evolution of baseball sport

[juangulo_]

hey, i'm new to this community, i just wanted to know your opinion about smallball (you know, bunting, stealing) and if you think baseball needs to comeback to that

[Brad K]

It depends on if its more interesting in scoring runs or entertaining fans.

[dkgo]

No because people realized that giving away outs is stupid

[Déjà Bru]

Yes because home runs and strikeouts alone cannot carry the sport. The more of them, the less their entertainment value. There have to be some aspects of baseball to satisfy the mind other than "Gee, look how far he hit that one" and "Gee, look how hard he threw that fastball."

[Westheim]

My current easy fix is to make the strike zone bigger to encourage swinging at marginal pitches rather than coaxing every count to get to 3-2. Hitting marginal pitches will get the defense involved, bring down homers, and maybe even the strikeouts.

None of my easy fixes have ever worked, so there's that...

Running as part of the game seems dead, though.

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Yes because home runs and strikeouts alone cannot carry the sport. The more of them, the less their entertainment value. There have to be some aspects of baseball to satisfy the mind other than "Gee, look how far he hit that one" and "Gee, look how hard he threw that fastball."

They don't have to hit it *that* far to right at Pinstripe Place and still make a fuss about it every time a guy pops one outta there.

[juangulo_]

Exactly, show the young ones the beauty of a double play and defensive plays more than just dingers and 97+ mph fastballs

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Yes because home runs and strikeouts alone cannot carry the sport. The more of them, the less their entertainment value. There have to be some aspects of baseball to satisfy the mind other than "Gee, look how far he hit that one" and "Gee, look how hard he threw that fastball."

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by Westheim

My current easy fix is to make the strike zone bigger to encourage swinging at marginal pitches rather than coaxing every count to get to 3-2. Hitting marginal pitches will get the defense involved, bring down homers, and maybe even the strikeouts.

None of my easy fixes have ever worked, so there's that...

Running as part of the game seems dead, though.



They don't have to hit it *that* far to right at Pinstripe Place and still make a fuss about it every time a guy pops one outta there.

You think the way to reduce strikeouts is to widen the strike zone? What? Forcing players to strikeout or swing at bad pitches isn't going to do any of the things you think it will.

Pitchers are better than ever, especially the bottom half of them. A higher percentage of pitches are 90s+ than ever before. That's why strikeouts are up, because hitting a really fast baseball is ****ing hard. Since it is harder to hit it you are less likely to get several hits in a row, so players try to make their hits count more with homeruns. That's all there is to it.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Yes because home runs and strikeouts alone cannot carry the sport. The more of them, the less their entertainment value. There have to be some aspects of baseball to satisfy the mind other than "Gee, look how far he hit that one" and "Gee, look how hard he threw that fastball."

Look how far he hit that fastball that he threw so hard
?

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by dkgo

You think the way to reduce strikeouts is to widen the strike zone? What? Forcing players to strikeout or swing at bad pitches isn't going to do any of the things you think it will.

Pitchers are better than ever, especially the bottom half of them. A higher percentage of pitches are 90s+ than ever before. That's why strikeouts are up, because hitting a really fast baseball is ****ing hard. Since it is harder to hit it you are less likely to get several hits in a row, so players try to make their hits count more with homeruns. That's all there is to it.

This is, mostly, correct

Pitchers are filthier than ever.
A random middle reliever is throwing stuff better than yesterday's greats.

They only way to counter act that is to reduce the pitchers' effectiveness somehow. Lowering the mound, moving the mound back, allowing fewer relievers...

But, once you've done that, it's got to be counteracted with something to reduce the hitters' proclivity to tee off Widening the strike zone, deadening the ball, etc

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by dkgo

You think the way to reduce strikeouts is to widen the strike zone? What? Forcing players to strikeout or swing at bad pitches isn't going to do any of the things you think it will.

Pitchers are better than ever, especially the bottom half of them. A higher percentage of pitches are 90s+ than ever before. That's why strikeouts are up, because hitting a really fast baseball is ****ing hard. Since it is harder to hit it you are less likely to get several hits in a row, so players try to make their hits count more with homeruns. That's all there is to it.

Stretching the strike zone would get players to swing earlier in the count, and thus put balls in play earlier. Since they can't wait for that one mistake pitch, it would also drive down homers, and prevent every count from running full, speeding up the game. Since pitchers throw fewer pitches per at-bat, starters can go deeper into the game, requiring fewer pitching changes, thus speeding up the game again.

You must admit that this sounds good on paper.

Maybe too good to be true!

[dkgo]

But they can't get hits on pitches out of the strike zone

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by dkgo

But they can't get hits on pitches out of the strike zone

Manny Sanguillen

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Manny Sanguillen

Miguel Cabrera

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

Miguel Cabrera

Vladimir Guerrero

[kq76]

Bunting? Eh, maybe. Stealing bases? Hell yeah. Hit and run? No. Run and hit? Yes.

I think the biggest thing is balls in play though. And how do we do that? Well, first they could increase the minimum distances and heights of the outfield walls. They could move the mound back/lower. And they could do something about the shift like 2 guys max on either side of 2B and/or max of 3 in the OF. All those would help.

[dkgo]

How does banning the shift increase balls in play?

I do agree that the focus should be on reducing pitcher effectiveness to tune down the strikeouts, but at the same time runs arent down at all despite the pitching being better. Probably because offenses have evolved to eliminate all the stupid bunting and smallball crap which was costing them runs in the past.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by dkgo

How does banning the shift increase balls in play?

Because as it is now some players think, "I've got no chance if I hit a ball on the ground, so I might as well just try for the bomb.".

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-woul...balls-in-play/

I doubt it's a huge factor, but if it makes players more confident and therefore more likely to just make contact with the ball, I'm for it.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Stretching the strike zone would get players to swing earlier in the count, and thus put balls in play earlier. Since they can't wait for that one mistake pitch, it would also drive down homers, and prevent every count from running full, speeding up the game. Since pitchers throw fewer pitches per at-bat, starters can go deeper into the game, requiring fewer pitching changes, thus speeding up the game again.

You must admit that this sounds good on paper.

Maybe too good to be true!

Originally Posted by kq76

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-woul...balls-in-play/

From the article: The strike zone. It’s bigger than it’s ever been. That leads to strikeouts, obviously, which also leads to a suppression of ball-in-play totals.

Lowrie has noticed and thinks that we could improve the pace of the game and put more balls in play with one easy solution. “If you look in the last 10 years, the called strike zone has gotten three square inches bigger, mostly to the bottom of the zone. Runs per game are down almost a full run…, the average game time has gone up 25 minutes, and pitches per at-bat have gone up one full pitch,” he pointed out. “If you make the strike zone smaller, you force the pitchers to throw the ball in the zone, and guys will swing earlier in the count… One fewer pitch per at-bat, at 30 seconds: that’s a lot of time.”

---

Seems like having a smaller strike zone is better than having a larger one. Maybe a Robo Ump that actually uses the official zone rather than artifically widening would help.

[Brad K]

How will players retrain themselves not to swing at pitches they are swinging at now?

[cephasjames]

The same way pitchers will train themselves to throw at a smaller strike zone. Practice and repetition.

The same way batters tweak their swings to create higher launch angles. Or pitchers adjust their grips on the ball to change their spin rate. Etc. Players figure out how to adjust if it helps their game.