MLB and Union talk major rule changes

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

When I was growing up games took about 2:30.    It was much crisper and better.   It’s mostly the pitching changes and general slowing down of the game in the later innings that’s a killer.   I will often note that after 5-6 innings the game is on pace to be over in 2:45 or so, then the last 3-4 innings just drag on and on.   

Here’s a really good statistical analysis done by a young man I know:   https://sharpestats.com/making-baseball-slow-again/

Basketball has the same problem.  In college the last few minutes of clock time takes 10, 15, 20 minutes (or at least seems to) because every team gets four timeouts they mostly save for the end, plus media timeouts at 8 and 4 minutes.  Even if it's a 10-point game the losing team takes all of their timeouts in an attempt to come back.  Add in intentional fouls and most of the last half hour of a game is either free throws, fouls, or timeouts.  Like in baseball the flow of the game is completely disrupted, but basketball may actually be worse.

That's why a 40-minute NCAA game takes about as much time to play as a 90-minute soccer match, where the clock only stops at the half.  I'd love to see a set of experiments in all the major sports (college or minors) with continuously running clocks and no time outs.  In baseball you'd start a clock at first pitch and you the ump calls the game at two hours.  In football you'd have games where one of the teams got 13 offensive plays, since in an average game today you have the equivalent of about 87 timeouts and 12 minutes of play.  Hockey and soccer would see almost no changes.

[NCRaven]

Still believe that Tony LaRussa hurt baseball with his bullpen usage that has become the norm.  But, also believe that the lack of balls in play is ultimately what will kill the game.  The two are related.

[Frobby]

27 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Basketball has the same problem.  In college the last few minutes of clock time takes 10, 15, 20 minutes (or at least seems to) because every team gets four timeouts they mostly save for the end, plus media timeouts at 8 and 4 minutes.  Even if it's a 10-point game the losing team takes all of their timeouts in an attempt to come back.  Add in intentional fouls and most of the last half hour of a game is either free throws, fouls, or timeouts.  Like in baseball the flow of the game is completely disrupted, but basketball may actually be worse.

That's why a 40-minute NCAA game takes about as much time to play as a 90-minute soccer match, where the clock only stops at the half.  I'd love to see a set of experiments in all the major sports (college or minors) with continuously running clocks and no time outs.  In baseball you'd start a clock at first pitch and you the ump calls the game at two hours.  In football you'd have games where one of the teams got 13 offensive plays, since in an average game today you have the equivalent of about 87 timeouts and 12 minutes of play.  Hockey and soccer would see almost no changes.

I like recording basketball on my DVR and fast forwarding through all the timeouts.    That way a 40 minute game takes about 60-70 minutes to watch, maybe a little less if you fast forward through the pauses between when a foul is called and when the shooter is actually ready to shoot, or time spent on replay review by the refs.   If you give the game a 45-minute headstart, you can finish the game just about as it ends in real time.   

That’s harder to do with baseball, but I have sometimes watched that way.    You can even cut down the time between pitches if your remote is sufficiently responsive.   

Of course, none of that helps if you’re at the game.   And none of that gets you to bed any earlier.   

[DrungoHazewood]

30 minutes ago, Frobby said:

  And none of that gets you to bed any earlier.   

I think what I need to do is live my baseball life a day behind.  Then I can DVR the game and watch it the next day in under two hours.  Plus I can decide on whether or not the game is even worth watching beforehand.

Or, we could get them to start the games at 5:30.  I'll just start at 7:00 as usual, but skip all the pauses.  With the advances in AI and processing I bet a smart engineer could design software to even auto-skip everything that isn't on-field action.  That's the best of both worlds - I get my two-hour games, and the folks who like a leisurely 4:33 game can have that, too.

[Frobby]

34 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think what I need to do is live my baseball life a day behind.  Then I can DVR the game and watch it the next day in under two hours.  Plus I can decide on whether or not the game is even worth watching beforehand.

Or, we could get them to start the games at 5:30.  I'll just start at 7:00 as usual, but skip all the pauses.  With the advances in AI and processing I bet a smart engineer could design software to even auto-skip everything that isn't on-field action.  That's the best of both worlds - I get my two-hour games, and the folks who like a leisurely 4:33 game can have that, too.

So there you go.

I’ve been quite disciplined, on a number of occasions, at recording a sports event and avoiding learning the score in advance, then watching it fresh but without the commercials etc.

Then there was the Duke game two nights ago.   I recorded it, watched the first half on delay, then got frustrated about 3 minutes (game clock time) into the second half with Louisville winning by 13-14 points.   I started fast forwarding, got to a point where their lead had expanded to 20 points, and decided it wasn’t worth watching and went to bed.    Got up yesterday and nearly spit out my cereal when I opened the sports page and saw that Duke had come back from 23 down to win by two.   So last night, I fast forwarded to the point where the game turned around and watched the final 9:13 in about 15 minutes.   Quite enjoyable, if you’re a Duke fan. (Ducks.)

[eddie83]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Basketball has the same problem.  In college the last few minutes of clock time takes 10, 15, 20 minutes (or at least seems to) because every team gets four timeouts they mostly save for the end, plus media timeouts at 8 and 4 minutes.  Even if it's a 10-point game the losing team takes all of their timeouts in an attempt to come back.  Add in intentional fouls and most of the last half hour of a game is either free throws, fouls, or timeouts.  Like in baseball the flow of the game is completely disrupted, but basketball may actually be worse.

That's why a 40-minute NCAA game takes about as much time to play as a 90-minute soccer match, where the clock only stops at the half.  I'd love to see a set of experiments in all the major sports (college or minors) with continuously running clocks and no time outs.  In baseball you'd start a clock at first pitch and you the ump calls the game at two hours.  In football you'd have games where one of the teams got 13 offensive plays, since in an average game today you have the equivalent of about 87 timeouts and 12 minutes of play.  Hockey and soccer would see almost no changes.

They can drag out at the end but still most college basketball  games are around 2 hours. Plus the other year they dropped at timeout and you have to take one or lose it before the end of the first half, so at most only 3 in second half.  

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Quite enjoyable, if you’re a Duke fan. (Ducks.)

Since you're both an Oriole and a Duke fan your overall karma is pretty well zeroed out.

I have to be way overdue for some team I root for to win about four championships in a row.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Since you're both an Oriole and a Duke fan your overall karma is pretty well zeroed out.

I have to be way overdue for some team I root for to win about four championships in a row.

U.S. won Curling gold in the last Olympics, I think that is all I get this decade.

[DrungoHazewood]

25 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

U.S. won Curling gold in the last Olympics, I think that is all I get this decade.

Being a Virginia Tech fan I get a lot of Continental Tire Bowls against the 3rd place Mid-America Conference team, and every once in a while an NIT run.  DC United won MLS Cup in '04, so we're still reliving that.  I think I subconsciously picked Tottenham Hotspur to be my EPL team just because they never win a trophy.  

Almost 20 years ago I decided to be an 1860 Munich fan, and since then they got relegated to the 4th division of German soccer.  It's like waking up one day and finding out the Orioles are in the NY-Penn League.

[LookinUp]

On 2/11/2019 at 9:54 AM, UpstateNYfan said:

The current structure of the game (lack of salary cap) means at least half the teams have to play for a window of opportunity,

Nitpick, I think this has more to do with MLBs revenue sharing model than it does the salary cap. With NFL-style revenue sharing, everything would be different.

[Beef Supreme]

On 2/13/2019 at 9:14 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

15 seconds?  Today you have 15 or 30 seconds for the manager to walk out to the mound, go to commercial, then about a minute for the reliever to walk in from the pen, then a couple minutes of warmup tosses, then we're back from commercial.  That's at least three minutes per mid-inning change.

My proposal is that the reliever has already walked to the dugout, the manager yells out that there's a change, and you now have one minute to throw your first pitch to the batter.  Five mid-inning changes a game... you've shaved 10 minutes off the length of an average game.

You know that I was talking about a certain number of seconds that warmup pitches could occupy under your scenario. 

 

On 2/13/2019 at 9:22 AM, DrungoHazewood said:

- Warmups and long walks from the pen weren't as big a deal when an average starter went 7 2/3rds and there was less than one mid-inning change per team per game.

- I'd think high-caliber professional athletes could adjust to a very slightly different mound without incurring devestating injuries and terrible wildness, especially since this scourge can apparently be completely mitigated with a handful of warmup tosses.

- What I'd really like to see is a warmup time for pinch runners and defensive replacements.  Imagine how many pulled hammys and strained quads could be avoided if we'd just set aside 3-4 minutes for some stretching and wind sprints whenever a pinch runner comes in.  Oh, oh... and you know how pinch hitters hit significantly worse than regular hitters.  What if we let them face 8-10 practice pitches before the real ones start?  They'd hit better, and they wouldn't face the danger of trying to hit completely cold after sitting on the bench for 7-8 innings...

Mounds are altered during the course of the game both by usage and intentionally. Even if the bullpens are coiffed almost exactly like the mound pre-game, they are not the same and change further as the game goes on.

The pinch running part is intellectual dishonesty as neither I, nor MLB nor anyone else has suggested such a ridiculous proposal that does not in any way compare to relief pitchers warming up from the pitcher's mound. And you know it.

I guess you don't know it, but potential pinch hitters duck into the inside cage and take warm up swings vs. live pitching during the game.

[LookinUp]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Basketball has the same problem.  In college the last few minutes of clock time takes 10, 15, 20 minutes (or at least seems to) because every team gets four timeouts they mostly save for the end, plus media timeouts at 8 and 4 minutes.  Even if it's a 10-point game the losing team takes all of their timeouts in an attempt to come back.  Add in intentional fouls and most of the last half hour of a game is either free throws, fouls, or timeouts.  Like in baseball the flow of the game is completely disrupted, but basketball may actually be worse.

That's why a 40-minute NCAA game takes about as much time to play as a 90-minute soccer match, where the clock only stops at the half.  I'd love to see a set of experiments in all the major sports (college or minors) with continuously running clocks and no time outs.  In baseball you'd start a clock at first pitch and you the ump calls the game at two hours.  In football you'd have games where one of the teams got 13 offensive plays, since in an average game today you have the equivalent of about 87 timeouts and 12 minutes of play.  Hockey and soccer would see almost no changes.

I know you know this, but to the sporting industry, the breaks and lengths of game are features, not bad at all. They allow more commercial revenue. 

Baseball has too many games and too many stoppages, but that's part of the reason why it makes so much money. Any changes that break that up, or contract teams, are missing the point. The game isn't frequently exciting enough. That's what drives people away. Some of your ideas (and others) about limiting the roster for pitchers are what I like the most in this thread. Bring the strategy back and try to limit the max-effort 1 batter 100 mph guy who has become increasingly hard to hit. The other stuff makes great academic sense, but poor financial sense, all things being equal.

[Beef Supreme]

On 2/10/2019 at 6:21 PM, Can_of_corn said:

And injuries to pitchers.

Despite some people (or maybe that is just one person) claiming the contrary -- because, you know, pitchers don't get injured -- there are a group of baseball professionals who, despite not having a vested interest in any one player's health like team management does -- agree with your assessment that injuries are more likely to occur to pitchers if they are denied warmup pitches from the mound. They are the Umpires...

Quote

The Phillies will receive a formal warning letter from MLB for Gabe Kapler's warm-up debacle in Saturday's loss to the Braves, according to ESPN's Buster Olney. 

During the third inning of the 15-2 loss to Atlanta, Kapler emerged from the dugout and called for Hoby Milner to come into the game to replace Vince Velasquez. Controversy arose because Milner wasn't warming up in the bullpen and therefore wasn't ready to pitch.

Milner rushed to get a few throws in the bullpen before third base umpire Greg Gibson walked toward the Phils' 'pen and ordered the left-hander to enter the game. When Milner finally got to the mound, the umpires allowed him to throw five pitches before the game resumed play. 

Crew chief Jerry Layne said he allowed Milner to throw the warm-up pitches to protect the pitcher's health, which MLB agreed was the right way to handle the unusual situation, according to Olney. But the league won't give Kapler and the Phils the same leeway moving forward, per The Athletic's Jayson Stark.

And while Layne was considerate of the player, he grilled the Phillies for mishandling the pitching change.

“Whoever is at fault for not doing their job on the Phillies side should have to answer to Major League Baseball,” Layne said.

I trust the experts rather than the rare naysayer.

[LookinUp]

How many pitches do they usually get when they enter a game? Five is not substantial. Was that meant to say five more than normal? 

[atomic]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think what I need to do is live my baseball life a day behind.  Then I can DVR the game and watch it the next day in under two hours.  Plus I can decide on whether or not the game is even worth watching beforehand.

Or, we could get them to start the games at 5:30.  I'll just start at 7:00 as usual, but skip all the pauses.  With the advances in AI and processing I bet a smart engineer could design software to even auto-skip everything that isn't on-field action.  That's the best of both worlds - I get my two-hour games, and the folks who like a leisurely 4:33 game can have that, too.

I think at a certain point it gets boring. My father said when he was in Vietnam they would show them all the NFL Games with only the action and the games only lasted 10 minutes but were pretty unwatchable.  

I don't think fast forwarding baseball to only watch the action would be that enjoyable.  

You could always just look at the box score. But I guess that is why Soccer is most popular sport.  There is constant action.