Union reps have already said there now doing the DH/bullpen 3 player reviler rule until the new CBA comes into effect
To speed up the game, each at-bat should be 2 strikes, 3 balls. I like pitching battles too. I wouldn't change the rules to favour offense. Survival of the fittest.
Augmented reality for the strike zone and for the umpires. Solves so many problems so easily. Umpires keep their job. Nobody questions strikes and balls. And we don't need to see that stupid square anymore ( never mind it should look more like a cube).
Agreed on all points except that I don't really see a need to change anything about pitching. Batting is lagging right now; it needs to catch up. I really wanted to address the pace stuff, because it's starting to irk me more and more as I get older. Baseball is NOT the slowest game out there. Average game is 2.5-3 hrs. Your average NFL game seems to regularly exceed 3 hours. NBA games are in the range of baseball games and probably getting slower because the NBA's replay process is atrocious and extremely time consuming. Hockey has this figured out better than anyone. 20 min x 5 + change = hockey game. But back to baseball... Baseball's pace is just extremely linear. It's basically a steady climb to 9 innings with a few deviations along the way. Now some people may find that boring, but that's just how it is. There just aren't these huge spikes of wasted time you're going to artificially iron out and save yourself 20-30 minutes per game. Not unless you start compromising the game itself. I would agree that I dislike one-batter or even one-pitch appearances by relievers. I'm on board with other people's suggestions about that. Even having replay now doesn't seem to have slowed things down much, if any. (I'm actually impressed by how efficiently MLB handles replay in games.)
I love the game as is, but would like to see these two changes: 1. Would be nice if MLB invests in its own ticket reselling app where the fees are de minimus. Buying tix on Stubhub has gotten increasingly more expensive. I went to a college basketball game last month, paid $100 per ticket, but then got hit for $35/ticket in fees. 35%?!? Unbelievable. 2. Would be nice to have some kid friendly sections in the ballpark. Brought my kids to a few games in the last couple years where we were in front of drunk, obnoxious fans who wouldn't stop cussing, etc. Maybe I've been lucky, but that has never been a problem in prior years for me at Astros games.
Agree about family sections. Not sure why this hasn’t been implemented (not just in baseball). People who want to get drunk and cuss should be able to do that without worrying about corrupting little kids or angering parents. Families should be able to come to games without worrying about what their kids will be exposed to. Plus, the experience could be heightened for both types of fans in other ways. Certain “adult” sections could feature special beer pricing. Family sections could have their own mascot/entertainer or dedicated play area.
I personally don’t think affordability is a major issue (in terms of ticket prices). Crummy seats to weekday games between non marquee teams can be had for about 1 hour of minimum wage work. Tying back to the family/adult sections, family sections could feature reduced price food/drinks for kids.
538 has proposed a very simple solution (and in 538 fashion, they do intense analysis on it) that I'm now convinced would solve many of baseball's problems: Each team should be limited to carrying 10 pitchers on its 25-man active roster, plus an Emergency Pitcher. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/relievers-have-broken-baseball-we-have-a-plan-to-fix-it/
wow i guess its happening guys. I love it http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26150351/mlb-all-star-election-day-planned
I don’t understand why they’re making the rule that pitchers must face 3 batters; to me it makes much more sense for the rule to be that substitutions can only be made between innings, with each team given 3 “timeouts” per game to make mid-inning substitutions. Between that rule and the batter/pitch clock, that would be doing about as much as reasonably possible to speed up the game.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's either 3 batters faced or the pitcher finishes the inning. If that's not the case, it's a messed up rule.
The ticket prices don't bother me; well, they don't bother me that much. But it seems the broker subcharges (i.e., Stubhub) have gone through the roof in the last year. I don't think their software is that special to demand such a huge percentage of the ticket price. The reseller transaction costs never seem to dip below 20% now, and are often 35% or so. If you buy four $80 tickets (decent seats behind first or third base for a weekday game), there will likely be a $100 surcharge of Stubhub fees. That seems ridiculously high to me.
I'm shocked there hasn't been another company come in and take their market share by offering lower fees...
computer assisted strike zone (umps can overrule) 18X18 bases instead of 15X15 mound moved back 2 feet in the 2nd half of the season 2 IFers must be on each side of 2nd base no mound visits by players (unsure if this applies to catchers too) unless there's a pitching change or injury 3 batter minimum or end of inning by relievers cutting 20 seconds off the time between innings and pitching changes https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...bo-umps/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.21dc75912fad https://www.baseballamerica.com/sto...bo-umps-other-changes-from-new-mlb-agreement/
I like assisted strike zone, no mound visits, 3 batter minimum, and reduced time between innings. Don’t care much about base size (would rather leave it alone). HATE banning the shift and moving the rubber back.