Manfred Mann is the new commissioner

[Northern Star]

I know his first order of business is to make ever-increasing piles of money, but I really hope it's not his only one. I really hope he'll work at some things to improve the game.

[seabeachfred]

I know his first order of business is to make ever-increasing piles of money, but I really hope it's not his only one. I really hope he'll work at some things to improve the game.

 

And you know what I'd like to really see? I would like the to s*** can interleague play. It has outlived its usefulness and takes away from the drama when the WS comes around.

[Palodios]

I hope we see the end of the MLB TV blackouts for sold-out games. That s*** is stupid.

[Spudboy]

And you know what I'd like to really see? I would like the to s*** can interleague play. It has outlived its usefulness and takes away from the drama when the WS comes around.

 

Interesting idea Fred. I hadn't given it much thought because I don't mind inter-league play.

 

However, the other night Keith Olberman talked about how baseball is ( my word ) dieing. There is a relationship between televised inter-league games and decline in MLB viewership. It seems that each year viewership of these games is declining at a precipitous rate. Right now baseball and the individual teams are benefiting from massive cable revenues. But these are going to go away very much sooner than people expect. When that happens, baseball as a whole will make far less money and only the healthy teams with strong local television ( cable ) deals will thrive. All other teams will suffer greatly.

 

Baseball has many challenges. NBA is about to pass it in overall popularity ( Football is 1st ). Getting rid of inter-league games may need to be considered because it is suspected that viewers miss seeing only the teams that they normally watch ( within their league ) and have little interest in seeing the other league until playoffs and the World Series.

 

I wish I could somehow copy paste the stats because they are quite vivid and alarming. Plus I'm not sure that I've articulated the urgency and nature of the problem accurately.

[Spudboy]

Of course the biggest problem is the decline in young viewership and fans. The demographics of baseball fans is pretty ugly now. Every year less and less younger groups are becoming fans while the average age of a fan in getting older. That is not a healthy trend.

[Palodios]

Interesting idea Fred. I hadn't given it much thought because I don't mind inter-league play.

 

However, the other night Keith Olberman talked about how baseball is ( my word ) dieing. There is a relationship between televised inter-league games and decline in MLB viewership. It seems that each year viewership of these games is declining at a precipitous rate. Right now baseball and the individual teams are benefiting from massive cable revenues. But these are going to go away very much sooner than people expect. When that happens, baseball as a whole will make far less money and only the healthy teams with strong local television ( cable ) deals will thrive. All other teams will suffer greatly.

 

Baseball has many challenges. NBA is about to pass it in overall popularity ( Football is 1st ). Getting rid of inter-league games may need to be considered because it is suspected that viewers miss seeing only the teams that they normally watch ( within their league ) and have little interest in seeing the other league until playoffs and the World Series.

 

I wish I could somehow copy paste the stats because they are quite vivid and alarming. Plus I'm not sure that I've articulated the urgency and nature of the problem accurately.

 

Getting rid of interleague play is not the solution. I would bet that younger fans are actually more interested in seeing stars from other leagues -- I recently saw Kershaw pitch in Milwaukee the other day, and I'd take him over Scott Feldman every day of the week.

 

The biggest complaint you will hear among young people is that baseball is too friggen slow.We need to see a reduction in game time from 4 hours to 2.5-3 hours. It may be possible without changing the actual rules, but it needs to happen.

 

Pitchers should not take 60 seconds between pitches. We also need to see limitations in what kind of pitching changes a manager can make in an inning -- 3-4 pitching changes is dumb. A baseball wide bullpen-trolley rule to get BP pitchers to the mound could save an extra few minutes per game. Getting rid of the DH would help too, but I'm biased against that one. Extra commercials for "premium" games like Red Sox v. Yankees is also a huge problem that may cost the game more than it gains them.

 

A digital strikezone would limit argued ball/strike calls, and those dumb delayed "Striiiiiiiiiike" calls that waste time.

 

It needs to be a baseball-wide effort.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Palodios

[Spudboy]

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2014/08/keith_olbermanns_mlb_commissioner_sketch_is_pretty.html

 

lulz

[Spudboy]

Getting rid of interleague play is not the solution. I would bet that younger fans are actually more interested in seeing stars from other leagues -- I recently saw Kershaw pitch in Milwaukee the other day, and I'd take him over Scott Feldman every day of the week.

 

The biggest complaint you will hear among young people is that baseball is too friggen slow.We need to see a reduction in game time from 4 hours to 2.5-3 hours. It may be possible without changing the actual rules, but it needs to happen.

 

Pitchers should not take 60 seconds between pitches. We also need to see limitations in what kind of pitching changes a manager can make in an inning -- 3-4 pitching changes is dumb. A baseball wide bullpen-trolley rule to get BP pitchers to the mound could save an extra few minutes per game. Getting rid of the DH would help too, but I'm biased against that one. Extra commercials for "premium" games like Red Sox v. Yankees is also a huge problem that may cost the game more than it gains them.

 

A digital strikezone would limit argued ball/strike calls, and those dumb delayed "Striiiiiiiiiike" calls that waste time.

 

It needs to be a baseball-wide effort.

 

I certainly agree that baseball is too slow and that this is somewhat of a repellant among younger prospective fans. One problem that no one talks about is the loss of revenue associated with shortening the game. Fans in attendance are captive and spend money while at the ball park. Shorten the game = less money.

 

Shorten the game means less time for commercials. Less money. Advertising done in the ball park will be less attractive too.

 

Does anyone see the rich boys who control the game willingly taking a financial hit? I don't.

[Northern Star]

Someone (was it here?) said that in a 3 and half hour game, there's 18 minutes of actual action. I think it would be difficult to cut down game times without severely changing the game. Years ago some solutions were floated, including making it 2 strikes instead of 3 which would be awful. I like that there's no game clock, I like that each game has its own rhythm. But do I want to spend almost 4 hours watching one? Do I want to start watching a playoff game on the East Coast at 8pm knowing it will go beyond midnight and I have work the next day?

 

Getting youngsters involved and interested is paramount. They NEED to make the Saturday WS game an afternoon one. It will not kill them. Just take a step back, stop thinking of money and think of growing the game. How do you get more kids playing it, versus basketball or football? (I guess football is dwindling now because of head injuries). How do you get black kids to take up baseball when the number of black players has been dwindling for years?

 

Since a significant number of people are giving up cable, they should be offering mlb tv without blackouts. Even if you have to pay more and use the cable channel's website if you live in market, I would do that. But I have given up on mlb tv for another reason, which is the technical drawbacks of DSL that make the picture freeze so often. A huge number of people complained about this. That touches on another unrelated issue, the poor quality of the U.S.'s broadband service compared to other countries.

[Northern Star]

Oh, and as well as ending the ASG WS home field advantage ********, can we drop the every team must have a player and have the starting lineups play most of the game?

 

The union would never go for this, but dropping the DH would speed up AL games a bit...

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Football's pretty lacking in action, and they don't have an issue with popularity.

[Palodios]

Shorten the game = less money. Shorten the game means less time for commercials. Less money. Advertising done in the ball park will be less attractive too. Does anyone see the rich boys who control the game willingly taking a financial hit? I don't.

 

Here's the thing. Shorter innings doesn't mean shorter commercials. If we have 9 inning games, and commercials every half inning, would commercials every half inning get shorter? Probably not. Technically, they're only going to need to shorten the content. We would see fewer commercials if there is a limit to bullpen changes, but that might be one string of commercials per game.

 

As far as stadium revenue, I don't think it would take a big hit either. Right now, your average fan doesn't get into the stands until the second or third inning anyway, and the average fan leaves immediately after Sweet Caroline. Cutting night games from 7-10:30 to 7-10 will mean that more fans get in the park on time, and that families and 9AMers are more likely to stick around for the whole game. It also means that stadium workers will be paid for fewer hours. Worst case scenario, beer goes from $10 a pint to $15 instead of the expected $14 hike.

 

 

Someone (was it here?) said that in a 3 and half hour game, there's 18 minutes of actual action. I think it would be difficult to cut down game times without severely changing the game. Years ago some solutions were floated, including making it 2 strikes instead of 3 which would be awful. I like that there's no game clock, I like that each game has its own rhythm.

 

I think the 18 minutes was actually referring to football. With baseball, its closer to 5-6 minutes . I had proposed a 3 ball rule in another thread, which would be a far more drastic and unrealistic change. More offense, more contact, fewer pitches thrown, less nibbling.

[jacksonianmarch]

Ending interleague play is impossible with 15 teams in each league.

[seabeachfred]

Ending interleague play is impossible with 15 teams in each league.

 

Good point Jacko. However, we could cut back drastically on that---perhaps dwindling down to ONE Interleague series a year----and go by rivalries as much as possible, such as Mets vs Yankees, Cards vs Cubs, Giants vs Dodgers.

[Palodios]

Good point Jacko. However, we could cut back drastically on that---perhaps dwindling down to ONE Interleague series a year----and go by rivalries as much as possible, such as Mets vs Yankees, Cards vs Cubs, Giants vs Dodgers.

 

I don't understand the dislike of interleague play. The NFL, NBA, NHL all do it, and they play fewer games against their division opponents. Are 19 games against the Rays not enough? The other factor is that less interleague play means longer west coast road trips, and more games most of us can't watch. The only real problem with interleague play is parity -- the Yankees shouldn't get 3 extra home games where they get to play a bad team, while the Red Sox are forced to play the NL East winner every year.

[Palodios]

Boom. Manfred drops the hammer.

 

New MLB Length of Games Committee. Clearly he's reading my posts on Talksox.

[Northern Star]

I know his first order of business is to make ever-increasing piles of money, but I really hope it's not his only one. I really hope he'll work at some things to improve the game.

 

OK, his first idea is eliminate defensive shifts. He sucks.

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/new-commissioner-rob-manfred-open-to-banning-defensive-shifts-172529801.html

[Northern Star]

And I'm not necessarily a fan of defensive shifts, but I think the amount of offense is fine, don't take away this advantage, and more importantly, how would you police it? Lines on the field?

[Palodios]

Poor Ortiz. Ten years too late.

[Youk Of The Nation]

Oh, and as well as ending the ASG WS home field advantage ********, can we drop the every team must have a player and have the starting lineups play most of the game?

 

The union would never go for this, but dropping the DH would speed up AL games a bit...

 

How would eliminating the DH speed up games? If anything, adding the DH to the NL would speed up games. You would lose the need for eight thousand pitching changes and pinch-hitting assignments, that's like a half hour of an NL game right there.

[Palodios]

How would eliminating the DH speed up games? If anything, adding the DH to the NL would speed up games. You would lose the need for eight thousand pitching changes and pinch-hitting assignments, that's like a half hour of an NL game right there.

 

Better hitting means longer innings. The average NL games are shorter than AL games by like 10 minutes.

[redsoxrules]

OK, his first idea is eliminate defensive shifts. He sucks.

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/new-commissioner-rob-manfred-open-to-banning-defensive-shifts-172529801.html

 

I actually like this idea. The game needs more offense. Maybe it's just me but I find there's a s*** ton of low scoring games.

[Kimmi]

I do not like the idea of eliminating defensive shifts. I sometimes get annoyed by all the shifts, but half the defensive battle is knowing where to position yourself. Now it's up to the offense to figure out how to beat the shifts. Not that we necessarily need more offense. I will take a well-pitched, well-defended game any day of the week over a slugfest.

[cp176]

I do not like the idea of eliminating defensive shifts. I sometimes get annoyed by all the shifts, but half the defensive battle is knowing where to position yourself. Now it's up to the offense to figure out how to beat the shifts. Not that we necessarily need more offense. I will take a well-pitched, well-defended game any day of the week over a slugfest.

Manfred Mann? Are you kidding me? Are people going to let that one go? You talk about a 60's name - there you go.

[Northern Star]

I do not like the idea of eliminating defensive shifts. I sometimes get annoyed by all the shifts, but half the defensive battle is knowing where to position yourself. Now it's up to the offense to figure out how to beat the shifts. Not that we necessarily need more offense. I will take a well-pitched, well-defended game any day of the week over a slugfest.

 

The NFL has already pretty much gutted defense. No need for baseball to do the same.

[seabeachfred]

I actually like this idea. The game needs more offense. Maybe it's just me but I find there's a s*** ton of low scoring games.

 

With our hitting potential and our very questionable starting pitching I think you may see all the high scoring games you can stand this season, especially if we end up on the wrong side of a majority of them. It it's the opposite, well, that would be much better for all of us.

[jacksonianmarch]

Getting rid of the shift would be a huge advantage for the Yankees. Absolutely, I hope they get rid of the f***ing thing.

[Spudboy]

I liked the game much better before the shift.

 

But I can't see it being abandoned now.

[cp176]

I liked the game much better before the shift.

 

But I can't see it being abandoned now.

 

I see the shift as being just part of the strategy of the game. I think that good hitters find ways to cope with it. I still like the game as is. Just wish both leagues had the same rules with respect to the dh.

[seabeachfred]

I see the shift as being just part of the strategy of the game. I think that good hitters find ways to cope with it. I still like the game as is. Just wish both leagues had the same rules with respect to the dh.

 

I'm going to throw a potential bomb out there and see what kind of reaction I get. I believe the DH has been both a boon to the American League and a bigger boon to the Boston Red Sox. Take the latter for instance. My honest opinion is that without the DH we wouldn't have won those three WS we won because David Ortiz was the big difference in two of them and a key factor in the third. As for the former I think that after a decade or so of DH use, the American League started to catch up and pull ahead of the Senior Circuit. Since it took about 15 years to make that so that argument can be said to have some holes......the first one, though, I think stands solid