What do the players have to complain about?

[Philip]

Interleague play is STUPID.

pitch clocks are stupid. Runner on second, 7-inning doubleheaders, three batter minimum, banning the shift,playing the Jays 19 times a season is stupid. Playing the Rangers only 6 times a season is stupid.

literally every major decision MLB has made in the last few years has accomplished nothing positive and something negative.

But all they care about is money, without addressing the problems. 
the problem of Free Agency is that players are paid, and paid too much, for their past and not for their future. Manny made it to FA at about 26. His stupid contract MAY be worthwhile. But Simien’s 7/175 contract with Texas is going to be a fiasco.

rework free agency, give minor leaguers a voice so they can address their awful conditions, eliminate interleague play and division-focused scheduling and done.

[Sports Guy]

I think pitch clocks are smart.  They don’t need all the time in between pitches.  Keep up the pace of play.  

[Philip]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I think pitch clocks are smart.  They don’t need all the time in between pitches.  Keep up the pace of play.  

No, you’re wrong, pitch clocks save nothing. And they clutter up everything. You’re Suggesting that saving 10 seconds per pitch will have a meaningful affect on the quality of gameplay and you are wrong. The way to make the game more interesting is not to shorten it by five minutes per game, which is more than the pitch clock fiasco would do, it is to increase activity on the bases.

Saving one minute of gameplay here and two minutes here and three minutes here won’t have a meaningful affect on the length of the game, and the length of the game is not a problem.

edit: However, pitch clocks in the complaint about them are just one minor thing. They illustrate the meaningless thinking of the decision makers, who focus on such foolish things instead of addressing any of the root problems.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Philip

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, Philip said:

No, you’re wrong, pitch clocks save nothing. And they clutter up everything. You’re Suggesting that saving 10 seconds per pitch will have a meaningful affect on the quality of gameplay and you are wrong. The way to make the game more interesting is not to shorten it by five minutes per game, which is more than the pitch clock fiasco would do, it is to increase activity on the bases.

Saving one minute of gameplay here and two minutes here and three minutes here won’t have a meaningful affect on the length of the game, and the length of the game is not a problem.

edit: However, pitch clocks in the complaint about them are just one minor thing. They illustrate the meaningless thinking of the decision makers, who focus on such foolish things instead of addressing any of the root problems.

Lol.  

Pace of play is a real issue in the sport.  The pitch clock helps move the game along.  It doesn’t clutter anything.  It just prevents the pitcher from standing around and going through the bs so many of them do.

It has nothing to do with saving time..it has everything to do with pace of play and, unless you are completely clueless, pace of play is a huge issue and one that is basically recognized by every fan.

[waroriole]

16 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lol.  

Pace of play is a real issue in the sport.  The pitch clock helps move the game along.  It doesn’t clutter anything.  It just prevents the pitcher from standing around and going through the bs so many of them do.

It has nothing to do with saving time..it has everything to do with pace of play and, unless you are completely clueless, pace of play is a huge issue and one that is basically recognized by every fan.

More important than pace of play is the quality of play. I think fans are sick of the all or nothing approach. The three true outcomes are at an all time high and reducing my enjoyment of the game, and I doubt I’m alone with that. 
 

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care about the pace of play that much. They’ve made some changes to address it. 

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, waroriole said:

More important than pace of play is the quality of play. I think fans are sick of the all or nothing approach. The three true outcomes are at an all time high and reducing my enjoyment of the game, and I doubt I’m alone with that. 
 

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care about the pace of play that much. They’ve made some changes to address it. 

Well quality of play is part of it.  The pitchers take forever and the hitters are 37 pitches per at bat.  It’s all part of it.  It all goes together.

That being said, I don’t think they can change the 3 outcome stuff.  

[Philip]

30 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lol.  

Pace of play is a real issue in the sport.  The pitch clock helps move the game along.  It doesn’t clutter anything.  It just prevents the pitcher from standing around and going through the bs so many of them do.

It has nothing to do with saving time..it has everything to do with pace of play and, unless you are completely clueless, pace of play is a huge issue and one that is basically recognized by every fan.

I don’t care about “pace of play” it is a meaningless issue. I care about action I care about activity. I want more base runners, fewer home runs, fewer strikeouts. Mike Hargrove took forever for every single pitch. Didn’t make his games one whit less interesting. Fergie Jenkins could pitch a complete game in an hour and a half, and his games weren’t more interesting. In much of the delay it’s because it TV and radio advertising anyway, I would be delighted to get away from some of that, but not because it makes the games drag on.

The time of a game is tangential to the interest.

That is, however, why good quality announcers are important, and it does emphasize how bad ours are.

game interest is not determined by game length.

remember that, children…

Edit: However, if you like it, that’s OK, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

[NCRaven]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well quality of play is part of it.  The pitchers take forever and the hitters are 37 pitches per at bat.  It’s all part of it.  It all goes together.

That being said, I don’t think they can change the 3 outcome stuff.  

I think Drungo has lots of ideas on that.

[panick]

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Lol.  

Pace of play is a real issue in the sport.  The pitch clock helps move the game along.  It doesn’t clutter anything.  It just prevents the pitcher from standing around and going through the bs so many of them do.

It has nothing to do with saving time..it has everything to do with pace of play and, unless you are completely clueless, pace of play is a huge issue and one that is basically recognized by every fan.

While I agree that there should be a pitch clock, many times the pitchers are standing around because the batters keep stepping out of the batter's box to re-tighten their batting gloves, even after they have just taken a pitch. There was a rule put in one year about batters not being allowed to step out of the box after taking a pitch. The rule was obviously not enforced. If the penalties for the pitcher taking too long to throw a pitch was an automatic ball call, they would probably pitch in the required time. If the batters faced an automatic strike call, they wouldn't keep stepping out of the box.

[orioles119]

I don't understand anyone who complains about the length of the game.  Anything related to it needs to be eliminated (pitch clock, 3 batter rule).  Also, anything related to altering competition - like the runner at 2nd in extras should be eliminated as well.

[luismatos4prez]

I'm pro pitch clocks. Go back and watch a game from the 60s. They pitched the ball, caught it from the catcher, and got back on the mound. Keep the game moving.

The players should be complaining about non-competitive teams (i.e. ours) and service time manipulation. Both require a new system. I would support

1) a salary floor (maybe 80M or 1/3 of the luxury tax),

2) a new way of deciding the draft order (maybe all non-playoff teams are randomly chosen for spots 1-20),

3) and an age-based Free Agency system (maybe everyone becomes a FA at 29, a stud like Machado can go to arbitration way more than 3 times)

[Yossarian]

2 minutes ago, panick said:

While I agree that there should be a pitch clock, many times the pitchers are standing around because the batters keep stepping out of the batter's box to re-tighten their batting gloves, even after they have just taken a pitch. There was a rule put in one year about batters not being allowed to step out of the box after taking a pitch. The rule was obviously not enforced. If the penalties for the pitcher taking too long to throw a pitch was an automatic ball call, they would probably pitch in the required time. If the batters faced an automatic strike call, they wouldn't keep stepping out of the box.

Are they stepping out to only adjust the batting gloves?  Or are they going over in their mind what they think the next pitch might be and where it will be located?  I always thought the adjusting of the batting gloves was just a time-wasting tic they have while they think about the next pitch.  You hardly ever see them look down at the third base coach any more.  It's all just a pitcher-batter chess match.

[Yossarian]

Perhaps expanding the strike zone to the actual limits, as defined in the rule book, would help move the game along.  We have low strike zone umpires and high strike zone umpires, but rearely do we have umpires that call the entire strike zone.  This may also solve the three true outcome at-bats by forcing players to shorten their swings and "slap" the ball more when it is on the edges of the strike zone.

[JR Oriole]

I definitely get sick of the batters stepping out to adjust their batting gloves (which can't move all that much on a pitch that the batter doesn't swing at) and stare up and down the bat as if it looks any different than 10 seconds earlier.  I would love to see them forced into the box where they have to stay until the AB is over.  And I would love to see the pitchers get the ball from the catcher and be in their windup within a few seconds.  Nomar and Ortiz used to drive me nuts with all of their fidgeting out of the box after every pitch.  But I also wish teams in basketball and football had fewer time-outs so I wouldn't have to sit through as many commercial breaks at the end of halves.  

I also wish there were fewer foul balls.  I don't have the stats on it but it just feels like there are a lot more, which I suppose makes sense given that every reliever throws 95 and above now.  

[Sports Guy]

14 minutes ago, Philip said:

I don’t care about “pace of play” it is a meaningless issue. I care about action I care about activity. I want more base runners, fewer home runs, fewer strikeouts. Mike Hargrove took forever for every single pitch. Didn’t make his games one whit less interesting. Fergie Jenkins could pitch a complete game in an hour and a half, and his games weren’t more interesting. In much of the delay it’s because it TV and radio advertising anyway, I would be delighted to get away from some of that, but not because it makes the games drag on.

The time of a game is tangential to the interest.

That is, however, why good quality announcers are important, and it does emphasize how bad ours are.

game interest is not determined by game length.

remember that, children…

Edit: However, if you like it, that’s OK, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

No one cares if you don’t care about pace of play.  Your opinion is completely irrelevant…as is mine or anyone else’s.  What does matter is that overall, it is widely acknowledged that pace of play is an issue as an overall general Point and it needs to be fixed.

A pitch clock is the easiest and most efficient way to do that.