Ding dong, the shift is dead. Long live the pitch clock.

[Nola Beery]

1 hour ago, GAME05 said:

 

Totally against rules on telling a defense where it should play, though. Why reward batters who are only able to pull the ball? Being able to hit a ball all over the field is a skill and that skill should be rewarded. If baseball wants more offense it can lower the mound, which has been the strategy from since Bob Feller.

Yet another change I don't like at all. MLB likes to ignore the game itself in favor of pushing more playoffs and taking an NBA strategy in thinking we come out only for individual players.

I find nothing disagreeable here.

[Joseph Zarr]

I am completely down with the pitch clock having watched it all season in the Minor Leagues. It works and it brings a real added suspense in later innings when pitchers are charged auto-balls. I'm also very much into the PCL use (also being used in Charlotte in the second half) of the three dugout challenges to balls and strikes. You get 3 per game. If you win the challenge, you keep it. If you don't, you lose it. Instantaneous feedback from the auto strikezone. Really like it.

[Patrick425]

29 minutes ago, owbc said:

They had to close the loophole that allowed pitchers to step off or throw to first if they wanted to reset the pitch clock. 

This made sense to me and still does. However, as I think about it more, seems like there will be more pick off attempts for slow guys on base like a Molina just so the pitcher can reset the clock.  It may decrease pick offs for the speedy runners, but will possibly increase them for the slow runners because of the pitch clock.

[Jim French Stepstool]

54 minutes ago, Patrick425 said:

 Seems like a rule to "dumb down" to the lowest common denominator. 

This can be applied to a lot of the stuff baseball has done recently, and will probably do in the future.

I will say that while it isn't necessary to my enjoyment of the game, I doubt that I'll have much problem with the clock.

Exactly how much bigger are the bases? does it make the distance between bases 2 inches shorter? Five inches? Anyone who thinks that's not a big deal doesn't see how many close plays there are in a game. Not berating it necessarily, but it WOULD be a big deal.

[Jim French Stepstool]

32 minutes ago, Nola Beery said:

I HATE HATE HATE HATE (&c. times infinity) the banning of the shift,  It was an organic, natural innovation (though not THAT new).  It should be addressed by adjustments in tactics and strategy, not in a committee room. 

Ted Williams brought teams out of the shift by doing exactly what you referred to. Guys like Rod Carew & Tony Gwynn could do the same if confronted with it. But it's too much to ask of the modern-day hitter, especially when putting up numbers & setting yourself up for arbitration time & FA is more important than winning games.

[Hopper]

So let me get this straight.  The players wanted to keep the option of shifts, even though it goes against them as hitters?

Interesting.

I thought they would be against the shift so they could provide more offense and boost their stats, hence allowing them to make more millions than they already do.

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

Based on the testing in the minors, it sounds like the pitch clock favors hitters since it is faster for the body to recover from a hard swing than a fast pitch. The 100 mph guys are going to struggle the most with these changes. Which will be great. 

 

The recovery thing pitch-to-pitch is something I hadn't considered. Interesting stuff.

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 minutes ago, Hopper said:

So let me get this straight.  The players wanted to keep the option of shifts, even though it goes against them as hitters?

Interesting.

I thought they would be against the shift so they could provide more offense and boost their stats, hence allowing them to make more millions than they already do.

You would think they'd be against it, but lest we forget about half the rostered players are pitchers. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

6 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

The recovery thing pitch-to-pitch is something I hadn't considered. Interesting stuff.

That's actually a really big deal with how today's pitching has changed the game.  The roster expansion has basically allowed all teams to carry a ton of pitchers and have a deep bullpen, which enables starters to go all-out in effort to get through their 5+ IP and all relievers can go max effort as well - having a pitch clock that doesn't allow for a pitcher to fully recover before delivering another max effort pitch is going to help offense.

Some will argue that this change will lead to an increase in pitcher injuries without allowing them to recover - I'd argue the pitchers need to adjust how they pitch in effort to still get alot of outs without having to strike everyone out with max-effort and injury-risking stuff to begin with.  You know, "pitch to contact"??  Doing so would inevitably lead to faster games and more entertaining baseball to watch, also.

[owbc]

Guys are never going to hit against the shift without other rule changes. Analytics strongly, strongly discourage it. So there HAS to be a rule change of some sort.

The other options besides shift banning would be to...

1. Move back LF and RF outfield fences (too expensive, people seem to hate it when it has been done e.g. Baltimore). 

2. Deaden the baseball (tried it, caused too big of a decline in offense).

3. Adjust the height or distance of the pitchers mound (still might happen eventually, but is more controversial than shift banning). 

 

[nate82]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Exactly how much bigger are the bases? does it make the distance between bases 2 inches shorter? Five inches? Anyone who thinks that's not a big deal doesn't see how many close plays there are in a game. Not berating it necessarily, but it WOULD be a big deal.

4.5 inches officially shorter between the bases.  It is not that big of a deal overall for the game.  There maybe more extra base hits and steals but I think players are going to be more aggressive in taking them also.  So there may be more plays at bases which brings in some more excitement to the game.  

[SeaBass]

I hate the shift so I'm thrilled this is happening but I also don't really feel like defenses are going to suffer as much as those that oppose the new rule seem to think. Maybe it's only the idea of any restriction in principle that most are against.

Teams will still be able to place the SS or 2B almost right behind the base. Makes me wonder if we'll see defenses in motion as the pitch is delivered to move players where they'd prefer to place them before this restriction. It could make the game more interesting as teams plan strategies to probe how they might best optimize defensive placements.

Or more likely it will simply be a watered down version of what they're doing now. I'm hoping for some crazy stuff though.

I'm in favor of the pitching clock and larger bases as well. Base stealing might see a bit of a renaissance.

[LouisEly]

I don't necessarily mind the shift, but what I do mind is what basically amounts to the 2B/SS playing in shallow RF.  Yeah, sure, you can shift but you have to keep your feet on the dirt.

Similar with the pitch clock; I don't necessarily mind it but I would prefer for at least the first season or two to be a little longer (22-25 sec w/runners on, 18-20 w/bases empty).  I like the idea of faster pace of play, but am not really a fan of automatic balls either.

[Nola Beery]

25 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

I hate the shift so I'm thrilled this is happening but I also don't really feel like defenses are going to suffer as much as those that oppose the new rule seem to think. Maybe it's only the idea of any restriction in principle that most are against.

Teams will still be able to place the SS or 2B almost right behind the base. Makes me wonder if we'll see defenses in motion as the pitch is delivered to move players where they'd prefer to place them before this restriction. It could make the game more interesting as teams plan strategies to probe how they might best optimize defensive placements.

Or more likely it will simply be a watered down version of what they're doing now. I'm hoping for some crazy stuff though.

I'm in favor of the pitching clock and larger bases as well. Base stealing might see a bit of a renaissance.

I suspect and hope you are right about the shift ban not being severe in practice.  Maybe we will see defenses in motion. 

But I am staunchly against the shift ban in principle, as you suggest.   I would rather see the batters bat against the shift.  If small ball was dying, the shift ban may have killed it.  At least the batters will not care about directional hitting (as if they do now).  Hitting it hard will still be all that matters.   I think small ball is exciting and interesting.  And unless your team is hitting the homer, that's an intrinsically boring play: swing, crack, and -play over- everybody just watches the ball.  It really does remind me of how cricket is changing to a slug-away style.  <Ramble complete>

[Nola Beery]

One thing you can be sure of:  the baseball establishment will NEVER shorten the game by reducing the time for advertising.

[owbc]

2 minutes ago, Nola Beery said:

One thing you can be sure of:  the baseball establishment will NEVER shorten the game by reducing the time for advertising.

They shortened the time between innings by 20 seconds in 2019...

[SeaBass]

8 minutes ago, Nola Beery said:

I suspect and hope you are right about the shift ban not being severe in practice.  Maybe we will see defenses in motion. 

But I am staunchly against the shift ban in principle, as you suggest.   I would rather see the batters bat against the shift.  If small ball was dying, the shift ban may have killed it.  At least the batters will not care about directional hitting (as if they do now).  Hitting it hard will still be all that matters.   I think small ball is exciting and interesting.  And unless your team is hitting the homer, that's an intrinsically boring play: swing, crack, and -play over- everybody just watches the ball.  It really does remind me of how cricket is changing to a slug-away style.  <Ramble complete>

I feel like small ball is quite dead already. As others have said hitters haven't budged much on pull tendencies either. Weirdly, if base stealing becomes more attractive with better odds of success due to the other rule changes maybe that helps resurrect small ball strategies a bit.

Also, changing the rules to restrict defensive shifts now doesn't mean they won't revisit the issue at some point in the future. All the sports go through rules adjustments pretty regularly. In the end baseball is going to be just fine one way or another.

[MadScientist]

The pitch clock does worry me in regards to pitcher's health.  It will take a while before pitchers trained to pitch as hard as they do now can adapt to some form of pacing.  Especially since going all out increases the chance of winning.  Athletes will do just about anything to win, and they will risk pushing things until their elbows break.   The larger base rule has been shown to reduce injuries, but this one will increase them.

Risk Factors for Baseball-Related Arm Injuries: A Systematic Review

[rondoman]

[LouisEly]

Theo Epstein had some great quotes about this that I just saw on Quick Pitch.  If you can find them, listen to them.  Some great reasoning behind the changes.

"The game has evolved in a way that nobody would have chosen if we were sitting down 25 years ago... nobody would have asked for a league strikeout rate higher than Bob Gibson's career strikeout rate... nobody would have asked for generational lows in stolen bases, triples, and doubles..."

[NBBrewFan]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

Theo Epstein had some great quotes about this that I just saw on Quick Pitch.  If you can find them, listen to them.  Some great reasoning behind the changes.

"The game has evolved in a way that nobody would have chosen if we were sitting down 25 years ago... nobody would have asked for a league strikeout rate higher than Bob Gibson's career strikeout rate... nobody would have asked for generational lows in stolen bases, triples, and doubles..."

But this is just like the 3 batter rule. The length of games was never impacted by pitching changes to a big degree, but slowing down of batters and pitchers for each pitch was the main driving force. These changes are the same, they really aren't addressing the real issue driving the drop in stolen bases, triples and doubles. If you can't put the ball in play then a shift doesn't matter and bigger bases don't matter.  There may be some increase in contact as pitchers may not be able to recover in the time needed to make another pitch, but MLB needs to address the issue of getting more contact and more balls in play on that contact.  Move the mound, drop the mound, change the ball (deaden it) so when contact is made the chance it is in play is higher leading to more singles, doubles and triples.  More baserunners, more stolen bases, more action.  Less HR, so what. Chicks dig ACTION, not watching guys stand around doing nothing.

[LouisEly]

20 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

I am completely down with the pitch clock having watched it all season in the Minor Leagues. It works and it brings a real added suspense in later innings when pitchers are charged auto-balls. I'm also very much into the PCL use (also being used in Charlotte in the second half) of the three dugout challenges to balls and strikes. You get 3 per game. If you win the challenge, you keep it. If you don't, you lose it. Instantaneous feedback from the auto strikezone. Really like it.

Because they keep the challenge if they win it, about how many total pitch challenges per game would you say that there were?  Did they tend to save them for later in the game or was it more whenever they thought they got hosed?

[folly412]

18 hours ago, Nola Beery said:

One thing you can be sure of:  the baseball establishment will NEVER shorten the game by reducing the time for advertising.

18 hours ago, owbc said:

They shortened the time between innings by 20 seconds in 2019...

Both of these are true.  They shortened the time between innings, then injected the telecast with "and now a quick word from Potawatomi...", "and now a quick word from Chevy..." Pick your poison.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

Because they keep the challenge if they win it, about how many total pitch challenges per game would you say that there were?  Did they tend to save them for later in the game or was it more whenever they thought they got hosed?

They used them throughout, really. I'd say there were a good 6 or so used per team. It's so fast - from challenge to decision - you almost don't even notice if it weren't for the visual they show us on the screen. It's really: challenge in, screen shot of automated zone, call made, next pitch. Almost as fast as you can read this.

[nate82]

4 hours ago, NBBrewFan said:

But this is just like the 3 batter rule. The length of games was never impacted by pitching changes to a big degree, but slowing down of batters and pitchers for each pitch was the main driving force. These changes are the same, they really aren't addressing the real issue driving the drop in stolen bases, triples and doubles. If you can't put the ball in play then a shift doesn't matter and bigger bases don't matter.  There may be some increase in contact as pitchers may not be able to recover in the time needed to make another pitch, but MLB needs to address the issue of getting more contact and more balls in play on that contact.  Move the mound, drop the mound, change the ball (deaden it) so when contact is made the chance it is in play is higher leading to more singles, doubles and triples.  More baserunners, more stolen bases, more action.  Less HR, so what. Chicks dig ACTION, not watching guys stand around doing nothing.

MLB shouldn't be deadening the baseball anymore than it has.  If anything they should be making the ball bigger and heavier.  I have pointed this out previously but a bigger and heavier ball should lead to less injuries to pitchers.  This should also reduce the spin rate of the ball but will probably increase the velocity by about 1MPH.  Less spin rate and less break on pitches should help the batter out.  Also making the ball bigger should increase the number of balls in play.  

The pitch clock is a really good idea and should decrease the amount of time on average between pitches.  In the minors where the pitch clock has been used the games are a lot faster.  If MLB could make the ball bigger and heavier and add in the pitch clock I believe that would fix the majority of the issues MLB is having with less balls in play.