Potential new MLB rules

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Originally Posted by msstate7

I love the long season.

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The 1920 season...

No silly divisions, just 8 and 8 with a long season

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920...aseball_season

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Originally Posted by Spectre

The sport will wither and die on its current trajectory. Three true outcomes may be the most efficient mechanism right now but it results in a boring game of standing around. It’s incentivized further by the overshift. The game will slowly fade into more obscurity without incentivizing balls in play. That’s the bottom line.

Add DH
Ban infield shifts
Ban one batter specialists
Lower mound - hell move the thing back to 61’ while we’re at it

All of these work to to produce a better product AND game. Singles should be singles not lineouts to the 2B playing 40 feet into RF.


I would also LOVE for the minor league system to somehow be transformed to a relegation type setup. Four AAA teams rise each year to the big leagues. 2 AL and 2 NL. It would revamp the entire minor league system but would expand interest in the sport all over America.

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Wither and die?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ion/890041001/

Attendance down, yet revenue is up

You want to get rid of the shift? Tell players to grow nuts and bunt against it. They refuse to do it. Teach guys how to hit the ball.

We want more action according to some, but they mean homers. They want more homers and that what we are getting. Unfortunately to get that you have to increase strikeouts and that's what we get too. We don't have guys hitting 50 anymore but we've got a bunch of guys hitting 15-20 now. Boom or bust is what's been created.

The "original rules" argument doesn't hold much water either, since the rules are drastically different today than they were in the 1860s in areas way beyond the DH.

I say eliminate the DH in both leagues. I'm a fan of small ball and like the chess match it brings with you deciding to put down a bunt. Give the hitter the green light or sub in.

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Originally Posted by MetEdDawg

You want to get rid of the shift? Tell players to grow nuts and bunt against it. They refuse to do it. Teach guys how to hit the ball.

We want more action according to some, but they mean homers. They want more homers and that what we are getting. Unfortunately to get that you have to increase strikeouts and that's what we get too. We don't have guys hitting 50 anymore but we've got a bunch of guys hitting 15-20 now. Boom or bust is what's been created.

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Boom or Bust is boring. MLB is becoming more and more irrelevant. Lower the mound, back it up six inches, and kill the shift. Keep low seams to reduce movement on pitches but deaden the ball just a tad so it pays more to hit line drives than fly out to the warning track. We need balls in play..Action... College has the right balance now.

Get radical. Make an inning 4 outs instead of three.

The nba added a three point line. Radical. They need to follow the Colin Cowherd idea and have the line go out on the side of the court and eliminate the corner 3.

I was a sub-.100 hitter my last year of Little League and even I could lay down a bunt in the general direction I wanted to. If hitters don't want to be shifted against, all they have to do it prove that they can regularly hit it to the spots of the field that are left open.

Should football defenses be required to cover the field evenly rather than focusing on spots where the QB is most likely to throw it? Of course not, and the same principle applies to baseball defenses.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

1. There is talk of a universal DH in both leagues. Personally I like the fact that pitchers hit in one league and not the other but this wouldn't bother me. My idea is to let pitchers hit and have a DH- so 10 in the batting order. And let MLB teams can pick any pitcher to hit whether he is playing or not or has been subbed out.


2. There is talk of lowering the mound or moving the mound further back. Thanks Jordan Hicks, Aroldis Chapman, and Justin Verlander.** I don't really like this rule. I like watching pitchers dominate some.


3. Pitchers would have to pitch to three batters at a minimum. So- no more LOOGY throws one pitch and gets a LH hitter out and then bring in someone else. Really would change strategy- of course relief pitchers that have closer splits would be valued more than ever. I think this could lead to more intentional walks potentially. Like- have a LHP throw to a LH hitter, IWBB RH hitter and then come back and throw to a LH hitter. The main intent is to minimize pitching changes leading to shorter game times and more offense. Again- not wild about this. You should be able to use players as you see fit.

4. Expanding rosters from 25 to 26. I LIKE this. Personally I'd expand it to 28.

5. Talk about changing how service time is calculated. This NEEDS to be done. Teams are keeping good players in the minors so that they can save money down the road. Which honestly sucks for the player and the fans. See Hunter Renfroe. Like the talk here.

Basically MLB is trying to shorten games and create more offense. I say legalize steroids and let's have 1998 but now with pitchers throwing 105 MPH.

I also hope to see MLB expand to Montreal and Las Vegas.

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Allow the DH, but shift the rules against it enough that a good hitting pitcher would be preferable to using an average DH. At a minimum, make the DH bat ninth. Shift it back to being for hitters to have a day off from the field, and away from professional DHs. Maybe go even further, like 3 balls to a pitcher is a walk, 2 strikes to a DH is a K. A pitcher gets an extra base after a hit.

As regards to the shift, you don’t even have to bunt to beat it (even though players suck at it in today’s game because they don’t spend time on it) but you don’t have to pull everything close to the strike zone. Teams don’t even have to try and work middle in to a hitter to make sure they pull it. The constantly work away to a pull shift because a lot of hitters don’t hit oppo. Even commentators talk about this in games a lot. Drive a ball oppo enough and the make them pay for shifts.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

I think they want even more offense though. Just about every rule is aimed at that. Home runs did go down by about 500 last year. Not really enough to be a trend- sure. But I think MLB is wanting McGwire/Sosa/Bonds type seasons from players now that they game is "cleaned up".

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It was still very high. The 3 of the 4 highest HR totals in history were 2017, 2016, and 2018. (In order with 2000 as the second most). It?s already turned as far as HR the last 3 years.

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

Too many teams is the problem. Not the game itself. It's a crazy idea but shorten the season to 100 games and have MLB1 and MLB2 where the worst 2 teams auto drop to MLB2 and 3rd and 4th play in a survival playoff

Getting dropped creates serious survival drama

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The fight to avoid relegation in European soccer creates almost the same level of entertainment when watching two of the worst teams in the league play as watching the two teams fighting for the championship. It'll never happen, but it would be nice to force the likes of the Marlins to not be able to just pack it in and call it a season 30 games in every year.

If you want to get really radical, there's basically already a 4 level pyramid in professional baseball. Imagine the MS Braves at least having the potential to able to work their way up to the MLB. Again, will never happen, but its fun to play with.

We are almost to the point where 1/4 of at bats ends in a K. A bunch of .230, 25 HR, 175 K hitters makes for a horrible product.

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Originally Posted by Spectre

We are almost to the point where 1/4 of at bats ends in a K. A bunch of .230, 25 HR, 175 K hitters makes for a horrible product.

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It's a Dan Uggla league ... Mark Lemke is extinct

Lemke struckout 348 times in 11 wonderful years of production...a piece of work like Uggla has stuckout 1348 in 10 years with half that time as a journeyman

Baseball is going to kill itself while trying to increase offensive numbers. They don’t realize most fans like the game for things other than the HR. When it becomes the NBA on a diamond I’m done with it. Especially when Bonds and Raffy etc. are banned for basically doing the same thing.
Let’s hit HRs and score a lot, but ban the guys that hit HRs and drove in runs and call them cheaters. MLB is trying to cheat the fans.

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Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer

It's a Dan Uggla league ... Mark Lemke is extinct

Lemke struckout 348 times in 11 wonderful years of production...a piece of work like Uggla has stuckout 1348 in 10 years with half that time as a journeyman

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Dan uggla was a much better player than lemke.

Lemke career slash line: .246/.317/.324
Uggla: .241/.336/.447

fWAR...
Lemke 7.0 over 11 seasons ~ 0.64 per season
Uggla 23.4 over 10 seasons ~ 2.34 per season

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Originally Posted by Cooterpoot

Baseball is going to kill itself while trying to increase offensive numbers. They don’t realize most fans like the game for things other than the HR. When it becomes the NBA on a diamond I’m done with it. Especially when Bonds and Raffy etc. are banned for basically doing the same thing.
Let’s hit HRs and score a lot, but ban the guys that hit HRs and drove in runs and call them cheaters. MLB is trying to cheat the fans.

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I think you can increase scoring AND make for a more exciting product. Let’s discuss things that seem way out there, but could juice excitement back into the game.

Reduce the defense to 8 players

Make the game 4 outs per inning rather than 3, but a strikeout counts for 2 outs.

Lower the mound a bit and move it to 61’.

I don't see how more offense leads to shorter games. If anything, more offense will just cause me to watch less. The fastest games I've ever seen are all pitcher dominated.

How about don't do anything radical to the game other than enforce a clock between pitches and innings? And I guess the DH for the National League is fine, but mainly for competitive reasons - during Interleague Play, the AL has a 9th everyday player that the NL doesn't have, and I don't like the imbalance.

I brainstormed one time maybe if a batter strikes out for the 3rd time in a game, he's ejected. I don't necessarily advocate it, but it would be interesting to see an Independent League try it and see if/how it changes things.

Baseball is probably aware of its crossroads. The young will not accept the game and its traditions because it is slow and boring because of its slowness. The old have accepted baseball's traditions and hold on. There is now a conflict of interest between the generations and the traditionalist are dieing off because of old age. Baseball just wants the money which means commercials which causes interruptions and the young will not tolerate this so hard decisions have to be made. To sustain itself baseball has to accommodate the young. Because of baseball not moving in a timely manner, a generation has turned its back on the game. Baseball better speed up the pitchers and ban the batters from leaving the box in additions to others things that breach traditional baseball or be be prepared for a bad future.

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Originally Posted by Spectre

We are almost to the point where 1/4 of at bats ends in a K. A bunch of .230, 25 HR, 175 K hitters makes for a horrible product.

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I 100% agree with this, the fact that Bryce Harper is about to get a huge contract when he hit .217 last year is cause of a horrible product.