I’m pro the strike zone change. K rates are starting to get out of control.
I agree that removing the 4 pitches on a IBB is silly and wouldn’t accomplish much of anything.
I’m not super convinced that strikeout rates are because of the strike zone. I think strikeout rates are up for two reasons:
- Guys are willing to strike out.
Years ago, when Bobby Bonds struck out 189 times in one year and generally always struck out a lot, a lot of people thought he was a bad ballplayer. In fact he was a very good ballplayer, even the year he whiffed 189 times, because despite the strikeouts he still got on base, hit home runs, and played good defense. He wasn’t the only guy like that - Mike Schmidt gave the strikeout record a run for its money in 1975 and he turned out okay - but the idea that strikeouts were a huge sin was generally still accepted and considered a shot against a ballplayer.
Today it’s more generally accepted that striking out really isn’t any worse than popping out or hitting a weak ground ball at the second baseman, and it’s understood and for some players the tradeoff of striking out more but going deeper into counts (which yields more homers and walks) might be better than striking out less but not seeing as many pitches (which increases contact rates but also walks and homers.) Players aren’t striking out because they can’t hit - Mike Trout is a career .306 hitter and his career LOW in strikeouts is 136, and Joey Votto is a career .314 hitter who whiffs over 100 times a year. Manny Ramirez was about as technically beautiful a hitter as I have ever seen, just perfect in every way, and he averaged 128 strikeouts per 162 games. Back in the day I don’t think any career .300 hitters struck out more than 100 times a year. Mickey Mantle was the closest, I think. (He hit .298.) Now it’s not that uncommon; it’s just a hitting approach.
- Pitchers are better.
I can’t prove this - well, not easily, maybe I could but I don’t have time - but my perception is that pitchers are just way, way better than they used to be. I have a few theories as to why that is; one is that modern conditioning, coaching, and understanding of pitching mechanics allows pitchers to be more refined and reduce mistakes. The other is that I think baseball teams are applying sabermetric thought to their selection of pitchers, most importantly the realization that strikeout-to-walk ratio is a sign of things to come. Back in the day a guy like Jeff Ballard or Pete Vuckovich would get lucky for a year or two and win a bunch of games and everyone would think they were great and then keep sending them out there and wonder why they were getting the bejeezus kicked out of them. Today I don’t think a team would bother even giving Jeff Ballard a shot because they’d look at his inability to strike out MLB batters and say “he’s doomed.”
I agree with both of those points. And I don’t know if you can prove pitchers are *better *today, but you can certainly prove that they throw harder today than they did years ago. Average fastball speed is not insignificantly up even over the last 10 years.
As for pace of play, I think Manfred makes too big a deal about it. Speeding up the game by a minute here and there is not going to draw the casual fan in more closely and it’s certainly not going to hook anyone who’s not already a baseball fan.
I assume the pitch clock wouldn’t be used with runners on base? Also, what’s the penalty for letting the pitch clock expire? A called ball?
The intentional walk idea is silly because it won’t make a noticeable difference. In all of MLB there were 951 walks in 2015, or 32 per team.
I don’t care if the new IBB rule is “silly”, it’s even sillier for a pitcher to weakly throw a ball to a catcher, then get it back…throw the ball…get it back…throw the ball…get it back…throw the ball…then get it ready for the next batter.
If it saves me from watching that stupid sequence ever again I’m happy.
Somewhere, Rick Ankiel is cursing you for just NOW saying that.
I’m fine with allowing automatic IBBs, and suspect in 40 years, people will be amazed it was ever any other way. It’s just not an especially useful solution to the issue of speeding up the pace.
I wonder if anyone has ever done an actual study of why games are slower than they used to be? Like, has MLB actually paid some smart people to sit down with stopwatches and tapes of old games and recent games to figure out why games seem glacial now? I know what I suspect is the problem;
- Batters stepping out and doing a Mike Hargrove routine every damned pitch, and
- Pitching changes.
But that’s my suspicion, and I cannot prove it with objective evidence, so I may be totally wrong. There are other possibilities… commercial breaks, batters taking more pitches, etc. It may be that the fact there is less basestealing now than there was in the 1980s makes the game seem less interesting, because less is going on; I am quite convinced a lot of basestealing makes for more interesting baseball. But, again, they’re just impressions, and I’ve never heard of a genuinely evidence-based study.
Just wanted to point out that pitchers and catchers report in less than a week.
Also, PECOTA projections are out. The Red Sox win the AL East!
And the poor Padres are the goat of MLB.
<sigh>
But hey, the Dodgers have the best record in baseball! (If Og is my buddy.)
I would agree with your numbered suggestions, but I think pitching changes are the worst offender. Stepping out the batter’s box is annoying, but to me they’re on par with the IBB rule.
Pitching changes, on the other hand…OMG just kill me. Manager slooooowly lumbers to the mound, they have a conversation, then the new guy comes jogging out of the bullpen, then he throws and throws and throws (as if he wasn’t doing that already) and faces the batter. He got him out! Yay! Wait, who’s up next? A lefty? Time to call the manager to sloooooowly go to the mound…
You get the idea.
Just end that. Please.
ETA: You know, as I sent that, it seemed aggressive. You don’t need to END it per se, just mitigate it somehow.
Just institute a rule that says every pitcher, barring injury, has to pitch to at least 3 hitters before he can be replaced, That would stop most of the more egregious swaps.
You’d also have to implement a rule that if a pitcher is removed for injury, they automatically go on the 10 day DL.
This may have been a whoosh, in which case, I apologize. But just in case it isn’t, can you explain how that follows from silenus’ comment?
Otherwise a pitcher could pitch to a single batter, suffer an “injury” and be replaced.
These ideas seem like pretty good way of getting pitchers injured.
Got it. That makes sense. I think you could probably go less extreme (three-day minimum?), but I take Barkis is Willin’s point.
True.
Forcing a relief pitcher to face hitters that he normally wouldn’t fundamentally changes the game, and not for the better. They should use the pitch clock in spring training and see if it makes a difference. Apply it to the hitters and their dance routine outside the batters box too.
Instead of something stupid like issuing a walk via hand signal, the rule should go the other way. Make it so the catcher isn’t allowed to leave his box. You want to issue a free pass? Do it creatively and carefully.
Indeed, you avoid your LOOGY suffering “sudden, temporary arm soreness” that allows him to avoid the minimum 3 batters. And lo and behold he’s cured the next day.
Well, managers would really have to change the way they use their bullpens. Because yeah, if you stipulate a minimum of 3 batters faced, that LOOGY is now at least tripling his pitch count in each appearance.
That said, I would not implement such a rule.
How about they put the bullpens under the mound, so when it’s time for a pitching change, the pitchers just pop up out of the ground?
Not a chance.
Baseball teams already have their spot starters/long middle relievers. You know, the guy who comes in the 3rd inning when the starter was rocked and plays til the 7th or so. How is it any different asking a reliever to pitch a full inning? Or maybe 2?
I agree that it’s going to change the dynamic of the bullpen, but even a reliever can pitch an entire inning every couple of days.