Sunday Night Baseball was a chore, since he took about 90 seconds between pitches and the Yankees never swung at anything because it was automatically called a ball if they didn't swing. At least that is what they expected. I digress. But this concept will help eliminate sign stealing in all forms, which I believe is the biggest problem in baseball right now. It's amazing how the best pitcher in baseball looks like a Little League pitcher when the batter knows what is coming. It's blatantly obvious when a team has picked something up and mediocre batters are squaring up the nastiest pitches ever thrown. www.mlb.com/news/rays-praise-pitchcom-electronic-pitch-calling-deviceThere was a Rays/Braves ST game the other day where the pitchers, catchers and infielders used an electronic pitch calling device which eliminated signs. This should definitely be implemented to improve baseball tremendously. |
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Mar 20, 2022 16:29:10 GMT -5
Pace of play is generally a non-issue to me -- if it's too slow and there's other things you'd rather be doing/watching, go do/watch them... life is too short to feel like baseball is taking up too much of your time -- but this sounds like a useful tool.
OTOH, sign-stealing has been part of the game since the first team decided to use signs, so that part of the game would be missed.
One alternative that I've envisioned (and mentioned in a previous thread), to focus on the handful of pitchers who are really slow on the mound, is to give the 3B umpire a timer that buzzes in his pocket if the pitcher takes more than 25 or 30 seconds between pitches. When the ump decides it's been one too many times going over, he can throw up his arms and call whatever the penalty will be.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 20, 2022 16:33:19 GMT -5
Pace of play is generally a non-issue to me -- if it's too slow and there's other things you'd rather be doing/watching, go do/watch them... life is too short to feel like baseball is taking up too much of your time -- but this sounds like a useful tool. OTOH, sign-stealing has been part of the game since the first team decided to use signs, so that part of the game would be missed. One alternative that I've envisioned (and mentioned in a previous thread), to focus on the handful of pitchers who are really slow on the mound, is to give the 3B umpire a timer that buzzes in his pocket if the pitcher takes more than 25 or 30 seconds between pitches. When the ump decides it's been one too many times going over, he can throw up his arms and call whatever the penalty will be. The sign stealing is way, way, way more advanced now. I can immediately tell when it's happening and it happens often. |
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Post by julyanmorley on Mar 20, 2022 16:41:15 GMT -5
I strongly favored electronic pitch calling. There's no reason to make players burn a bunch of calories trying to mentally use cryptographic schemes. I have speculated to myself that ERod struggled with it.
The 2018 Astros/Sox series, with paranoia at an all time high, had what felt like a dozen cross ups as the teams couldn't keep up with their own schemes. Just end all this crap.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Mar 21, 2022 6:05:34 GMT -5
I’m fine with an electronic system for pitch calling. Football has been letting QBs hear play calls from the OC for years now (and usually Mike LBs from the DC too). It absolutely takes too long to play/watch a MLB game.
But I’m pretty sure the major thing slowing down games is the more advanced use of situational pitchers. Baseball is trying to address it with the recent rules requiring a minimum number of batters faced, which is the root of the problem. I’m not how much more you’d want to limit a manager’s options for when he can put in another arm. Plus, we have to wait for the commercials to finish even if the incoming pitcher is fully warmed up early.
I recall reading an article or seeing some tweet or something (not sure if it was posted here) a couple months ago, that said the last four innings take up more than 60% of the time of an average game. That’s why a game takes 4 hours to play. If I can find that article, I’ll link it. If the end of the game was paced similarly to the first half of the game, you really don’t have a problem.
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Post by jmei on Mar 21, 2022 6:26:39 GMT -5
One of my thoughts is that with electronic pitch tracking, pitch calling will eventually be done by a coach (with access to pitch f/x, more detailed scouting reports, etc.) rather than the catcher. Combined with electronic umps, it greatly diminishes the defensive responsibilities of a catcher. I’m not usually a guy who holds onto traditions for tradition’s sake, but would be a little sad to see the catcher position change like that.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 21, 2022 7:39:48 GMT -5
One of my thoughts is that with electronic pitch tracking, pitch calling will eventually be done by a coach (with access to pitch f/x, more detailed scouting reports, etc.) rather than the catcher. Combined with electronic umps, it greatly diminishes the defensive responsibilities of a catcher. I’m not usually a guy who holds onto traditions for tradition’s sake, but would be a little sad to see the catcher position change like that. The caveat being that the catcher will still know better than anyone else how the pitcher is throwing that day. Agreed with the diminishing importance though. |
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Post by manfred on Mar 21, 2022 8:21:55 GMT -5
The thing I don’t like about this is that havibg to get signs right, avoiding cross-ups, not letting guys on 2nd steal signs… that is exciting.
Big picture, it is the tv stuff that makes games a joke. Too many long breaks for ads. But they won’t change that, so they’ll change parts of the game that don’t need changing.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Mar 21, 2022 10:30:18 GMT -5
The thing I don’t like about this is that havibg to get signs right, avoiding cross-ups, not letting guys on 2nd steal signs… that is exciting. Big picture, it is the tv stuff that makes games a joke. Too many long breaks for ads. But they won’t change that, so they’ll change parts of the game that don’t need changing. See below. (I guess my sig doesn't show up on mobile but I think mid-inning pitching changes are the most obvious things they aren't addressing. The guy just threw in the bullpen. Take 2 or 3 throws to get used to the mound and let's go.) |
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Post by James Dunne on Mar 21, 2022 11:34:27 GMT -5
Yup. Other sports don't stop play like that when you sub a player. Baseball has 17 scheduled breaks, there is plenty of time to sell me a car. And too often "pace of play" and "length of game" are conflated, and they aren't the same. An exciting 10-8 game is going to take awhile. An 11-inning game is going to take longer than a nine-inning game, waiting until the 10th to start speeding things up is moronic. The problem isn't action-heavy or "overtime" games taking too long, it's that the 7th inning of a 4-2 game takes 45 minutes. The pace of close games, which should be the most exciting, becomes unbearable in the late innings.
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Post by Guidas on Mar 21, 2022 17:46:09 GMT -5
Speaking of which, pitcher-catcher conferences should be banned. The only mound visits allowed should be for an injury or to pull your pitcher. Period.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Mar 21, 2022 19:22:23 GMT -5
Speaking of which, pitcher-catcher conferences should be banned. The only mound visits allowed should be for an injury or to pull your pitcher. Period. I think the new 6-catcher-visit limit has worked for the most part. It's stopped the Joe Torre strategy of mound visits after every pitch when the opponent is in the middle of a rally and it's limited the use of mound visits to give pitchers in the bullpen extra time when the manager waited too long to get them up.
If they need to drop it to 4 or 3 visits they can do that but managers seem to already be preserving them for the ends of games.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Mar 21, 2022 19:23:57 GMT -5
The thing I don’t like about this is that havibg to get signs right, avoiding cross-ups, not letting guys on 2nd steal signs… that is exciting. Big picture, it is the tv stuff that makes games a joke. Too many long breaks for ads. But they won’t change that, so they’ll change parts of the game that don’t need changing. Amen, brother. |
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Post by voiceofreason on Mar 22, 2022 3:09:48 GMT -5
The thing I don’t like about this is that havibg to get signs right, avoiding cross-ups, not letting guys on 2nd steal signs… that is exciting. Big picture, it is the tv stuff that makes games a joke. Too many long breaks for ads. But they won’t change that, so they’ll change parts of the game that don’t need changing. Amen, brother. I for one do not find it exciting. Golf has ads playing within the screen while the coverage continues. So maybe MLB could adopt the same and cut out half the down time by not cutting away half the time, what could that add up to 15-20 minutes/game? That would be the single most effective time saving idea of all. They could do it half the time in between innings, during pitching changes, mound visits, replay challenges. They could possibly increase the actual minutes of ad times while at the same time reduce the game time by 20 minutes. Heck I click to another channel when the Ads start all the time. Yes, I see a future where the electronics will take over the pitch calling and I like it. And it would help leviate the need for catchers making mound visits to get on the sane page. Yes, start to enforce the time in between pitches. I hate the end of NBA games for the same reason, it takes FOREVER!! Sorry to you purists who don't care about the length of a game or the extent to which teams go to steal signs but things will be done to address it and life will go on. Change is inevitable. |
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 28, 2022 10:50:09 GMT -5
Can someone change the thread title to 'Rule changes discussion'? They are going to move 2b in closer in the minors to make it a true diamond.(I didn't even know it wasn't!) This will make 2b 13.5 inches closer to first. They're hoping for more base running action. For me this is a bad idea if they limit throws to 1st because once you hit the limit, there will be no guessing on whether they are throwing over or not and I don't know how to even limit a lead at that point. As I've said a million times, if they want more action on the field, enforce minimum stadium dimensions and un-juice the ball because I don't see any less TTO baseball until then. theathletic.com/3212654/2022/03/28/why-baseball-is-moving-second-base-and-what-this-experiment-could-mean-for-the-game/ |
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Post by incandenza on Mar 28, 2022 12:14:05 GMT -5
Can someone change the thread title to 'Rule changes discussion'? They are going to move 2b in closer in the minors to make it a true diamond.(I didn't even know it wasn't!) This will make 2b 13.5 inches closer to first. They're hoping for more base running action. For me this is a bad idea if they limit throws to 1st because once you hit the limit, there will be no guessing on whether they are throwing over or not and I don't know how to even limit a lead at that point. As I've said a million times, if they want more action on the field, enforce minimum stadium dimensions and un-juice the ball because I don't see any less TTO baseball until then.theathletic.com/3212654/2022/03/28/why-baseball-is-moving-second-base-and-what-this-experiment-could-mean-for-the-game/I always thought that in the most exciting possible version of baseball, the outfield walls would all be like 600 feet away. Every home run would be an inside-the-parker. Speed and athleticism would matter more on both offense and defense, and it would certainly fix the TTO problem. |
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 28, 2022 12:51:39 GMT -5
Can someone change the thread title to 'Rule changes discussion'? They are going to move 2b in closer in the minors to make it a true diamond.(I didn't even know it wasn't!) This will make 2b 13.5 inches closer to first. They're hoping for more base running action. For me this is a bad idea if they limit throws to 1st because once you hit the limit, there will be no guessing on whether they are throwing over or not and I don't know how to even limit a lead at that point. As I've said a million times, if they want more action on the field, enforce minimum stadium dimensions and un-juice the ball because I don't see any less TTO baseball until then.theathletic.com/3212654/2022/03/28/why-baseball-is-moving-second-base-and-what-this-experiment-could-mean-for-the-game/I always thought that in the most exciting possible version of baseball, the outfield walls would all be like 600 feet away. Every home run would be an inside-the-parker. Speed and athleticism would matter more on both offense and defense, and it would certainly fix the TTO problem. They should at least be rare. There should not be a single player hitting 30 HR in MLB that you never heard of, rather than dozens. |
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Post by wcsoxfan on Mar 28, 2022 13:55:33 GMT -5
Can someone change the thread title to 'Rule changes discussion'? They are going to move 2b in closer in the minors to make it a true diamond.(I didn't even know it wasn't!) This will make 2b 13.5 inches closer to first. They're hoping for more base running action. For me this is a bad idea if they limit throws to 1st because once you hit the limit, there will be no guessing on whether they are throwing over or not and I don't know how to even limit a lead at that point. As I've said a million times, if they want more action on the field, enforce minimum stadium dimensions and un-juice the ball because I don't see any less TTO baseball until then.theathletic.com/3212654/2022/03/28/why-baseball-is-moving-second-base-and-what-this-experiment-could-mean-for-the-game/I always thought that in the most exciting possible version of baseball, the outfield walls would all be like 600 feet away. Every home run would be an inside-the-parker. Speed and athleticism would matter more on both offense and defense, and it would certainly fix the TTO problem. So...bring back the polo grounds? (without the cheap shots down the line) It was 450'+. |
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Post by hank on Mar 29, 2022 10:00:53 GMT -5
I always thought that in the most exciting possible version of baseball, the outfield walls would all be like 600 feet away. Every home run would be an inside-the-parker. Speed and athleticism would matter more on both offense and defense, and it would certainly fix the TTO problem. They should at least be rare. There should not be a single player hitting 30 HR in MLB that you never heard of, rather than dozens. They had that era in baseball. It was called the dead ball era. And it was deadly boring. And then along came Babe Ruth, the most exciting player in the history of the game, hitting bombs and the game became WAY more popular. If you dug up Ty Cobb he would agree with you whole heartedly. |
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 29, 2022 11:35:52 GMT -5
They should at least be rare. There should not be a single player hitting 30 HR in MLB that you never heard of, rather than dozens. They had that era in baseball. It was called the dead ball era. And it was deadly boring. And then along came Babe Ruth, the most exciting player in the history of the game, hitting bombs and the game became WAY more popular. If you dug up Ty Cobb he would agree with you whole heartedly. I'm more talking about the 70s and 80s. If Jim Palmer or Jack Morris pitched in this environment, they'd give up 40 HR a year. |
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Post by incandenza on Mar 29, 2022 12:42:19 GMT -5
They should at least be rare. There should not be a single player hitting 30 HR in MLB that you never heard of, rather than dozens. They had that era in baseball. It was called the dead ball era. And it was deadly boring. And then along came Babe Ruth, the most exciting player in the history of the game, hitting bombs and the game became WAY more popular. If you dug up Ty Cobb he would agree with you whole heartedly. If you did it today, though, you'd get the higher synthesis: powerful hitters smacking 400-foot shots, then racing around the bases to beat the throw.
And I dunno, I just don't find homers that exciting. The ball goes out of play, the action stops; guys go for a leisurely jog. As long as there's just as much scoring as there is now, it'd be more exciting to see it come on doubles, triples, and inside-the-parkers.
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Post by voiceofreason on Mar 29, 2022 14:25:03 GMT -5
Some are acting as if it is something crazy like a HR more per game when it is more like 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games based on the numbers. How the heck is 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games ruining or really changing the game for the worse. One more HR every 30 or so innings doesn't seem like a problem to me.
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 29, 2022 14:41:23 GMT -5
Some are acting as if it is something crazy like a HR more per game when it is more like 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games based on the numbers. How the heck is 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games ruining or really changing the game for the worse. One more HR every 30 or so innings doesn't seem like a problem to me. What time period are you talking about? Because if you compare like 1978 to 2021, it's double. Total home runs - 5929 to 2956. If you compare 1968 which is when the mound was lowered a year later to 2021, it's triple. I can't find home runs per 9 innings and admittingly the league has expanded, but there wouldn't be any TTO players if there weren't as many home runs now. |
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Post by wcsoxfan on Mar 29, 2022 15:06:18 GMT -5
Some are acting as if it is something crazy like a HR more per game when it is more like 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games based on the numbers. How the heck is 1 more HR every 3 or 4 games ruining or really changing the game for the worse. One more HR every 30 or so innings doesn't seem like a problem to me. What time period are you talking about? Because if you compare like 1978 to 2021, it's double. Total home runs - 5929 to 2956. If you compare 1968 which is when the mound was lowered a year later to 2021, it's triple. I can't find home runs per 9 innings and admittingly the league has expanded, but there wouldn't be any TTO players if there weren't as many home runs now. I think we have multiple 'back in my day' time periods going on here. |
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Post by jimed14 on Mar 29, 2022 15:11:03 GMT -5
Crazy stat. In 1946, Ted Williams hit 38 home runs. That was 5.82% of all AL home runs.
In 2021, Vlad Jr. hit 48 home runs to lead the league. That was 1.57% of all AL home runs.
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