Banning the shift is profoundly stupid. If adopted it would be the worst rule change in the history of professional baseball.
Larger bases are okay, as are any minor rule changes encouraging stolen base attempts. I think a better idea would be the adoption of the safety base at first base, which has the advantage not only of decreasing collisions, but of making it WAY easier to adhere to, and enforce, the lane rule.
Not your fault, but I got a chuckle out of this illiterate (innumerate) statement:
At the Triple-A level, the size of first, second, and third base will be increased from 15 square inches to 18 square inches with the league looking to limit collisions around the bags.
No, the bases are being increased from 15 inches square to 18 inches square. Big difference. A base of “15 square inches” would be about 3-7/8" inches on a side, while one of 18 square inches would be about 4-1/4" on a side.
Bases that small would make the force plays and the steals a lot more interesting, but also a lot more hazardous. 
For those (like me) new to the idea of a safety base , here’s a quick tutorial:
In a nutshell, orange half is for the runner, white half is for the baseman.
Second worse only to the DH. It completely changes something that has been part of the game forever
“That’s the way it’s always been done” is the single worst justification for literally anything.
Your right maybe baseball should advance from one side of the field to the other once a team made it across the field they could score a point and the other team would get a turn. After three out the other team gets to take over at the spot of the last out. It’s would still be baseball right? Being able to move position players around to take advantage of players who are incapable on controlling where they hit the ball. Infield shifts have been happening since 1941 and outfield shifts started in the 1920.
But even if changing the core of baseball doesn’t matter to you this is a change that doesn’t do anything to change the three true outcomes batting and pitching style that they are trying to get rid of. Which means it is a useless change too.
You’ll notice I didn’t offer an opinion on banning the shift. I think it’s a terrible idea. I was assuming you were bitching about the DH for a similar reason. Either way, my point stands - your reasons for disliking the ban on the shift is far more convincing with actual reasons than with “but it’s always been played that way”.
This is true. However, what we’ve seen is, thanks to the explosion of advanced data and sabermetrics in the game over the last decade or so, teams use shifts far, far more often now. The heavy use of defensive shifts have already played a signficiant role in changing how the game is played.
I’m not sure that banning defensive shifts is the right answer, either, but it’s clear that the game is played differently now (in a number of ways) than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
I think the development of mostly pull hitters and ground balls being an accident rather than on purpose has led to the extreme shifting not the other way around. It makes no sense to have defenders on half the field where the ball will never be hit. The shift will get killed better and quicker by players developing the ability to hit or bunt into the shift.
Nope the dh is shitty because it develops speciality offensive and defensive players. And while they developed naturally their should be a punishment for the player and the team if they want to focus on one side or the other.
My first post wasn’t arguing that the rule was terrible it was just a me too post with a gratuitous dig at the DH.
The defensive team must have a minimum of four players on the infield, each of whom must have both feet completely in front of the outer boundary of the infield dirt. Depending on the preliminary results of this experimental rule change, MLB may require two infielders to be positioned entirely on each side of second base in the second half of the Double-A season,” says the league.
I’ll be interested to see the results.
Is the measurement of the infield dirt standardized? I wonder if this will result in the shift being pulling the left or right fielder across the field as a rover of sorts.
The DH has really, really obvious benefits. You can make the case it also removes some strategy to the game; I think the benefits outweigh that.
Banning the shift won’t add ANYTHING to the game. It removes strategy in order to… remove strategy. I cannot imagine what the benefit is supposed to be. Are they expecting it to increase batting averages? If it does it won’t even be by a point overall, and will discourage adaptation by hitters. Batting averages are, overall, really low right now, but that is almost entirely due to the astronomical strikeout totals, which are 40% higher than they were just 20 years ago.
The only hitters significantly affected by infield shifts are lefthanded hitters who can’t hit the ball the other way. If shifts actually start harming such hitters, those hitters eventually won’t exist anymore; they will adapt by slapping it the other way whenever they’re shifted on.
A good rule change improves the game in a way that strategy will NOT adapt to. The reason I support the use of safety bags at first base is that eliminates two problems for which strategy cannot adapt, one a matter of safety and the other a matter of better implementing an existing rule.
A very good question. I remember Rogers Centre only had dirt around the bases a few years back…weren’t a lot of domes/turf stadiums that way? Looking at some images on Google, the artificial turf infield still had a line drawn dividing it from the outfield. Mostly for record-keeping?
It feels like everyone has been saying that for the past decade, but it hasn’t really happened. Lefty pull hitters with low batting averages are tolerated as long as they can lift x number of balls over the fence. So if the ball is deader, maybe keeping the infields split will be a slight improvement. Or maybe it won’t. Not a bad idea to experiment with, imo.
Also, safety bags seem like a great idea. Are there any downsides?
This isn’t a process that happens in a few years - in fact, it’s not even a process that happens in a p[layer’s career. You need to have players selected for given abilities when they’re still kids.
That said, here’s the thing; if guys can hit shit-tons of home runs, they won’t care if they have one extra groundout every three weeks. The problem with baseball isn’t too many groundouts, it’s too few groundouts.
Over the last three years, the batting average on balls in play is about .296. That is perfectly normal, historically speaking. In the last fifty years, that has gotten as high as .302, but prior to the 90s it was consistently lower than that and I don’t remember anyone saying there wasn’t enough hitting - in fact, baseball in the 1980s was really varied and interesting. For much of baseball’s history it’s been lower than .296. It was lower than that every year from 1938 to 1994. It just makes no sense that they’d worry about balls in play being outs; the problem is too many balls AREN’T in play.
Another reason I love my Dodgers. They just renewed Andrew Toles’ contract even though they don’t expect him to return, because it enables him to get the mental health help he desperately needs.
Class move.
MLB has announced that they are going to start cracking down on gooped balls.
Pitchers trying to improve their grip by applying something sticky to the baseball is a tradition as old as hot dogs, the national anthem and the seventh-inning stretch.
Doing this isn’t, in the strictest sense of the word, “legal” according to the rulebook, but there’s long been an unspoken agreement among teams to mostly let it slide. Everybody does it, the thinking goes, and as long as the violation isn’t egregious, it benefits everyone to allow a little malfeasance.
Now the commissioner’s office has decided that this method of self-regulation is insufficient. The league sent a memo last week to all clubs saying that it intends to crack down on the use of foreign substances on the ball this season. In addition to collecting balls and having them examined by a third-party laboratory, MLB will also analyze data to check for statistical anomalies that suggest the ball has been tampered with.
I have serious doubts about how much they will actually be able to detect. And I’m perhaps more skeptical than the average pitcher about how much it really helps. But hey, if it ends up increasing short ball action, I’m all for it. Baseball has always had to adapt to keep offense and defense in balance.
The big issue with getting rid of some of the sickyness is that pitchers use it to controll the ball. This matter more in later innings when the starter is tired or hot days when the pitchers are extra sweaty. I’ll be curious to see if we see more hit batsmen this year.
Baseball is in the unenviable position of needing to reduce both strikeouts and home runs - at the same time. Pace of play seems to me to be the number one issue, but those two are right behind it. Imagine how less popular the NBA would be if almost every offensive play was either a 3-pointer or a brick.
I’ve been trying to think of how to fix this.
Reducing home runs can be done with physical changes, especially deadening the ball.
Reducing strikeouts is much harder. The increase in strikeouts is a totally rational approach. It makes sense to select pitchers for strikeout ability and to not usually select hitters for avoiding strikeouts, which I realize sounds weird but it’s true.
I cannot think of a practical solution except to move the mound back. Moving the rubber back 12-18 inches makes a substantial change to reaction time and will result in more contact; however, it would also result in more home runs, so you need to ensure you’re deadening the ball.
Long term, MLB could insist ballparks have deeper fences, and I think that’s important, but it takes awhile. Bigger outfields would reduce bombs, but also result in more exciting plays like triples.
