All Power to the State of Baseball, for Better or Worse

It makes me laugh when I read about baseball being too slow for today's fan. I read about the pace of play and then I think of pro basketball...a 48 minute game clock that takes close to 3 hours to complete! When there are free throws to be made, every player has to high five before every shot (even when they miss!). Endless timeouts called by coaches, TV replays (to get the call right), the last 2 minutes of a game that actually lasts 10 minutes if it's a close game, yet baseball gets the rap for being too slow. I'll admit there are changes that can be made to baseball, such as hitters not being allowed to adjust their batting gloves after every pitch. But the times of games in almost every sport has been lengthened over the years. Football has so much dead time but nobody seems to mind.

So, an ever-dwindling number of fans want home runs and strikeouts, and Manfred's answer is to give that decreasing fan base what they want? That doesn't sound like a recipe for success. For excitement, you can't beat a bang-bang double play or a double steal.

If you want baseball to be popular, make it accessible. Have you tried taking a family of four to a game lately? A European vacation costs less. Mandate that all weekend games are day games, eliminate the absurd 1 am EDT playoff and World Series game finishes by starting earlier... In short, figure why the game is less popular and fix that instead of tinkering around the margins.

Baseball = Too Slow
Needs:
Bigger strike zone
DL in both leagues
Pitch clock

I grew up with baseball. I now find it almost painful to watch a complete game. Too many pick off attempts, adjustment of gloves, minimum of outfield plays and triples (most exciting play in the game). A recent Father's day game in Philadelphia was played in 4:25 for 10 innings. OMG

Let's see. How long does it take to sing God Bless America? That's added to the time of games for no discernible reason. Junk it. Are there too many pitchers being used, resulting in too many breaks to change pitchers? There's a simple solution to that. Limit pitching staffs to 10 pitchers - five starters and five relievers. Fewer pitchers available means fewer pitching changes. It also means more bench players and more days of rest for position players. And of course, limits on commercials between innings would cut game time down considerably.
This isn't rocket science.

Baseball isn't broken, and doesn't need to be fixed.
It mystifies me that there always seem to be a push to make baseball more appealing to the people who don't watch it, at the expense of those of us who do.
If baseball is concerned about kids not being as interested in the game as they once were (and they should be), they should stop starting post-season games at 8:30 at night on school nights, and all weekend postseason games should be day games.

I've been a baseball fan since 1964. My son, aged 23, is a serious sports fan. He won't watch baseball. "Too slow Dad." Too much stepping out of the box, too much long determination by the pitcher and catcher, too many mini conferences on the mound that don't count against the 2 visit limit. Too many pitching changes. Replays take way too long.

This fan likes the occasional home run--perhaps one or two per game. He much prefers singles, doubles, and triples, with catching, throwing, running, and sliding. John McEnroe, when comparing golf unfavorably to tennis, once said something like, "To be a sport don't you have to run at some point?" Home runs involve precious little meaningful running.

"Games are longer than ever", averaging 3 hours 5 minutes. Mr. Commissioner please help out us fans who are getting weary of this, who want to watch good competitive baseball at its highest level and don't care about what plays well on social media, just care about what plays on the field:
1. No more catcher visits to the mound.
2. No more pitching coach visits to the mound.
3. No more manager visits to take out the pitcher - just signal the umpire that pitcher number 2,3, or 4 of the average 4 is coming in, and bring him in on a golf cart, and that's it - no need for palavers.
4. No more replays - guys, if you don't like the call just suck it up, watching umpires putting on headphones to second-guess themselves is so tedious.
5. No pitch clock please - baseball is a game without a clock, remember?
6. Modify TV commercial breaks a bit - maybe 1 minute between halves of an inning, 90 seconds between whole innings, no break for pitching changes (see golf cart comment above).
A true fan enjoys a long at-bat as much as a long home run. Stepping in and out of the box is a bit annoying but I can handle it. Same with shaking off signs. A 1-1 game is as exciting for me as a 10-9 game. Baseball thrives equally on action and tension.
Mr. Commissioner: Everything above is, I believe, totally within your power per this article.
Note to my beloved Yankees - please move totally praiseworthy 7th inning honoring of America to start of game. It is awesome you do this other teams could too.

Perhaps a change in scale? Expand 90 and 60 to 95 and 65? Baseball players were slower base runners, less powerful at the plate, hitting slower pitches when the 90' and 60' dimensions were originally crafted.

Even with the pitch tracking technology, umpires aren't calling the high strike. (For a long time now, the high-low strike has essentially been set as between the catcher's forehead and just below the catcher's knees and not based on the hitter -- effectively creating the same high-low strike zone for Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve.) Calling the high strike would get guys swinging early and make it tougher for so many to go up in pure jack up mode.

Also, there are too many conferences on the mound. Trips to the mound by catchers should somehow be limited. And after the fifth inning, a single trip to the mound by a manager or pitching coach (as opposed to two in an inning) should require removal of the pitcher.

Very random thoughts, I know, but the type of things (there have to be others) that are either already part of the rulebook or, if requiring a change to a rule, doesn't require a change in the game itself.

I started watching a playing baseball, little league, in 1960
Pirates Yankees first World series i saw. Games were a little over two hours then
and just as exciting, or more so, than today.
I still love the game more than any other sport, but I do not watch a whole game anymore. Maybe a few innings.
Have not for several years. I just read the paper and keep up with the game.
Baseball games are a full hour longer than they used to be say back in the 60s and 70s. not only are they too long, but the game has gotten less interesting
and has less strategy. Little hit and run, little bunting, little stealing. while I think the talent level in the game has never been better, the watchability and length of the games has never been worse.

Although power is what fans want to see, there is a clear issue with the fundamental approach of hitting. The power surge dives deep into teams organizational growing philosophy on analytics, and in hitting terms "launch angle" of a swing. The main objective of a baseball game is for a team to score runs, and the easiest way to score a run is by the homerun.
Putting the ball in play has become a lost art. That being said, most of the teams who are in the playoffs the last six years fall within the top 15 of "the least amount of strikeouts per game and season." In 2011, the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals finished 1 and 2 respectively in this category, both making the world series. There is something very important still about the ability to make contact.

Three hours and five minutes for the average baseball game is obviously ridiculous. How can kids watch a televised game to completion on a school night? And for the scores of games East Coast teams play in other time zones, it gets even worse. Desperate times call for desperate measures. My suggestion: end all visits to the mound, by anyone but the trainer in case of injury. Not the manager, not the pitching coach, not the catcher or any of the infielders. Leave the pitcher to fend for himself until he's yanked (with the manager deciding and implementing pitching changes from the dugout). Also: no warmup pitches from the mound for relievers unless they come in at the start of an inning. If they're not ready in the bullpen when called, their team will have to live with the consequences of having waited too long to get them up and throwing in the bullpen. Also, no replays, and no arguments allowed. Any player or coach who argues gets tossed immediately and fined heavily. Period. Cutting these games back by at least a half hour, on average, matters more to baseball's health than being able to check questionable calls or wait out participants' fits of pique. Give the umpires despotic power over controlling the games and maybe the games will finally speed up.

The ancient greek philosophers established that to define anything one should break it down to it core qualities, it's "ness" if you will. Baseball's slowness, is what it is and in finding a way to love their game, true fans will own this "ness". The Greeks knew what Commissioner Manfred and other marketeers will learn, that to change the core qualities of anything to appeal to the masses, turns everything into something else. If instead MLB embraced the "ness" and were to contract the game and its economics, enough core fans will remain to allow baseball to compete because of what it is, instead of what it is not. It IS a slow, niche sport which through its numbers, connects those who play and watch it today with those who played and watch it a century ago. This is its ness.

Lots of strikeouts, little action and loads of pitching changes?

Sounds like tonight's All-Star Game, through the 8th inning.

Just sayin'.

The average score of a baseball game is 5-4. About one more of those 9 runs is now scored on a home run, and there is one more strikeout and one more walk per team. Statisticians notice the change. 99% of fans do not, including 100% of fans drinking Buds.

Can't watch more then 10 minutes of baseball
The reason there are so many beer commercials is if your drunk you'll sit there for 3 hours .
Haven't watched baseball game in full since 1959

the game is longer,the home run now passes for
managerial strategy and commercials often are
so omnipresent that the inning has already begun
when the "action" starts again.
besides all of that, everything is just great.

I love the game of baseball, but I hate the MLB product. I'd rather see a high school game any day -- stolen bases, bunts, hit-and-run, strategy -- than schlep to an MLB ballbark and see a four-hour series of strikeouts and homeruns while enjoying a twelve dollar hot dog. The fact that they were actually interviewing outfielders in the field between pitches at the All Star game must tell you that there is something wrong with the way they're playing the game. Well, someone must like it, so good for MLB, but not me. We'll see what the future brings: At my kid's school, they have a hundred kids trying out for freshman soccer, but baseball is a no-cut sport because there's so little interest...

As i recall, that when home runs started flying out of ball parks
back in the 90's and early 21st century, the juiced baseball was to
blame and not the juiced player.

In the original game of baseball, the intent for the role of the pitcher was to put the ball into play. Through the years, that has been reversed, and the role of the pitcher now is to keep the ball out of play. Most true fans enjoy seeing a pitchers' duel, but when the pitchers' duel is punctuated by home runs, it becomes an odd sort of wiffleball game. Strikeouts and homers take all of the nuance and most of the real baseball skills out of the equation.