MLB Off-Topic

[dubcity]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Games end in balks, so I don't see a problem with a game ending because a guy decides he needs to stall and take forever getting set.

[Master Live 013]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I double and triple dare an umpire to end a game with this idiotic rule.

[Master Live 013]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I'm also wholeheartedly in favor of the electronic strike zone. You know, to show case my "progressive" baseball ideals.

[dubcity]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I double and triple dare an umpire to end a game with this idiotic rule.

Enrico Palazzo would do it.

[SPTO]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Well consider Max Scherzer as a hard "no" on the pitch clock and his voice matters since he's on the MLBPA exec. committee:

"I know as players that’s something that MLB is trying to negotiate," the Washington Nationals ace said Saturday night. "I don’t think there’s negotiation here. As players, it just shouldn’t be in the game. Having a pitch clock, if you have ball-strike implications, that’s messing with the fabric of the game. There’s no clock in baseball and there’s no clock in baseball for a reason.".....

The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches features a pitch clock beneath the main outfield scoreboard and two at ground level behind home plate near each dugout.

"Now having to actually throw to it, I think it’s more of a distraction than anything," Scherzer said. "I get that there are parts of the game that we can clean up and I think that there can be meaningful changes. I’m fundamentally against this."

A newly elected member of the Major League Baseball Players Association’s executive committee, Scherzer felt his first outing dragging a bit, attributing the slow play to a high amount of foul balls. He referenced an article published a few days ago by FiveThirtyEight citing an increase in foul balls as being a major reason for longer games.

"I’m not going to put my name next to this clock," he said.

[Master Live 013]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Having a pitch clock, if you have ball-strike implications, that’s messing with the fabric of the game. There’s no clock in baseball and there’s no clock in baseball for a reason. I’m fundamentally against this.

My main man Max Scherzer. Always been a fan of his, now even more so.

[Jr.]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Then what's the point if they can just step off? Are we going to "shame" enforce it by tsk tsk at pitchers who step off a lot?

I'm not opposed to all changes.

Not problem with the slide rule at second or the mound visit rule (in general). Not oppose to extending the netting from base to base to protect fans.

So don't try to make this an "old man yelling at the cloud" thing.

Why are you opposed if they can just step off? It's like nothing has changed.

I just get sick of guys that step out of the box every pitch our pitchers that have to hike around the mound every pitch.

Everyone gushes about how quick Mark Buerhle worked, but when a rule is presented to get more pitchers to work like him, people freak out.

I just think it's outrage for the sake of outrage and it's an incredibly miniscule rule that we won't think anything about after May.

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[Blzer]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Why are you opposed if they can just step off? It's like nothing has changed.

I just get sick of guys that step out of the box every pitch our pitchers that have to hike around the mound every pitch.

Everyone gushes about how quick Mark Buerhle worked, but when a rule is presented to get more pitchers to work like him, people freak out.

I just think it's outrage for the sake of outrage and it's an incredibly miniscule rule that we won't think anything about after May.

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I want you to keep in mind that I am okay with the rule coming into play (I don't like the ball-strike penalties and really it should only be for the windup, but whatever). I grew up thinking it was a rule anyway, after all.

But you keep insisting that just because something isn't spoken of then it must be some sort of inference that it's forgotten, "accepted," made things better, or whatever. I urge you not to make that mistake, as you would soon agree if I gave radical examples not pertaining to baseball that this is very much not true.

I'm also not one to think that the sport couldn't be made better by some rule changes. I have voiced my opinion in those threads on such rules which should be changed. I don't think any single rule should be changed because our youth generation has an ADHD problem though, and every single rule that has been talked about as of late is for that very reason at the forefront.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

They don't have to throw in 20 seconds, they have to come set.

Y'all are being so dramatic about this. Just like after the slide rule at second and home, the intentional walk rule, and the mound visit rule, I'm guessing people hardly think about it anymore unless you're just looking for something to complain about.

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And just like with the intentional walk rule and the mound visit rule there is no problem that's being solved here. Implement this pitch clock and the game is still too long and the pace of play is still too slow, and people that don't like baseball still won't like baseball.

I'm not a fan of making changes for the sake of making changes. Whereas Rob Manfred is very big on that kind of thing evidently. There is no scenario where taking 19 seconds for a pitcher to throw vs 23 seconds will be worth the effort of making the change. Listen to the players on this one.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I'll have to see it in action but 20 seconds from the time you hit the back of the dirt just to getting set seems like a ton of time.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

I'm VERY anti pitch clock, and I think I've made it known.


That said, I came across this article today, and in all fairness to both sides of the debate I think it's best to share.

There are a few questions I have and the conclusion is based on a small sample size but:

Intro:

On April 13, 1984, the Mets played the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The home team won, 11-2. Both teams combined to throw 270 pitches. Both teams combined to allow 27 baserunners, and 74 batters came to the plate. There was exactly one mid-inning pitching change.

On April 17, 2014, the Brewers played the Pirates at PNC Park. The home team won, 11-2. Both teams combined to throw 268 pitches. Both teams combined to allow 27 baserunners, and 75 batters came to the plate. There was exactly one mid-inning pitching change.

The game from 1984 lasted two hours and 31 minutes.

The game from 2014 lasted three hours and six minutes.

Our goal is to figure out where the extra 35 minutes came from.

This isn’t a perfect, peer-reviewed experiment. It will not prove anything definitively. No two games are ever the same, of course, with different hiccups and quirks mixed between the balls and strikes. Just because the games are nearly identical, that doesn’t mean this is an unimpeachable answer as to why baseball games are longer.

Why are modern baseball games so much longer? Is it because of extra commercials? Batters fidgeting with their batting gloves? On-field delays? Slow home-run trots? It has to be the commercials, right?

We aim to find out, and we’ll go inning-by-inning. (You can skip to the end for the conclusion, but you’ll miss old commercials, Harry Caray quotes, and a picture of a kid picking his nose.)

Conclusion:

Conclusions
What did we learn?

Every man in Chicago is issued a tan trench coat or overcoat when he turns 30, and it is permanently attached to their upper torso. They are eventually buried in it.
Milwaukee telecasts have a "Tavern of the Game" that are sponsored by the Tavern League of Wisconsin.
Before Craigslist, announcers had to find apartments for new players in addition to their regular duties.
These are the most important takeaways, but you might be interested in the ones about the time of game.

Commercials aren’t the primary villain. They don’t help the pace of the modern game, but I figured that was going to be the half-hour difference right there, and the conclusion would be simple. But the 1984 game had 33 minutes and 13 seconds of commercials, and the 2014 game had 42 minutes and 36 seconds. Considering the times of the respective games, the older game actually devoted a similar chunk of their broadcast to time away from the action.

There’s a little bit of an asterisk here, though, as I’m defining "commercial" as the time that runs from the beginning of a commercial break to the first pitch of the next inning. If we’re talking about actual BUY GEICO, YOU MEATY ROBOTS time, the 1984 game featured 19 minutes and 17 seconds of actual ads, whereas the 2014 game had 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

Here's another asterisk: There was a mid-inning pitching change in both games, but only the 2014 game cut to a commercial. That's right: for nearly three minutes in 1984, the cameras just hung around, watching a dude warm up, as announcers talked about nothing and the network threw money out the window. It was somewhere between maddening and refreshing. So if you want to count that as a 1984 commercial, the gap shrinks even more.

Still, the 1984 game took a much longer time coming back from break to get the game started, which means that the players were mostly hanging around on the field, not playing baseball, roughly the same in both eras. They just got better at stuffing more ads in the telecast. It’s possible that this is a quirk of WGN, and that they wanted to make sure all of the different randos cycling through the booth had time to chat with Harry Caray before the first pitch.

Time between pitches is the primary villain. I tallied up all the pitches in both games that we’ll call inaction pitches — pitches that resulted in a ball, called strike, or swinging strike, but didn’t result in the end of an at-bat or the advancement of a runner. These are the pitches where the catcher caught the ball and threw it back to the pitcher, whose next step was to throw it back to the catcher. Foul balls didn’t count. The fourth ball of a plate appearance didn’t count. Stolen bases didn’t count. Wild pitches didn’t count. Just the pitches where contact wasn’t made, and the pitcher received a return throw from the catcher.

There were 146 inaction pitches in the 1984 game.

There were 144 of these pitches in the 2014 game.

The total time for the inaction pitches in 1984 — the elapsed time between a pitcher releasing one pitch and his release of the next pitch — was 32 minutes and 47 seconds.

The total time for inaction pitches in 2014 was 57 minutes and 41 seconds.

This is how a game can have an almost identical number of pitches thrown, batters faced, baserunners, hits, walks, strikeouts, and runs scored compared to another game, yet take more than a half-hour longer. This, plus the modest difference in commercial breaks, explains nearly everything. It took nine seconds longer for a pitcher to get rid of the ball in 2014.

In the 1984 game, there were 70 inaction pitches that were returned to the pitcher and thrown back to the plate within 15 seconds.

In the 2014 game, there were 10.

In the 1984 game, there were 32 balls, called strikes, or swinging strikes that took 20 seconds or more between pitches

In 2014, there were 87 balls, called strikes, or swinging strikes that took 20 seconds or more between pitches.

That’s it. That’s the secret. It isn’t just the commercials. It isn’t just the left-handed pitchers coming in to face one batter, even though that absolutely makes a huge difference in the games when that does happen.

It’s not like every at-bat in the 2014 game was rotten with hitters doing a Nomar Garciaparra impression between pitches, either. It was a marked difference in the modern players doing absolutely nothing of note. The batter taking an extra breath before he steps back in. The pitcher holding the ball for an extra beat.

There was a video review that took four minutes in the 2014 game, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. There were extra commercials, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. The difference between the two games, 30 years apart, was that baseball players are lollygagging more. Or, at least, taking their sweet time to collect their thoughts.

The good news? There’s an easy fix. Baseball is already experimenting with pitch clocks in the minors, and I haven’t heard or read a complaint about them from anyone who regularly attends minor league games. They’re in the background. You get used to them. That’s it.

Baseball will keep trying different ideas, from limiting pickoff throws to limiting mound visits. They’ve already messed with intentional walks, and umpire reviews are going to be less accurate but shorter. The 2014 game didn’t feature the new rules preventing hitters from stepping entirely out of the batter’s box on inaction pitches, which has already helped a bit.

Based on one unscientific deep dive into a pair of similar games, though, the biggest problem with the pace of play is, well, the pace of play. Pitchers don’t get rid of the ball like they used to. Hitters aren’t expecting them to get rid of the ball like they used to. It adds a couple minutes to every half-inning, which adds close to a half-hour.

Fix that, and you have a head start on what Major League Baseball believes is its biggest problem.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my Smart Set is telling me that the Olympics are coming on soon.

It's a one game sample so I'm not entirely sold.

Here's the story and it is a very interesting (but long) read:

https://www.sbnation.com/a/mlb-2017-season-preview/game-length

[Jr.]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

And just like with the intentional walk rule and the mound visit rule there is no problem that's being solved here. Implement this pitch clock and the game is still too long and the pace of play is still too slow, and people that don't like baseball still won't like baseball.

I'm not a fan of making changes for the sake of making changes. Whereas Rob Manfred is very big on that kind of thing evidently. There is no scenario where taking 19 seconds for a pitcher to throw vs 23 seconds will be worth the effort of making the change. Listen to the players on this one.

They both have reduced unnecessary dead time. That's all they were intended to do I think not having to see someone take 2 minutes to throw four 60 mph pitches in the other batters box is worth losing the one in however many chance that they throw it away or even rarer that someone gets a hit.

The mound visit rule hasn't done anything because I can't remember the last time a team had six visits in a game where the pitcher wasn't removed. I'd love to see that number reduced to three and make pitchers figure **** out on their own or be forced to know the scouting report for the whole team.

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[Jr.]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

And honestly the pitch clock won't doo much either because I think the vast majority of pitchers have no problem getting the ball and being ready to pitch within 20 seconds

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[TheMatrix31]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

How does watching the pitcher walk around the mound or the batter tie his cleats build suspense?

Have you never watched an 8th inning in a critical/playoff game where players take their time and the crowd gets louder and louder and the man on first leads off and the batter calls time and we wait some more, everyone watching letting all the possible scenarios run through their minds once more?

Yeah, I like that. It's what makes baseball the best.

I don't like unnecessary regulations mandating players who have individual styles into playing differently. Solutions to problems that don't exist. Solutions that aren't even solutions to problems they claim exist. For a sport and fanbase that claims to care so much about being unique and having more individuality and distinction among players, they sure are against it.

I think it's a good thing that those two "identical" games weren't identical. Why? Because they both had things within those games that determined exactly how THAT particular game unfolded. They were played differently because the game is different now. People taking more pitches because the goal is to get on base and work counts and ****. The exact people who pushed this evolution are now bitching about what they've created. Again. I like game variance. Anything that leads to less game variance and more cookie-cutter garbage and meddling, I'm a billion percent against.The NFL sucks now and so does the NBA. Unremarkable fodder that just blends into each other. And it's all due to unnecessary meddling. And yeah, those rules that "people forgot about already" are sitll dumb as **** and will continue to be so.

I'll keep an open mind because I don't have the power to change it and whatever these morons do will ultimately happen whether I like it or not, but I won't hesitate to kill my interest in baseball if I see more of this and more of the same **** that ruined those other leagues and killed my interest in those other leagues. Those other leagues can survive without fans like me, but baseball I'm not so sure. I promote baseball amongst my non-baseball fan friends incessantly. If I stop talking about it, they *really* wouldn't care. And these changes won't help bring in those who hate baseball anyway. Promoting the game as impossible to miss because it's so awesome and the players are so awesome *will* and *does*.

[Blzer]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

They both have reduced unnecessary dead time. That's all they were intended to do I think not having to see someone take 2 minutes to throw four 60 mph pitches in the other batters box is worth losing the one in however many chance that they throw it away or even rarer that someone gets a hit.

1) It's not two minutes. It's not even one. You said it yourself that rarely anybody takes twenty seconds to deliver pitches anyway.

2) You've removed a legal action. Wake me up when they remove QB kneels at the end of football games, dribbling out the clock in basketball, or touching all the bases after a home run. Oh, that's right... none of those will ever happen.

3) Don't let the rarity of an instance dictate the gravity of the moment should said instance occur. I have an entire post dedicated to videos of moments that have occurred and have completely changed the outcome as a result, and there are so many more moments that can occur than just passed balls and hits, including changing your mind mid-at-bat and deciding to no longer walk the batter.

4) The intentional walk occurs less than once a game on average as is. What is a minute of "dead time" in the grand scheme of things, anyway?

4b) Making it automatic ain't helped nobody. No. Body.

5) ... Do you still really think I've actually "moved on from this" yet?

I've said this all before though, so in fear of repeating myself I'll just point to one of my posts that initiated a chain of "this is why the rule shouldn't have changed." https://forums.operationsports.com/f...post2049485149