What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

MLB 2022: Playing Ball, But Is Anyone Still Watching?

Status
Not open for further replies.
The cities should just take the teams by eminent domain. No more owners. Give the players profit sharing, let cities compete for managing their teams the best, and have a hard standard deviation for payroll that moves around the net revenue mean, and divide the profit among the cities according the finish. No more advantage to bigger cities or richer owners.

And yeah, I know it hurts us the worst. But fuck it, owners are the worst.
 
I admit that I haven't watched a substantial amount of baseball games since 2019 (2020 I avoided because I was busy with work and because the league had stupid rules over Covid). But I tried in 2021 and this season and I'm one of those fans that were chased away by the 1-2 punch of a brutally slow pace of play and by the realized impacts of the "three true outcome" philosophy among hitters.

I get math. I'm a stats dude. I don't pine for some fictionalized "old way". But between the absurd wasted time between pitches and the "home run or bust" batter mentality the game has been brutal to watch for me.

That said, here are my short term rule changes to improve the game:
  • Ruthlessly enforced pitch clock. I go to 3-5 minor league games per year (used to be the Lowell Spinners, now I see the Worcester Red Sox) and I can't begin to tell you how much better the pace is because of the timers. Get the ball, throw the ball. Don't step out of the box. Play the god damned game. Go beyond just awarding balls and strikes. If you get enough of them called against you, fines or suspensions. Whatever. Make this punitive. There is absolutely no reason that games should take 4+ hours so routinely.
  • Balance the schedules more. Another real exciting thing (eyeroll) is to see the same four teams 19 times each. I'd even buck the trend here and look to expand interleague play.
  • Expand the playoffs and make winning your division less important. Honestly, it seems that every year there's some mediocre team racking up lots of wins because they play in a crap division, and every year there's an outstanding 2nd place finisher to a 105 win team that would have won every other division in the league. Perhaps the NBA/NHL method of 8 playoff teams is a bit much? Whatever. Give me at least 6 and make the last 6-8 weeks of the season mean more to more teams and fans.
  • 3 fielder limit to the outfield. I don't like eliminating the overshift. The shift has been employed for like a century, and as frustrating as it is to see someone smash their head into the wall and ground out over and over, eventually batters will compensate (or they'll get replaced by someone who will). I know "short fielders" have been employed likely as long as the general concept of the shift, however I do think it's one line that can be drawn. This sounds a bit crazy, but I think the use of the shift is likely a solution to the three true outcome hitting approach. Since you usually don't sock that dinger, make all the times where a batter doesn't... hurt more. Make them outs. I dunno. I go in circles on this.
  • Robot umps for balls and strikes. Enough of this "my strikezone" crap. Enough of this "the catcher framed it perfectly and enticed the strike call". F that. Human eyes are incapable of calling these accuracy from the home plate umpire's perspective behind the catcher. This may have been the best way to get the most calls right in the past, but it sure as hell isn't in 2022+. We need to make Joe West and Angel Hernandez less important in the outcome.
I'm not sure what other changes I can get behind. I don't really like the 3-batter minimum for relievers but for god's sake something had to be done to quell the every-batter-new-pitcher thing. I very much don't like the EI rules either, but they do seem to speed the games up (extremely unscientific observation of a much-too-small sample size - if my impression is wrong, I believe you).


I love the DH, sorry whiny old timers, you can feel free to continue to be wrong on this. Look, I do believe I see some kids on your lawn!
 
Last edited:
TIL when they realigned in 94 the Pirates were supposed to be in the East and the Braves in the Central, but the Braves whined.

Man, what a different world we could have had.
 
Kepler said:
TIL when they realigned in 94 the Pirates were supposed to be in the East and the Braves in the Central, but the Braves whined.

Man, what a different world we could have had.
Click to expand...

Wow. That would have been a game changer in '95. That would have left the Mets as the NL East leader?

Ignoring how the heavy intra-division games would have changed, would that have made it Braves/Mets, Dodgers/Rockies?
 
Woman behind the plate in Oakland has maintained this expression for 5 innings.

FdYz2PAX0AA2kcu
 
Kepler said:
TIL when they realigned in 94 the Pirates were supposed to be in the East and the Braves in the Central, but the Braves whined.

Man, what a different world we could have had.
Click to expand...

A couple other things I read said it was more the Marlins campaigning for a regional rival. Obviously that didn’t work out because no one cares about Miami.

Also read that the Pirates were trying to get into the Central later on as well. Not sure why they made the Central have six teams when they could’ve had the East have six and let the Pirates go move like they wanted.
 
Judge getting his 61st off a Red Sox pitcher ala Maris getting his 61st off Tracy Stallard on Oct 1 '61 almost 61 years after would be uhh numerical.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top