Never!
Posted on 08/16/2018 8:46:22 AM PDT by DFG
“How about changing the rules where a team can only use two pitchers in a game.”
MAYBE just a rule that says a pitcher must record 3 outs, or face 9 batters to be relieved.
Amen. I also hate the rapid encroachment of all the meaningless statistics like “exit velocity” and “launch angle.” WTH cares?
The game was changed for the worse with the designated hitter. At the least they should eliminate that rule. I would also require that the number of pitchers per game be limited. The rule could be suspended in extra innings. Games in which there are three pitchers in one inning are ridiculous. I would propose that when the roster is submitted at the beginning of the game that the manager must designate five pitchers and they can’t exceed that unless there is an injury or the game goes into extra innings.
Eliminate the union.
Never!
While I agree there are more players today that swing for the fences at almost every at bat that is NOT the reason hits are down.
Hits are down because the pitching today is so much better and difficult than the days of old. I'm a former old time Cardinals fan and remember the great Todd Worrell. At the time (early eighties) he was one of the hardest throwers in baseball with a mid nineties fastball. Today almost everybody throws a fastball in the nineties and many are consistently very high nineties with movement. Mix that with a change up or off speed pitch 15mph or more sometimes slower and you have little chance of even getting wood on the ball. Then we have the baseball norm of using 4-5 relievers a game so hitters don't get the time to adjust and there is always a fresh arm throwing bullets on the mound.
Baseball used to be a passion of mine when I was kid but not any more. It's slow, it's boring and I can't stand to watch it anymore.
However, I love watching the Little League World Series and always look forward to it each August. Great kids, great athletic abilities and great attitudes. A local team, Grosse Pointe, just made it to Williamsport...........Watch for them to go all the way.
But back to baseball.....They need to speed up the pitchers and keep the batters in the box.
If they're concerned about the rising strikeouts because of the bigger and stronger pitchers, move the mound back another 5 - 10 ft, it'll give the batters a split second more to read the pitch.
Young MLB players today have spent their lives playing high level travel ball with excellent coaching since they were probably 9 years old. The kids today start hitting the indoor batting cages with their teams as early as March and the parents are forced to go along with it if they want their kid to play on that travel team.
I know a guy who coaches a 12 and under girls fast pitch softball team whose daughter was a 4 year all American pitcher for the University of Michigan. The team he coaches is a national travel team and basically a farm team for each ensuing age group above his within the Bulldog system. Beginning in early January, he starts working with all the girl pitchers in their system at a local gym that has indoor pitching tunnels and a couple batting cages. And the parents of course have to pay him for his coaching.............
That's serious softball/baseball and what too frequently happens is that by the time kids graduate from high school, they're burned out. A friend of mine's grandson was a stand out baseball player who in his senior year was being offered college scholarships to play but he turned them all down because he was totally burned out and didn't want to play anymore.....
Maybe it’s a little late but I think they should mandate bigger outfields. A triple to me is ten times more exciting than an HR but it’s impossible to do in a small ballpark.
That's actually not a bad idea. Just a starter and a reliever (if necessary). Not sure how they'd enforce that rule as teams would find a way around it by having a pitcher fake an injury. Maybe they could force that pitcher to go on the 15-day disabled list to discourage that practice.
The constant pitching changes are just not good for the game and head coaches that bring in pitchers to face just one batter ought to be shot! Not only does it slow the game down but makes it unbearable to watch in the later innings.
I agree 100%. I watch or listen to almost every Dodger game & as many NL games as I can. I REFUSE to watch any AL games. I've never accepted the DH, so I don't really consider taking it a way as a rule change.
I think if you eliminate the DH, it would reduce the number of pitching changes. I don't have it, but it would be interesting to see the number of pitcher changes in NL vs AL.
By that same token it would be interesting to see the strikeouts in NL vs AL. It seems the DH leads to more "swing for the fences" hitters.
I wouldn't want to see the number of pitchers limited. It does get very ridiculous when the rosters expand in September, but otherwise it adds to the strategy. Maybe reduce the number of pitchers allowed after roster expansion, but otherwise, I wouldn't go for it.
And he's never had a sacrifice fly in his career! That to me is the tell tale sign either they are not coaching him correctly or he is simply not a good enough hitter to be in the majors. Yes he has a lot of home runs but that's only because he is getting a pass to swing from his heals that other players don't get. Most players can't get away with what Joey is doing and stay in the majors. I think the clock is about to run out though if he can't learn to adjust his at bat to what is needed in the situation.
Braves vs. Cubs -- July 22, 1997
Greg Maddux pitched a complete game for the Braves. The game lasted 2:07 in total.
He threw 76 pitches. 63 of them were strikes.
He only went to a two-ball count TWICE in the entire game.
What really hurts the NL is when the pitcher's spot comes up in the lineup late in a very close game. It leads to managing decisions about a pitcher that you'd never see in the American League.
I'm OK with eliminating the DH, but with one condition: Any pitcher whose batting average is below .120 at any time after June 1st must be banished to the disabled list for the rest of the season.
(I'm kidding, but you get the point.)
It’s going to be ugly for years until the adjustment is made and contact hitters are valued again. I don’t want shifts limited or relief pitcher usage limited. I don’t want the rules changed for something that anyone could have done and probably should have done long ago. The problem is the adjustment is going to take such a long time, I don’t think it has even started in the pipe yet. So we might get shift restrictions because they can’t wait that long.
I would love to have balls and strikes called electronically somehow, exactly by the book’s zone, different sized hitter, different strike zone. Altuve should have a smaller zone than Stanton. But in this era it would make it even uglier. A lot of games would go 12+ innings, take two hours, and end 1-0. Which is great once and a while, but not every other game.
Freegards
What really hurts the NL is when the pitcher's spot comes up in the lineup late in a very close game. It leads to managing decisions about a pitcher that you'd never see in the American League.
For me, that's the beauty of NL baseball. Those critical decisions a manager needs to make. Do you pinch hit in the 5th or 6th inning in a close game to get a run, or leave in a pitcher who is doing well & has only thrown 75 pitches? What if it is the 1st of a 3 or 4 game series.... do you go to the bullpen early in the game? Do you bunt your pitcher or let him possibly hit into a double play? What if you just used your bullpen for the last 2 or 3 nights in a row?
None of this happens in the AL - you just let your DH go up & swing for the fences.
Joe DiMaggio - 361 HRs, 369 Ks
Ted Williams - 521 HRs, 709 Ks
Mark McGwire - 583 HRs, 1596 Ks
Barry Bonds - 762 HRs, 1539 Ks
David Ortiz - 541 HRs, 1768 Ks
Alex Rodriguez - 696 HRs, 2287 Ks
Giancarlo Stanton - 297 HRs, 1297 Ks
And the trend of sluggers either hitting a home run or striking out is, as you can see, getting worse. Of course, the make-up of pitching staffs that throw as hard as they can for short periods isn't helping the strikeout totals.
There are some pretty in-depth analyses on why games are longer. The major culprit is actually time between pitches. Either the pitcher is slow and tentative or the batter is stepping out.
The DH rule was adopted in 1973. Longer games weren’t noticeable until the 1980s, when commercial breaks between innings grew longer. Likely this lead to players becoming too patient. And now we get replays too!
Think of it this way:
1. There hasn't been a .400 hitter in MLB since Ted Williams in 1941.
2. Imagine if you could somehow manage to groom two young hitters today who were good enough to hit .400 consistently.
3. Put them on the same team, and in the same lineup. In fact, have them bat in the #1 and #2 spots in your batting order.
4. As good as those two guys are, they are each going to be making an OUT for 60% of their at-bats (let's ignore walks and other methods of getting on base for the sake of this discussion).
5. All other things being equal (which is admittedly a sterile way to look at this in a dynamic game), those two batters are only going to BOTH get a hit about 16% of the times they come up in the lineup consecutively.
When you look at #5, it's easy to see how the statistical/analytical approach to baseball has pushed the contact hitters out of favor. Getting runners on base and moving them around to score runs is a process where the odds are very much stacked against the offensive team. With those kinds of odds against getting multiple runners on base even with two .400 hitters at the top of your lineup, does it even make sense to play baseball that way at all?
Because Professional Baseball wasn’t boring enough...
It is painful to see these guys whiff constantly. Tedious. No bat control.
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