Far more weak contact… in part because hitters were trained to make contact at considerable cost. There was a lot of stigma attached to striking out and so hitting theory was based heavily on the importance of getting the bat on the ball.
In recent years batters have moved to the theory that what matters is making HARD contact. This is a highly logical approach. Making contact at any cost will prevent strikeouts, but it will also mean you have a lot of at bats where you take a swing at a sub-optimal pitch early in the count, roll over on an outside pitch, and hit a pointless ground ball right at the shortstop. In 1961, when Whitey won 25 games, strikeouts were only about 60% as common as today… but the AL batting average was .256, maybe just a few points over recent years. The batting average in balls in play is much higher now. and obviously there are FAR more home runs, so choosing to wait and drive a better pitch works.
You can’t change the logic of that. You can’t ask batters to do things that don’t make any sense; all you can do is alter the nature of the game so that they are incentivized to hit more balls into play.
Yanks and Rays tied 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth right now.
I was just about to come in here and complain that Zunino got rung up on a pitch that was four inches outside the strike zone when Meadows cracked a solo homer into right field.
IMHO, this is the only change that need be made. Or at least try this before changing anything else. Bring the long ball back to historical norms and the rest will follow. Strikeouts will go down because the not Stantons of the game will change to hit for contact. Hitting for contact will generate more men on base. Being in scoring position will become more important which will generate more bunts and steals.
If a “new dead ball” era doesn’t work, then you can mess with the mound.
The average fastball for the Rays game was over 97 miles an hour. It doesn’t matter how dead you make the ball, if you don’t lessen the velocity you are not going to fix strikeouts.
That’s why I suggested moving the mound back 6-12 inches, which effectively reduces fastball velocity by a couple of MPH. However, that would increase contact and so home runs would go UP while strikeouts went down. (The effect of making it easier to make contact would vastly outweigh the small different in exit velocity.) Deadening the ball would be necessary to reduce homers.
@zakalwe points out that deadening the ball might incentivize contact hitting and reduce strikeouts, but I’m not super sure that’s true. I’d be happy to see them try, but there’s more to the modern hitting approach than reducing the ball’s flight by 15 feet would change, and it doesn’t change the fact that all teams are loaded with fireballing relief pitchers.
Baseball Prospectus or someone like that came up with the idea of restricting the pitchers a team can carry to 10 or 11 (after a few years of transition time) to encourage teams to carry more long relievers, also an interesting idea.
Baseball has always been oddly opposed to rules changes. I am not. It’s a game, and if changing the rules makes it a better game I say change them.
I think they should get rid of the fences and just have taller and taller grass starting at 350 ft from home plate. Super speedy outfielders and efficient relays. Make them boys run for their homeruns.
How about this modest proposal I just made up. Not that I’m insisting this is an original idea and some other wiser pundit hasn’t already suggested it; I’m just unaware whether anyone has or not.
Use a robo-ump to call balls and strikes. The umpire behind the catcher will do everything else he does now, but the computer tells him what to call it if it’s a pitch that gets cleanly into the catcher’s mitt.
Then we expand the strike zone by about 3" outside the plate on either side, and set the upper and lower bounds to fixed values based on the traditional definition, but applied to the measured average of MLB players. Plus a couple extra inches for good measure. So, the new zone 23" wide, not the traditional 17", and from e.g. 19" - 55" above the ground.
The batters will need to defend a larger area, but they will have zero doubts about where the edge is judged. It’ll just be down to their ability to “see” those edges while standing in the box. They’ll learn that pretty quick.
They’ll need to chase the ball and bat for contact a lot more. Which will drop the homeruns. If this results in interminable at-bats, maybe we do something like the 6th foul ball after 2 strikes is an out. Or is awarded first base depending on how we want to tune the offense / defense mix.
Just spit-ballin’ here, but ISTM tinkering with the strike zone is maybe a better variable than moving the mound.
ETA: @BlankSlate’s post wasnt’ there when I started. He’s got a different take on a similar idea to this:
Another fun idea based on 1920s baseball, is to pull out the seats along the outfield and expand the back wall to 500 feet minimum from home plate. Post-COVID it’ll be years before we fill stadiums enough to fill those seats again. Set up fewer home runs and a lot more tag-up-then-dash-to-next-base plays. Could be exciting.
I don’t understand how this would make strikeouts less frequent. If it’s easier to throw strikes, it should make them more frequent. Yes, batters might try to make contact more, but then why don’t they try to make contact more now? Because hitting the ball hard is a better choice; making contact doesn’t help you if you just pop up or hit a weak grounder.
I do like the idea of pushing fences back though. I love that idea, actually. I don’t know how easy it would be to reconstruct ballparks tho.
I just suggest that idea will reduce home runs since guys can’t sit there waiting for the fastball down central to drive into the seats. Instead, more like cricket, they’ll need to offer at damn near everything and deal with the consequences on the base paths.
I don’t know how it will affect strikeouts. Pitchers should have an easier time finding the larger strike zone. Although ref some pundit statistic sites I just checked, it’s not clear that the actual strike zone as called by human umps today isn’t already 3" wider on average than the 17" plate is.
Ultimately, reducing strikeouts means making the hitter’s job easier, but reducing home runs means making the power hitter’s job harder. Those aren’t metaphorically 180 degrees in opposition; more like 150 degrees. But the implication is these two problems will need separate solutions. And fixing either will make the other harder to fix, at least some.
Zooming out to a high level …
Simplifying a bit, ultimately an at-bat can have 4 possible outcomes for the batter: home run, batter on base, batter put out by defense, strike out.
If we want less of both #1 & #4, we need to foster more of both #2 & #3. Both making them physically easier to achieve, and making that rewarding on the scoreboard that’s driving everyone’s behavior, both offense & defense.
The mix of 2 vs 3 is heavily dependent on the skill of the defense vs how hard their task is. So we’ll need to fine-tune that too.
Thinking waaay outside the (batter’s) box …
I once I read about a baseball-like amateur sport where the base paths are different lengths. So the “diamond” isn’t square any more; it’s more complex. Which might also make for a “knob” to fine-tune the game. I tried to locate a cite coming from the source I think I started from, but I’m coming up empty-handed. Found it!!
See also this capsule summary:
Not that we’d need to import the whole sport, but it demonstrates the idea that the running task from batters box to 1st is different than from 1st to second, etc. And so the base path should be made longer or shorter to alter the offense / defense mix.
Yeah I’m not opposed to deadening the ball, but it needs to be in conjunction with other changes.
The basic problem, and this is not just a baseball problem, is that the players have gotten so good they are breaking the game. To fix it you need either make the players worse (expansion, roster limits) or make the game harder (push back/lower mound, deaden ball, push back walls etc…) It is tricky though as you probably want to roughly maintain the current scoring balance, but just cause a more interesting change. You also need to be tricky with pitcher limits as I’m not entirely sure teams wouldn’t just blow out arms rather than have them slow down. I’m up for radical changes as the problem is just goin to get worse, but it will probably take some trial and error to get right.
Is anyone watching the actual baseball that’s being played, or just talking about what reforms need to be made.
Nice to see the Rays win last night and go up 1-0 in the series. Got out of a tight jam in the top of the eighth, when the Astros loaded up the bases with one out. Castillo came in and got a grounder up the middle for a double play on his first pitch.
On one hand I want the Astro’s to not even be allowed into the postseason for a couple of seasons but on the other a Dodger/Astro’s World Series would be amazing from a fan perspective. It’s too bad the series will be 100% in Texas but even there I think the Dodgers fans will find a way to be there a booing.
I have no real dog in the NL fight, although I probably lean towards the Dodgers. It was a real nail-biter for much of the game. The Braves had the bases loaded in the 8th, but the Dodgers got out of it. That ninth inning, though, really broke it open. With the late start and slow play of the playoffs, I was ready for bed, so I actually turned of the TV in the middle of the ninth, figuring that the odds were against the Dodgers scoring 4 or more in the bottom of the inning. I don’t do that very often, but as I get older it gets harder to stay up late.
In the AL game, 21 Ks, and 5 of the 6 runs were scored off homers (3 home runs hit).
In the NL game, 23 Ks, and 5 of the 6 runs were scored off homers (4 home runs hit).
I watched bits of both games, but have no interest other than hoping Houston loses. As others have opined, they shouldn’t have even been allowed to compete this year.
