I was thinking it was about time to post about Ryan Vogelsong's signing, and what it means for Yusmeiro Petit and Tim Lincecum, but Mr. Rob Manfred, the new Commissioner of Baseball, has caught my attention, and not in a positive way.
This, from Mark Townsend on
Yahoo Sports: "Manfred made it clear that examining the pace of the game is first on his list of priorities, but not far behind will be finding ways to 'inject additional offense into the game.' Without being prompted for an example, Manfred specifically mentioned he'd be open to pursuing the elimination of defensive shifts, which he says gives the defensive team a competitive advantage."
So here we have it. More offense, which means higher scores, more hits, more baserunners, more pitches, more home runs, more cap doffs after home runs, etc. Yet a shorter game. How is that going to work?
It is my belief that in the past few years, we have seen the sunset in the playing careers of a number of the game's historically great hitters, and are witnessing some of the game's great pitching performances. Not that there haven't been great hitters and great pitchers in every era, but that the numbers on the field at once have shifted from hitters to pitchers. Think of the great sluggers in history. Yet can you imagine talking about seeing Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire play each other? Or McGuire and Sosa in the same division? You can blame PED's if you wish for the spate of great hitters, but remember, at the time, the home run race "saved baseball" by drawing fans into the game.
And now, although baseball
clearly doesn't need saving, there seems to be a perceived need for more offense. There are only so many ways to get offense. You wind baseballs tighter (like that hasn't been done before), you handicap defense (by, like, not letting them move around on the field), you change the dimensions by making fences shorter or lowering the mound, which is really just a physical rather than an operational way of handicapping defense, or, finally, you let the batters improve. PED's???? Corked bats?????
They lowered the mound after 1968's season in which Bob Gibson (one of my childhood heros, along with Juan Marichal) posted a 1.12 era. Yet guys like Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle didn't need a lower mound to become baseball legends. (Maybe you can detect a bias towards pitching, not that I could ever pitch worth a damn.) In 1969, the runs per game went up, then up in 1970. Then down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down and then up, so that in 1980, MLB averaged 4.29 runs per game, a little higher than 1973's 4.21 (1968 was 3.42, due in part to Mr. Gibson). In 1999 and 2000, runs per game were more than 5, but have not been 5 or less than 4 since.
But the fact of the matter is that more offense will make a game longer. There is no way around it. You can put pressure on batters, like making them stand in the box. I am not convinced that this would appreciably speed up the game, although it would make batters less annoying. I think that any increase in offense would offset any possible time savings in games. Pitching changes after more offense? Yeah, that will eat up any savings from harassing batters.
So, let's think for a minute about this other statement - that defensive shifts gives the defense a competitive advantage. Why is that? Isn't every defensive alignment designed to help the defense, from the wheel play, to charging a bunt, to shifting a center fielder? You don't put more people on the field in a defensive shift, you merely re-arrange them. That means that there are big holes in other areas of the field. That doesn't sound like a competitive advantage to me, it sounds like a very big risk, and if the offense can't exploit it, well then, it is no different than a fat pitch over the middle that the batter fails to put into the seats. Mark said it well, that offenses will (or at least should) adjust. There is no competitive advantage in a defensive arrangement, regardless of Mr. Manfred's statement.
So I am not happy about this nonsensical manifesto of Mr. Manfred. Since they aren't about to speed up games by eliminating tv advertising between innings, you simply are not going to speed them up AND create more offense.
I think Ryan Vogelsong's signing is a good thing. What about a 6 man rotation for a couple of months?
