Joe, my list involved not just time savers, but game improvers. I believe you are somewhere around my age. I know batting average is "passe" but it has historical context. You had what a ~50 game season last year? Usually in a small sample like that, you will have someone batting like .380. Many over .320, let alone .300 until the 162 game grind smooths this out. There were only 23 guys who batted over .300. There were over 60 guys below .210.
I am sorry, that is not that interesting. That itself is showing the lack of balls being put into play. That's the sport. Guys are afraid to throw strikes, launch angles having totally diminished the base hit single for a fly out because of analytics. "Gap Power" is no longer even a thing. It has just become a home run contest. And while chicks dig the long ball, there is a reason why the home run derby doesn't do better in ratings. It's not baseball.
Well first of all, I agree that the way the game is and has been trending is not the most interesting form of baseball.
But let's look at your list.
1) Limit pitching changes. Go into a game and in 9 innings limit it to 4 pitchers. You can add as extra innings. This eliminates the constant lefty/righty switches. That used to happen maybe once a game, now it seems like it happens every inning between 6-8. Amazing how a "closer" can pitch to either side, but the relievers leading up to it can't.
First of all, that will never happen. Because the union will never go for a plan that forces guys to continue pitching on days that they clearly don't have it. When pitcher number four is in the game in the 8th inning and you are already down 12-2 and they are getting absolutely hammered, I mean I guess you could argue that that might be interesting for the winning team's fans, but only for a little while. When that guy is walking batter after batter and giving up base hits left and right and 12-2 become 18-2 becomes 22-2 pretty much no one is going to be interested anymore. Except maybe the team doctor, who will be busy praying that you don't ruin that pitchers arm.
Oops, forgot my "second of all". With the rule that every pitcher has to pitch to at least three batters or to the end of the inning they already have eliminate some of the relentless pitching changes that are boring for everyone.
2) You have been warming up in the bullpen, you don't need 8 warmup pitches from the mound. 3 and go.
I agree with that, but that also is something that is only tinkering around the edges and doesn't actually improve game play.
3) Eliminate shifts. How can you do that? Easy. NBA has rules against zone defenses. The NFL has all kinds of quirky rules about covering up a TE, or if the WR is not on the line, I mean if the WR is standing 1 yard off the line, what real difference does it make? So why can't you limit two infielders on either side of the infield?
Already covered. It not only doesn't speed the game up but it does nothing at all to make the game more interesting. More strategy is generally better.
4) Fire anyone in the front office with a math degree. LOL....just kidding. Maybe.
No comment.
5) Stop the ridiculous replays to see if a runner when stealing a base or any baserunning play has a pinky who momentarily leaves the base when sliding. It should be did the ball beat the runner and was a tag applied correctly? That's it. There was never any intention to parse frame by frame during the slide that a the hand may leave the bag for an instant while the tag is applied.
I agree with that 100%. In all sports, it's as if people propose replay to do one thing (correct egregious errors) and then when it gets put in the leagues want to use it for something completely different (nit pick every call). Go back to the way it was supposed to be, just fixing the big screw ups, and leave it at that. And while you are at it, get rid of the moronic manager's challenge. It's completely unnecessary, and it only slows the games down while we all wait for the manager to get word from the guy watching the replays to decide if the manager should challenge or not.
6) Electronic strike zone. No wonder these guys take so many pitches, they have little idea what the strike zone is at that moment.
I give it another two years and this one will be here. And the game will be better for it. But I don't know that it will, on it's own, make the game more interesting or move along any faster.
If you want to "force" the game into a more interesting place step one is to "de-juice" the ball. Make it harder to hit home runs and the strategy of always playing for home runs won't work nearly as much. When it stops working as much people will stop doing it. Less people trying to hit home runs means more people trying to put the ball in play. More balls in play means more action. More action means more interesting games.
I'm not holding my breath.
