MLB is deadening the baseball for 2021

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

We can just disagree on that one.

I find walks tedious, especially multiple ones in the same inning.

I've got to agree with you. While I do think there are too many strikeouts, strikeouts can be exciting as well. A walk is boring in every way possible. 

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I've got to agree with you. While I do think there are too many strikeouts, strikeouts can be exciting as well. A walk is boring in every way possible. 

When teams average 5-6 strikeouts a game, watching a pitcher strike out 12 guys can be pretty exciting.   Watching 10 strikeouts every frigging game is incredibly boring.   

As to walks, I find them no more inherently boring than strikeouts.   The count is 3-2, do I think it’s more exciting if the next pitch is a strike instead of a ball?   No.   Do I think having one out and nobody on base is more exciting than having a runner on first and nobody out?   No.

I’m not a big fan of watching walks, but the way the game is right now I don’t find them more boring than strikeouts.    

 

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

When teams average 5-6 strikeouts a game, watching a pitcher strike out 12 guys can be pretty exciting.   Watching 10 strikeouts every frigging game is incredibly boring.   

As to walks, I find them no more inherently boring than strikeouts.   The count is 3-2, do I think it’s more exciting if the next pitch is a strike instead of a ball?   No.   Do I think having one out and nobody on base is more exciting than having a runner on first and nobody out?   No.

I’m not a big fan of watching walks, but the way the game is right now I don’t find them more boring than strikeouts.   

Outstanding performances are exciting.  But we see less and less of those as the quality of the league increases. Notice that with the reduction in overt PED use, despite the highest HR rates ever we don't really have players regularly approaching Ruth/Maris, much less Bonds.  Nobody hits .350, pitchers are used less and less and never approach records. There were as many 15 strikeout games 20-50 years ago as today.

As for walks, I sometimes wonder if baseball couldn't have taken some other approach. In the very early game walks weren't a thing.  The whole point of the game was for the pitcher to deliver a ball that the batter could put in play and cool stuff happens.  With little or no protective gear and catchers standing 10 or more feet behind the plate it was difficult to throw really hard.  There were limits on snapping your wrist, or keeping a stiff elbow like cricket, all to keep pitchers from getting too overpowering, to keep the game moving along with lots of action.  But someone always pushes the limits, and eventually they came up with the concept of called balls, and along with that walks.

Maybe if they'd instead done something else... like after X number of unreachable pitches you had to toss the ball up underhanded to the batter.  Then there is no walks, almost no strikeouts, and the game evolves as the early founders intended: a battle between fielders and batters.  Also the side benefit of reducing pitcher injuries by 95%.

I know, I know, the way baseball actually evolved is perfect and all other ways are dumb.

[MurphDogg]

In case anyone without an Athletic subscription wanted to read about it, MLB.com has an article up now.

[webbrick2010]

Walks to Kenny Lofton or Wille Wilson in the day were very exciting

They often were turned into doubles, triples and runs

Bringing back base stealing would make the game more exciting ( to me anyhow)

I pine for the days of big outfields, which required speedy (and strong armed) OF'ers who were often contact hitters who stole bases.

Baseball built a bunch of parks to create extra home runs, and that's what we got

[LookinUp]

I hope the O's use a humidor.

[scOtt]

19 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

True.  Launch angles play a part.

I really don't care about home runs being decreased....I'm more concerned about balls in play overall.  It's getting obnoxious seeing so many strikeouts in a game.  Part of it is the stigma that hitters don't care about striking out anymore...not striking out 30 years ago was a badge of honor and if you were Reggie Jackson you were an outlier that just didn't care...and you hit enough homers to offset striking out.  Hitters these days don't care.

But...yeah, the game needs to get back to more balls in play and I'm not sure how they do that.  Some have mentioned moving the mound back which I have mixed feelings on.  

[DrungoHazewood]

On 2/8/2021 at 4:36 PM, NCRaven said:

At least MLB recognizes that there's an issue and is responding in some way, even if it's gradually.  I know some here run down baseball for being slow to adapt.  But, I rather like the fact that they don't screw around with the game in the way that football and basketball have.

Of course baseball hasn't changed much of any rules in over a century and home runs have gone from two a week to two a game, while Willie Keeler once struck out twice in a season and I'm pretty sure last year Chris Davis once struck out seven times in a single batting practice.

[NCRaven]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Of course baseball hasn't changed much of any rules in over a century and home runs have gone from two a week to two a game, while Willie Keeler once struck out twice in a season and I'm pretty sure last year Chris Davis once struck out seven times in a single batting practice.

I agree with many of your suggestions for improving action in the game, particularly related to increasing balls in play.  Most changes to the game didn’t involve rule changes.  You’ve pointed out that stadiums are tiny compared to those in the past.  I like your ideas on future stadium construction and renovation.  We can’t make players less athletic, but I like the idea of increasing size of the bats to reduce bat speed.

[Can_of_corn]

13 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I agree with many of your suggestions for improving action in the game, particularly related to increasing balls in play.  Most changes to the game didn’t involve rule changes.  You’ve pointed out that stadiums are tiny compared to those in the past.  I like your ideas on future stadium construction and renovation.  We can’t make players less athletic, but I like the idea of increasing size of the bats to reduce bat speed.

Sure you can.

[jabba72]

Bigger parks and limit pickoff attempts are decent ideas to increase balls in play. Those would be things worth exploring IMO.  

[NCRaven]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure you can.

James Caan’t 

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, NCRaven said:

You’ve pointed out that stadiums are tiny compared to those in the past.  I like your ideas on future stadium construction and renovation.

Probably on the whole they're smaller, but also different.  Fences started out just marking the boundary of the property, and often teams weren't flush with cash so the lot they built on was often small and irregularly shaped.  So parks often had very short foul lines but other parts were very deep.  For example, League Park in Cleveland was 375 to left, 410 to LC, 460 to center, but only 340 to RC and 290 down the RF line.  The RF area was bounded by a street, and the Indians (then the NL Spiders) certainly didn't have the money in 1891 to pay Cleveland to move the street.

In the 1880s the team now known as the Cubs played in a park that had at least a few dimensions under 200'.  The Polo Grounds were just over 250' down the lines.  But when Braves Field opened in Boston the dimensions were 402-402-440-402-402.  Eight homers were hit there the first year, I believe all of them were inside-the-park.

But I do wish that baseball would at least enforce the rules already on the books (since the 50s all parks are supposed to be 330' or more down the lines and 400' to center, I'm not sure 10% of parks built since then meet those minimums), but would prefer significantly longer distances and minimums in the gaps.  But we will probably never go back to the triple and ISTP homer rates of the deadball era because outfielders are so much better.

[scOtt]

15 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure you can.

MY GOD! It's a great movie with GREAT actors and great actresses...

but what a terrible, nasty scene to watch! YEEEE!

[scOtt]

20 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Of course baseball hasn't changed much of any rules in over a century and home runs have gone from two a week to two a game, while Willie Keeler once struck out twice in a season and I'm pretty sure last year Chris Davis once struck out seven times in a single batting practice.

Well he was wee...

wee-ish.