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- Thread starter Thump
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i dont mind either of these "changes" actually. i kinda prefer them calling the higher strike (spoken like the dad of a pitcher). but I will say NO to any type of clock involved. tell their asses to hurry up but no clocks.
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While we're at it:
1)Reduce amount of warm-up pitches on the mound.
2) Limit the amount of substitutions in a game. In the era of set-up man, middle relief, and late relief, it stretches a game's length.
3) And finally, no more throwing the ball around the horn after a strike 3 call with bases empty.
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MLB plans to test new extra-innings rules in rookie ball, with Joe Torre's approval
Major League Baseball plans on testing a rule change in the lowest levels of the minor leagues this season that automatically would place a runner on second base at the start of extra innings, a distinct break from the game’s orthodoxy that nonetheless has wide-ranging support at the highest levels of the league, sources familiar with the plan told Yahoo Sports.
A derivation of the rule has been used in international baseball for nearly a decade and will be implemented in the World Baseball Classic this spring. MLB’s desire to test it in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Arizona League this summer is part of an effort to understand its wide in-game consequences – and whether its implementation at higher levels, and even the major leagues, may be warranted.
“Let’s see what it looks like,” said Joe Torre, the longtime major league manager who’s now MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer and a strong proponent of the testing. “It’s not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time.
“It’s baseball. I’m just trying to get back to that, where this is the game that people come to watch. It doesn’t mean you’re going to score. You’re just trying to play baseball.”
While the specifics of the rule are not final, the current plan is to start with a runner on second base in the 10th and every inning thereafter. As baseball grapples with ways to increase action in a game with a record-low rate of balls in play, changing its extra-innings rules emerged as a solution with multiple potential benefits.
The current plan in the minor leagues is to start with a runner on second base in the 10th and every inning thereafter. (Getty Images)
In addition to the increase in action a forced runner would create, so too would a philosophical element enter the game: to bunt or not to bunt. The other advantages are not quite as Shakespearean but certainly pragmatic. Amid concern about fatigue and travel, the presumption of shorter games with the new rules could save players from the rigors of extra-innings affairs that slog into the night. Further, the taxation on young arms – especially those in the minor leagues – would be mitigated.
“What really initiated it is sitting in the dugout in the 15th inning and realizing everybody is going to the plate trying to hit a home run and everyone is trying to end the game themselves,” Torre said. “I don’t know what inning is the right inning. Maybe the 11th or 12th inning. But there are a number of reasons.”
[Related: Rob Manfred having ongoing talks with Indians about Chief Wahoo]
Even if it is a success, it would likely take years for the major leagues to adopt the changes. The strategy of implementing rules in the minor leagues, which MLB can do without the players’ approval, is canny: Once those players graduate to the major leagues, their familiarity with them – such as a pitch clock, which currently is in place in the minors – would allow easier adoption.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb-pl...-ball-with-joe-torres-approval-224914115.html
Major League Baseball plans on testing a rule change in the lowest levels of the minor leagues this season that automatically would place a runner on second base at the start of extra innings, a distinct break from the game’s orthodoxy that nonetheless has wide-ranging support at the highest levels of the league, sources familiar with the plan told Yahoo Sports.
A derivation of the rule has been used in international baseball for nearly a decade and will be implemented in the World Baseball Classic this spring. MLB’s desire to test it in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Arizona League this summer is part of an effort to understand its wide in-game consequences – and whether its implementation at higher levels, and even the major leagues, may be warranted.
“Let’s see what it looks like,” said Joe Torre, the longtime major league manager who’s now MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer and a strong proponent of the testing. “It’s not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time.
“It’s baseball. I’m just trying to get back to that, where this is the game that people come to watch. It doesn’t mean you’re going to score. You’re just trying to play baseball.”
While the specifics of the rule are not final, the current plan is to start with a runner on second base in the 10th and every inning thereafter. As baseball grapples with ways to increase action in a game with a record-low rate of balls in play, changing its extra-innings rules emerged as a solution with multiple potential benefits.
The current plan in the minor leagues is to start with a runner on second base in the 10th and every inning thereafter. (Getty Images)
In addition to the increase in action a forced runner would create, so too would a philosophical element enter the game: to bunt or not to bunt. The other advantages are not quite as Shakespearean but certainly pragmatic. Amid concern about fatigue and travel, the presumption of shorter games with the new rules could save players from the rigors of extra-innings affairs that slog into the night. Further, the taxation on young arms – especially those in the minor leagues – would be mitigated.
“What really initiated it is sitting in the dugout in the 15th inning and realizing everybody is going to the plate trying to hit a home run and everyone is trying to end the game themselves,” Torre said. “I don’t know what inning is the right inning. Maybe the 11th or 12th inning. But there are a number of reasons.”
[Related: Rob Manfred having ongoing talks with Indians about Chief Wahoo]
Even if it is a success, it would likely take years for the major leagues to adopt the changes. The strategy of implementing rules in the minor leagues, which MLB can do without the players’ approval, is canny: Once those players graduate to the major leagues, their familiarity with them – such as a pitch clock, which currently is in place in the minors – would allow easier adoption.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb-pl...-ball-with-joe-torres-approval-224914115.html
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
What Jay Bruce's Sudden Retirement Should Mean for Baseball and the Shift
Since 2015, the use of shifts has more than tripled, from 9.6% of all pitches to 32.1% this year. Over that time, left-handed hitters such as Bruce, Brian McCann, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter and Kyle Seager have seen their careers turn for the worse because of the shifts they face in which one or two infielders position themselves on the outfield grass to their pull side.
Shift use has exploded because shifts accomplish their intended task—they depress offense. They are especially punitive to left-handed hitters who don’t run well. Take a look at what happened to Bruce’s hitting in the second half of his career as shifts grew against him:
Bruce lost 107 points off his pull-side batting average and 92 points on his batting average on balls in play to that side. If Bruce had been able to maintain the same pull-side hitting in the second half of his career as he did in the first half, he would have had another 59 hits.
Maybe Bruce just declined quickly, the way some players do. Even if you grant that premise, there is no doubt the shift worsened his decline. Since 2015, the major league batting average on balls in play is .298. But when Bruce faced a shift, he saw his BABIP drop 82 points below league average. Only Albert Pujols had a worse shift-affected BABIP than Bruce did over these seven seasons.
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MLB will experiment this year in the minors with two versions of curtailing the shift: keeping infielders on the dirt, and then in the second half of the season possibly banning three infielders on one side of second base.
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The percentage of at bats in which the ball is not put in play (home runs, walks, strikeouts, hit batters) is up to 38%. And in the 62% of at-bats when a hitter manages to put a ball into play, the shift is taking away hits and affecting the careers of players like Bruce.
Seven years of evidence is enough. The shift is harming baseball and must go. The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. It is too late for Bruce, but not for the next generation of hitters—and fans.
Entire article: https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/04/22/jay-bruce-retirement-shift-the-opener
Since 2015, the use of shifts has more than tripled, from 9.6% of all pitches to 32.1% this year. Over that time, left-handed hitters such as Bruce, Brian McCann, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter and Kyle Seager have seen their careers turn for the worse because of the shifts they face in which one or two infielders position themselves on the outfield grass to their pull side.
Shift use has exploded because shifts accomplish their intended task—they depress offense. They are especially punitive to left-handed hitters who don’t run well. Take a look at what happened to Bruce’s hitting in the second half of his career as shifts grew against him:
Bruce lost 107 points off his pull-side batting average and 92 points on his batting average on balls in play to that side. If Bruce had been able to maintain the same pull-side hitting in the second half of his career as he did in the first half, he would have had another 59 hits.
Maybe Bruce just declined quickly, the way some players do. Even if you grant that premise, there is no doubt the shift worsened his decline. Since 2015, the major league batting average on balls in play is .298. But when Bruce faced a shift, he saw his BABIP drop 82 points below league average. Only Albert Pujols had a worse shift-affected BABIP than Bruce did over these seven seasons.
.
.
.
MLB will experiment this year in the minors with two versions of curtailing the shift: keeping infielders on the dirt, and then in the second half of the season possibly banning three infielders on one side of second base.
.
.
.
The percentage of at bats in which the ball is not put in play (home runs, walks, strikeouts, hit batters) is up to 38%. And in the 62% of at-bats when a hitter manages to put a ball into play, the shift is taking away hits and affecting the careers of players like Bruce.
Seven years of evidence is enough. The shift is harming baseball and must go. The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. It is too late for Bruce, but not for the next generation of hitters—and fans.
Entire article: https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/04/22/jay-bruce-retirement-shift-the-opener
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I have an idea, don't be a dead pull hitter. Or, don't strike out as much...
I mean, to me, the problem with the shift is, it should also take the outside half of the plate off the menu for the pitcher which means you only have to worry about the inside half.... which should make things easier... it doesn't work that way though because these dumbasses still try to pull the pitches away and bounce harmless balls to the 2B area instead of hitting an outside corner location where its pitched and making the 3B wish he was never born.
I mean, to me, the problem with the shift is, it should also take the outside half of the plate off the menu for the pitcher which means you only have to worry about the inside half.... which should make things easier... it doesn't work that way though because these dumbasses still try to pull the pitches away and bounce harmless balls to the 2B area instead of hitting an outside corner location where its pitched and making the 3B wish he was never born.
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