Red Sox have fired GM Dave Dombrowski

[oldtimer]

You don't deal with change well, do you?

 

Baseball as a game has been changing for decades. Just because it's no longer the game you grew up with doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Heck, these opener/feature pitchers are just a fad. And their usage is not MLB policy.

 

Not sure why you think it's so detrimental, however...

 

Whats the next fad coming down the pike? Field players who are part time pitchers? Maybe we can have 17 or 18 pitchers on the 25 man and never have a pitcher go more than 3 innings.

[jung]

You don't deal with change well, do you?

 

Baseball as a game has been changing for decades. Just because it's no longer the game you grew up with doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Heck, these opener/feature pitchers are just a fad. And their usage is not MLB policy.

 

Not sure why you think it's so detrimental, however...

 

Because its a fraud. Manfred Missile HR's are frauds. Destroying MLB pitching in the manner in which it has been manipulated and is being destroyed is a crime.

 

They are taking all the actual legs that support the game's stool out from under it in the name of change. Not only is it not change for the better...ITS NOT WORKING. Are you blind to where attendance and rating have been going. Are you blind to ratings demographics?

 

One result is you have got the players as represented by the MLBPA running scared and the owners running scared at the same time which is why the current end of 2021 season expiration date for the current CBA is both too close and too far away. There are some major issues at play behind all this nonsense, all of them playing into how players are compensated with a major issue at play for virtually every kind of ballplayer there is except for a pure power hitter and even THEY might be in trouble once we all get used to the fraud of the Manfred Missile. MLB is barely getting through 2019 looking at all like baseball with virtually the only games that remotely resemble actual baseball games, those that feature the very best starting pitchers left in the game.....all 15 or so of them. That is why 2021 is too far away. Its too close because we have real constituencies within the game for which all of this is coming to a head and for which the consequences are great.

 

Could there be another work stoppage? Yup and this time there won't be some magic bullet to pull their asses out of that fire because my crowd with is the only demographic left of any scale supporting this game won't IMO wait them out. They will just lose us for the most part.

 

They have less than two years to get this done and I am not sure there is compromise to be found in the major issues that confront this game:

- the players clearly do not care about pace of play and a pitch clock even if they approve it will just be a band-aid, not a fix. Umpires have got to keep batters in the batter's box first or a pitch clock does not matter. Stop this nonsense of hitters consulting their dead ancestors or the cosmos or whatever the f*** they are commiserating with and fixing every bit of gear they have on when they just took an uncontested ball or strike thrown by the pitcher. One foot out of the box max and that one foot back in the box ASAP....PERIOD!

- the Manfred Missile....an utter and complete disaster, a travesty of the game and a major fraud to boot. You have a sports entertainment enterprise that bought the company that makes the baseballs, has changed them three times in four years all towards a progressively hotter baseball and a Commissioner and an Administration that claims to know nothing. Not only are they changing the game at its core, creating an utter stats fiasco, extending the length of games, driving the last vestiges of decent pitching out but they are choosing salary winners and losers because the players are not all going to be winners....far from it. This is particularly the case for an entertainment enterprise with declining attendance and ratings. Good luck with that one in this next CBA negotiation.

- the way MLB has manipulated pitching along side of the Manfred Missile makes the mound height changes over the years look like kids playing in a sandbox

- baseball IS a multidimensional game.....trying to turn it into a one dimensional game is a failure on its face. Will fail to keep fans interested in this game. That is only a matter of time and MLB is driving this game down the rat hole even faster than even I imagined possible. Who compensates the pitchers for that?

That is just for starters. The rules around the bags on the base paths, replay as implemented...all wrong headed and counterproductive.

 

Worse, CLEARLY now MLB has no intention of fixing the damage they are wrecking choosing instead to just ride this baby right into the gutter. The game is literally at war with itself. Everything it does that changes the game at its core also slows pace of play and extends game time which they then try to band-aid with rules about mound visits and possible rules about pitcher changes and pitch clocks......BAND-AIDS for a game and a business enterprise that is at war with itself.

 

What the heck.....the remaining investors left without a chair when the music stops will just have a tax write-off. Actually, this is not that much of a surprise. The fabric of American Society, American politics and even American democracy is being challenged and pulled apart in very real ways. What would ever make us think that baseball was immune?

 

The final coup de grace....ITS NOT WORKING. What does it take to get people to pull their heads out of the sand? Both attendance AND ratings are going down and the ONLY demographics keeping this game afloat are the 54+ and 65+ demos. Name me a business enterprise that survives on those two demos? Is it canes, crutches? Is it wheelchairs? Is it oxygen tanks? How about walk in bathtubs? Are any of those representative of major markets?

 

Sort of ironic that the "I have fallen down and can't get up sports enterprise" just about only has left the "I have fallen down and can't get up" demo for a fan base of any scale. The very demos that find this changes most offensive, most appalling are about the ONLY demo's MLB has left obviously because most of us that are part of that demo have been hanging on by our fingernails hoping that MLB turns around. But guess what....not only are WE becoming impatient with this nonsense but WE are soon to be pushing up daisies!

[notin]

Attendance numbers have been in steady decline since 2007. MLB knew something had to be done to make the game more appealing to a broader demographic. But the success or failure of the Manfred Missile is hardly a make or break issue for the new CBA. Even if it comes up or not, there will be labor disputes; they’re always are. The owners and the MLBPA together are nothing more than a a few hundred people who cannot agree on how to divide up several billion dollars...

[cp176]

This is not a matter of a cultural shift of today vs yesterday.

 

MLB is the only sport that openly and proudly celebrates breaking the color barrier, which they also openly and proudly enforced for decades. The NBA and the NFL allowed black athletes at some point, but just did it and moved on. That's not about yesterday vs today. Those are all events that happened in the same timeframe.

 

If I asked you who was the first black player in the NFL, do you know off the top of your head? There certainly was one. And if you Google the first back player in the NBA, you actually can get multiple answers Don't you find it odd that MLB stands alone in that regard?

 

notin - what you do not know about me is that I am color blind in the truest sense of the word. I do not care what a person's color happens to be. I think it is great if people want to celebrate such things. i believe and always have believed in the sometimes forgotten concept of the best people getting the jobs based on what they are capable of doing.

[cp176]

Love this post

 

I'm an equal opportunity kind of guy. Always have been. I was a history teacher and sometimes these days I do believe that what I was doing was in fact "a tale told by an idiot". Good thing I did some coaching along the way. lol

[notin]

notin - what you do not know about me is that I am color blind in the truest sense of the word. I do not care what a person's color happens to be. I think it is great if people want to celebrate such things. i believe and always have believed in the sometimes forgotten concept of the best people getting the jobs based on what they are capable of doing.

 

Exactly. As it should be.

 

My point was about MLB itself as compared to other professional sports leagues. Not fans (although I can’t pretend they have no influence either).

[sk7326]

The jung post is too long to quote - and contains both a lot of good sense and a bit of "old man yells at cloud". But here goes:

 

- Baseball ratings are down. But so are the ratings for almost all other television. Note that the 2019 Super Bowl got a below median rating, and for the most part the 21st century Super Bowls have been in the bottom half of TV. Nobody watches ANYTHING in the concentration they used to. There is very little real interest than fan interest is down in that sort of way.

 

- Analytics have led to a more strategically correct sport, but I'm not sure it is a more entertaining one. Durable quality starting pitching has been a hallmark of the sport forever - and while it is okay that there are no more Old Hoss Radbourns around, I don't think the bullpen heavy world we live in is all that great. I liked seeing Pedro strike out 17 New York Yankees.

 

- The juiced ball has not led to a sport that is all that fun. Chicks dig the long ball and all, but some real variety among players is a good thing.

 

- The union got bamboozled by the owners in the last CBA negotiation. In their zeal to avoid a salary cap, they forgot to get minimal revenue guarantees - so they ended up with the worst of all worlds. And it's not a great world for the fans, where owners have zero incentive to try to improve. They will attempt to fix this in 2021. I fully expect a work stoppage, and it's frankly deserved.

 

- Pace of play is a problem, but the pitch clock is a bad idea and only increases the likelihood of pitchers getting hurt. Unfortunately the best way to increase pace of play is fewer damn commercials, and we know the likelihood of that happening. Also requiring pitchers to face 3 hitters at minimum would be a good thing.

 

- The biggest thing the commissioner and the industry has done wrong is frankly not getting rid of all the old people. The national announcers are disasterously bad. The MLB Network flagship broadcast consists almost entirely of old guys yearning for a time when men were men and everybody had .310 OBP and spoke English as their first language. Prominent national analysts (A-Rod, Joe Simpson, Rick Sutcliffe) are legitimately dumb. Many legacy baseball writers are incredibly ill informed about how teams operate in 2019. The sport does not celebrate itself - and often actively roots against itself. There are a variety of reasons that Mike Trout has not penetrated the public imagination like he should (some mentioned above), but a big one is that the baseball industry and baseball television industry does not celebrate it.

 

- The game is not in danger. But it is run and marketed by stale, old people - and the consequences are self fulfilling.

[notin]

The biggest delay in the game is the absurd amount of foul balls. But how do you cut down on those?

[Elktonnick]

You all realize of course that minor league attendance increased by 2.6% this past year.

[notin]

You all realize of course that minor league attendance increased by 2.6% this past year.

 

That’s because 1) it’s far cheaper to go to games and 2) there isn’t much else to do in most minor league cities. Seriously. Think of a city with a minor league baseball team. Now name one tourist attraction in that city...

[harmony]

That’s because 1) it’s far cheaper to go to games and 2) there isn’t much else to do in most minor league cities. Seriously. Think of a city with a minor league baseball team. Now name one tourist attraction in that city...

Las Vegas? (although it's not my vacation destination)

 

https://www.milb.com/about/teams

[Slasher9]

The biggest delay in the game is the absurd amount of foul balls. But how do you cut down on those?

 

Robot umps would cut the games down to 2:15

[dgalehouse]

It has gotten pretty expensive to go to an MLB game , especially so if you want good seats . A lot of folks either don't go or don't go as often . Even so , attendance is generally good when teams give the fans a reason to go to the ballpark and spend their money . Unfortunately , quite a few teams are not doing that .

[harmony]

The biggest delay in the game is the absurd amount of foul balls. But how do you cut down on those?

Limit the number of foul balls with two strikes, making the third such foul ball strike three.

 

Or not.

[Larry Cook]

I go to a ton of college and minor league games. Love the atmosphere and generally have a great time. I consider it better value than the pro game.

[Elktonnick]

That’s because 1) it’s far cheaper to go to games and 2) there isn’t much else to do in most minor league cities. Seriously. Think of a city with a minor league baseball team. Now name one tourist attraction in that city...

 

Many minor league cities such as Pensacola Fl and Norfolk Va to name just two are very vibrant cities near some of America's best beaches and have many different distractions and attractions. Regardless, baseball professional baseball is attracting fans at the minor league level and that is a good thing for the game

[Elktonnick]

Robot umps would cut the games down to 2:15

 

Robot players could cut it even further. How about starting every batter with a 3 and 2 count and only one out per inning and the game 7 innings long.

[dgalehouse]

The simplest way to quicken the games is to give the umpire the authority to keep things moving . There is far too much dawdling permitted now .

[illinoisredsox]

That’s because 1) it’s far cheaper to go to games and 2) there isn’t much else to do in most minor league cities. Seriously. Think of a city with a minor league baseball team. Now name one tourist attraction in that city...

 

Las Vegas? (although it's not my vacation destination)

 

 

 

https://www.milb.com/about/teams

 

Many minor league cities such as Pensacola Fl and Norfolk Va to name just two are very vibrant cities near some of America's best beaches and have many different distractions and attractions. Regardless, baseball professional baseball is attracting fans at the minor league level and that is a good thing for the game

 

How about Nashville? Memphis? New Orleans? San Antonio?

 

Charlotte, Indianapolis and Columbus support major league teams in other sports. There are more.

Edited September 15, 2019 by illinoisredsox

[moonslav59]

Limit the number of foul balls with two strikes, making the third such foul ball strike three.

 

Or not.

 

I kinda like the idea, but it really changes the game, probably too much for my liking.

 

Some of those long battling ABs are classic.

[jung]

Limit the number of foul balls with two strikes, making the third such foul ball strike three.

 

Or not.

 

Please no!!!

[Bellhorn04]

- Pace of play is a problem, but the pitch clock is a bad idea and only increases the likelihood of pitchers getting hurt. Unfortunately the best way to increase pace of play is fewer damn commercials, and we know the likelihood of that happening. Also requiring pitchers to face 3 hitters at minimum would be a good thing.

 

Good post. The 3 hitter minimum is in effect for next year, right?

[Bellhorn04]

Please no!!!

 

Yeah, agreed. Messing around with foul ball rules is going too far.

[notin]

Many minor league cities such as Pensacola Fl and Norfolk Va to name just two are very vibrant cities near some of America's best beaches and have many different distractions and attractions. Regardless, baseball professional baseball is attracting fans at the minor league level and that is a good thing for the game

 

And a lot of others are like Pawtucket or Batavia or the Quad Cities where your entertainment options are either a minor league baseball game or a spitting contest...

[notin]

Please no!!!

 

Why not? It’s been done before...

[S5Dewey]

Why not? It’s been done before...

 

I could live with a foul ball on the third strike being a K. I never understood why a foul ball is a strike on the first and second strikes but if it happens on the third one it's essentially a 'no pitch'.

 

My personal preference would be that two foul balls after two strikes would be a K but as I said I could live with it either way.

[moonslav59]

Good post. The 3 hitter minimum is in effect for next year, right?

 

This should casuse managers to use the lefty-righty-lefty line-ups even more.

[dgalehouse]

More strikeouts would not do much to create some action in the game . Bad idea . Make it the umpires responsibility to keep the pace of play moving quickly . It could be done .

[S5Dewey]

More strikeouts would not do much to create some action in the game . Bad idea . Make it the umpires responsibility to keep the pace of play moving quickly . It could be done .

 

It wouldn't do much to create action but it would keep the game moving, which is one of the biggest goals of MLB right now.

 

They've tried giving the umpires responsibility of keeping the pace of play moving quickly and the umpires have essentially ignored it. They're still allowing hitters to step into and out of the batter's box at will, adjust their batting gloves, scratch their nuts, take a deep breath, assume their batting stance, then call time out so they can start all over again. If the umpires aren't going to do it someone else has to.

[dgalehouse]

It wouldn't do much to create action but it would keep the game moving, which is one of the biggest goals of MLB right now.

 

They've tried giving the umpires responsibility of keeping the pace of play moving quickly and the umpires have essentially ignored it. They're still allowing hitters to step into and out of the batter's box at will, adjust their batting gloves, scratch their nuts, take a deep breath, assume their batting stance, then call time out so they can start all over again. If the umpires aren't going to do it someone else has to.

 

If MLB insisted on it , the umps would have no choice .