Eliminate defensive shifts?

[daves]

This has been proposed to eliminate shifts. Need more offense and this hurts the pull hitters. Bases need to be bigger as well to help the offense as well.

What do you think?

[Bobbyraz49]

Regarding the shift... so does the SS have to stay on the 3rd. base side ? Will MLB have to draw a chalk line from 2nd. to the CF wall ?? LOL
As for base size.... I hate it !!!
I also despise how cheap teams are with payroll. As a lifelong Oriole fan they can't compete. I believe there should be a hard cap like in baseball and football. And... all teams MUST spend at least 60% of the cap.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Originally Posted by Bobbyraz49

Regarding the shift... so does the SS have to stay on the 3rd. base side ? Will MLB have to draw a chalk line from 2nd. to the CF wall ?? LOL

The way it worked in the Eastern League last season was simple: four pair of feet touching dirt, the 2B or SS no more than behind second base. Relatively simple and I noticed no attempts to cheat.

[progen]

Originally Posted by daves

This has been proposed to eliminate shifts. Need more offense and this hurts the pull hitters. Bases need to be bigger as well to help the offense as well.

What do you think?

The clueless commissioner believes that bigger bases will generate more steals in the game. And I'm fine with the shift staying on. To reward a dead pull hitter who's too lazy or stubborn to change the way he hits, in order to combat the shift, that's the kind of player you're rewarding. Even Harper this year improvised, and started hitting the ball to at least the left centerfield gap. And what do you know, he wins the MVP.

It would be like the NFL saying no more zone coverage, you have to play man-to-man like they did back when I was growing up. Many receivers back then were considered "great" because they could beat a cornerback one on one. But if the zone was in place, they would've have 10 catches a season.

[middleson]

They probably would have a lot more than 10, since they would be wearing the gloves, have more time on routes since offensive lineman are allowed to hold, and do not have to worry about being bumped off their routes after five yards.

[dhanlin3@yahoo.com]

Shifts are part of baseball if you haven't noticed haha

[oldfatbaldguy]

Originally Posted by progen

It would be like the NFL saying no more zone coverage

The NBA did that for a long time, and it was stupid and the "illegal defense" rule was nearly impossible to understand. I think baseball players should have to play the entire game of baseball. If your game is so limited that you can be stopped by putting all seven infield/outfield players in an area the size of a tennis court, that's your problem.

[Pelican]

Larger bases are just silly. Really just a ploy to shorten the distance between. Why would you fiddle with the basic parts of the game that have lasted for well over a century? Stats would no longer be comparable. Stolen bases will fluctuate depending upon strategy and talent. Leave it alone.

Shifts are also a part of the game. They only get used if they work - or are perceived as working. They can be beaten. But this issue is more nuanced. Positions have been defined in a stable way. Three outfielders, four infielders, one catcher, one pitcher. Could a team play a shortfielder, like in beer league softball? At some point these shenanigans go too far. A limit on infield shifts that is easy to enforce makes some sense, establishing limits, and contributing a bit more offense, that the non-purists love to see. But in the long run, I’d love to see shifts cause younger players to learn to hit the opposite way. Just not sure that will happen, in the era of exit velocity and lift.

[Ktulu]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Larger bases are just silly. Really just a ploy to shorten the distance between. Why would you fiddle with the basic parts of the game that have lasted for well over a century? Stats would no longer be comparable. Stolen bases will fluctuate depending upon strategy and talent. Leave it alone.
.

It's not silly, it's been tested and statistically demonstrated to increase SB numbers and reduce injuries at bases. It's also supposed to help reduce the number of SB attempts overturned by replay because the new bases are easier to keep contact with. Increasing the success rate of SB will increase the number of attempts, which will result in a more exciting game.

Worrying about the record book is silly.

[texasmame]

Originally Posted by daves

This has been proposed to eliminate shifts. Need more offense and this hurts the pull hitters. Bases need to be bigger as well to help the offense as well.

What do you think?

Pretty sure the wording is "eliminate extreme shifts" or something similar.


Either way, leave it be. If you can't adjust to fielders being in certain positions, take more BP.

[r0nster]

simple fix i would say just make it an option to include this or not large bases would be cosmetic on here i would think

[Pelican]

[QUOTE=Ktulu;4871629]It's not silly, it's been tested and statistically demonstrated to increase SB numbers and reduce injuries at bases. It's also supposed to help reduce the number of SB attempts overturned by replay because the new bases are easier to keep contact with. Increasing the success rate of SB will increase the number of attempts, which will result in a more exciting game.

So how large? A meter? Two meters square? Surely a base the size of a mattress would eliminate injuries entirely. While you’re at it, making it soft like a mattress would help, too. How about round instead of square, or a triangle? Seriously, there are more sensible ways to reduce injuries than altering the size or configuration of the bases themselves. By injuries, I gather you mean collisions at the bases. As Chase Utley could tell you, that is a part of baseball, but something that can be mitigated and probably avoided, without creating a huge base.

Wow. Someone who plays OOTP and does not think records are important? Forgive me, but running 89 or 88 or 87 feet is just not the same thing as running 90 feet. Of course, 162 games is not the same as 154. Fake turf is not the same as grass. I like the idea that Ty Cobb and Cool Papa Bell operated under the same metrics as Maury Wills and Ricky Henderson. I would hope that today’s stars (and tomorrow’s) would play by the same rules.

[BirdWatcher]

[QUOTE=Pelican;4871871]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

It's not silly, it's been tested and statistically demonstrated to increase SB numbers and reduce injuries at bases. It's also supposed to help reduce the number of SB attempts overturned by replay because the new bases are easier to keep contact with. Increasing the success rate of SB will increase the number of attempts, which will result in a more exciting game.

So how large? A meter? Two meters square? Surely a base the size of a mattress would eliminate injuries entirely. While you’re at it, making it soft like a mattress would help, too. How about round instead of square, or a triangle? Seriously, there are more sensible ways to reduce injuries than altering the size or configuration of the bases themselves. By injuries, I gather you mean collisions at the bases. As Chase Utley could tell you, that is a part of baseball, but something that can be mitigated and probably avoided, without creating a huge base.

Wow. Someone who plays OOTP and does not think records are important? Forgive me, but running 89 or 88 or 87 feet is just not the same thing as running 90 feet. Of course, 162 games is not the same as 154. Fake turf is not the same as grass. I like the idea that Ty Cobb and Cool Papa Bell operated under the same metrics as Maury Wills and Ricky Henderson. I would hope that today’s stars (and tomorrow’s) would play by the same rules.

While I can appreciate the nature of these concerns, I think it is important to keep in mind that many others factors have changed a great deal since the days of Cobb and Bell, or Wills, and even Henderson. The average size of players is quite a bit bigger than in earlier eras, the velocity at which pitches are traveling to the plate is greater, the bulkiness of equipment for catchers has been reduced and general athleticism is greater leading to better pop times, etc.
This is not meant as a defense of the change in base diameter (I have not personally reached any strong opinions about this), but rather just to suggest that the idea that we baseball fans like to cling to that the continuity of certain baseball realities (like dimensions) means that there is a strong measure of comparability of statistics across eras is, in my opinion, a myth, a logical fallacy, not a supportable belief.

[Ty Cobb]

All goes back to the adoption of the DH—first thing baseball did to reward laziness. The management structure of baseball are akin to politicians—they tinker with what isn't broken to justify their phony-baloney jobs.

[Dave Stieb II]

Pelican.....
Really?
After the 1968 season they lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches and shrunk the strike zone in order to generate more offense in the game.
So I don't think the idea of enlarging the bases by an inch - or whatever - is going to do untold damage to the game and its historical context.

[oldfatbaldguy]

The ball itself is tinkered with from time to time. As BirdWatcher said, comparison across eras is mostly futile. We have a few tools to help us do it -- if you want to know how impressed to be about a .320 batting average from long ago, check the league batting average for the same season. Mostly it's a crock.

I don't think the big bases will matter that much, for better or worse. But I think making the game better in the here and now should matter a lot more than Rickey Henderson's 130 steals from 40 years ago (or Hugh Nicol's 138 for the Cincinnati Red Stockings of the American Association in 1887).

[Pelican]

Sorry for my rant, but I’m just sick and tired of the gimmicks. The weird drive to attract new fans, when baseball is just fine, in large part because of its traditions and history.

DH, now that we’re stuck with it, is still a gimmick, if one what eliminates a part of the game [pitchers hitting] that many found boring or embarrassing [I didn’t].

Ghost runners is a silly gimmick to expedite games, removing the competitive element.

Forcing relievers to face three hitters is another gimmick.

Seven inning doubleheaders, another gimmick because we apparently don’t have time to watch two games.

Fussing with the size of the bases is just a gimmick to me. Perhaps someone will come up with data to try and justify it; but I’m skeptical.

The real question is, what exactly are we trying to achieve with these gimmicks? If the goal is questionable, the effort is unworthy. More offense? I think we have plenty. So much that the ball had to be unjuiced. Game moving too slow? Eliminate the long commercial breaks between innings. Games too long? Maybe a little bit of patience and appreciation for the pace of play. Or compare it to tennis or golf. Yawn.

The changes after 1968 were more subtle; not that I was in favor of them at the time (as a teenager).

The game tends to move in cycles, and interfering with its development can trigger the “doctrine of unintended consequences”. Pitch counts don’t save arms; they create young pitchers incapable of throwing more than fifty pitches before breaking down. Ignoring balks cuts down on stolen bases (of any size). Metal bats yield cheap homers and make every kid want to launch, not make good contact and place hits. I’d actually support functional robot umpires, to preserve a uniform strike zone, from batter to batter, game to game, year to year.

One possibly good outcome of the recent deal is the establishment of a committee to consider these changes. I just wish that the threshold vote for any of these gimmicks was 2/3 or 3/4 of the members. Baseball shouldn’t tinker with the basic rules lightly, just to attract attention. Just look at football’s mishandling of overtime. It’s a great game. Let’s not allow the dilettantes to ruin it.

[Syd Thrift]

There are nearly twice as many strikeouts per game today than there were in the 60s and if that’s a “fad” it’s one that’s been trending since the early 90s.

[Pelican]

For sure players today are bigger, faster, stronger (not entirely naturally) and better trained than in years past. To me at least, that’s the magic. A game played essentially the same way, for well over one hundred years, still is competitive and fascinating. The pitchers throw harder, the batters hit the ball harder and farther. And the fielders contend with the ball getting to them quicker. Somehow all these advances roughly balance out. [This was even true in the steroid era, at least among the juicers. Think of Roger Clemens facing Barry Bonds. The losers, sadly, were the players who did not juice.]

I’m not resistant to all changes in baseball. I just need to see some justification beyond “we’re an entertainment business”. The burden should be on those advocating significant changes in the dimensions, the rules, the equipment. A heavy burden, and a strong case.

Look, when my kids turned 13 or 14, they shifted from a field with 75-foot bases and 50-foot pitching distance to 90-foot bases and 60 feet 6 inches. That made sense, when the dominant (early-maturing) pitchers had been blowing away hitters, and guys with real speed could beat out hits and run the bases with abandon. The full-size diamond was better matched to maturing kids approaching six feet and 180 pounds and real speed and muscles. Maybe someday MLB will have to look at expanding the field due to the size and strength and speed of the players. But not today.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Sorry for my rant, but I’m just sick and tired of the gimmicks. The weird drive to attract new fans, when baseball is just fine, in large part because of its traditions and history.

DH, now that we’re stuck with it, is still a gimmick, if one what eliminates a part of the game [pitchers hitting] that many found boring or embarrassing [I didn’t].

Ghost runners is a silly gimmick to expedite games, removing the competitive element.

Forcing relievers to face three hitters is another gimmick.

Seven inning doubleheaders, another gimmick because we apparently don’t have time to watch two games.

Fussing with the size of the bases is just a gimmick to me. Perhaps someone will come up with data to try and justify it; but I’m skeptical.

The real question is, what exactly are we trying to achieve with these gimmicks? If the goal is questionable, the effort is unworthy. More offense? I think we have plenty. So much that the ball had to be unjuiced. Game moving too slow? Eliminate the long commercial breaks between innings. Games too long? Maybe a little bit of patience and appreciation for the pace of play. Or compare it to tennis or golf. Yawn.

The changes after 1968 were more subtle; not that I was in favor of them at the time (as a teenager).

The game tends to move in cycles, and interfering with its development can trigger the “doctrine of unintended consequences”. Pitch counts don’t save arms; they create young pitchers incapable of throwing more than fifty pitches before breaking down. Ignoring balks cuts down on stolen bases (of any size). Metal bats yield cheap homers and make every kid want to launch, not make good contact and place hits. I’d actually support functional robot umpires, to preserve a uniform strike zone, from batter to batter, game to game, year to year.

One possibly good outcome of the recent deal is the establishment of a committee to consider these changes. I just wish that the threshold vote for any of these gimmicks was 2/3 or 3/4 of the members. Baseball shouldn’t tinker with the basic rules lightly, just to attract attention. Just look at football’s mishandling of overtime. It’s a great game. Let’s not allow the dilettantes to ruin it.

MLB attendance hit a 37-year low in 2021, with the average per-game attendance falling for the fifth straight season (not counting the fanless 2020 season).

What part of that says in ANYWAY baseball is fine?