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To: IrishBrigade
Baseball has made itself unwatcheable, by refusing to deal with delaying tactics

Baseball has a different cadence than the clock sports. My big beef is the constant changing of pitchers. It wasn't so long ago that a starting pitcher stayed in until he was no longer effective, they didn't pull him just because he threw 87.4 pitches or whatever.

A clock would ruin the game. Maybe a limit on certain actions, like how many times a player can leave the batter's box.

I'd like to shrink the roster to 23 players, to cut down on the substitutions.
47 posted on 09/26/2017 6:32:49 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: Dr. Sivana
Good post. Complaining about the pace of baseball is like complaining about the pace of golf. The game is designed to be played slowly and methodically. There is nothing you can ever do to the rules that would make baseball as exciting as other sports where the ball is in play all the time (perhaps with the exception of going back to the days of allowing runners to be put out by beaning them with the ball on the base paths).

The gripes about long delays that extend the game are legitimate, but the only ones that I think need to be addressed involve the batter constantly stepping out of the box.

I have a completely different take than your proposed reduction to a 23-man roster. I think MLB is going to eventually go in the opposite direction and expand the roster to 26-28 players. Teams will be allowed to dress a set number of players for each game (maybe 22-24), just like other sports. This will eliminate the issue you have today where a team carries players on its game day roster even though there isn't a chance in hell that they're ever going to play in the game (the other starting pitchers in the rotation, for example).

What's going to drive this is that the whole idea of a "starting pitcher" is going to disappear. Instead of having one pitcher go 5+ innings, baseball is going to adapt to a system where a "normal" game involves multiple pitchers tossing no more than three innings apiece. The pitcher who lasts even into the fourth or fifth inning will become the exception rather than the norm.

65 posted on 09/26/2017 6:46:00 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Tell them to stand!" -- President Trump, 9/23/2017)
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To: Dr. Sivana

No one. Is suggesting a time clock, at least regarding the overall length of play; but merely to limit the down time between pitches...and personally, I’d like to see a foul ball with two srikes count as an out, three balls count as a walk, and any batter stepping both feet out of the box without asking for time be called out...


70 posted on 09/26/2017 6:51:14 AM PDT by IrishBrigade
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