New MLB commish wants to change the game....

• HitsRus

  

  Listen to what he has to say.....
  Not a good start to his tenure, which if this is what he is all about...I hope is very short.
  
  Clock on the pitcher??? ...meh
  "Eliminate defensive shifts".....ugh,:RpS_glare:.
  
  http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12221038
  
  If you want to beat a shift, learn to hit the ball to all fields.
• BR1986FB

  Good or bad, I think he's trying to inject some new ideas to make the game interesting for the younger crowd. Unless you're an old school/diehard, baseball is one of the most boring things to watch on the planet. "Purists" will scoff at his ideas but I think he's just trying to save what seems like a slowly dying sport.
• Spock

  

  clock on the pitcher might be ok.......how about a clock on the batter also.
  
  shifting the D is BS. Its called strategy. That's like not allowing all the basketball teams to have out of bounds plays.
• BR1986FB

  Spock;1699816 wrote:.......how about a clock on the batter also.

  Mike Hargrove would lose his mind.
• Sonofanump

  I am fine with defensive shifts, let it go.
  Definitely need a pitch clock and restrict the batter from leaving the box unless avoiding a pitch.
  I'd be for once the manager walks toward the pitcher, the next pitch must be in 2 minutes if a change is being made.
• sleeper

  

  The game is boring. I haven't watched a game on TV in years and have slowly started losing interest in attending any games in person.
• Spock

  

  allow steroids, aluminum bats and put the mound back 10 more feet and baseball would be exciting!!!!! Hitters game!
• BR1986FB

  sleeper;1699828 wrote:The game is boring. I haven't watched a game on TV in years and have slowly started losing interest in attending any games in person.

  I feel the same way. Used to watch every Tribe game and would go down to Municipal Satdium or the Jake every so often. Even when offered free tickets, I pass.
• GoPens

  

  Pitch clock was used in Arizona Fall League and reviews were somewhat positive. No problem with it as long as the batter is also on some sort of clock.
• sleeper

  

  GoPens;1699862 wrote:Pitch clock was used in Arizona Fall League and reviews were somewhat positive. No problem with it as long as the batter is also on some sort of clock.

  What's the penalty if you don't pitch within the pitch clock? Automatic ball?
• Heretic

  

  Ban defensive shifts and I hope dude gets shot in the face at close range. Fuck that noise.
• thavoice

  I would hate not allowing for defensive shifts.
  Time limit? Well, I am tired of all the fidgeting that hitters, and pitchers, do between pitches. I dont mind long games. Hell, when I was a kid and I went to a game, or one was finally on TV, I felt cheated if the game went less than 3 hours. Too many guys, mostly during the postseason, messing around between pitches. Hell, some readjust their batting gloves between each pitch!!
  
  
  COwherd said something interesting this morning.......said that in the other sports they are figuring out how to get more fans, in baseball they are just trying to figure out how to keep the ones they already have.
  Over 55 baseball is getting bigger and popular, younger people.....its getting less and less popular.
  Attendance is still good. Minor league attendance is great. I think thoough more go to the games as something to do rather than actually enjoying the game. Just listen to the conversations from the people sitting around when you are at games. In baseball....its about everything but, at NFL games....it is about the past play and what they should/will do next.
• IggyPride00

  

  The Defensive shift has killed the game in a sense, and I would be fine with them eliminating it. I am sure the rule would be you have to have 2 men on each side of 2nd base, so it doesn't totally eliminate a shift. It just gets rid of the being able to put 3 guys on the one side of the infield.
• thavoice

  GoPens;1699862 wrote:Pitch clock was used in Arizona Fall League and reviews were somewhat positive. No problem with it as long as the batter is also on some sort of clock.

  Real test though is in regular season games, especially in the bigger moments. Seems like the bigger the moment, the slower it goes. I almost blame hitters more than pitchers.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  I like the clock on the pitcher.
  
  BUT... Not allowing defensive shifts!!!??? GTFO
• IggyPride00

  

  thavoice;1699898 wrote:Real test though is in regular season games, especially in the bigger moments. Seems like the bigger the moment, the slower it goes. I almost blame hitters more than pitchers.

  The ump could stop the batter by not allowing him time to go through his routines after each pitch. Couple that with a pitch clock and we might have a chance to get games back to where they used to be time wise.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  Spock;1699816 wrote:shifting the D is BS. Its called strategy. That's like not allowing all the basketball teams to have out of bounds plays.

  NBA has done things to eliminate defensive strategy. Being an Jim Teecher, I figured you'd know that.
• IggyPride00

  

  Why does everyone love the defensive shift so much? It has basically made the single extinct in MLB.
• Laley23

  

  The clock is about 10 years overdue. And not hard at all to implement.
  
  Batter must be in the box with X seconds to go or it's a strike (next time an out...for same hitter). Pitcher needs to pitch by certain time. First time is warning, then ball, then walk.
• Ironman92

  

  I'm kinda for the clock.
  
  I'm incredibly against any rulings against the defensive shifts. Where do you draw the line? How do you define the parameters of each fielding position? OF not play deep to prevent doubles? IF can't play the line? IF can't play in assuming a bunt? No 5th IF in dire situations?
• lhslep134

  

  IggyPride00;1699909 wrote:Why does everyone love the defensive shift so much? It has basically made the single extinct in MLB.

  Why are you incapable of any positive thoughts? Why is everything negative with you?
• robj55

  

  Baseball is a good game but it is terrible to watch, maybe worse than Golf.
• lhslep134

  

  Buster Olney on why you can't get rid of defensive shifts:
  
  "This is a really, really bad idea that should be dismissed quickly, as it was by the general managers who discussed it in a meeting last fall. Some old-school teams that have yet to embrace shifts backed the idea, but the more progressive teams widely rejected it, and rightly so.
  
  As teams increasingly used shifts in recent years, some frustrated hitters have privately advocated for this kind of rule change. In listening to the complaints, I must admit that it was sometimes difficult to stifle laughter, just as it was when pitchers griped about the shrinking outfield dimensions of the ballparks in the '90s. I heard stories about pitchers taking tape measures onto fields at places like Camden Yards, where pitchers have questioned whether the distance from home plate to left-center field is actually 364 feet.
  
  [+] EnlargeDoug Pensinger/Getty ImagesDefensive shifts might not be too well-liked by some of the game's top sluggers, but they're a necessary part of baseball's evolution.
  
  
  But mostly, pitchers and catchers and managers and front offices did what generations of competitors in all sports have done for years: They adapted. And in baseball, those changes have taken on many forms, from drug-testing to the application of information. More pitchers started using the cut fastball, choosing to value movement over velocity. Managers and front offices have increasingly limited the vulnerability of their pitchers, removing tiring starting pitchers earlier, using more relievers for shorter stints, in which pitchers are throwing harder.
  
  For more than a century, defensive alignments have been adjusted, but often blindly, given the lack of statistical data to support the common alterations. It became standard operating procedure for managers to position their infielders in or back, or to ask their corner infielders to guard the lines in the late innings, to have their outfielders play deeper when protecting a lead. Lou Boudreau famously employed a shift against Ted Williams in 1946, and since then, this has become a more common practice against sluggers intent on pulling the ball.
  
  But in recent years, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers embraced two very simple questions: Where is the hitter most likely to hit the ball, and based on that, what is the best way to plot the fielders?
  
  These questions are a long time coming; what took them so long to get to this moment, we can all wonder. They are part of the same family of inquiry that led hitters to anticipate where a pitcher will throw his next pitch and what that pitch will be, and a pitcher identifying the best way to beat the hitter standing at the plate.
  
  Pushing for rules to restrict defensive positioning would be as absurd and antithetical to the game as informing pitchers they can throw only pitches that are straight, or telling hitters they aren't allowed to swing at a hanging curveball.
  
  First, the practical application of the sort of rule that Manfred discussed with Ravech is bound to be far more complicated than the new commissioner envisions. Some folks in the sport quickly riffed through some of those on Sunday: Will there be a line in the middle of the field limiting the movements of the infielders? Could the shortstop or second baseman straddle the line, or merely keep a foot on the line? Could the infielder move as the pitch is being delivered? Who would monitor those movements? If there was a violation of the rule, what would be the remedy? Would the movement of the fielders be subject to review?
  
  What if teams became more creative in shifting against a big slugger such as David Ortiz? What if the second baseman played in short right field, the center fielder moved close to the infield, the left fielder moved toward left center and the third baseman went to left field? Will all fielders be restricted in their pre-pitch movements? Will it be like an NBA foul shot, so that a player isn't allowed to cross a line until the pitch is released?
  
  And what if a manager wanted to employ a five-man infield, which has been an oft-used strategy when a decisive run is at third base? Would that be allowed?
  
  At the heart of this debate, there is this: Should teams no longer be allowed to place fielders where they think the hitter is going to hit the ball?
  
  That's a thought that doesn't seem far removed from telling Andrelton Simmons he's not allowed to throw hard to first base, or telling Juan Lagares he isn't permitted to run too far for a fly ball in the gap.
  
  There are other ways to adjust the game if offense is needed. Lowering the mound, for example, a proven elixir, or giving different instructions to the umpires about how to interpret the strike zone.
  
  But if Charles Darwin were alive and applied the principle of survival of the fittest, he might see baseball as in the midst of a transition. He might argue that hitters need to adapt, understanding they aren't all as good as Ted Williams was and that there might be situations in which dropping a bunt to an open side of an infield is the appropriate response to a shift. Cubs manager Joe Maddon, who's managed against David Ortiz for years, talked recently about how Ortiz is one of the few hitters willing to take a bunt hit.
  
  Over time, teams will inevitably assess a higher value on players -- those in the big leagues, in the minors and even amateurs -- who are capable of hitting the ball to all fields. Teams will evaluate how easily defensed a particular hitter is, and quite simply, they’ll look for batters who they believe will have the most effective swings for the current conditions. There are still seven fielders behind the pitcher, and no matter how they are aligned, there are vast areas for hitters to exploit.
  
  The tides changed in recent years, and the castles hitters enjoyed for years have crumbled. Now it's up to hitters to respond, and for scouts and general managers to respond, rather than asking managers and fielders to effectively play with a hand tied behind their backs. It's not the baseball God-given right of sluggers to swing as hard as they can and get results, and Manfred shouldn't feel compelled to step in and protect them. "
• lhslep134

  

  That post was insider
• thavoice

  lhslep134;1699950 wrote:That post was insider

  Agreed. It is now time for the hitters to adapt to what the defense is doing. By having the shift they should know that they are going to be pitched inside so that should help. If they are a dead pull hitter even middle away then, well, they need to adjust.
  
  We are in the middle of a hitting swoon to a point. More power pitchers, and the years of restrictive drug testing has slowed down the power. Strikeouts are up. More K's = more pitches = longer game.
  Steriod testing but also the use of greenies has hurt hitters as well. Game is so much build on power right now.