[Fields will] be the starting QB on an NFL roster at the start of next season. Book It!

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

It appears the pitch clock may speed the games up somewhat. But there are limits to that because of commercials, especially in postseason.

The truth is, the length of the games isn't the real problem. Game 6 of the 1975 World Series lasted four hours and nobody complained that it was "too long."

The problem is the game is boring as shit as batters try to coax walks and take as many pitches as possible. Any rule change should be designed to get more balls in play. Period.

Speeding up things will help put the ball in play. To start out with anyway. Once they get used to it, then it may go back to the boring, dying game it is. I still don't understand why it's important to single out left handed pull hitters and give them advantages. Are they the quarterbacks now of baseball? Get the special treatment?

Why do we think there's a "problem" with the game? What if potential fans just have more things to entertain themselves with than they did in generations prior? Basically, the market for things to do with your time is saturated and baseball interest/viewership is suffering as a result?

Why do we think there's a "problem" with the game? What if potential fans just have more things to entertain themselves with than they did in generations prior? Basically, the market for things to do with your time is saturated and baseball interest/viewership is suffering as a result?

Because you are stupid, maybe read some books educate yourself.

We walk, talk, and won't shit our pants

Because how else can you alienate your actual fans while trying to attract people who’ll never like your game?

Baseball was always my favorite sport. Now that I’ve given up on the Sox I can see there’s not a lot to hold your interest f you’re not invested.

Yes it is.

When this is all over, which is not going to be for a while, Trump will be re-elected President.

Why do we think there's a "problem" with the game?

It's harder to get a hit in the major leagues today than at any time since the DH was added in 1973. Last year, for the first time ever, there were more strikeouts than hits, and more foul balls than balls in play (meaning fans had more chances to field balls off the bat than the fielders did). Hitting has become harder less because of velocity of pitches (which has hit a three-year plateau) and more because of technology, which has spawned new, actionable knowledge about pitch shaping and sequencing to better expose hitters’ weaknesses


Because pitching is proactive—baseball is the only game in which the defense has the ball, with the pitcher deciding how and where it will be set in motion—technology mostly helps run prevention, not run production. The biggest benefit is that pitchers can fix flaws and make performance adjustments almost on the fly.

In 2015 the Rays installed at Tropicana Field a markerless motion capture system made by Philadelphia-based KinaTrax. The system gives a skeletal, 360-degree readout of a pitcher’s delivery based on eight to 12 radar-tracking units installed around the ballpark. Since then the Cubs, Dodgers and Red Sox also have installed KinaTrax, which one source familiar with the system estimated cost about $1 million.

The advantage of KinaTrax is that, since it doesn’t require markers to measure kinematic movements, it provides data under actual game conditions, not bullpens or labs. Last season, for instance, the Cubs were flummoxed about what was wrong with Kyle Hendricks, who carried a 4.27 ERA into July. His velocity was down, and he had lost movement on his sinker and changeup.

Data from Trackman indicated that Hendricks’s release point was two to three inches higher than normal, but on video the angle of his arm at release looked no different than usual. Hendricks himself could feel no difference in the way he was throwing. So the Cubs consulted KinaTrax. They overlaid a 3D motion capture image of Hendricks’s delivery from a recent poor start (with skeletal points connected by red lines) over an image from when Hendricks was throwing well (his so-called “baseline” mechanics, represented in blue). Immediately the images revealed a root cause that Hendricks could not feel and that could not be seen on video: His trunk was tilting a few degrees toward his glove side as he released the ball. There was nothing wrong with his arm angle. The trunk tilt had simply pushed the arm higher, causing his pitches to flatten. The Cubs immediately corrected the trunk tilt in the next bullpen session. Hendricks’s ERA over the rest of the season was 2.65.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

Yeah, that’s why I’d love to see the automatic strike zone in combination with a rule where a called strike counts as two strikes. If you go up there swinging, you get three or more chances to swing (depending on foul balls). If you are looking to nibble, you might only get two. I see no downside to this. It would save pitchers’ arms, speed up the game, and get batters to swing. I wouldn’t advocate for it with umps calling balls and strikes, but that issue is close to being solved.

How are you going to increase balls put in play without fundamentally changing the essence of the pitcher's mission while on the mound: to get the batter out (excluding trying to induce a ground ball to get a different runner out)? It's not just batters being more discriminating and trying to induce walks/high pitch counts but pirchers are throwing more breaking balls because those are more difficult to hit/put in play. There are millions being invested in decreasing a batter's chances at hitting a ball by studying how to perfect different breaking ball pitches.


https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/03/29/techn ... nBRb3Nrdg..

That seems like sacrilege to me.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

I don't know what to tell you, nardi. Chess is also boring to watch but I'm not going to introduce a rule here and there just to manufacture more action from the rook or something. It is what it is.

I don't know what to tell you, nardi. Chess is also boring to watch but I'm not going to introduce a rule here and there just to manufacture more action from the rook or something. It is what it is.

Point missed. The structural damage Vegan has pointed out, likely can't be fixed.

The first thing that should be done is knock this drudgery down to 120 games. Less is more. The TV money is drying up as it is, it won't hurt them in that aspect.

Because you are stupid, maybe read some books educate yourself.

We walk, talk, and won't shit our pants

In golf, the tours can try to offset player strength and clubmaker technology increases by making courses longer and more annoying. Baseball needs to move most fences back 20 feet to increase gap-to-gap play. But the Orioles did that in LF last year and got crucified by fans and media.

Are you stoned or pissed off, or both, when you create these postings?

The point is, the length of the games isn't the problem for people who actually like baseball.

How do you propose to reduce walks and strikeouts - your main beef with baseball in the 2020s, per your first post - without fundamentally transforming the core concept of the sport?

I don't have an issue with rule changes as a concept. At one time you could soak a runner.

If the best strategy for winning games renders watching said games unwatchable, that needs to be addressed.

I don't think Jaw Breaker's solution is too radical if it solves the problem. But I'd start by simply enforcing the existing rulebook strikezone- letters to knees- and see what happens.

Bad. I don't need to wait and see what happens.

Will they ever allow you to stream your local mlb team on MLB tv?