Tom Verducci has an interesting article in SI about baseball rule changes. He proposes 9 of them.
Which do you approve of?
Personally, I love #3:
The Barry Bonds Rule. You want to wear body armor to gain an advantage over the pitcher? Fine, go ahead and wear a huge elbow guard that enables you to hang over the plate and disrespect inside fastballs that otherwise would move your feet. But you cannot take your base when a pitch hits a piece of your emboldening equipment, no more than if a pitch hit your bat. Any pitch that strikes a piece of body armor equipment simply is ruled a ball and the at-bat continues. No hit batter.
I don’t agree with number 2. If some team has less players available, they have no one to blame but themselves. Extra players late in the season makes things a little more interesting.
Fan interference. I vote for instant [del]execution[/del] ejection and fines for the idiots who reach into the field of play after fair balls a fielder is trying to handle.
I think a pitcher should have free lane over the plate. If the batter puts his head over the plate, tough luck. Off the plate, too bad for the pitcher if he hits an elbow guard, and a free base for the batter.
I’m not following the discussion about body armor.
Currently the rule is that if the pitch hits you in the strike zone it’s a strike, yes?
And if the pitch hits you out of the strike zone (while you aren’t swinging) it’s a hit batter, right?
And at present that encompasses the situation in which a batter is wearing 3" of something-or-other to protect his arm.
I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it; a batter gets grazed on the body armor by a pitch and trots happily down to first.
Seems like verducci’s new rule would simply deal with the situation in which a guy gets grazed on the body armor, not the body itself, on a ball outside the strike zone. Under the present rules he goes to first. Under Verducci’s rules it’s simply a ball. As I understand it, this requires changing the existing rules. It would be one thing if he was talking about a ball hitting the batter in the strike zone–but he’s not.
You’re getting Verducci’s version coreect, yes. It was TriPolar who suddenly introduced the idea that “the pitcher should have free lane over the plate” which of course he already does.
I don’t agree with Verducci. It’s unnecessary, detracts from player safety, and would be much more difficult to enforce than the rule as it currently exists.
The fact of the matter is that batters that are wearing armor are much more gutsy in crowding the plate than guys who aren’t wearing it. This makes it harder for the pitcher due to the new balls of the batter. What’s hard to understand about this?
I agree, if you’re hit in body armor on a non-wild pitch it shouldn’t be a free base.
It increases offense? So what? Hitting is DOWN the last few years, so it evidently doesn’t increase it much. If hitters crowd the plate a little more - and really, it doesn’t seem to be a common thing - who gives a hoot? And if you do, and must insist on changing the rules, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to move the batters’ box a few inches fiuther from the plate, thereby accomplishing the same thing while not taking away protective gear and complicating the hit batsman rule?
If you’re Ok with the advantage body Armor gives the batter why not let the pitchers throw spit balls and scuff balls? What’s the difference? It’s an advantage all the same.
It is hard enough for an ump to tell if a batter is hit. Distinguishing between body armor and flesh is going to be impossible and result in random calls. Most of the rest are good. I’d leave out the stopwatch rule and the bat interference (judgement calls generally bad). Oh and making the postseason more important by shortening series is silly.