How to speed up MLB

Baseball is now played on pristine fields. Each relief pitcher throws multiple pitches in the bull pen before coming out to the mound. Eliminate warmup pithces. No other sport allows this. Could you imagine if every substitute player got a chance to warmup on the field before the game resumed? NFL? NBA? NHL? Soccer? Crazy!! 

Practice jumpshots after you get buzzed in from the scorers table before the game resumes?

WR gets a few throws from the QB before he is allowed to  line up and play.

3 outs bring your defense back on the field and lets play ball.....not after all the players and the pitcher take warmup ground balls and pitches.

Imagine how much smoother the game would be?

Lower levels still lhave unequal fields so they NEED warmup. No changes for college and below. You never know what to expect from a facility until you arrive in high school and in some college conferences ...but you know the MLBfields are like golf courses.

IF you want the game to be more viewable by todays standards it must get sped up. TV commercial in between sides running on and off like NFL or just  scheduled tv timeouts like NBA

it is just my opinion, but I don't think the MLB game needs to be changed.   I like it just as it is....

RJM posted:

If the catcher goes to the mound count it as a visit. I'm watching the end of last night's Sox-Yankees game. McCann just went to the mound three times on one hitter. It's his fifth visit in three batters. On Saturday Sanchez went to the mound on six consecutive hitters. Also, once the starter is gone from the game every visit should require replacement of the pitcher. Most visits to relievers is a delay tactic to get the next pitcher ready. 

By Sox-Yankees standards last night's game was short. It was played in less than four hours.

Sometimes there really is a need for the catcher to talk to a pitcher...especially if they don't know each other than well.  I would agree that what you describe does sound excessive though.

"How to speed up MLB"

Just make everybody DVR the game,  I can watch games real fast if I want to....

mmm1531 posted:

"How to speed up MLB"

Just make everybody DVR the game,  I can watch games real fast if I want to....

I often start watching an hour after the start. By skipping ads I tend to catch up about the 8th inning. The PC version of MLB At Bat plays the game in twenty minutes. They only show the result pitch and key replays. What you lose is the pitching performance. 

Taking the easy way and asking the board to explain the rules to me.  Read an article about when Maddon got thrown out the other day.  Apparently it started with a conversation between the ump and the catcher - I think something like the ump mentioned to the catcher that he might want to go meet with the pitcher, but then back tracked somewhat and warned the catcher that it would count as a mound visit.  I do remember seeing instances where a coach would go talk to the catcher quickly between batters - understood that if the catcher then went directly to the mound, it would count as a visit.  Did something like that happen in that Cubs game?

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Taking the easy way and asking the board to explain the rules to me.  Read an article about when Maddon got thrown out the other day.  Apparently it started with a conversation between the ump and the catcher - I think something like the ump mentioned to the catcher that he might want to go meet with the pitcher, but then back tracked somewhat and warned the catcher that it would count as a mound visit.  I do remember seeing instances where a coach would go talk to the catcher quickly between batters - understood that if the catcher then went directly to the mound, it would count as a visit.  Did something like that happen in that Cubs game?

It was a bit more complicated. The infielders tried to have a conference to buy time, which West correctly refused. Then Maddon came out to argue and was ejected (by most opinions I've seen, including mine, intentionally to get more time.)

Maddon actually called out to the catcher and told him to visit the mound.  That's a no-no and technically would count as a visit.  If the catcher initiated it on his own, no issue.  West basically told the catcher he couldn't make the visit without it counting (and forcing a pitching change).  Maddon then got into it for 5 minutes with West, getting tossed (and getting his pitcher completely warmed up).

I like the no warmup idea.  You should be ready to go at any time.  

Nuke83 posted:

Maddon actually called out to the catcher and told him to visit the mound.  That's a no-no and technically would count as a visit.  If the catcher initiated it on his own, no issue.  West basically told the catcher he couldn't make the visit without it counting (and forcing a pitching change).  Maddon then got into it for 5 minutes with West, getting tossed (and getting his pitcher completely warmed up).

The best of all time at delaying for warm up time was Tommy Lasorda. When the umpire got to the mound Lasorda would explain the situation to the umpire and ask what he woud do. The umpire would get on Lasorda for delaying the game. Then Lasorda would start fighting with the umpire. If his reliever needed more pen time he would get himself tossed and keep fighting with the umpire.

These are the beautiful intricacies of baseball, IMO.

Why not simply call the strike zone the way it is defined in the rule book.  You hardly ever see anything above the belt called.  More strikes would mean more swinging, fewer walks, lower pitch counts and fewer trips to the bullpen.

To be honest, I'll bet that MLB likes long games and pitching changes just fine...the extra commercials must add to revenue.

The problem is that the "new world of tv wathcers" is not inclined to watch MLB as much as other sport like NBA and NFL. Baseball has schewed older, much to the chagrin of advertisers. Kids arent watching because their attention span is compromised and they can only watch faster moving events. In order for baseball to survive the new generation it must evolve , in the eyes of some experts.  Most of the time tv watchers of baseball are older. Kids need to have to "focus " to watch an entire game. smh

I must admit the game does seem slower now than when I was a kid. Too many pitching changes, too much time in between pitches , too many batters getting out of the box after each pitch, and just a much slower pace. Not as much hits and steals and running and much more station to station baseball. I love to watch baseball at almost any level, but the high school kid emulates the Big Leaguer and now they are stepping out and fixing batting gloves after each pitch too.

We have seen the game evolve several times in the last thirty years. It is evolving now. It will evolve to capture the younger viewers too .......or it will go the way of the dinosaurs. I think we need to look at speeding up and or eliminating some of the things that arent needed and it will add to the game as a whole. 

Maybe someone could come up with a new and improved velcro strap that doesn't loosen up every time some batter stands there and watches the ball go by him.  Might as well work on new and improved batting helmet pads too so they don't have to worry about that coming off while they watch pitches go by either.

And we need some improved guidelines on field maintenance.  Seems like every batter's box is poorly maintained and every batter is doing their best to help groom it after each pitch goes past them.

There's the absence of the 'Roid era homer races and many of the jacked up stars who impressed people.   There was a little bit of a circus atmosphere to all of that.

Keep in mind that football participation is really falling off right now with the information about concussions.  Baseball may see an uptick in participation and interest as a result.

What we really need is a lobbying group to go to Washington and get Baseball Education introduced into the schools.  People don't like watching baseball because they are ignorant.   This is a national security issue.  Baseball is America's pastime.  When America has been great, baseball has been popular.  Everything started going south once soccer came in.  Now we've got Lacrosse in Alabama.

K9 posted:

Why not simply call the strike zone the way it is defined in the rule book.  You hardly ever see anything above the belt called.  More strikes would mean more swinging, fewer walks, lower pitch counts and fewer trips to the bullpen.

To be honest, I'll bet that MLB likes long games and pitching changes just fine...the extra commercials must add to revenue.

The strike zone IS being called by the book. In fact, MLB wants to shrink it because they overly expanded it in 1996, thinking at the time that umpires were going to call a smaller zone than specified. Once electronic evaluation came in, the average called zone and the book zone became virtually identical (with the average zone being slightly wider outside.)

I have said this before - baseball needs to change the rules to 3 balls for a walk and 2 for a K.  I'd go so far as to say the 2 fouls with 1 strike and you are out.  That's it - the game will shorten dramatically because the bats will move more. If it drops the number of pitches by 10-20% it would be great.  If you think it would give the pitcher too much of an advantage - lets move the mound back 5 feet.  That will make it easier to put the ball in play.  Game on boys.

For those of you that think that is outrageous the walk used to be 5 balls and batters called for pitches to be in "zones" otherwise they were balls.  The people that ran the game in the 19th century realized it sucked and made the changes and ushered in the modern game that we love so well.  I am in the camp that 125 years between key innovations might be a little too long.

Football changes it rules all the time to make the game more entertaining...the NFL today looks nothing like it did in the 1980's and is a much better watch even though it is longer.  Baseball needs some of that thinking.

Add three more fields and cut it down to only one out per side and we'd get those suckers over in about 45 minutes.  

luv baseball posted:

I have said this before - baseball needs to change the rules to 3 balls for a walk and 2 for a K.  I'd go so far as to say the 2 fouls with 1 strike and you are out.  That's it - the game will shorten dramatically because the bats will move more. If it drops the number of pitches by 10-20% it would be great.  If you think it would give the pitcher too much of an advantage - lets move the mound back 5 feet.  That will make it easier to put the ball in play.  Game on boys.

For those of you that think that is outrageous the walk used to be 5 balls and batters called for pitches to be in "zones" otherwise they were balls.  The people that ran the game in the 19th century realized it sucked and made the changes and ushered in the modern game that we love so well.  I am in the camp that 125 years between key innovations might be a little too long.

Football changes it rules all the time to make the game more entertaining...the NFL today looks nothing like it did in the 1980's and is a much better watch even though it is longer.  Baseball needs some of that thinking.

I'd like to see the 3 balls/2 strikes a K tried in youth baseball to speed up the action, perhaps get more participation.

Go44dad posted:

 

I'd like to see the 3 balls/2 strikes a K tried in youth baseball to speed up the action, perhaps get more participation.

And then when "live arm" starts at 9 or so, the 2 hour games become 3 hr games due to increased walks and then at an older age, a dominant pitcher might make it an hour game.

RedFishFool posted:

Go44dad posted:

 

I'd like to see the 3 balls/2 strikes a K tried in youth baseball to speed up the action, perhaps get more participation.

And then when "live arm" starts at 9 or so, the 2 hour games become 3 hr games due to increased walks and then at an older age, a dominant pitcher might make it an hour game.

9yo games are timed, so if it's a walkfest, it still ends at the same time.  A pitcher that throws 40% strikes will have a much better chance of a strikeout if he only has to get to two strikes in a batter vs. three strikes.

Again, I'd just like to see it tried to see the result.  Son's org's inter squads (and I'm sure many others) starts counts with 1 and 1.  Things turn over pretty fast with more action.