MLB and Union talk major rule changes

[Legend_Of_Joey]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think it would be fun to see a field where the fence was, say, 425 feet down the line and 500 feet in center.  You’d very rarely see a traditional home run, and it would take a titanic blast to do it.    But you’d see inside the park homers, doubles and triples increase very dramatically, and speed would become a much bigger element on both offense and defense.    

Polo Grounds 2.0

As someone that goes to a lot of minor league games, especially Bowie, the pitch clock really doesn't seem bad. It was weird the first few times I saw it, but as a fan, I like it. 

Do we really need pitchers taking 2 minutes between pitches to walk around the mound, use the rosin bag, scratch twice, lick their fingers, get their hidden pine tar mix from wherever they have it stashed, then nod at the catcher?

3 batter minimum seems ok. It would definitely change the strategy, especially late in the season (August) as far as using someone too much. 

26th roster spot is always good.

Do not touch the pitchers mound.

The whole "MiLB Extra Innings" rule is dumb. Yes, it makes the game end sooner, but it kills the whole thing. Last season, DL Hall and Alex Katz combined for 9, no hit innings in Delmarva. The 3rd pitcher that came in lost it on a bunt to the first batter, which was only done to move the runner over and it ended up as a single.

I enjoy the difference in the AL and NL. Interleauge play is one of the worst things to have happened though. Having to adjust in the World Series was a lot better than having to adjust for a 3 game series on Monday in April.

[OFFNY]

o

 

Pitcher hits the batter, the batter is out.

You hit 27 batters, you've got yourself a perfect game.

 

George Carlin, 1986

 

o

[ScGO's]

8 hours ago, Sessh said:

My thoughts exactly. It's quite bizarre what is being bandied about these days. The direction things are going right now is not good IMO. Baseball is in trouble especially with Tony Clark being perfectly fine with another strike in 2021 and that such an idea is gaining traction with players from what I've been reading. Another strike will kill baseball, again, JMO. It will certainly be over for me and I'm already hanging on by a thread, it seems.

Some of these changes are drastic and I don't think I have the energy to really dig in, but I will say I disagree with forcing the DH with a rule. I think it should be decided by the home team before every game whether or not both teams will use or not use the DH in both leagues. I don't understand why it has to be enforced one way or the other. Give teams the option and see how it shakes out. Many of these other proposed rule changes are just depressing. Prioritizing game time over everything else can't possibly end well for the sport.

Baseball could become a game show.

Maybe it would open up a better market for NCAA.  I kinda like college ball.  More talent may go to college if MLB sucks

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, elextrano8 said:

I've always wondered about the warm-up pitches. I haven't pitched since AAA (...in little league...) so I've never experienced coming into a game like that. Is there a reason that pitchers who have already warmed up in the bullpen would NEED to warm-up further after getting to the mound? Perhaps requiring relievers to be ready to pitch when the manager makes the call would help cut down on wasted time.

I'd be fine with a rule that says the reliever has 30 seconds to be ready to pitch to a batter.  The manager has to alert the ump of a sub.  The pitcher, who has already walked in from the pen to the dugout, goes to the mound and we're ready to go.

15 hours ago, SteveA said:

Yeah, all the tickets were pre-printed and there was just one of each.

And they were color coded to match the seats at Memorial Stadium.

Upper deck pink, general admission gold, lower box green(?), terrace box blue(?).

It's been a while, anyone remember all the colors?

I have a strong memory of my first game at the age of eight, sitting in yellow seats in the mezzanine.  So someone will probably post a photo of 1979, with the mezzanine being blue or green.

14 hours ago, ExileAngelos said:

To me there are two issues with the game today.  Pace of play and lack of balls in play during games.  Pitch clock and banning the shift would go a long way to tackle both of these problems.  I am not crazy about either one but I love the sport and want what is best for it.  

The pitch clock might work, but it's failed in some experiments.  Banning the shift will do nothing to fix balls in play - in fact it might exacerbate the problem by making it easier for Chris Davis types who both strikeout every third PA and pull the ball a ton to succeed.

14 hours ago, VaBird1 said:

If everyone has the DH, there is no point in a separate AL and NL.

 

14 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure.

To me interleague play killed it.

There is no real difference between the leagues besides the DH rule.  They used to have seperate umps, offices, presidents, etc.  Offensive levels often varied by quite a lot.  Balls were different.  Now the differences are the DH, paper, and history.

11 hours ago, ScGO's said:

After reading all of this, I must say I'm a little nervous for the game of baseball.  Maybe I'm wrong, but MLB needs to be careful in its decisions making over these next few years and make sure it doesn't shoot itself in the foot and potentially destroy this game.

Baseball has refused to change almost any rules for over a century.  And the game has evolved itself from a game of 2.50 ERAs, two Ks a game, and teams with < 10 homers a season to what we have today.  When you never change anything people get really good at finding loopholes and ways around the rules.  I doubt any rules changes they'll consider will be a greater impact than the differences we've seen organically.  At least with rules changes they have a chance to drive the changes in positive directions.  As it is now they're random.

10 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think it would be fun to see a field where the fence was, say, 425 feet down the line and 500 feet in center.  You’d very rarely see a traditional home run, and it would take a titanic blast to do it.    But you’d see inside the park homers, doubles and triples increase very dramatically, and speed would become a much bigger element on both offense and defense.    

I really, really want to see a park with a really, really deep outfield.  I wish New Yankee Stadium had the same dimensions as original Yankee, which was something like 310, 350, 466, 450, 315, 296.  The Polo Grounds might be a little extreme - I doubt 257' signs would go over well with pitchers, even if balanced by a CF fence that's over 500' with a 50' wall that's in play.  

My feeling is that free agency has had a significant impact on dimensions.  It's hard to get pitchers to sign with the Rockies, so it might be difficult to get any sluggers to go to a place where it's 475' in the gap.

What I really want is a test case - it just has to be one or two fields.  I want to see if it's the dimensions or the quality of the fielders that has driven triples and ISTP HRs to near-extinction.  It's probably both, so I'd bet that even with a bunch of huge parks we'd never get back to the triples levels of the deadball era and the 1920s.  The fielders and positioning are too good.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

As someone that goes to a lot of minor league games, especially Bowie, the pitch clock really doesn't seem bad. It was weird the first few times I saw it, but as a fan, I like it. 

Do we really need pitchers taking 2 minutes between pitches to walk around the mound, use the rosin bag, scratch twice, lick their fingers, get their hidden pine tar mix from wherever they have it stashed, then nod at the catcher?

3 batter minimum seems ok. It would definitely change the strategy, especially late in the season (August) as far as using someone too much. 

26th roster spot is always good.

Do not touch the pitchers mound.

The whole "MiLB Extra Innings" rule is dumb. Yes, it makes the game end sooner, but it kills the whole thing. Last season, DL Hall and Alex Katz combined for 9, no hit innings in Delmarva. The 3rd pitcher that came in lost it on a bunt to the first batter, which was only done to move the runner over and it ended up as a single.

1. No, we don't need pitchers goofing around.  They don't have to get up for work at 5:45, they don't have to drive two hours home, so they don't care.  But MLB should care about their paying customers.  In 1920 an average game was around 2:00.  It can be done.

2. 26th roster spot could be good, but without other limitations current managers would almost exclusively use it for a 13th or 14th pitcher.  We desperately need a limit on pitchers.  Either max number on roster, or max number you can use per game.  I think I'd be good with either.  8, 9, 10 total pitchers on roster including rotation.  Or three pitchers per nine, with an additional pitcher for each two extra innings.  You get an extra in case of injury, but then the injured pitcher can't pitch for 10 days.

3. I don't really care about the mound.  I don't think we have enough data to know the impact.  We have stories about huge mounds corresponding to low runs, but little actual evidence.  When they started enforcing the mound height in '69 (?) they also tinkered with the strike zone, right?  Hard to tell which was the  predominant cause of the offensive blip, espeically since offense stayed low in the early 70s.  What was it... '73, '74? when the O's allowed 450 runs all year and didn't even win the division?

4. Could do like in Japan.  If a regular season game lasts (IIRC) 12 innings and it's still tied that's how it stands.  I know the O's have had some epic, long extra inning games (Davis, Sakata) but the fans vote with their feet - by the 12th inning there are usually 1200 people left in the stands.

[Moose Milligan]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

1. No, we don't need pitchers goofing around.  They don't have to get up for work at 5:45, they don't have to drive two hours home, so they don't care.  But MLB should care about their paying customers.  In 1920 an average game was around 2:00.  It can be done.

2. 26th roster spot could be good, but without other limitations current managers would almost exclusively use it for a 13th or 14th pitcher.  We desperately need a limit on pitchers.  Either max number on roster, or max number you can use per game.  I think I'd be good with either.  8, 9, 10 total pitchers on roster including rotation.  Or three pitchers per nine, with an additional pitcher for each two extra innings.  You get an extra in case of injury, but then the injured pitcher can't pitch for 10 days.

3. I don't really care about the mound.  I don't think we have enough data to know the impact.  We have stories about huge mounds corresponding to low runs, but little actual evidence.  When they started enforcing the mound height in '69 (?) they also tinkered with the strike zone, right?  Hard to tell which was the  predominant cause of the offensive blip, espeically since offense stayed low in the early 70s.  What was it... '73, '74? when the O's allowed 450 runs all year and didn't even win the division?

4. Could do like in Japan.  If a regular season game lasts (IIRC) 12 innings and it's still tied that's how it stands.  I know the O's have had some epic, long extra inning games (Davis, Sakata) but the fans vote with their feet - by the 12th inning there are usually 1200 people left in the stands.

In 1920, there weren't TV commercials.  Yes, it's a different game but I'm partially convinced that the length of the game is due to the amount of cutting to commercials there are.  Also the amount of relievers being used.  

Unfortunately, commercials aren't going anywhere.  I watched a game from the 90s a few weeks ago on youtube, the pace of play wasn't noticeably faster.  The average game time is about 3 hours, that's the same for an NFL football game.  I'm struggling to figure out why people are complaining about a game that takes 3 hours when most of them are perfectly happy to dedicate that amount of time to an NFL game on a Sunday afternoon in the fall.  

IMO, the game is fine as is (minus not having a DH in the NL) even though I liked some of these proposed rule changes.  I've said it before, I'll say it again, MLB is so petrified about losing the next generation of fans, the ADHD Little Timmys who can't peel their attention away from their iPad for 2 seconds to look at anything else.  Well, ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if a batter can't leave the batters box or not to keep the game moving.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care that a pitcher has 20 seconds between pitches.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the game is 2 hours and 55 minutes or 3 hours and 5 minutes.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the K's per game is skyrocketing.

ADHD Little Timmy WILL care if someone hits a home run.  And then it's right back to the iPad or whatever other digital thing he's pre-occupied with because the game is inherently boring and slow and for old people.   And that's what MLB has created without the benefit of steroids (that we know of, wink wink), a game like the late 90s, early 2000s where there's a ton of homers and a lot of offense.  When I was a kid (I can't believe I just said that) in the late 80s and early 90s, 30 homers was a BIG DEAL.  Now there are guys hitting 30 homers I've never heard of.

This is what you wanted, right, MLB?  Homers all over the place sans PEDS, high flying offenses and exciting pitchers who throw 100mph gas without trying.  So what are we whining about?  What needs fixing?  

Bud Selig, as folksy and clueless as he appeared to be, wasn't that bad.  What was the worst thing he did, oversee a tie in an All Star game?  Look the other way on steroids when owners and players and fans were setting attendance records?  

This Manfred guy...take a page from Bud.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Keep a steady hand on the wheel.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, Aglets said:

1862.

I expect an apology soon.  

Thanks for the tip, he has a pretty interesting Wikipedia page.  They apparently didn't even call balls and strikes back in those days?   Seems unfathomable now.

Mea culpa.

In the beginning the idea was that the pitcher was just there to "pitch" the ball up to the batter so he could put it in play.  There were restrictions on delivery brought over from the way cricket was played then: underhanded, no breaking the wrist, maybe even the rules (still in cricket) about a stiff elbow.  Creighton was one of the first or at least better pitchers at getting away with snapping his wrist a little and getting a little something extra on the ball.

Balls and strikes came about because pitchers, being limited in what they could to, started throwing everything just out of reach of the batter.  Eventually, usually, the batter would get frustrated and swing at bad balls.  So the concept was that the ump would start calling unfair pitches and after a limit the batter would get first base.  When they first tried this it was overly complicated, like you'd walk on four or five balls, but the ump didn't call a ball until the pitcher had been given a warning, so in essence it was 9 or 10 balls for a walk.

As they were trying to make for a more enjoyable commerical game int the 1870s and 1880s they tinkered with the ball and strike rules almost annually, before finally settling on four balls/three strikes in 1888.  And by 1903 the foul strike rules were what they are today in both leagues.  As late as 1902 in the AL you could foul off 20 pitches in a row and the count could be 0-0.

[atomic]

12 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’d guess fewer.   The ‘71 team had 1.023 mm in attendance and drew fewer than 10,000 at home 32 times.  Offhand I’d peg this year’s attendance at 1.3 mm or so, but we’ll see.   It’ll be significantly down, for sure.   

1.3 million seems generous.  The Marlins Drew 1.58 million in 2017 after their sell of they had 811k in 2018.  Orioles had 1.56 million in 2018.  I would expect a similar drop from the Oriole who have really done nothing to improve the club after their sell-off.  I would even say the GM and manager change was a money saving venture.  I doubt Elias and Hyde make close to what DD and Buck made. 

The only thing that will perhaps keep Orioles attendance falling to Marlin attendance numbers is that Yankee and Red Sox fans are nice enough to attend games at Camden Yards. 

[DrungoHazewood]

20 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

In 1920, there weren't TV commercials.  Yes, it's a different game but I'm partially convinced that the length of the game is due to the amount of cutting to commercials there are.  Also the amount of relievers being used.  

Unfortunately, commercials aren't going anywhere.  I watched a game from the 90s a few weeks ago on youtube, the pace of play wasn't noticeably faster.  The average game time is about 3 hours, that's the same for an NFL football game.  I'm struggling to figure out why people are complaining about a game that takes 3 hours when most of them are perfectly happy to dedicate that amount of time to an NFL game on a Sunday afternoon in the fall.  

IMO, the game is fine as is (minus not having a DH in the NL) even though I liked some of these proposed rule changes.  I've said it before, I'll say it again, MLB is so petrified about losing the next generation of fans, the ADHD Little Timmys who can't peel their attention away from their iPad for 2 seconds to look at anything else.  Well, ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if a batter can't leave the batters box or not to keep the game moving.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care that a pitcher has 20 seconds between pitches.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the game is 2 hours and 55 minutes or 3 hours and 5 minutes.  ADHD Little Timmy isn't going to care if the K's per game is skyrocketing.

ADHD Little Timmy WILL care if someone hits a home run.  And then it's right back to the iPad or whatever other digital thing he's pre-occupied with because the game is inherently boring and slow and for old people.   And that's what MLB has created without the benefit of steroids (that we know of, wink wink), a game like the late 90s, early 2000s where there's a ton of homers and a lot of offense.  When I was a kid (I can't believe I just said that) in the late 80s and early 90s, 30 homers was a BIG DEAL.  Now there are guys hitting 30 homers I've never heard of.

This is what you wanted, right, MLB?  Homers all over the place sans PEDS, high flying offenses and exciting pitchers who throw 100mph gas without trying.  So what are we whining about?  What needs fixing?  

Bud Selig, as folksy and clueless as he appeared to be, wasn't that bad.  What was the worst thing he did, oversee a tie in an All Star game?  Look the other way on steroids when owners and players and fans were setting attendance records?  

This Manfred guy...take a page from Bud.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Keep a steady hand on the wheel.

- Baseball doesn't have to have 3-5 minutes of commericals for every stoppage in play.  Supply and demand - less commerical time means more value per commercial minute.  Soccer has halftime as the only break and the Premier League has the same or more revenues per team than MLB, in a country that has 1/5th the population.

- Major League Baseball does have a persistant problem with younger fans.  It's like Cadillac.  Cadillac makes some sports sedans that compete quite well on features with BMW, Audi, Mercedes.  But they can't shake the Grandpa's Car label, or the fact they made a crappy product from roughly 1970-2010.  You can't force cool, it just has to happen.

- What needs fixing is the type of game.  In the 1970s and 80s we had a diversity of strategies.  Some teams hit 80 homers and stole 250 bases, some teams hit 200 homers and stole 30 bases.  There were 8 or 10 more balls in play per game, there was more action.  There were guys who sometimes hit 20 triples.  Now every team tries to strike out 10 men a game, and get their swing planes such that they'll hit the ball over the shift and into the RF stands.  Nobody steals bases much, triples are an oddity, ISTP HRs happen when someone falls down and breaks a leg, and my kids don't even have a chance to look up from their tablet to watch the game end on the 19th strikeout of the night because they've been asleep since the 5th inning.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, atomic said:

1.3 million seems generous.  The Marlins Drew 1.58 million in 2017 after their sell of they had 811k in 2018.  Orioles had 1.56 million in 2018.  I would expect a similar drop from the Oriole who have really done nothing to improve the club after their sell-off. 

I think the Orioles hard-core fan base is a lot deeper than Miami’s.    But I’m not going to argue about it, because we really won’t know until they play the games.    

[SurhoffRules]

33 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Unfortunately, commercials aren't going anywhere.  I watched a game from the 90s a few weeks ago on youtube, the pace of play wasn't noticeably faster.  The average game time is about 3 hours, that's the same for an NFL football game.  I'm struggling to figure out why people are complaining about a game that takes 3 hours when most of them are perfectly happy to dedicate that amount of time to an NFL game on a Sunday afternoon in the fall.  

I posted this elsewhere before but in 1991, the average length of a game was 2:54. Last year it was 3:04.  In the last 25 years the average baseball game has been 3 hours, plus or minus about 8 minutes. 

From the 50s through the end of the 70s it was very similar, games were right on 2:30.  The big jump in game length came from in the decade and a half from about '77 to '91.

I'm all for shortening the game, I'd love something closer to 2:30, but this isn't a new "problem". Being in my 30s I literally can not recall watching a game that wasn't about 3 hours. If folks think the game is slow or boring now compared to 25 years ago, its probably from changes within the game rather than just the duration.

Or maybe it was the rise of cable networks and the ability to watch literally every single game that's leading to burnout. I dunno.

[atomic]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

- Baseball doesn't have to have 3-5 minutes of commericals for every stoppage in play.  Supply and demand - less commerical time means more value per commercial minute.  Soccer has halftime as the only break and the Premier League has the same or more revenues per team than MLB, in a country that has 1/5th the population.

- Major League Baseball does have a persistant problem with younger fans.  It's like Cadillac.  Cadillac makes some sports sedans that compete quite well on features with BMW, Audi, Mercedes.  But they can't shake the Grandpa's Car label, or the fact they made a crappy product from roughly 1970-2010.  You can't force cool, it just has to happen.

 - What needs fixing is the type of game.  In the 1970s and 80s we had a diversity of strategies.  Some teams hit 80 homers and stole 250 bases, some teams hit 200 homers and stole 30 bases.  There were 8 or 10 more balls in play per game, there was more action.  There were guys who sometimes hit 20 triples.  Now every team tries to strike out 10 men a game, and get their swing planes such that they'll hit the ball over the shift and into the RF stands.  Nobody steals bases much, triples are an oddity, ISTP HRs happen when someone falls down and breaks a leg, and my kids don't even have a chance to look up from their tablet to watch the game end on the 19th strikeout of the night because they've been asleep since the 5th inning.

The Escalade is very popular with Rap artists and Pro atheletes.  

[atomic]

11 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think the Orioles hard-core fan base is a lot deeper than Miami’s.    But I’m not going to argue about it, because we really won’t know until they play the games.    

You dropped out of your season ticket pool.  And I would say your are pretty hard-core fan.  I will go to a few games just because of the kiddie area and the drinking beer outside.  Really if they had a dog show at Camden Yards for 81 dates I would probably go a couple of times. 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, atomic said:

1.3 million seems generous.  The Marlins Drew 1.58 million in 2017 after their sell of they had 811k in 2018.  Orioles had 1.56 million in 2018.  I would expect a similar drop from the Oriole who have really done nothing to improve the club after their sell-off.  I would even say the GM and manager change was a money saving venture.  I doubt Elias and Hyde make close to what DD and Buck made. 

The only thing that will perhaps keep Orioles attendance falling to Marlin attendance numbers is that Yankee and Red Sox fans are nice enough to attend games at Camden Yards. 

You're comparing apples and oranges.  The Marlins' average attendance over their franchise history is about the same as the 2018 Orioles' attendance.  Even when they opened their new stadium they had about the same attendance as the 2015-17 Orioles.  They've had two seasons with under 1M fans, the last time the O's did that was 1974.

As much as you'd like validation that Elias' strategy is wrong, Frobby's attendance estimate is probably pretty good.  I know I'm more likely to pay to see games this year than last.

[atomic]

I just went to the Orioles site to look at tickets.  They aren't on sale yet.  Don't they usually sell single game tickets by now?