What's wrong with baseball — and 18 ways to fix it

No DH in the National League, please! Minor league is more affordable and is a lot of fun. I only saw two major league games in my life. I ain't in no hurry at the ballgame.

 

I used to have this stance, but no more. Without the DH, the #9 spot in NL lineups is a waste of space. There was a time when pitchers prided themselves on their ability to bunt, but no more. Get rid of pitchers in the batters box.

 

Gte the DH for both AL/NL, and eatch the batters to stop hitting for tyhr home run, and go back to line drives, eliminate the shift, and teach pitchers in minors their arms will not explode after 5 innings!

 

Huge baseball fan here. Surprisingly I agree with almost all of these recommendations, except for the first one and the last one. No, do NOT shorten the season to 140 games (from 162.) No, DO NOT add two more teams. The talent pool is diluted enough already. I would be OK with eliminating 2 teams (so long as it's not 2 of my favorites, of course.)

The problem with baseball is that the games take too long and the pace of play is too slow. These two things are interrelated but they are not the same thing. Many items on the list address these two problems. Just about everything else on the list that doesn't address this is trivial. Too many uniforms? So what? Minor league players don't get paid enough? Too bad. Limiting the September callups is a solution looking for a problem. Ballpark noise pollution is a problem that crosses every major sport. I say it's the worst in the NFL, MLB is next, then NBA, and then NHL.

Too many mound visits and batters slowing down games should have been near the top of the list. There is no reason for a batter to step out of the batters box AFTER EVERY PITCH and adjust the wrist straps on his batting gloves, especially if he didn't swing! Too many mound visits has been addressed by a rule change instituted this year that limits them to 6 visits per 9 inning game.

Curious, but there was no mention of a pitch clock. This is being used in the minor leagues right now and gives the pitcher 20 seconds between pitches. If the pitcher does not throw the next pitch within 20 seconds of the previous pitch (on a pitch that was not put in play), the umpire shall call a ball and if the batter is not in the batters box ready to hit within 20 seconds the umpire calls a strike.

The other thing about baseball that makes it nearly unwatchable for me is the terrible lack of fundamental defensive play. I am not exaggerating--I can turn on any random baseball game, any, and within 5 minutes I will see a defensive miscue or a lapse in judgment. I'm not necessarily talking about an error, I'm talking about things like outfielders not hitting the cutoff man (or throwing to the wrong base), infielders backpedaling on a fly ball trying to catch it instead of allowing the outfielder to run in and catch it (much easier for the OF to see the ball running towards it than the IF running backwards), outfielders not calling for fly balls and having easily caught balls drop for hits between 2 OFers (these are not errors because no one touched the ball), and on and on I could go. Being a former coach, it's very difficult to watch this sort of mayhem, especially at the major league level. My kids are sick of me complaining about it, but I am compelled to point it out to them.

 

The big issues inlove to me the use of the Shift, and just geting way too much into specialization, such as 3 relivers for one inning, have toswitcvh hitters out a lot, whatever happened to starter going more than 5 innings, or a batter able to hit well either right/left pitchers?

 

Just seems the thing to do.

 

How about a full and real realignment, as the teams would be grouped with the teams now actually in their region? For example, here in Detroit region, have the Tigers, Cubs, White sox, Indians and Reds!

 

You need an odd number of games vs. opponents within your own division for purposes of breaking first place ties at the end of the season. If two teams finish tied for first in their division, say they both have a record of 95-67, the first tie breaker is their head-to-head record against each other. With an odd number of games against opponents in your own division some team is going to win this tiebreaker every time (unless there are rainouts, but the league would make sure this didn't happen). Under a balanced schedule of 18 games, there is a possibility of the two teams going 9-9 against each other. Then another tie breaker is necessary, I think the next tiebreaker is overall run differential (not sure, though) This is not as fair of a tiebreaker as the head-to-head record between the two teams. Actually, any tiebreaker other than head-to-head records would be inferior.

 

I'm a Twins fan. I've seen two of these one game playoffs, in 2008 and 2009. No thank-ee.

The Twins lost in 2008 to the White Sox, 1-0. White Sox had only 5 hits but Jim Thome hit a HR to win the game.

In 2009 the Twins won a thrilling (read: nail-biting) game in extra innings. The game was supposed to be played on the Monday following the end of the regular season on Sunday but a Vikings Monday night football game took precedence in the Metrodome.

The reason why baseball has 162 games and an unbalanced schedule is to winnow out the best teams by the end of the year. It's a marathon, not a spring. To play all 162 games and yet still not have a division winner seems counterproductive to me.

And before you ask--I'm not a big fan of having two wild card teams and the resultant the one game wild card playoff game, though the Twins benefited from that extra wild card spot last year.

 

I'm not a fan of the DH, but agree that it would be better to have it the same in both leagues -- one way or another.

 

OK. Why is an unbalanced schedule a problem? (Assuming you see it as such...)

 

Not having the DH creates all sorts of moves that use up a team's bench. Oftentimes the pinch hitter used to hit for a pitcher needs to be replaced by a pinch runner. There's two lineup spots taken by inferior players. The bench is depleted. This can lead to a manager running out of players in extra innings and then you might see relief pitchers pinch hitting or maybe position player pitching. Yuck!

 

wasthat 2009 game the one where the Tiger player got hit, but was ruled not hit?