We've Had a Month Now

[Subdeacon Joe]

What do you think of the new baseball rules?

 

I'm still on the fence about the pitcher only getting two pickoff attempts.  Other than that, I'm OK with them.

 

Some pitchers seem to be having trouble adjusting to the pitch clock.  I think it was in the Giants game yesterday, 9th inning, catcher got really frustrated with the relief pitcher.  Used a time out and a couple of mound visits to avoid clock violations.  He was even making the "speed it up" hand gestures.   The last one he pounded the ground in frustration after he had to call time. 

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

Usually I don't care for new rules (i.e. designated hitter) as they just doesn't seem baseball.  But, I do like the new rules that are good at speeding up the game by removing too much dead time.

[Rye Miles #13621]

I don’t like in fact I hate the runner on second base in the 10 inning. Our tv announcer, Rick Manning, former ball player and Gold glove winner said, “Do you know how hard it is to get a man on second with no outs? 

I’m also not crazy about the two pickoff throws to 1st base but I can live with it. Everything else is just fine !

Play Ball!!

[Cypress Sun]

Pro's:

I like them, I like them a lot for the most part. No more 4 hour games. No more constant and idiotic stepping out of the box to "adjust" batting gloves. No more wasting time "psyching" out the batter. No more constant pick off tries.

 

Ambivalent about :

I don't think that base stealing has increased due to the size of the base and they still wear the stupid oversized gloves. 

 

Cons:

I liked the infield shifts, sorry to see them gone.

 

Still needs to be changed:

Get rid of the unearned base runner in extra innings.

Get rid of the DH in both leagues. 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

20 minutes ago, Cypress Sun said:

Cons:

I liked the infield shifts, sorry to see them gone.

 

Still needs to be changed:

Get rid of the unearned base runner in extra innings

 

I agree that the runner on base in extra innings needs to go.  Isn't it supposed to disappear next year?

 

I also liked the shift.  Just one more tactic.   I saw it backfire about as often as it was effective.   I don't think doing away with it changes the game much.

[Blackwater 53393]

I don’t care for the pitch clock. Never will!!  Baseball has been played without a clock for over a hundred-fifty years!!  If peopple are so attention deficient or so needful of instant gratification, let ‘em find something else to watch or do!!

 

The pickoff rule is a joke!! Taking away the tools of one side in the game is plain wrong!!  It is being done to increase scoring!!  They did the same thing with the lowering of pitcher’s mound years ago and the bigger bases and prohibiting the shift are just more of the same!

 

I’m just as happy watching a 1-0 game!  Extra innings??  FREE BASEBALL!!!!!  Either a pitchers’ duel or a low scoring defensive masterpiece is just as good, or maybe even better, as a 12-7 hitting contest or a home run derby to a real baseball fan!!

 

One of the best games I’ve seen was a college playoff game where a young pitcher threw a 19 strikeout masterpiece a few years ago!! Another was a World Series game where Regie Jackson hit three home runs!! And a game I watched a week ago where the lead swapped a half a dozen times and the winning team scratched out a walkoff single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth!!

 

 I’m not a fan of instant replay either!!  The game was played for over a century without it and it survived and even flourished with legendary calls that people argue about after decades have passed!  It’s part of the mystique of baseball!!

 

Years ago, electronic ball and strike technology was tried and the result was people hated it!!  The responses were very negative!!  The comments were paraphrased in a release by the company promoting the idea. It ammounted to, “Nobody wants to be deprived of the right to holler ‘Kill the umpire’! “

I have no problem with equipment improvements and would applaud any and all efforts to make the game safer, but I devoutly wish that the game was kept a stick and ball game to be played on grass and dirt in front of folks and their kids who cheer and boo and eat hotdogs and drink their favorite beverages under the sun and clouds without any political agenda, virtue signaling, blatant commercialism, or time constraints!!

 

Pitchers should bat!!

 

FOREVER AND ALWAYS, GET RID OF THE DESIGNATED HITTER!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Yul Lose]

I like the new rules for the most part. The DH in the NL was long overdue, glad it’s here to stay. We can bitch all we want but they’re not going to change these new rules. Get rid of the ghost runner in extra innings.

[Matthew Duncan]

It’s baseball season?

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I'd like to see it go back to 1950's rules....but seeing as how I don't pay any attention to any sports but shooting anymore, I guess I don't really give a "darn". 

[DeaconKC]

Get rid of the 2nd Base runner in extra innings!

Allow the Pitcher as many pickoff attempts as they want.

Glad they put the clock in. It was more batters abusing the time than pitchers.

I can live with the rest.

[Subdeacon Joe]

3 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

I don’t care for the pitch clock.

 

I think it's misnamed.  Should be the Batters Clock.  Or maybe Batting Glove Adjust Clock.  Something to rein in the batters from adjusting all their equipment and uniform after every pitch.

[Blackwater 53393]

1 minute ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

I think it's misnamed.  Should be the Batters Clock.  Or maybe Batting Glove Adjust Clock.  Something to rein in the batters from adjusting all their equipment and uniform after every pitch.

The umpire has always had control of this!!  He could always order the batter into the box.

 

 I always thought the batter stepping out to adjust gloves and gear when they haven’t even taken a swing was a waste of time and when I umpired in youth baseball, I’d just say “Batter Up!” and signal the pitcher.  Major League umpires have that option.

 

 

[Cypress Sun]

6 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

I think it's misnamed.  Should be the Batters Clock.  Or maybe Batting Glove Adjust Clock.  Something to rein in the batters from adjusting all their equipment and uniform after every pitch.

 

You're right, it is misnamed.

 

The batters had gotten WAY out of hand with all the non-game theatrics...glove adjustments, helmet repositioning, bat twirling, banging dirt off their cleats and messing with the pitcher. The pitcher, in turn, was messing with the batter and adding even more wasted time. The way I figured it was that each batter was adding about one minute to each at bat. Minimum of 27 at bats per team = 54 minutes of wasted time that had nothing to do with baseball. Games were going 3.5 - 4 hours for low scoring games. High scoring games were broaching the 4.5 hour mark. 

 

The players themselves are directly responsible for the (so called) pitch clock being instituted. Every baseball fan that I've talked to likes the pitch clock...well...except Blackwater but I didn't really talk to him.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Maybe if they got rid of some of incessant commercial breaks and instant replay reviews by officials, the game wouldn’t have needed gimmicks to keep it moving. 

[Blackwater 53393]

35 minutes ago, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:

Maybe if they got rid of some of incessant commercial breaks and instant replay reviews by officials, the game wouldn’t have needed gimmicks to keep it moving. 

WHAT HE SAID!!!

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Remember Nomar?

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

How much difference have the rukes changes made in the length of the game? 

I just got back from my grandsons 8 to 10 year old game. Tied at their normal quitting time so they went another inning. 2 1/2 hours.

[Rye Miles #13621]

8 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

I think it's misnamed.  Should be the Batters Clock.  Or maybe Batting Glove Adjust Clock.  Something to rein in the batters from adjusting all their equipment and uniform after every pitch.

Pitchers were guilty of this too though, how many times are you going to reach for the rosin bag, adjust your cap, rub the ball etc. Both batters and pitchers needed this which is why there’s also a clock on both!

[Subdeacon Joe]

5 hours ago, Smokin Gator SASS #29736 said:

How much difference have the rukes changes made in the length of the game? 

I just got back from my grandsons 8 to 10 year old game. Tied at their normal quitting time so they went another inning. 2 1/2 hours.

 

Per ESPN:

Average time of nine-inning games dropped to 2 hours, 38 minutes from 3:09 in the first 11 days of last year, when the final average was 3:04. The average was unchanged from the first four days and is on track to the lowest since it was 2:35 in 1984.

 

Another: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2023/5/1/23706488/pitch-clock-2023-shorter-games-uniform-duration

If you had to pick one day from this season to sum up the impact of the pitch clock, you could do worse than that day: last Tuesday, April 25. All 30 MLB teams were in action, and on average, they took two hours and 36 minutes to go about their baseball business, exactly in line with the full-season standard for nine-inning games in 2023. That alone is remarkable, given that nine-inning games in 2022 took three hours and three minutes, on average, which was actually less time than they took in each of the three preceding years.

Fans who follow baseball closely, and a good many people who don’t, know that the pitch clock has cut almost half an hour off the average MLB game time this year. What may be even more remarkable, though not nearly as widely remarked on, is how alike in length this year’s games have been. April 25’s 15 contests included close games and lopsided games, shutouts and slugfests. But there weren’t any extra-long games that were balanced out by a bunch of extra-short ones. Only 36 minutes separated the longest game (2:52) from the shortest game (2:16). Every East Coast game was over before 10 p.m. ET, and every West Coast game ended shortly before 12:30 a.m. ET. On that night, you could almost set your watch to baseball—traditionally, and either famously or infamously, the sport with the most malleable, variable approach to time.