Baseball fans really want to see more action per minute
The upcoming World Baseball Classic will signify the end of an era. This will be the last time when watching MLB players, that there will not be a pitch clock, nor will there be shift limitations, larger bases, or pickoff throw limits. This will likely go unnoticed by most fans. America’s Pastime is about to undergo some monumental changes.
I’ve railed consistently that banning the infield shift is merely a cosmetic change as evidence is lacking in increased batting averages and runs scored at least at the minor league level. What baseball fans and players seem to want to watch is the pull-side smash between infielders for a base hit. As a fan I agree that is very satisfying to watch. Having that hard hit ball one hop straight into the glove of the second baseman who’s standing in short right field is decidedly, unsatisfying. However, limiting where fielders can stand is something baseball has never ascribed to, making it somewhat unique compared to other sports. Soccer, football, and ice hockey have offside rules, but there is no and never has been an offside in baseball. You need one player in foul territory at catcher, one on the mound throwing the pitch and the other 7 — well up until this coming season managers could put those players anywhere they desired. Anywhere. That is cooler than you may have thought!
Batting vs. the infield shift is challenging even for MLB players. Freddie Feeman made reference to that (and I paraphrase) when noting that ‘Of course I can see that there’s only one guy on the left side of the infield. Do you think I am blind? But hitting the ball the other way isn’t always as easy as it might seem.’ A 98MPH heater on the inner half of the plate is virtually impossible to hit the other way & if it happens it’s probably by accident. But who better than a former MVP to make that kind of adjustment? Fans and even baseball management have become increasingly aware of ‘hard-hit’ ball percentages. It’s not hard to imagine that player agents might use hard-hit ball rates in highlighting player prowess when negotiating a new contract. Hitting a soft line drive or ground ball to the opposite field will deliver the overall desired result — a base hit and runner on base, yet it actually takes away from a player’s ‘hard-hit’ ball rate. It will be interesting to see if players like NL batting champion Jeff McNeil gets a large long-term contract given that he’s sort of an old-fashioned spray hitter with less than average ‘pop’ although he did hit 23 home runs as recently as 2019. Power hitters still get paid a much higher rate than singles and doubles hitters. If teams and owners are truly using advanced stats it would seem to follow that eventually runs created (I like Fangraphs WRC+) by a batter would be the most important statistic. We’re not there yet.
What do baseball fans really want to see? More scoring? More home runs? More triples? More stolen bases? How about faster games? For older baseball fans how about a starting pitcher’s duel? Forty years ago and beyond, pitchers regularly threw complete games, some of which were classic pitcher’s duels like a 1–0 game in 1964 in which both pitchers pitched complete games — HOFer Juan Marichal of the Giants lost to Ray Sadecki of the Cardinals 1–0 with the winning run scoring with two outs in the top of the 9th inning on an RBI hit by Charlie James. The game lasted 2 hours and 25 minutes and featured fifteen baserunners total. Did most fans really appreciate the mastery being demonstrated by those two pitchers? Or did fans go home thinking that for 8 innings (if they stayed that long), ‘It was a really boring for the most part but, Man, that was well-pitched game?’ Is this what fans want to see? Complete games have mostly gone by the wayside with only 36 thrown in all of MLB in 2022. It does not seem to me that despite the lament from older fans for a ‘classic’ 1960’s baseball pitching duel, today’s fans really want to watch a bunch of games where few players reach base much less score a run. For some, tight low scoring games with little offense would be okay occasionally, but please not all the time! I think all fans can agree that we’d like to see more action on the bases.
Of the new rules in 2023, the most ground-breaking is the employment of a pitch clock this season. The new pitch clock rule mandates that pitchers will have to deliver the pitch in 15 seconds with no runners on base or 20 seconds with runners aboard. This will absolutely have the effect of making games shorter. What fans really want to see is more action per minute. A pitch clock will have that effect. So will the limitation of only two pickoff throws to first base — a rule of which I am not completely in favor but at least seems consistent with the pitch clock. In the past there weren’t a huge number of throws over to first base in any given game, so how much time is that really saving? The use pf pitch clocks in the minor leagues have demonstrated that games are shortened by almost 30 minutes. Pitchers have made adjustments to the faster pace as have hitters at the MiLB level. There also has not been evidence of a rash of pitcher injuries due to throwing more pitches over a shorter period. It’s clear that MLB and many baseball fans want faster games and at minimum, they are going to get that.
Baseball fans also want to see more stolen bases. Or at least that’s what MLB is banking on. The larger bases (18 inch square up from 15 inches), brings the bases 6 inches closer overall. With all the bang-bang plays on the bases, along with the pickoff limitation — something Bill James has been advocating for years, these two things should combine to create more successful stolen bases. Fans think they want to see more stolen bases and they are going to get that too.
Looking to the future, do baseball fans want to see the use of ‘Robo-umps’? ABS used to mean Anti-lock Braking Systems. Baseball has appropriated that acronym at the minor league level and ABS is sure to be coming to an MLB park soon — perhaps as soon as next season. Automatic balls and strikes. Baseball fans overall want to see more accurate calls behind the plate. While this makes overall sense given the inherent difficulty for the human eye to follow speed and break of MLB pitches, the excellent and provocative baseball writer Kevin Kernan writes that we should be careful what we wish for since what seemed to everyone, (hitter, pitcher and umpire), to be a ball in the dirt, might actually be a strike called by the ABS. Could ABS deliver more strikes being called on pitches that in the past would have been called balls? I think Kevin makes an excellent point although I’d argue that the use of ABS is not to make games faster but to make balls and strikes called more consistent and more right.
It appears that the runner on 2nd in extra innings may stay in play for the 2023 season. On our podcast my son and I have advocated for not doing that until at least the 12th inning and never for the playoffs. It’s revealing that in baseball the average 12 inning game takes more than an hour and 10 minutes. No other sport has an overtime that regularly last anything close to that. There’s room for change here! Just not in the 10th or 11th inning. And if it’s the 13th inning that’s fine. But watching a pitching staff get decimated by a 17 inning game does not serve fans or teams much at all except for a few die-hards.
Older baseball fans like me can remember when baseball was played as the preeminent sport in the United States. That is no longer the case as Football and Basketball have supplanted baseball in terms of viewers and interest. Testing and implementing changes to the game is necessary to keep fans interested and excited about the game. I’m not convinced of the wisdom of making a number of changes as is being done, at the same time as it will be more difficult to understand what is most impactful. But more action per minute is at the top of the list in terms of good ideas. And if that’s the result the changes will have been worth doing.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com
