How has Baseballl changed in the last 50 years?

The Game Room
1

There’s the DH, now in both leagues. I guess we needed more Ohtani’s to make them think otherwie.

Someone in the Pete Rose thread mentioned how how you’d be credited with a stolen base on a broken (?) hit & run, I guess as long as it wasn’t a fielder’s choice. (Has the stolen base rule changed too?) Someone in that thread mentioned it’s rarely used now which I can only blame on stat-metrics or everyone having an IBM BAT 9000 to discourage them. An exciting play, gone the way of the bunt (esp. since only one pitcher bats on his off days and I highly doubt he bunts).

I guess I should mention I’ve been out of the USA for 10 years and only watched The Mets a few years ago when they were doing well till September, so I’m familiar with some of the changes.

I know if my dad was around I’d have to explain what used to be the “Ted Williams Shift” is now employed in all kinds of ways thanks to the BAT 9000. Maybe it works to have your shortstop playing shallow right field.

ETA:
Oh, I see one rule has changed sort of back.

MLB and the MLBPA began restricting shifts in 2023, limiting the amount of fielders that can be stacked on one side of the infield

And I’d forgotten how wacky the Ted Williams Shift was - and I reckon it’s hard to gauge the success since he adapted to it. SS in shallow RF isn’t quite as unusual as I thought.

2

The catcher is no longer allowed (with certain exceptions) to block the plate unless he is in possession of the baseball See Collisions at Home Plate.

3

Pitch clocks.

4

I don’t know how much at-bar armor players are allowed to run the bases with, yet what Pete Rose did in the All Star game in 1970 - an exhibition game - was certainly unsportsmanlike (not as much back then - ithat was the winning run) yet not illegal. Maybe now plowing into the catcher in possession of the ball remains legal. It should be - what should the runner do other than possibly get into a rundown.

So I was thinking of other obvious changes that have probably been around even 20 years ago.

Umpires (or central reviewers in NYC) reviewing plays. I reckon that “was the catcher in possession?” in a literal bang-bang play is reviewed now.

The afore-mentioned plate armor, which is tied into crowding the plate which is tied into pitchers throwing at you intentionally. I’m sure we all remember the “not on too much steroids” Roger Clemens throwing a shard of Mike Piazza’s bat at him while Piazza was halfway to first.

So I guess the main point of this thread (I didn’t want to lament that apparently there are less hit and runs now in the Pete Rose thread) is what has changed for the better and stuff that has changed for the worse and can be lamented.

That a batter can now crowd the plate wearing armor without any consequences or “brush back pitch” - one of the many baseball colorful phrases being “chin music” yet the batter now can even block part of their face (I remember when - like the NHL which grandfathered out no-helmet, batters used to not have the ear flaps. I’m not old enough to remember when they wore their regular baseball caps (or if that too was grandfathered out)

On TV *(I was watching online feeds of Fox and whatever the Mets played on except on the five or so games on “free WPIX”) I really was annoyed by the extreme use of on-screen ads but that’s not so much baseball.

Argh. I just read Schnitte’s “pitch clocks” - that’s new to me. Pitcher shakes off the catcher with one finger down. Shakes off two fingers down. Umpire: Ball four - take your base!

Oh, forgot. Catcher no longer do fingers down (and probably not only because of the Houston Ashcans) but so the manager can more easily call the pitch or BAT 9000 can. I assume the remotes alert the pitcher he better throw something quick?

Yet back to “Baseball as it oughta be” which was either the 1986 or 2000 Mets slogan, I miss bunt plays where Keith Hernandez would charge the bunt, throw to 2nd for the force and the pitcher make a DP out of it.

I’ll think of some more, yet am startled about pitch clocks even though I recall them saying they’d use them. I guess I need to see a game. Last I looked the Mets were in first (don’t tell me if they’re not - I’m off to mlb.com).

So what other goodness (has there been any?) or laments be there?

I remember even after the 8th inning no-beer rule, it wasn’t used if there was a double-header. Do they still schedule double-headers? 40-50 years ago there’d be like 10 per year).

ETA: And when they’re doing a rain-out makeup double header, are they still single tickets? I think it was the Yankees who first did dayn/ight and then even kick everyone out and play an hour or so later for another ticket.

5

I hadnt watched baseball for at least 10 years until the last couple. Aside from myriad rule changes, I really noticed that hardly any pitchers pitch from a windup. Everything is from the stretch, if someone’s on base or not. I used to like the windup because of the style— most were different. Now all look the same from the stretch.

6

First, here’s Hernandez turning just such a play, though it went to third

I remember this. There had been a brawl and a number of players were ejected. Gary Carter, the catcher, ended up playing third and I think a pitcher was in the outfield. None of that affected Hernandez’ ability to victimize a bunter. He was amazing at first.

Hernandez also provided an answer to the OP’s question in the ESPN doc about the '86 Mets. Manager Davey Johnson “played a hunch” during the NLCS and sent Len Dykstra (a left handed batter) to pinch hit against a lefty pitcher. He hit a home run, and according to Hernandez in the current age of analytics this would never happen.

7

God yes.

I went to my first MLB game in about a decade earlier this month, and I was astounded for it to start at 1 pm and end at 3. I was fully expecting to be there until four or five.

But nope… before I really quit chatting with my coworkers (it was a work thing) and actually watching the game, it was the top of the third, and I just sort blinked, because I was stunned that we had powered through about a third of the game in 30-45 minutes.

Don’t misunderstand me- I think it’s a wonderful thing to have the pitch clock. It makes the game more interesting in that you can actually miss stuff if you don’t pay attention now.

8

I had to look up “BAT 9000”, is this a real thing? I didnt see anything on baseball specifically using it.

9

I’m curious is there anyone who can make a good argument against the pitch clock rule? Wasn’t the length of games pretty much THE #1 biggest criticism?

10

Baseball stadiums started playing “God Bless America” after 9/11. (And we were expected to stand respectfully for it, as if it was an anthem and not an Irving Berlin song.)

11

Not just the increasing length of games, but an increase in how long games were taking, without any commensurate increase in actual action – games were a half-hour longer, almost entirely due to f***ing around between pitches (by both batters and pitchers), more pitching changes, and more television ad time.

When MLB was talking about instituting the pitch clock, some pitchers complained that it was going to lead to more injuries to pitchers, and that it reduces the amount of strategy which can be used during an at-bat. I’ve also seen arguments that it simply goes against the nature of the game, which historically has not operated with a clock.

12

No, it’s not (it’s probably a joke, based on “HAL 9000”), but the point is that advanced stats (a.k.a. sabermetrics) have seriously changed how managers manage the game.

It could be argued that managers used to make a lot of sub-optimal game decisions, because they didn’t have the level of information to tell them if a decision was a good one or not. As a few examples: stolen base attempts went way down, the hit-and-run play became an endangered species, and managers started pulling their starting pitchers earlier in games, because sabermetrics tells them that these are the optimal choices. You don’t want to try to steal second (or do a hit-and-run) unless you have a very high chance of success, because the odds of scoring a run often go down when those plays are used. You want to pull a starter early, because the numbers show that batters’ averages go up with each subsequent time they bat against a pitcher during a game.

13

50 years ago free agency has just begun with a new collective bargaining agreement.

14

I remember this game too. Eric Davis had made too hard a slide and not sure what he did but it was unwise to instigate something with Ray Knight - a former gold glove boxer IIRC.

So many got ejected from the game that Orosco and Roger McDowell swapped RF and pitching more than once depending on lefty/rightly at bat, prompting some protest and perhaps a rule change - esp as one or both took warmup pitches.

Davey Johnson “played a hunch”

Davey Johnson was the first manager to use a computer in his office. Probably just some excel sheet and nothing like “should I bat Lenny against a lefty?” - if his stats “told” him anything it was still a hunch.

Sorry for any confusion: It was just a pun/reference to “2001 Space Odyssey” and the HAL 9000 computer on board. I assume every manager has access to a computer with some degree of AI and whether or not it’d give a reliable answer on “Who should pitch to close in the 9th?” I dunno yet I suspect a lot of general managers also will tell a manager that ChatGPT told him he’d have done something else.

Well, again you have technology in the game. Sure there were pitchers who’d shake off their itinerary of pitches to the catchers or close to it and waste time. I dunno if Casey Stengel could make 12 visits to the mound in an innning, yet there was a rule that like the 2nd time a manager visits the mound (at least for one batter) he has to make a call to the bullpen.

One ridiculous thing I remember is how relief pitchers used to be driven to the mound in a golf cart, often by the “mascot” of the team. I don’t think a rule per se was made against that.

15

First up, early averages:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/pitch.shtml

Hoo boy, where to begin?

OK then. Strikeouts.

They have gone absolutely through the roof in the half-century in question, affecting almost all other statistics on both sides of the ball. Strikeout rates have almost doubled (tho they are down a bit oddly enough this year), causing averages to plummet, complete games to become virtually extinct, as have the high average/low power batting champ (Luis Arráez is the most recent such throwback, 3 K’s so far this year in 180 PA). It used to be possible to succeed as a starter (if not reliever) with a K rate below 5 per 9 innings, but not anymore.

Once managers realized that they could have everybody on their staff throw heat the entire game, because the falloff in performance during a pitcher’s third time through the lineup is usually rather large, that was that for the starting workhorse who could go the distance, to the extent that once Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer retire (joining Zack Greinke) and get elected, there may not ever be any more viable HoF starting pitchers, with the two remaining leading candidates being Chris Sale and Jacob deGrom, two guys who have missed huge chunks of their careers to injuries.

Home runs have fallen off a bit since their own peak in 2019 but are still significantly higher than in the 70’s. As indicated upthread, one run strategies have all but vanished (hit and runs but also bunts now that pitchers no longer bat; stolen bases were slowly headed there too until the 3 pickoff rule and the bigger bases came along in 2023, doubling said rates back to where they were in the 70’s and 80’s. Intentional walks too. Oh, and when was the last time a guy was on 2nd with no outs, and the batter just meekly dribbled the ball to the right side, the de facto bunt variation?).

Walks overall have surprisingly more or less stayed steady, but all in all Three True Outcomes (HR/K/BB) have gained almost total ascendancy, and I don’t know if there is anything that could be done to reverse these trends. Hitters have decided strikeouts are an acceptable outcome if they lead to more homers, which is contrary to pretty much every other trend in ANY sport (where one side will try to maximize pretty much everything while the other will try to minimize).

As a fan it is quite a bit less interesting a scene than it was 50 years ago, when a multitude of offensive styles could succeed and contribute.

16

We have the “ghost runner” now - if the game goes in to extra innings, each inning starts with a runner on 2nd base (the last out of the previous inning). This runner doesn’t count as an earned run for the pitcher, should they score.

Relief pitchers have to pitch to at least 3 batters. So it stops a constant flow of relievers in a tense game.

Pitchers and catchers now use PitchCom to send signals. Guardians catcher Austin Hedges hacked his to allow it to say “FUCK YEAH!” after a good play.

These 3 items are really just since 2020 or so.

17

Double-headers are fairly rare these days. They mostly happen if a previous game had been rained out and it needs to be rescheduled. This easiest way is usually to add a second game on a day when the two teams were already scheduled to play.

Some other stuff that might have been mentioned before:

Pitchers are limited to how many times per batter they can attempt a pickoff throw to catch a runner taking a lead off base. As a result, they are careful about doing it, and runners are bolder in taking leads and there are more stolen base attempts. Also first base tis physically slightly larger. This was done for safety, to reduce collisions, but it also makes it a bit easier to steal second, I think.

The principles of stadium design for MLB teams have evolved quite a bit, starting around 1990 when the Baltimore Orioles build a new stadium in downtown Baltimore. The new desire is to locate parks downtown, rather than in suburbs, and to have a “retro” look and feel. This change has been widely applauded, unlike some of the rule changes discussed above. The idea of the combined football / baseball facility had thankfully been abandoned.

18

Yes, agreed. Are pitchers still allowed to take a walk around the mound after blowing a fastball at 101 MPH past a player or a Lord Charlie (curve0 makes the hitter look like a fool, or is that showmanship? It’s just that scouts/manager/GM’s don’t care about strikeouts for some reason. Put the ball in play, try and hit it where they ain’t - that’s good baseball. Sacrifice plays? For $20 million players/?

That said, i was at a Met game and Randy Myers who had several pitches he could throw: All of them fastballs, came in to close the game and with six pitches there were two outs. There was an audible groan when on like his 8th pitch he threw a ball.

I reckon that’s just an (over?) extension limiting manager visits to the mound. Not sure what to think of that. Baseball is the most “chess like” of sports in that you have enough time to ponder on what to do and why. I wasn’t at the game (think is was a playoff?) where Lenny batted against a lefty (actually was that in 1986 and he hit a game winning homer over left field fence?) yet I had a lot of confidence in Johnson and if anyone on TV was doing more than saying, “Hmm.. this is unusual” I don’t recall.

Is there any more “old school” doctoring of the ball? How did that nail get stuck in my hat? See, I was doing some sanding between innings. Heck, Dremel should make a tiny saw that fits over and looks like your thumb.

19

Every TV broadcast of a ball game Ive seen lately presents so many on-screen stats, it’s plausible!

20

They’re doing a lot more checking now. In fact I do believe there are mandatory checks each inning.