Slow and Steady Keeps Us Awake: Major League Baseball Can't Fix Its Pace of Play Problem

SI ^ | October 25, 2018 | Jon Tayler

[Dilbert56]

Ban velcro on batting gloves. Too many hitters stepping out to adjust them while they’re really trying to figure out what pitch is coming next. Make then stay in the box.

[Alberta's Child]

I never liked Wade Boggs but I had to admit he was a great addition to the Yankees in the mid-1990s before their World Series run. That team had a bunch of methodical, disciplined hitters who really knew how to work a count.

Don Mattingly was one of my favorite ballplayers of all time. He rarely ever swung at a first pitch -- but on the rare occasion that he did, he always seemed to make good contact. He'd later say he approached his time at bat with the idea that he'd sit on a specific pitch early in the count and only swing if he got HIS pitch.

[Alberta's Child]

The modern-day Dave Kingman. LOL.

[Hebrews 11:6]

The number one reason the games are too long is that the other team stealing signs. Then the team in the field has to change their signs throughout the game. This is why the batter is always stepping out of the box and the catcher is always going to the mound.

Within two-three years pitchers will announce the coming pitch into a small microphone, and the catcher will have an earpiece, thus eliminating signs altogether. To complement this, batters will be required to stay in the batter's box between pitches and also prohibited from re-velcroing their batting gloves. And pitching clocks will finally be enforced. If baseball cannot solve these fundamental timewasters which occur 300 times per game, nothing else will matter.

[morphing libertarian]

TOO MANY REPLAYS

[morphing libertarian]

PLAYOFFS TOO MANY COMMERCIALS AND LONGER TIME BETWEEN INNINGS. BUT NO TOIME FOR NATL ANTHEM

[dfwgator]

I think a 3-pitcher limit rule, will make managers try to keep their starters in longer, that also mean pitchers will have to focus more on getting quick outs, which means more balls will be in play, and fewer pitches necessary, instead of going for strikeouts.

And it just might cut down on the number of injuries to pitchers.

[bobby.223]

Good post Bill. Yep, the ‘Fall Classic’ really was: THE FALL CLASSIC! then wasn’t it? The best week of the year! Day games only and if you were very, very, VERY lucky, a small black and white somehow made it into your classroom for a game or to. A long time ago but it seems like it all happened only yesterday. “Jihadi look-alikes?” You nailed that one also. I don’t get the muzzie looking huge bushy beard thing at all. Short and trimmed well do look okay tho imho. Oh well, Baseball changes just like everything else.

[Ransomed]

But how does the union go with something like that? How do you deal with injury, feigned or not? I don’t like messing with pitching changes but it does eat up most of the time.

I was toying with the idea that you don’t restrict pitching changes, but for every pitching change over three a team uses they lose an out from 27. There would be less pitching changes and shorter games when one team only has 25 outs or whatever. Probably way too radical and what do you do about extra inning and tie games?

Freegards

[donaldo]

Quite right.

Joe Sewell struck out 114 times in his entire career! In 1925 in 608 at bats he struck out all of 4 times.

And even Babe Ruth never struck out over 100 times in a season.

As for the 2018 season there were more strikeouts than hits for the first time in baseball history. (41,207 strikeouts, 41,019 hits).

In 2018 - there were 41,207 Strikeouts, topping last year’s 40,104.

There were 6,105 home runs in both leagues last year, a record.

Since the year 2000, there have been 97,343 home runs.