luv baseball posted:The threat to the game is not the shift - it is the lack of action. 300+ pitch, 3:30 baseball games are generally awful. You might get away with that in October … but not in June.
Find away to get rid of 1/4 to 1/3 of the pitches to improve the action and pace of game. A good play in the shift on the 2nd pitch of the at bat is better than a 9 pitch BB or K.
Except for the first week of the season and the month between the end of NHL and NBA playoffs and the All Star game - baseball is background noise. Even October has lost its spot at Center Stage to the NFL.
The game is an increasingly unwatchable game of homerun derby. Eliminating the shift will only marginally address this fact of life. Until there is more value for contact with the ball in general the trends will not change.
To me that's like saying that you only need to watch the last 5 minutes of any NBA game. Is it true? Yeah, kinda, in terms of the result, but if you feel that way maybe you just don't enjoy watching NBA games. And that's fine. Nobody has to watch them. But plenty of people do, and there's no reason to keep tweaking the rules to see if this demographic or that demographic will decide to watch.
I'm fine with watching a 300 pitch 3.5 hour, baseball game in the middle of July. Heck, I plan to do that tonight and I'm looking forward to it. Maybe it will end like last night's game -- bases loaded walk off in the 11th with 5 Cubbies playing in on the IF grass! That was an incredible game that was 1-1 into extras, and included a base runner scoring from 1st on a pick-off attempt and Belt bunting for a single against the shift. I wish I had been there but it was cool on TV too. Go Giants!
https://mlb.com/giants/news/pa...-in-11th/c-285115316
(The NFL has its own issues, and personally I find it almost unwatchable.)