Fly rule doubles.
Cricket bats!
That would definitely not work. There are many minor injuries, like a blister, you’d want to remove a pitcher for that would not sideline them for a month.
How about if the foul lines flared out a bit past first and third base, but the foul poles remained where they are for balls into the seats. This would increase doubles and triples and not affect home runs.
You don’t need to change the rules like that, just large collection areas in the deep foul areas for said balls to collect in since they typically have spin kicking them foul anyway (+ the ground typically slopes towards foul territory too).
A big reason strikeouts are up is that most batters are swinging for the fences all the time. If they deadened the ball a little bit, it would be harder to hit home runs, so hitters would be more inclined to hit for contact.
That’s half of it. The other half is the greatly increased use of relief pitchers, many of whom come into the game, throw 95+ mph heat for an inning, and then get pulled for the next guy.
Theoretically, that would also increase the number of triples and inside-the-park homers. Conventional home runs are great, but the game is much more exciting when the ball is in play and the hitter has to motor for every bag. Over his career, Roberto Clemente had 102 home runs at home and 103 triples. (He also played two seasons at Three Rivers.)
I’d be totally okay with this. When Toronto remodelled their stadium my initial belief was they were moving the fences back, since they were eliminating the gap between the wall and the stands. I was delighted. But no, they moved the stands forward. It’s a bandbox.
Right now the best pitcher’s park is probably San Francisco.
Willie Mays as well. I only got to see him play in 1973 because of the major collision of the CF and LF’er. My first game, somehow we had the old-fashioned press boxes (not the luxury booths of later years)
In later years it was possible to show your ticket along with $20 (how’d that get there?) and if there was room you could get one of those luxury things.
Anyways, lowering strikeout rates. Some of that might have to do with the electronic strike zone thingie, though I reckon that has mostly affected umpires who had gigantic strike zones thus more walks (now).
Round ball, round bat. Yet batters used to be better at productive (at least putting the ball into play) AB’s. Were hitting coaches better? I reckon there’s just less emphasis on making contact unless the swing is only meant to arc the ball over the wall.
That last sentence is exactly correct. I don’t think that hitting coaches are any worse today than they were fifty years ago; what’s changed is what is valued in hitting.
As noted upthread, fifty years ago was the era of multi-purpose stadiums with large field dimensions and low-pile Astroturf playing surfaces, and a lack of advanced metrics and statistics to help managers understand what really worked. “Small-ball,” create-a-run offenses, focusing on line-drive hitting and aggressive running on the basepaths, like the Royals and Cardinals used to field, were a common, and successful, approach.
But, now, with the smaller, natural-grass stadiums, and sabermetrics, most teams have leaned into teaching hitters – even guys who would have been line-drive hitters a few decades ago – the discipline of “launch angles,” and trying to drive the ball in the air, hopefully for a home run or a double off of the outfield wall.
If you gave a 2025 GM a choice between (assume that their fielding talents are equal):
- A guy who consistently hits 40 points over the MLB average (i.e., a .280-.290 hitter these days), but hits for very little power, and when he gets doubles, it’s because he’s an aggressive base runner (e.g., a modern-day Pete Rose)
- A guy who consistently hits at the MLB average (i.e., a .245 hitter), but hits 20-30 HRs a year
…I suspect that nearly all of them would take the latter guy now.
There aren’t more walks now. Walks per game are basically around where they’ve been for decades.
The all time record for walks per game was set in 1949, when it nudged over 4 per game (and there were only 3.6 strikeouts per team per game.)
Since 1994 strikeouts have risen dramatically - 1994 was the first year they passed 6/team/game, and then they passed 7 in 2010, then 8 in 2016, and almost hit 9 in 2019. Now it’s 8.26, which actually is the LOWEST it’s been in eight years but still amazingly high. The 46 highest K/IP ratios a pitcher has ever had have happened in the last three decades (and that’s starting pitchers who throw a minimum number of innings - relief pitchers have posted many seasons of strikeout ratios that the likes of Goose Gossage and Rollie Fingers could only have dreamt of.)
But they’re doing it with control. Again, pretty much all the best ratios of strikeouts to walks in the history of baseball have happened in the last 30 years, excepting some 19th century seasons. The greatest strikeout to walk ratio in the history of MLB was set not by Bob Gibson or Walter Johnson or Satchel Paige, but by… Phil Hughes.
I wouldn’t have thought one of the known “greats” would have that distinction else I’d know them. Nolan Ryan possibly could have been up there, yet he was a bit wild when he was a Met.
Somehow I came across the phrase “Immaculate Inning” - 9 pitches, 3 K’s. Somewhere up-thread I mentioned how Randy Myers threw a ball on his 8th pitch and the Mets crowd audibly groaned. The only other “distinctions” I can recall were being at the longest 9 inning game ever (at Shea, and before they cut off beer at 8 innings - something like 4 hours) and the longest opening day game which ended 1-0 on a bases loaded walk in the 14th inning. Mets won both yet I think those times and/or innings have been surpassed. Must have been fun.
Nolan Ryan? The walks were a fatal flaw throughout his career. He led MLB once in K to BB ratio and had to average 11.5 ks per 9 to do it.
The current career leader (1000 innings min.) is Jacob DeGrom at. 5.36. Because of the crazy increase in strikeouts, the top 20 all pitched this century, except for one 19th century irrelevance. Ryan comes in at 371st with a 2.04 career ratio.
Yeah, having looked up strikeout leaders he’s #1 yet we were talking ratios. I know he became a better and more fearsome pitcher in the AL yet I didn’t follow the AL much and as you can tell am rather Met-centric.
I remember when Dwight Gooden was “Doctor K” and would routinely strike out about 12 per game. At Shea they even had a special scoreboard to count the K’s. Dunno his ratio. (Cocaine is a helluva drug). Another is David Cone, with even more strikeouts and I do remember seeing on TV his “immaculate inning”
And on the top 10 (oh make that 9 - Verlander and Sherzer are still active and I think both are first balloteers) strikeout leaders only Roger Clemens isn’t in the HOF. Hmm. Wonder why.
During Ryan’s time with the Angels (1972-79), which was the peak of his career, as far as overall effectiveness, he led the AL in strikeouts seven times in those eight seasons. He also led the AL in walks six times in those eight seasons, and his K/BB ratio with the Angels was only 1.86. So, yeah, even if he was fearsome in that era, he was still walking a lot of guys.
In the second half of his career, with the Astros, and then the Rangers, his walks did go down somewhat, and his K/BB ratio did improve to an extent (but still not great by today’s standards).
I loved watching Gooden when he arrived on the scene. For his curve as much as his fastball. I’m sure cocaine didn’t help Gooden’s career, but pitching 276 innings in your age 20 season followed up by 250 more the following year probably didn’t help, either.
It was my father talking about this new young pitcher in 1984 that got me watching games with him.
And then 1985 (from wiki):
In 1985, Gooden pitched one of the most statistically dominant single seasons in baseball history. Leading Major League Baseball with 24 wins, 268 strikeouts, and a 1.53 ERA, the second-lowest in the live-ball era, trailing only Bob Gibson’s 1.12 in 1968.
The truly wacky record which you’d think would have been broken ages ago is career strikeouts-by a hitter. Yep, Reggie still has that one, up 634 over the closest active guy (Giancarlo Stanton), despite the huge spike in overall K rates. My guess for why he still has it is that very few guys now remain regulars through age 40 (Jim Thome retired 49 short of Mr. October).
IIRC there was always an awkward silence after the third strikeout, and relieved applause after the fourth.