Baseball will be different next season. Here's an article on mlb.com that breaks it down. The three big changes will be a pitch clock, a ban on shifts, and larger bases.
The pitch clock is a fundamental change. Baseball has always been a "timeless" sport and the introduction of a timer is unfortunate. I've always felt that the best way to improve pace-of-play was to give the umpires the authority to enforce the rules. Alas, people don't pay to see the umpires. They want to see their heroes and if their hero has to step out of the box and adjust his velcro straps after every pitch than so be it. No one likes to watch a pitcher take forever to throw, but if he's your guy and he gets the job done then it's hard to complain. But with nine-inning games routinely going over three hours something had to be done. Certainly we know that TV has the biggest impact. Commercial breaks are too long and there's too much time devoted to TV stuff like those abominable in-game interviews. If I could change one thing about TV broadcasts it would be to ban all TV people from the playing field and dugouts during the game!
In the end I think the clock is a good change. Pace-of-play is important. Pitcher-batter duels should be tense and exciting and not interminable. The news from the minor leagues is generally positive. Players have adapted to the clock without much trouble. Game times have decreased by 20-30 minutes. That's not a lot, but it's a start. At least this rule will actually speed the game up unlike the stupid three-batter rule which has not made a dent in game times.
Banning the shift is a mistake in my mind. I think a player should be able to position himself anywhere he thinks the batter is going to hit the ball. In 2023 all four infielders will have to be on the infield dirt when the pitch is thrown. Also, the SS and 3B have to stay on the left side of the infield and the 1B and 2B have to stay on the right side. We won't see Brandon Crawford or Evan Longoria in short right field any more! This move is supposed to create more balls in play. I'm not so sure. Some players will benefit, but the effect will be small. I think this change is to appease the fans. Baseball fans are traditionalists and they hate the idea that their favorite lefty masher hits a screamer through the 3-4 hole, something that's been a hit for decades, and the SS or 3B sitting in RF makes a play on it and gets the batter out. There will no longer be four outfielder alignments in MLB. That doesn't mean you couldn't move an OF over to cover that spot. Maybe we'll see an occasional LF scooting over to short RF!
The final change has to do with the bases. They will be a little larger. And second base has been slightly re-positioned to better align with the other bases. That re-alignment is overdo of course. The perpendicular lines (to the foul lines) drawn from outfield edges of first base and third base meet, right now, in the middle of second base. The base will be moved in, toward the plate, so that those perpendiculars meet at the outfield side of the base (the apex of the infield diamond), which makes more sense. (Here's an article with a diagram.)
MLB wants more stolen bases. The quants have shown that the risk/reward for steals is too low for most situations and teams have run less as a result. Fans miss speedsters and their daring base-swiping exploits. Maybe Billy Hamilton will get a job again! Also, throws to first base will be limited. That's a weird one. If base stealers know that the pitcher has used up his two pickoff attempts he will be more likely to run. I never had a problem with pickoff throws. I don't think limiting them will help the game. But I do like the larger bases, and I'm OK with encouraging the running game. We all know that pitchers control the flow--catchers don't throw out base-stealers if pitchers can't keep them close.
Overall I think the trend is for more athleticism. Pitchers will have to shorten their deliveries to keep runners honest. And they'll have to do my favorite thing: WORK QUICKLY! Whether this will result in better outcomes for batters is hard to say. Certainly middle infielders will have to work harder. That's going to put a premium on speed and agility for SS and 2B. Maybe glove-first guys will stick around longer and we'll see more late-game defensive substitutes.
Anyway, it's something to talk about. What do you guys think?
--M.C.
9 comments:
Joc accepted the QO. A no-brainer on his part. I'm OK with it. He carries a big stick and the Giants need solid production at DH. They will have to limit his exposure in the OF, of course. Obviously FZ and Kap have known Pederson since their LA days and the relationship works. Happy players, happy bosses, . . . happy fans?
As with everything else out of this commissioner's office, these stink. I do not want to see my hero step out of the batter's box and play with his clothing between every pitch, I want to see him stand in the batter's box like Barry Bonds, daring the pitcher to throw. I agree with you, though, let the umpires enforce the rules. Maybe all it would take is for the umps to call a few balls for pitchers taking too long and a few strikes on hitters who have not been granted time. Not allowing shifts is supposed to give us more hits (which means longer games, but admittedly, faster-paced ones, maybe). But it takes away incentive for the hitter to learn how to hit against a shift. If there is one thing that baseball does not need is more 3-true-outcome beer-league softball players. It sickens me the way that the media writers that I have read think this is a great idea. And what if the quants decide there is still not enough stealing next year? Do we wind up with bases 4 feet across? The thing that really bothers me is that it is all so gimmicky. What's the point in dishonoring the game in this way? Aaron Judge was a great draw. Large bases? Not so much. Rob Manfred is a clown - he cannot be fired quickly enough.
Every other major sport has tweaked the rules to get better results. Remember the 4-corner offense in basketball before the shot clock was implemented? Times change, games change.
The bases are a trivial change, really. It will add a few more SBs and maybe be a little better for players as they'll have a little more room to work with. But it doesn't really change the game that much, at least I don't think so.
The shifts thing is really stupid, but I also think that expecting players to change the way they hit is unrealistic. They worked all their lives to get to a certain place and they can't just suddenly become different athletes. That's not how it works! Like I said a few players will benefit. Fans are mostly in favor of the ban, I must say. Fans want baseball to look like baseball and they seem to hate an infielder being out of position.
The clock is unfortunate, like I said. But it is also inevitable. The players brought this on themselves, really. They can't be policed so they have to change the rules. I predict that by the All-Star Break no one will care as everyone will have adapted to the new mode.
Jarlin Garcia was released as was Jason Vosler.
They picked up an infielder from the Rays (Brett Wisely) who is in AA but they added him to the 40-man to protect him from the Rule V draft. Luis Matos and Marco Luciano were also added to the 40-man.
Notable names who were NOT protected were Will Wilson and Hunter Bishop.
A few thoughts on the new rules:
Shift ban is silly. It'll result in about 5 hits per team per YEAR.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/18/baseball-shift-rule-changes/
What's next? Ban on guarding the lines, no charging bunts?
Pitch clock in MiL cuts times by 30 minutes, and more BIP / action. I think the biggest effect will be limiting pitcher arm recovery time, turning 95-100 into (maybe) more hittable velos pitch to pitch.
Unmentioned was the 2 step-off or throw-over rule. That's gonna lead to more SB.
The biggest change of all - ABS - is certainly coming in the next few years.
Thanks for the site.
In the 1970's I used to play competitive table tennis. We did tens of thousands of reps on how to hit a ball when it came at you a certain way. It is a very fast game. Then technology came in. All of the sudden one would hit and react the ball the way the trained for years. The ball came off your Bat (paddle) in a completely different way. They come up with new rubbers called faint, and Phantom. It completely changed the spin of the ball from what was normally expected. A decade earlier they came up with rubbers that were stronger and would grip the ball more, so the loop would become a shot, but it did not completely change the game. The faint and phantom did. They came up with a rule change that one had to have one side of the bat red and the other black, and one had to reveal to the opponent what particular rubber that were using on each side of the bat. It was not enough. For me as a player it ruined the game. Suddenly far inferior players with less speed and agility became competitive simple because of technology. It changed the beauty of the game. Not all games are the same in that regard, but competitive table tennis is a very fast game and much of the reaction is reflex. While I often thought that the changes to the game of basketball were usually good, the changes to table tennis ruined the sport for me so much that I stopped playing on the circuit. I just really liked baseball the way it was, and all these changes lately have been not helping. If I were not such an intense giants fan, I would be finding my interest grinding to a half with these rule changes. Baseball is different than most other sports. We do our best to form a bridge of continuity with past generations of players. Opening up the sport to players of all races colors and crees, and from all over the world was a good thing, but this tinkering of the rules is just unnecessary.
I think the pace-of-play change is long overdue. I would have preferred a non-clock solution but the pitch timer has been shown to work. Like I said I think we will stop noticing it after a few months of baseball.
I forgot to mention another change: the so-called "balanced schedule." Each team will play one series against every other team in 2023. That means way fewer intra-division games.
As kwic mentioned the automated strike zone is coming and that's a massive change. But I also think everyone is ready for it. Umpires are amazing but the game has evolved past a human's ability to properly call balls and strikes.
When the NL adopted the DH (another long overdue change!) I'm sure we all thought about those days when MadBum would hit .200 or even .250 and crank a few homers but for his career he's a .172/.232/.292 hitter. Even the best-hitting pitcher can't touch Joaquin Arias! And MadBum was 0-for-27 in the post-season with 14 whiffs. The universal DH is a natural evolution of the game. Maybe Shohei Ohtani is the next evolution!
I should also note that MLB had a partnership with the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. FTX has collapsed, of course, and that smarmy, entitled phony Sam Bankman-Fried (the CEO) has been revealed to be a Bernie Madoff-style crook. That's what I call a "bad move" by Manfred and MLB! I feel sorry for all the folks the FTX nerd-coven bilked, but I'm happy to see those little shits revealed for the con artists that they are. Maybe MLB should go back to partnerships with old, boring outfits like Budweiser, Chevy, etc.!
I'm way more concerned about the increasing penetration of the betting industry into the game. Rule changes are just adapting to changing times and they don't bother me much. But allowing (I should say ENCOURAGING) fans to interact with the sport by continuous prop bets and whatnot is a really big change that I think will cause some blow-back and ultimately be bad for MLB (and other pro sports).
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