diehard03 said:

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To the point above though, they use the mound visits to facilitate the pitching change. There's the first visit with no change that buys some warm-up time. Then is the slow 2nd walk to the mound, wait for the ump to break it up, and as the ump comes to break it up, they signal the change. I think they need to find a way to separate the mound visit from the pitching change, and I think the only real way to do it is to limit the # of mound visits per game.

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Let's not pretend this is the norm for mound visits. A vast majority of them are the catcher getting a sign/sequence right or the coach getting the pitcher/defense aligned properly.

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I'm talking about manager/coach visits to the mound, and visits for a pitching change are absolutely the norm. LOL

I'd say it's pretty rare to see more than 3 mound visits from a coach/manager to strictly talk strategy or settle a pitcher, so giving that many per game should cover it. Give them more for extra innings. But make them change pitchers from the top step, although if they want to talk strategy with a new pitcher, they could burn a visit if they want.

Agnzona said:

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For the speed of the game issue. Give a manager 3 time outs. One for every 3 innings ( a forth for extra innings). During that time out he can visit the mound and or change a pitcher. Otherwise any pitching changes must happen before an inning starts.

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The longest games are when pitchers don't have their stuff and stay in for a long time even though it is obvious to everyone else the pitcher doesn't have it that day. They struggle to put balls over the plate and when they do they get hit hard. Any rule that prevents a manager taking out a struggling pitcher is a bad rule, IMHO.

Also, what if the pitcher gets injured and needs to come out before he faces three batters? How would you know he's really injured and not faking it?

diehard03 said:

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Bochy's gonna be pissed. He changes pitchers with the left-right crap constantly. The last 3 innings of games are often longer than the first 6 innings.

Of course, it's only this dramatic when we're winning in order to hold leads. Games the last 2 years have gone a lot faster...

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Chicago thanks him mightily.

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Too soon...

Corporal Punishment said:

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Also, what if the pitcher gets injured and needs to come out before he faces three batters? How would you know he's really injured and not faking it?

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They will likely believe any claims to injury. So fake injuries will spike. Next year we'll need a rule change addressing that...

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How about a situation where its a very close game and he gives up back to back dingers to the first two batters. the Manager still has to keep him in?

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Yes. He just gives the intention walk signal and goes and gets his guy.

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Also, what if the pitcher gets injured and needs to come out before he faces three batters? How would you know he's really injured and not faking it?

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Injuries would be exempt from the rule with the caveat that they have to sit X number of games. Roster slot can be filled until he's released.

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I'd say it's pretty rare to see more than 3 mound visits from a coach/manager to strictly talk strategy or settle a pitcher, so giving that many per game should cover it. Give them more for extra innings. But make them change pitchers from the top step, although if they want to talk strategy with a new pitcher, they could burn a visit if they want.

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the point was more than I don't think it will move the meter much, since the primary time "waster" is the number of pitching changes and what comes with it.

DannyDuberstein said:

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The mound visits and pitching changes are absolutely what need to be targeted. I like the following:



2) Max of 3 warm-up pitches in a pitching change. I get allowing more than 0, but these guys don't need 8 friggin pitches to get acclimated to the real mound.

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this alone would make a dramatic impact to speed up the game IMO. I like the idea of not letting them have any warm-up throws on the mound but realistically that will never happen because they do need to get acclimated to the mound on the field. However, they need to cap the number of throws to 3. Really you can tell after the first pitch if you need to fill in the hole, or kick some dirt out, etc. 3 pitches is plenty

I would also support limiting the # of mound visits for coaches to three total the entire game. Use them however, you want to. BUT to go with that rule once you hit your limit if you want to change pitchers you do it at plate with the ump.

I have two ideas, one serious and one less so.

First the serious one: eliminate draft-pick forfeiture for non-playoff teams that sign a marquee free agent and instead just give the team he left a compensatory sandwich pick at the end of the round corresponding to that player's value. I like the current rule as a means to keep the rich from getting too much richer, but it keeps teams like the current Rangers from even trying to be competitive because they don't want to forfeit draft picks during a rebuild.

Now the fun one: I would be in favor of not implementing a minimum number of batters a pitcher has to face IF they implement a "shot clock" of sorts between batters that must be adhered to no matter who is pitching to them.

So for example, if you starter strikes someone out in the 2nd inning, he has 30 seconds to throw his first pitch to the next batter. If you want to go lefty-righty-lefty with your relievers in the 8th inning, that's fine...but they'd better be fully warmed up and able to sprint to the mound in 20 seconds or so.

It would turn pitching changes into nascar pit stops, which would completely ruin the purity of the game but would certainly increase its entertainment value.

A lot of you have talked about rules, but my question has always been about enforcement and penalties. If there is a pitch clock, what happens when the pitcher is constantly not getting his pitch off? Is it an automatic ball? What if the pitcher is in the midst of delivering when the clock hits zero? Do we want to watch a game end on a walk off pitch clock violation because the pitcher wanted to get the right pitch in for a 3-2 count with the bases loaded?

When it comes to game times the only thing that is going to speed this up is for guys to totally change their approaches at the plate. Pitches per plate appearance and intentionally spoiling pitches with foul balls accounts for most of the increase in game time. The things they are trying to change now are and always have been apart of baseball, the thing that has changed is the way hitters look at at bats. The MLB average was 3.9 per at bat up from 3.58 in 1988. Just for reference, assuming a perfect game (27 batters) the 1988 average comes out to a tidy 96.6 pitches while in 2018 it would have taken 105.3 pitches. Seems small but that nine pitch difference is really 18 when you consider both teams and the addition of more specialists and now replay reviews... equates to the real difference in game time.

Count me as unconvinced on changing baseball, unless it means getting rid of replay reviews in which case I'm all in. (Oh and reducing the 40 man rosters in September to 30ish)

_lefraud_ said:

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A three-batter minimum for pitchers - NO

A universal designated hitter - Sure, or get rid of it in the AL. #UniversalUnity

A single trade deadline before the All-Star break - NO

A 20-second pitch clock - Sure why not

The expansion of rosters to 26 men, with a 12-pitcher maximum - Yes, with No

Draft advantages for winning teams and penalties for losing teams - But how?

A study to lower the mound - Maybe? Study away.

A rule that would allow two-sport amateurs to sign major league contracts - Eh

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When it comes to game times the only thing that is going to speed this up is for guys to totally change their approaches at the plate. Pitches per plate appearance and intentionally spoiling pitches with foul balls accounts for most of the increase in game time. The things they are trying to change now are and always have been apart of baseball, the thing that has changed is the way hitters look at at bats. The MLB average was 3.9 per at bat up from 3.58 in 1988. Just for reference, assuming a perfect game (27 batters) the 1988 average comes out to a tidy 96.6 pitches while in 2018 it would have taken 105.3 pitches. Seems small but that nine pitch difference is really 18 when you consider both teams and the addition of more specialists and now replay reviews... equates to the real difference in game time.

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I'm sure that accounts for it but that is actual action. The thing that contributes to a lot of dead time is pitching changes. I doubt people would miss seeing the hour long innings that had 4-5 pitching changes with 8 commercial breaks.

That's kind of my point, the game has changed. Hitters see more pitches per plate appearance and managers use their bullpens more liberally than in the past. And baseball is literally a timeless game. I don't get why they put so much emphasis on overall game time. The games today will be and are longer for a number of reasons.

But, I am in favor of them finding ways to keep the pace of play snappy and reduce things like extended batting glove adjustments, repeatedly stepping out of the box/calling time and the manager stalling to give extra time to his reliever to warm up. But as I mentioned earlier, the problem is that baseball doesn't have a good setup right now for enforcing penalties. In basketball you can award a free throw, in football a 5 yard penalty for things like delay of game. In baseball, what's the punishment? Balls and Strikes?

The current penalties in baseball are odd/flexible as is (like a balk being a ball when no one is on base but a free advance of all runners when bases are occupied) so maybe the penalties will have to be creative to deal with certain situations, or maybe just add pitch clock violations into the list of balkable offenses similar to quick pitching. And when pitchers and catchers can't get their signs straight and the pitcher steps off does this reset the pitch clock? That's a safety issue as no one wants the pitcher to be throwing pitches the catcher isn't expecting just to beat the pitch clock.

But then what do you do about the batters if they stall? I don't recall any penalties currently that result in a strike for a batter, usually the batter is automatically out for a violation such as contacting the ball outside the batters box.

And again, lets kill replay for everything except home runs when it's hard to see if the ball stayed fair/foul or cleared the yellow line. I don't think the game is better with these frame by frame replays to see if someone lost contact with the base for a fraction of a second while the tag is applied or if the runner beat the ball to first by .01 of a second. If it's bang bang the umpire makes the call, that's baseball.

Did you watch the playoffs? The refs blew 1 or two obvious safe/out calls a game.

Maybe limit it to one challenge per game until the playoffs and then the league reviews all close calls.

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And baseball is literally a timeless game. I don't get why they put so much emphasis on overall game time

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Because the long games are driving away viewers. Some say that isn't so but it's pretty obvious it is otherwise they wouldn't be trying to change it.

Do they have proof that making a baseball game ten or twenty minutes shorter would bring these viewers back?

I get it, some people think baseball is boring, I'm not sure how much correlative data they have to focus everything on game length though. I'd rather they fix the tanking problem by instituting a hard salary floor with violators paying a tax just like those in the luxury tax.

If a third of the teams are intentionally losing, of course baseball is hemorrhaging viewers, no one is excited to watch the royals or tigers or marlins or blue Jays or orioles or mariners or diamondbacks this year after they sold off all their players in a race to the bottom.

And coincidentally bad teams getting blown out every night play some of the longest and most unwatchable games, contributing to the longer game time "problem."

The competitive balance is a huge problem but the union is unlikely to agree to anything that would fix that.

The old adage is that the calls even out in the end. In regular season game 113 or even in the world series I'm not sure how important it is to go frame by frame on out/safe calls and tags. I would guess that it's very rare for the results of the season to be skewed heavily by missed calls, maybe individual games but not the season in aggregate.

I'm okay with a regular season rule and different for the playoffs. But it's not frame by frame minutia I'm talking about the missed calls that most in the stands saw on real time. They umps were bad this past post season.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-rules-changes

Stuff got finalized today. Wish the 3 batter min was going into effect this year.

The Lost said:

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https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-rules-changes

Stuff got finalized today. Wish the 3 batter min was going into effect this year.

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I think the 3 batter minimum is such a stupid rule.

Will absolutely suck when you can tell the pitcher doesn't have his stuff in the first few pitches when he comes in and you can do absolutely nothing about it.

How about reduce the time between innings to 90 seconds and allow for in game commercials, or something like the radio broadcasts where the announcer says "this inning in brought to you by Ford. Ford, built Ford tough" and a truck drives across the bottom of the tv screen.

Teams have a year to adjust/develop pitchers for the 3-batter minimum rule, and I would have been OK with a 2-batter minimum, but this one doesn't bother me too much. If we see pitchers that are more versatile and can get more than one side of the plate out, then that's a good thing.

Love the 26/28 roster adjustment...long overdue.

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As far as the game itself is concerned, the 10th inning -- and all subsequent innings -- of All-Star Games that go into extra innings will begin with a runner on second base.

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This seems so marginal. I wonder if they're testing this on the public to see what reaction if gets. Is this where all baseball games are headed? Of course it could be years before we see another ASG go into extra innings.

Aggie1205 said:

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Why the 12 pitcher maximum?

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12 pitcher max is to make managers think long and hard before making a pitching change to improve pace of play, I don't agree.

I am all for the universal DH

26 man roster is fine IMO

Mound change study is warranted with everyone in MLB except Keuchel chunking in the mid 90's.

Everything else is pace of play garbage that I can do without.