I certainly appreciate the idea of trade-offs with certain rules; but I suspect that the Players Association would strike before ever letting pitchers to hit again, plus I'd expect them to balk (so to speak) at the perverse incentive of making Starters pitch even if they are out of gas possibly leading to more injuries.
That said, I *do* like the rule change requiring relievers to face minimum number of batters... I could see maybe trying some expansions around that ruleset.
We had 80yrs of inefficiency that made the game lively *and* HR friendly.
Since then we've seen batting averages drop 30 points, strikeouts/game go from 2.5 to 8.5 and walks go up by 1/game and HR go up 1/game. While the total runs per game is exactly the same at 4.39 (odd coincidence between 1920/2024 - but variance is low)
Which is just to say that we've optimized for Walks/Strikeouts/HR at the expense of putting balls in play.
One small bright side is that making the bases 3" larger increased stolen bases per game by 50%... which puts it on the higher side in the ebb/flow of SB over time.
That why I started with 'lower the mound' ... the biggest 'bad' trend in baseball is the Strikeout. The overall bad trend is fewer balls in play - which makes the game less interesting to watch... overall. But yes, HR are fun and if we lowered the mound without doing anything else? We'd get even more of them and more walks.
So... expand the parks, keep the ball lively and batted around the park more and lets see what happens.
Otherwise it's just the long march of Earl Weaver through the baseball institutions.
"That hitters were unwilling or unable to do that is part of the problem."
Should've lowered the mound instead.
Just not sure what to do with Three True Outcomes baseball. If I'm being serious and waving a magic wand? Need to make the ballparks bigger.
More ground to cover for fielders and fewer homeruns = more hits on contact... and if every ball can't be launched for a HR... then also lower the mound to address strikeouts. But, we all know what the chicks think about the longball.
But I do like the pitch clock and ending the OCD batter rituals.
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Forgot to add that this would effectively mean that the Sox play without a DH all year, right :-p
I certainly appreciate the idea of trade-offs with certain rules; but I suspect that the Players Association would strike before ever letting pitchers to hit again, plus I'd expect them to balk (so to speak) at the perverse incentive of making Starters pitch even if they are out of gas possibly leading to more injuries.
That said, I *do* like the rule change requiring relievers to face minimum number of batters... I could see maybe trying some expansions around that ruleset.
We had 80yrs of inefficiency that made the game lively *and* HR friendly.
Since then we've seen batting averages drop 30 points, strikeouts/game go from 2.5 to 8.5 and walks go up by 1/game and HR go up 1/game. While the total runs per game is exactly the same at 4.39 (odd coincidence between 1920/2024 - but variance is low)
Which is just to say that we've optimized for Walks/Strikeouts/HR at the expense of putting balls in play.
One small bright side is that making the bases 3" larger increased stolen bases per game by 50%... which puts it on the higher side in the ebb/flow of SB over time.
That why I started with 'lower the mound' ... the biggest 'bad' trend in baseball is the Strikeout. The overall bad trend is fewer balls in play - which makes the game less interesting to watch... overall. But yes, HR are fun and if we lowered the mound without doing anything else? We'd get even more of them and more walks.
So... expand the parks, keep the ball lively and batted around the park more and lets see what happens.
Otherwise it's just the long march of Earl Weaver through the baseball institutions.
"That hitters were unwilling or unable to do that is part of the problem."
Should've lowered the mound instead.
Just not sure what to do with Three True Outcomes baseball. If I'm being serious and waving a magic wand? Need to make the ballparks bigger.
More ground to cover for fielders and fewer homeruns = more hits on contact... and if every ball can't be launched for a HR... then also lower the mound to address strikeouts. But, we all know what the chicks think about the longball.
But I do like the pitch clock and ending the OCD batter rituals.