Home › The Cardinal Nation Forums › Open Forum › MLB announces pace of play changes
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February 19, 2018 at 12:07 pm #44180
MLB announces a rule change for 2018 limiting the number of mound visits in a game and a rule designed to reduce the time required for inning breaks and pitching changes. There will be no pitch clock implemented for 2018.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) February 19, 2018
February 19, 2018 at 12:20 pm #44183New rules part one: pic.twitter.com/S8pfRlg1JX
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) February 19, 2018
New rules part two; pic.twitter.com/dWVBpSP14Z
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) February 19, 2018
New rules part three; pic.twitter.com/5Zd9CXzEeL
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) February 19, 2018
New rules part four. Also, union/MLB will talk through the season. Pitch clock can be avoided if time of game is reduced. News release does not say what that goal is, but 2:55 was discussed. pic.twitter.com/Ymx1m1jGDX
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) February 19, 2018
February 19, 2018 at 1:49 pm #44187The average MLB game lasted 3 hours & 8 minutes in 2017, longest in the sport's history. pic.twitter.com/lZ7sQZx5Zh
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) February 19, 2018
February 19, 2018 at 2:13 pm #44190interesting…all seems in line with general discussions…and IMO should reduce the time a bit
my issues is still with the consequences…fines won’t do anything to stop people from not abiding…balls and strikes and even outs or disqualifications will however
the threat of the pitch clock also isnt enough to make batters get into batter boxes earlier or whatever…if there isnt an equal punishment for the offensive side it seems rather unbalanced to see the punishment only effect one side
February 22, 2018 at 10:15 am #44481In watching games, the two primary reasons they take so long today seem to be primarily the batter-pitcher confrontations are drawn out much moreso than in the past, and the number of foul balls.
I understand that when you are playing the game, each at-bat is lightning fast in your head. Thus you try to slow it down by stepping out if you are the hitter, or take your time to make sure you and the catcher are on the same page as a pitcher. But it seemed like pitchers used to be in a better groove at one time, and could get the ball and be ready to go.
I have no idea if more foul balls are hit today than say 30 years ago, but it sure seems that way sometimes. Not much anyone can do about that though, unless a limit was put in place. But that would be far too radical.
February 22, 2018 at 10:25 am #44485As jager pointed out the mound visit rule is a farce because there is no stated mechanism to enforce it. A fine? That is a joke. Wilson Contreras has already publicly stated he plans to ignore the rule.
February 22, 2018 at 11:21 am #44494commercials are why the game is so much longer than it was ages ago…that’s it…it only got worse recently with the things they are addressing.. which is good… but it will never go back to the times pre-tv days
it’s slowly paced game but it is far from long… football is much more horrendously slow…especially college football…that crap goes on for 4 hours… and so many commercials…
baseball being “slow” is one of the biggest farcest ever…there is stuff happening about every 20seconds and the action isnt interrupted for time outs or commercial breaks other than at points where gaps in time are needed to play the game (half innings)
all the minutiae they are “fixing” shouldn’t have ever been allowed to happen in the first place if they woudl have been enforcing rules…they are just making a correction to get back to a norm…but it is still a norm that is post big business and tv revenue
still no consequences that affect the game (thus their stats and thus paychecks) then it won’t matter at all…. fines are worthless…balls and strikes…outs and ejections…immediate uncontested and non-reducible suspensions? it would be gone in one month….maybe less…all it would take is ONE game decided by someone not following these rules for it to all change…
February 22, 2018 at 1:55 pm #44500The consequences of television is a great point jags. I wonder if there are any metrics available to compare the between-innings-break times from 40-50 years ago and the times today? And of course we have the replay situation now.
College football is brutal. They have that guy with the white uniform who stands on the field and signifies when the commercials are over and play can resume. It really drags things out. It’s especially tough when you are at a game where the weather is not all that great, which is not that uncommon out here in the mountain west.
But the big difference in football is they only play a few games. Baseball is played every day, with most games on week nights. It’s tough for a lot of people to commit three-plus hours on a week night for baseball.
February 22, 2018 at 4:31 pm #44517agree BikeMike
only us crazy people watch every game every day…the commitment to watching every day isnt required for most fans…though more than once a week seems like it should be so time commitment allotted overall makes sense
Football is extremely boring IMO…35-50 seconds between every single play and more than half the time nothign happens…or very little….and 3 and outs are common…so you get 3 and out punt…5-6 and out punt…tv break…blah blah… the scoring in the game is atrociously slow…way worse than baseball…
the numbers may be high but the scoring isnt…31-24 (a high scoring game) is what? 6-7 touchdowns and a couple kicks? over 3-4+ hours? but it’s the build up right? blah…it’s a big tease half the time…big build up and NOTHING 10 plays…FG…8 plays punt…8 plays and 3 penalties and a punt oh…and a replay or two.. not that baseball doesnt induce the build up too and have fast half innings…but at least they dont cover up the pace with big numbers…. any game where you dont have to pay attention for large amounts of time seems pretty lazy and boring… outside of a few QB calls and some impressive athleticism from time to time it’s basically just chess by guys wearing headsets in the booths…
I am also interested in between inning times and bullpen changes etc. pre TV…someone must know all that
February 22, 2018 at 4:35 pm #44520Look, the problem isn’t that the games take too long. Its what time the game ends. For school kids and people that have to get up early to go to work a three hour game wont be over until well after 10:00. By the time people get home, grab a bite, jump in the shower, etc, its 11:00 or later.
Do like Cleveland and Arizona, just start the games earlier. Instead of between 7:05/7:15, just start them at 6:35/6:45 and the problem is solved.
February 22, 2018 at 4:38 pm #44522A team argument to the earlier start times is that some people cannot get to the park after work that fast. I wondered if it isn’t because ad rates are higher in the 7-10 pm block (just a guess).
February 23, 2018 at 10:31 am #44552start times are definitely an issue too…good point
still West Coast games for East coast teams cant be creating a lot of ad revenue…moving up the games by 30 minutes might not seem like much…but for those late night SF games…a start time of 930 gets a lot more people watching that the 10:05 ones
February 23, 2018 at 10:53 am #44555A few years ago the Rockies bumped up their weeknight start times to 6:40. It is actually a win-win, because if you work in an office it is a great excuse to get out a little early to have time to get to the park, and then the game ends a little earlier.
That’s not as good as the long-ago days of daytime baseball. Games would start around 3PM, so the working stiff got a chance to take a good chunk of the afternoon off and run out to the ball park. Games would usually end around 5:30 at the latest, so there was still plenty of time to be home for dinner. 🙂
February 23, 2018 at 11:01 am #44557Oddly, the Cardinals select only Thursday nights to start an hour early, 6:10 instead of 7:10. Why is it a good idea just that one night of the week?
My only guess is that it is not fan-driven at all. Usually, Thursdays mark the end of a series, so it conceivably gives the teams an hour head start to get out of town and on to the next city.
February 23, 2018 at 11:22 am #44561Yes, I seem to remember some negotiations leading up to the current CBA about start times for get away days. That is a big deal for the players as it should be. The worst is that dreaded Sunday night game when you have a game the next night in a different city.
February 23, 2018 at 2:27 pm #44567Mike Shannon hates those Sunday night contests. I don’t like ’em either. Strictly a TV gimmick. But big time sports are run by money, and the money is so huge today that it runs the show.
July 28, 2018 at 4:38 pm #62713This is not a pace of play change per se, but this thread seemed the best place to put it. The view is that if implemented, a roster expansion would only slow games down. The assumption (which makes sense) is that extra roster spots would be taken up by more relievers, allowing managers to make even more pitching changes.
The surge in the # of position players pitching is a signal that the 100-year trend toward more frequent pitching changes has finally reached a limit within the 25-man roster. The worst mistake that baseball could make would be to expand rosters and allow that trend to resume.
— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) July 28, 2018
December 5, 2018 at 1:44 pm #76048MLB, commissioner Rob Manfred gaining support to limit defensive shifts, report says https://t.co/KRLHA4IvIC via @CBSSports
— CBS Sports MLB (@CBSSportsMLB) December 5, 2018
December 5, 2018 at 1:51 pm #76049Pull heavy hitters everywhere would rejoice at the end of the shift. Matt Carpenter’s batting average goes up 20 points! Haha
December 5, 2018 at 2:16 pm #76053NJ315ParticipantSo what would be an “illegal” defensive shift? Only the ones affecting pull hitters or are others included? Bringing the infield in? Bringing the outfield in? When does it cross the line from better position to becoming an illegal shift? You should be able to position your players as you see fit. Don’t like hit where they ain’t.
December 5, 2018 at 2:20 pm #76055My guess is they would have a rule that you must have two infielders on each side of second base. That would seem pretty cut and dried.
December 5, 2018 at 2:23 pm #76056NJ315ParticipantBut I could play the 3B at SS and the SS right next to second.
December 5, 2018 at 3:20 pm #76063“You should be able to position your players as you see fit. Don’t like it, hit where they ain’t.”
Amen, 315. Don’t like the shift? Learn to bunt. If pitchers can learn to bunt, regular hitters can. (The mistake that John Mabry made with Matt Adams, was that Mabry tried to train Adams to slap liners and hard grounders to the opposite field, and that is extremely difficult to do on command, unless you’re Rod Carew or Tony Gwynn. Bunting is much, much easier.)
The whippersnappers out there, and I guess Rob Manfred is somehow one of them, do not seem to understand that the shift was always a possibility. It’s not like nobody was ever shifted on before — just ask Ted Williams’ chipped frozen head when he thaws out. Despite what you might read at Fangraphs, the “analytics generation” didn’t invent shifting because they’re just so much smarter than all those who came before them.
The reason there was little or no shifting for decades, was that even the sluggers like Mike Schmidt and Steve Garvey most notably, possessed at least a rudimentary ability to drop a bunt down — if you played them waaay back at third base, or gave them the entire left side of the infield.
Ban the shift? Learn to bunt, lazybones.
December 5, 2018 at 4:53 pm #76113I hope the shift is banned. Less shifts means more hits which means more action. This isn’t a new concept. The NBA has had more than one variation of illegal defense for years.
December 5, 2018 at 5:02 pm #76120NJ315ParticipantThe devil is in the details. What is or isn’t an illegal shift? Who makes the call? Will we have more reviews to see if the player “crossed” the line from legal to illegal.
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