Off-Topic Forum

After last years record number of homeruns, many people thought the baseballs were juiced or modified. It appears they were

https://sports.yahoo.com/x-rays-baseballs-reveal-possible-cause-home-run-surge-211752046.html

yep I read that article today also and it was very interesting!

mark

I’d like to get back to 1970s levels of homeruns, when about 37 homers would lead the league. And there’d be a nice leader card with Mike Schmidt and Dave Kingman...

V3

MLB denied that anything was different about the balls. I guess they're doing whatever they can to bring more interest to the game.

Seems counterproductive if they want to speed up the game.  The more home runs hit and hits, the more time the games last.  Having said that, I'm sure I'm in the minority when I say I much prefer a 1-0 game than a 9-8 game, but even so I don't care if the game is 18 hours long if the game is good.  I just don't get why sports think games need to be shorter, if I'm at the game I'm there to enjoy it, not worry how long it lasts.  If I'm watching on TV, I'm more bothered at TV Timeouts and breaks than anything.  If they cut down on commercials, then the game would be shorter too.  I must say I didn't mind the 10 second picture in picture commercials Fox tried last year in the World Series, if they did that more often and cut out regular breaks, I'd be okay with that.

As for juicing the ball, if that's what gets fans into the game again, so be it.  It sucks imo, but when Trout hits his 1,000th HR and the best pitcher in the league has a 7.79 ERA maybe they will understand how bad of an idea it is.

Well said, Jupiter, although I would like the games to come in under 3 hours. Easiest way to do that is to let starters actually pitch seven or eight or (gasp) nine innings. But that won’t happen. 

There are rules changes this year.  Limits on mound visits (including visit by catcher).  Shorter commercial breaks.  A clock on relievers moving from bullpen to mound.  Still no pitch clock (thankfully).  Last year's changes still in place too: clock on pitcher warm-ups and on batter getting in box to start new inning, and timed mound visits. I'm with Phil on not caring how long a game lasts when I'm there, but MLB research claims tv viewers don't want long games. Young people and short attention spans.  And, of course, I maintain my opinion that Manfred doesn't like baseball.

I feel like the whole way challenges are handled needs a major change. It's ridiculous when a player is thrown out at second base and just stands there while the dugout watches the replay to see if they're going to challenge or not. It's a total waste of time. There needs to be some kind of procedure in place to limit that kind of abuse. I was under the impression that the reason replays and challenges were in place was to remedy egregious errors, not to scrutinize the play down to the nano second. It's amazing how often the umpires get those calls totally right. If we're going to take the human element out of the game that way then they might as well go all the way and use electric eyes to call balls and strikes. Let the players play.

I'll finally chime in on this subject (well, about the length of games). I have no opinion about changes with the ball itself. I thought the chance to challenge a call would be a good thing in MLB, and it was at first. Then the managers decided they wanted to challenge anything that was even slightly close. The same thing happened in the NFL when they added challenges to a ruling on the field. The NFL limits the challenges to 2 per game with the risk of losing a timeout if you are wrong. That can't be done with MLB since there are no technical timeouts, but MLB could limit it with player changes. They could disallow a double-switch (moving one player to a different position while bringing in another player for the position that was vacated) or drop a pitcher change if the manager loses a challenge. Of course, all of those numbers would have to be pre-determined by the MLB and that would really constrict things when a game goes into extra innings. BUT, that would also speed up the game as teams would be less likely to use a challenge if it wasn't going to win the game for them or at least tie the game. ESPECIALLY in extra innings! I really hate seeing the 10th, 11th, 12th, etc. innings take longer to complete per inning than the first 9 did per inning b/c of constant changes in pitching/defense or offense.

Personally, the only time that it bugs me with how long a game is taking is when tons of commercials are being shown for every little break in action. That seems to also be adding to the time of the games, so shorter commercial breaks is a good idea. Especially since half of the action is "SPONSORED" by so-and-so company! "Here's the 'So-and-So Pitch breakdown' for this inning"! "Here's the 'So-and-So Winning moment' of the game"! And then there are still all of the ads in the background of every play inside of every stadium at every game. Give it a bit of a rest. The ads aren't entirely what pays for the games or the player's salaries. The tickets, concessions and the broadcast licenses are what pays most of that. Of course the broadcasters need to sell commercial space to pay for what they air, but they also have to mention corporate sponsors for the league and basically anything that shows up in the background. Advertisements are just getting ridiculous in all sports.

The last thing I'll mention here is the way that the NFL and NASCAR deal with "challenges" to what is called during "play". The NFL now has a committed group in one location that reports back to the ref's/ump's as to what they see and how the call should be dealt with as per "confirmed", "stands", or "overturned". NASCAR has put up an entire bank of cameras at every track they race at with a group of individuals monitoring those cameras. If they see an infraction, it's called up almost immediately. The team is informed of this and has very little time to rebutt what they were called for infracting. A group of NASCAR officials decides if it's a legitimate reason for the infraction or if the team must suffer the penalty.

MLB needs to figure out a way to work with what NFL and NASCAR have done to see if they can speed up the gametime when there is a challenge to the ruling "on the field".

For in-person experience of my MLB games, both games ended with a 4-3 score. The first game ended after nine innings and only took about 2 hrs. 45 minutes. The second game went to the 14th inning and lasted 5 hours and 4 minutes. The second game was the greatest game of my life! That was mostly because I finally made it to St. Louis for a Cardinals game and never thought I'd get there for a live game. I will never forget the experience of that game, but I'd have been just as happy if the Cardinals won by the same score after the 9th inning. But the fact that it took so much longer is what really sticks in my head when I think about that game!

juicing the ball is one thing which i think is a big contributor in the additional round-trippers, but you can't take away the fact that it still takes the batter about 1/10 of a second to strike it perfectfully in order to get a homer. playing devil's advocate- how does the lighter less ball affect the pitching? should it or will it enable the pitcher to get more spin or velocity on the ball in order to get a more nastier slider or curve? there's no doubt the game has changed tremendously over the years, particularly more over the last few as far the technical aspects going into it- the question is where does it go from here? you just can't compare the stars today from the stars of yester-year. everything from conditioning, product design, video and 3D training review has improved players ability to react and be better prepared. 

All that said, it still doesn't take away the chess match between the pitcher and batter in itself- will i get the fast ball or will i get the breaking ball?  as far as the game time/length, it always seems longer watching on TV than in person. my only complaint would have been the constant trips to the mound to the same pitcher in the same inning just giving the relief time to warm up or to piss off the on deck batter- and that is changing.

overall, i would probably like to see less homer's- i always enjoyed watching Michael Jack pop one out around every xxx at-bats, but that xxxx is now lesser- like its almost expected. but guess we shall what happens over the next couple years.