How about we just leave the great game of baseball alone?
How about we just leave the great game of baseball alone?
Bingo. Catering to die-hards and letting the casual fans wilt away will kill baseball. I am definitely in the casual fan category, and it's just hard for me to get amped up for a random game in June the same way I can flip on a random NFL or NBA game and be engaged. Not only do the need to address pace of play, but I think they need to shorten the season as well. No game ever feels that important with 162 of them.
And speeding up the game to a 2-1/2 hour contest instead of 3+ is exactly where my suggestion comes from. Too many batters wait until it is 2-and-2 before they get serious about putting a ball in play. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to sit through all those pitches waiting for something to happen. Reducing a strike and a ball from the count forces pitchers not to waste pitches and batters not to be complacent at the plate before producing a result. Sure, purists will hate the idea but the speeding up is what today's microwave attention-spanned fans want.
It beats the other ideas I hear like pitch clocks, putting a runner on second to start each half-inning from the 10th on, more Designated Hitters, requiring pitchers to stay in for three batters, etc. THOSE damage the game more in my mind than eliminating waste pitches.
Just wait until the first instant replay challenge about whether the pitcher got the pitch off before the pitch clock expired while we all sit on our asses hoping New York can get it right in under five minutes. TVs everywhere will start changing channels.
I miss the old Mile High Stadium.
rest - http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2...tch-clock-2022Major League Baseball is prepared to scuttle the implementation of a pitch clock until at least 2022 as part of a wide-ranging proposal to the MLB Players Association that would include the ability to implement a three-batter-minimum rule for pitchers and roster-size changes in 2020, sources familiar with the plan told ESPN.
MLB also is proposing limitations on position players' usage as pitchers, getting rid of the waiver trading period, further cutting mound visits and potentially shortening inning breaks, sources said.
The proposal, sent by the league on Tuesday, is the latest in a back-and-forth bargaining session centered around the league's unilateral ability to implement a 20-second pitch clock. Amid tension between the parties stemming from a free-agent market that players have found unsatisfactory, the league, which is testing the pitch clock in spring training games, offered not to revisit the issue until after the 2021 expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement as part of a broader set of rule changes.
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THIS ONES FOR JOHNWOULD YOU RATHER WIN UGLY, OR LOSE PRETTY?
Because baseball is and always has been a marathon. The teams that are able to sustain that marathon and win a playoff spot on the last day of the season would probably argue against a shorter season.
Plus, it would be a hard transition at this point because so many players have performance clauses in their contracts. With a shorter season, those metrics would be harder to reach and existing contracts would have to be re-written.
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