MLB and Union talk major rule changes

[DrungoHazewood]

42 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

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...

I trust the experts rather than the rare naysayer.

Fine, you win. I'll move on to just banning all mid-inning pitching changes.

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

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.)

With a now 3-year old, this is how I've grown to live almost my whole sports-watching life the last few years - there's just no time.  I'm a UVA guy, and the time savings with Bennett's style are even greater.  We don't drive much and rarely foul - our games are routinely over in 1:50 real time.  I've got my finger on the fast forward button just waiting on the dead ball whistle after 16/12/8/4, give it the 1st level speed-up on free throws, substitutions, video reviews etc., and can threaten half an hour in the best of conditions.

[Tony-OH]

I am completely in favor of the universal DH and 26 -man rosters though I don't think a team should be limited to the amount of pitchers they can keep. 

Personally, I like matchup relief pitchers and the strategy that comes with whether to use a guy now or later in a critical situation. I'm a Tony LaRussa guy and don't think he ruined baseball at all, but rather added strategy. I hate any idea of making a guy face a minimum amount of batters or have to complete a whole inning. There is a lot of strategy on the use of relievers when it comes to how often they pitch, how many days rest they have, how many pitches they threw, etc. The 26-man roster would also allows for an extra pinch hitter to offset those matchups bringing even more strategy.

To speed up pitching changes, managers should be required signal before they hit the base line and once signaled, a pitcher should stop throwing and immediately make his way to the mound. A clock would be set at one minute and 20 seconds and starts the second the manager signals. The pitcher must be on the rubber and ready to pitch to a batter at that point or a ball will be awarded to the batter and every ten seconds another ball will be awarded.

TV could adjust by running a picture in picture 30-second commercial (allowing for pertinent stats/information to be displayed) while the pitcher is running out there leaving the announcer about 30 seconds for analysis of the new pitcher. The pitcher gets as many warm up tosses he can make under his 1 minute 20 second time.


 

[atomic]

17 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I am completely in favor of the universal DH and 26 -man rosters though I don't think a team should be limited to the amount of pitchers they can keep. 

 Personally, I like matchup relief pitchers and the strategy that comes with whether to use a guy now or later in a critical situation. I'm a Tony LaRussa guy and don't think he ruined baseball at all, but rather added strategy. I hate any idea of making a guy face a minimum amount of batters or have to complete a whole inning. There is a lot of strategy on the use of relievers when it comes to how often they pitch, how many days rest they have, how many pitches they threw, etc. The 26-man roster would also allows for an extra pinch hitter to offset those matchups bringing even more strategy.

 To speed up pitching changes, managers should be required signal before they hit the base line and once signaled, a pitcher should stop throwing and immediately make his way to the mound. A clock would be set at one minute and 20 seconds and starts the second the manager signals. The pitcher must be on the rubber and ready to pitch to a batter at that point or a ball will be awarded to the batter and every ten seconds another ball will be awarded.

 TV could adjust by running a picture in picture 30-second commercial (allowing for pertinent stats/information to be displayed) while the pitcher is running out there leaving the announcer about 30 seconds for analysis of the new pitcher. The pitcher gets as many warm up tosses he can make under his 1 minute 20 second time.


 

If you don't limit the amount of pitchers on a roster and you expand to 26 you are just going to have one more pitcher on the roster and even longer games.  I would rather them reduce the roster to 24 than to do what you are saying. 

[Frobby]

59 minutes ago, atomic said:

If you don't limit the amount of pitchers on a roster and you expand to 26 you are just going to have one more pitcher on the roster and even longer games.  I would rather them reduce the roster to 24 than to do what you are saying. 

Hey, I agree with you for once!

[SteveA]

5 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

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.

Come on... we have never played a MAC team in a bowl before.   And the majority of our bowls have been against major conference powers (21 of the 25 bowls in our current longest in the nation bowl streak have been against Power 5 conference teams).   And we've been to the NCAA tournmanet two years in a row and well on our way to a 3rd.

[Matt]

8 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

I am completely in favor of the universal DH and 26 -man rosters though I don't think a team should be limited to the amount of pitchers they can keep. 

Personally, I like matchup relief pitchers and the strategy that comes with whether to use a guy now or later in a critical situation. I'm a Tony LaRussa guy and don't think he ruined baseball at all, but rather added strategy. I hate any idea of making a guy face a minimum amount of batters or have to complete a whole inning. There is a lot of strategy on the use of relievers when it comes to how often they pitch, how many days rest they have, how many pitches they threw, etc. The 26-man roster would also allows for an extra pinch hitter to offset those matchups bringing even more strategy.

To speed up pitching changes, managers should be required signal before they hit the base line and once signaled, a pitcher should stop throwing and immediately make his way to the mound. A clock would be set at one minute and 20 seconds and starts the second the manager signals. The pitcher must be on the rubber and ready to pitch to a batter at that point or a ball will be awarded to the batter and every ten seconds another ball will be awarded.

TV could adjust by running a picture in picture 30-second commercial (allowing for pertinent stats/information to be displayed) while the pitcher is running out there leaving the announcer about 30 seconds for analysis of the new pitcher. The pitcher gets as many warm up tosses he can make under his 1 minute 20 second time.


 

Seems like a reasonable compromise. Count me in for this idea.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 hours ago, atomic said:

If you don't limit the amount of pitchers on a roster and you expand to 26 you are just going to have one more pitcher on the roster and even longer games.  I would rather them reduce the roster to 24 than to do what you are saying. 

I think you're exactly right.  It's been 30+ years of ever-increasing bullpen specialization.  Managers reflexively just add pitchers whenever they can.  You'd have to go a retirement home to find a manager who ever platooned at three positions, or used pinch hitting as a weapon instead of a last resort.

And I'd rather have a 20-man roster than a 27.  That would be one way to get me to agree on doing away with the DH - dramatically reduce roster sizes.  You would almost have to have pitchers who could play the field in a pinch.  When they had 13, 14, 15-man rosters in the 19th century almost everyone played multiple positions including pitchers.  That might slightly lower the quality of play, but so what?  I'd rather see athletes streched and challenged than have LOOGYs who throw 38 innings a year.

[osfan83]

20 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

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

One of my great sports watching accomplishments was staying up until 4AM to watch the curling gold medal game live......very happy I did. 

[Beef Supreme]

On 2/14/2019 at 2:21 PM, DrungoHazewood said:

Fine, you win. I'll move on to just banning all mid-inning pitching changes.

[Beef Supreme]

On 2/14/2019 at 4:21 PM, Tony-OH said:

I am completely in favor of the universal DH and 26 -man rosters though I don't think a team should be limited to the amount of pitchers they can keep. 

Personally, I like matchup relief pitchers and the strategy that comes with whether to use a guy now or later in a critical situation. I'm a Tony LaRussa guy and don't think he ruined baseball at all, but rather added strategy. I hate any idea of making a guy face a minimum amount of batters or have to complete a whole inning. There is a lot of strategy on the use of relievers when it comes to how often they pitch, how many days rest they have, how many pitches they threw, etc. The 26-man roster would also allows for an extra pinch hitter to offset those matchups bringing even more strategy.

To speed up pitching changes, managers should be required signal before they hit the base line and once signaled, a pitcher should stop throwing and immediately make his way to the mound. A clock would be set at one minute and 20 seconds and starts the second the manager signals. The pitcher must be on the rubber and ready to pitch to a batter at that point or a ball will be awarded to the batter and every ten seconds another ball will be awarded.

TV could adjust by running a picture in picture 30-second commercial (allowing for pertinent stats/information to be displayed) while the pitcher is running out there leaving the announcer about 30 seconds for analysis of the new pitcher. The pitcher gets as many warm up tosses he can make under his 1 minute 20 second time.


 

TV would have time to cut away for two 30-second spots. Stats could be displayed when they return to live broadcast. PiP commercials can be run more frequently during the rest of the telecast than they are currently; PiP commercials would not only make up for revenue lost by shortening the time of current pitching changes but would likely exceed current levels if sold aggressively.

Are not most pitching changes signaled by the time managers reach the foul line? Really, it doesn't matter when the signaling occurs if MLB sets a hard time limit for pitching changes. Occasionally, a pitching change is made despite the decision not yet having been made when the manager or coach left the dugout.

[weams]

On 2/14/2019 at 1:14 PM, atomic said:

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.

Most Americans don't care for soccer as a spectator sport. 

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, weams said:

Most Americans don't care for soccer as a spectator sport. 

It’s growing.   Looking at my TV listings, there are 4 foreign games on TV today.   

[weams]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

It’s growing.   Looking at my TV listings, there are 4 foreign games on TV today.   

How about the US ones?  Many?

[Frobby]

30 minutes ago, weams said:

How about the US ones?  Many?

Season hasn’t started.