A pitch clock in Baseball

[mikecubs]

Buster Olney of ESPN today had a segment on his radio show and an article hid behind a paywall about how the Atlantic League is going to new rules in August including:

1. A pitch clock( a pitch must be delivered in 12 seconds when no one is on base)

2. Batters must stay in the box

3. Meetings on the mound will be limited to 3 a game for the current pitcher on the mound. Pitching changes will not be counted as timeouts, and in the case of extra innings, one additional timeout will be permitted at the start of the 10th inning and every three innings thereafter. Umpires will enforce a strict 45-second time limit on said timeouts. If the umpire's warning is disregarded by the defensive team and play continues to be delayed, the umpire shall declare a "ball" for the batter at the plate

4. Warm up tosses get limited to 6 from the current 8
5. When intentionally walking someone he is send to 1st base and you don't have to throw the 4 pitches outside the strike zone.
6. When a catcher reaches base a pinch runner is sent in for him so he can change back into his catchers gear(this rule is dumb)

Pat Gillick the guy who built the Philadelphia Phillies championship team a few years ago and the 92,93 champion Blue Jays is overseeing all this. The guys on ESPN radio made the following points:

-Kids have no patience these days. You can't rely on them becoming fans later in life. You have to get them at the grass roots level. While fans in the past become fans at later ages you can't keep relying on that. It may not be true the current generation of youngsters will become fans once they reach 70 years old.

-You have to listen to your future fans. Pat Gilicks grand kids told him they don't like baseball because of the slow pace of game.

-the people who are of the mindset that baseball is great because there is no time limit are shrinking within the game. The people who think this are part of a sinking boat.

-The pitch clock would give fans something to focus on. They could count in down to screw up slow pitchers kind of like fans count down the play clock in football.

-This needs to be started in the lower minor league level to get everyone used to it

-Both Olney, his guests Karl Ravich think eventually the pitch clock in inevitable.

I agree with all of this except the pinch runner for catcher. MLB's popularity may be at an all time high but look at what happened the last 20 years. We had steroid freaks who weren't human who could hit 60-70 home runs, the bottom guys in a lot of lineups had 20 home runs and almost every crappy circular stadium was replaced with a cool retro park. Steroid freaks are a thing of the past(though some guys are still cheating I bet just not as bad). Almost everyone has been to a retro park by now a bunch of times so at least some of the coolness could wear off. Baseball's popularity may be at an all time high attendance/revenue wise but can it last with VERY SLOOOOWWWWWWWWWW 3+ hour low scoring games??? Probably not.


espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=11263077(the segment is from the 16:30 minute mark to about 26:30)

[Bruinsfan]

I was just thinking about this, I think if theres someone on base and you step off the mound you have to step off to go to the bag, or Runners advance. Really penalize this. Make them go to the plate

[Bruinsfan]

Tom werner a finalist for MLB Commish...dear lord help us. Im sure he would do fine..he is just a giant weeny.

[mikecubs]

^^^ I don't know anything about him other than he was in the Red Sox ownership group at one time. I don't know weather he would be a good commissioner or not(I bet Selig's henchman Rob Manfield gets it) but there is one thing I love about Werner regardless of if he is a giant weeny or not. He and Les Otten did one of the greatest things in baseball history. They SAVED FENWAY PARK:)

[Bruinsfan]

Aug 5, 2014 20:51:55 GMT -6 mikecubs said:

^^^ I don't know anything about him other than he was in the Red Sox ownership group at one time. I don't know weather he would be a good commissioner or not(I bet Selig's henchman Rob Manfield gets it) but there is one thing I love about Werner regardless of if he is a giant weeny or not. He and Les Otten did one of the greatest things in baseball history. They SAVED FENWAY PARK:)

lol hey im a diehard sox fan...my dream is to see fenway gutted and completely redone. Also the fact that there is no land in boston to build a new park lol not really a choice whether to save it or not.





all you need to know about Werner...what a dork.

[mikecubs]

True but if there was land I still think the Henry/Luchinno group would have saved it. Very long term(30+ years) they probably will gut it and rebuild it. That actually was the original Werner/Otten plan. It probably was a better plan than what Henry did other than the upper deck was a monstrosity that would have made Fenway Park around 43,000.

[Bruinsfan]

Gut it, we need to take a more european view on fenway, its not about where we sit, its about the field they play on, might as well make it more comfortable for ourselves...and make the seats face home plate instead of center field (in right field)

[Lions67]

how long would that take?
i would assume the Red Sox would be playing elsewhere during a rebuild.
maybe Montreal??..

[Bruinsfan]

Aug 6, 2014 11:12:39 GMT -6 Lions67 said:

how long would that take?
i would assume the Red Sox would be playing elsewhere during a rebuild.
maybe Montreal??..

if they played elsewhere it would be in new england somewhere, probably pawtucket rhode island for a year or somewhere like manchester NH, Lowell MA, Portland maine. It would need to be a minor league field with temp stands put in place for a year or so.


But i think if Fenway gets the eventual gutting in 15 years they will do it one year at a time and slowly reform the field, who knows when Umass eventually builds its football stadium it could have multipurpose configs because it will be for a college.


But that being said you arent completely off, i could see the sox marketing themselves in a temp stadium year in other markets playing league games in a bunch of different places to promote major league baseball.

[Bruinsfan]

fenway has a structural expiration date of 30 years or so...i think thats a little long, i think the aiming point should be 15 or a contingency plan to put a new park on the same spot as fenway and find a way to create a temp park out of an existing minor league facility.

[mikecubs]

I'm not sure why Henry cancelled the Les Otten plan. They never revealed why. Current Fenway will go longer than 15 years. The entire renovation cost over the 10 year period when they started in 03 was 285M mostly paid by the team. The only break they got were historic tax credits for reviving old buildings. They will wring more than 15 years out of this. When the day comes for a rebuild they will rebuild it in sections and go with a lower capacity for a couple seasons or find a way to do it in the offseasons alone. That was the Les Otten plan. They aren't playing in another market either in New England or somewhere else. They make too much $$$$ at Fenway. Even with 1000s of seats missing Fenway would have way more capacity than a minor league stadium. Only difference I bet from the les otten plan is when they rebuild Fenway they won't have the 40,000 some seats. No way would Fenway be completely demolished. All the good stuff(the brick work, field, Green Monster will be save) the gross seating bowl will be gutted and rebuilt with the seats more comfortable and facing the proper direction.

The Chicago Cubs(if they ever solve the fight with the roof top owners) are doing the 300M renovation during the offseasons over a couple years. Nothing will be done with the bowl but the concorses/club houses will be completely redone.

[Bruinsfan]

Aug 6, 2014 21:54:23 GMT -6 mikecubs said:

I'm not sure why Henry cancelled the Les Otten plan. They never revealed why. Current Fenway will go longer than 15 years. The entire renovation cost over the 10 year period when they started in 03 was 285M mostly paid by the team. The only break they got were historic tax credits for reviving old buildings. They will wring more than 15 years out of this. When the day comes for a rebuild they will rebuild it in sections and go with a lower capacity for a couple seasons or find a way to do it in the offseasons alone. That was the Les Otten plan. They aren't playing in another market either in New England or somewhere else. They make too much $$$$ at Fenway. Even with 1000s of seats missing Fenway would have way more capacity than a minor league stadium. Only difference I bet from the les otten plan is when they rebuild Fenway they won't have the 40,000 some seats. No way would Fenway be completely demolished. All the good stuff(the brick work, field, Green Monster will be save) the gross seating bowl will be gutted and rebuilt with the seats more comfortable and facing the proper direction.

The Chicago Cubs(if they ever solve the fight with the roof top owners) are doing the 300M renovation during the offseasons over a couple years. Nothing will be done with the bowl but the concorses/club houses will be completely redone.

I never understood why the plan got axed iv heard stories that something to do with henrys wife, or buying liverpool. who knows. I think they didnt want to be controversial by doing what needs to be done which is a complete overhaul

you are right on rebuilding in pieces over several years.

[mikecubs]

MLB addresses pace of play in AFL

Some new in-game procedures were implemented to seek solutions for slowness

When Mark Appel was pitching at Stanford, coach Mark Marquess occasionally dusted off a time-honored baseball principle to remind the Cardinal players that no lead was big enough to feel safe and no deficit too overwhelming to overcome.

"He would always say, 'There's no clock in this game' -- meaning, 'The game is never over. If you're up by 10 runs, you can't run out the clock. You're still going to have to get the final three outs," Appel said.

Against that backdrop, Appel experienced a bit of culture shock while pitching for the Salt River Rafters in the recently completed Arizona Fall League. When he stared in at the catcher, he saw fingers flashing signs. But with a glimpse toward either dugout or to left-center field at his team's home venue, Appel could see three counters winding toward a conclusion. "20 ... 19 ... 18 ... 17." It was a digital mandate not to dawdle.

As the average game time surpassed three hours this season, Major League Baseball embraced the idea that it might have a burgeoning problem. What better place to seek solutions to the issue of time creep than in the AFL, a six-week finishing school for prospects each October and November?

In the fall of 2013, MLB experimented with expanded replay and the Rule 7.13 home plate-collision directive in the Fall League. This year it tried to indoctrinate top prospects in the art of baseball with a minimum of fidgeting, staring, batting-glove tugging, rosin-bag tossing and otherwise unproductive downtime.

Any rules changes will require a cooperative effort between the commissioner's office and the players' association. MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said the pace-of-game initiative is being discussed at the owners meetings in Kansas City this week and that there will be "ongoing internal and external conversations" between MLB and the union over the next couple of months.

Joe Torre, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, said he was encouraged after checking out an AFL game or two last week.

"I was impressed," Torre said. "I wasn't a real fan of clocks. But the players are all informed on what we're doing, and the games have been a lot crisper to watch. From all the evidence we've had in the Fall League, this has been a real positive as far as gathering information. That's what we have to do first before we figure out what's going to work at the major league level."


Move it along, guys

The AFL, which wrapped up Saturday with Salt River's 14-7 victory over the Peoria Javelinas in the title game, focused on six areas in an attempt to slow the inexorable tide toward marathon baseball.


• Hitters were required to keep one foot in the batter's box throughout each at-bat, except in the case of a foul ball, wild pitch, chin music that made a hitter sprawl out of the box, passed ball or a handful of other minor disruptions.

• The one-foot-in-the-box rule didn't apply at Salt River Field at Talking Stick, where the 20-second clock ensured that pitchers and hitters would tend to business as quickly as possible. When a pitcher allowed the clock to lapse, the umpire signaled ball. When the hitter was at fault, it resulted in a strike.

There was no mandate for pitchers to be set or actually deliver the ball in 20 seconds. The countdown clock stopped when a pitcher began his motion in the windup or began to come set in the stretch. Otherwise, baserunners would have been able to time each pitcher's delivery and steal at will.

• On intentional walks, the catcher flashed four fingers and the hitter immediately jogged to first base.

• Teams were allowed a total of three mound conferences per game. Although that might sound oppressive, MLB officials said it was rare for a team to even make two visits during Fall League games.

• A maximum 2:05 break was in effect between innings, and hitters were required to be in the box by the 1:45 mark.

• A 2:30 break applied during pitching changes. Like the 2:05 stoppage between innings, that's the same guideline used in MLB regular-season games. But umpires made a stricter effort to enforce it in Arizona.

If events in the Fall League were any indication, the new pace-of-game procedures are a work in progress. Each day, it seemed, brought another twist or unexpected circumstance for AFL players and managers to ponder.

In Appel's first outing, he was busted twice for letting the 20-second clock lapse. It happened once when the runner on first made a false break toward second and Appel stepped off the rubber. It happened again when he overthrew the catcher on his final warmup toss and 15 seconds ticked off the clock before one of his teammates retrieved the ball.

Marathon Men

The addition of expanded instant replay helped produce longer running times than ever in MLB this past season. Here are the average times for a nine-inning game over the past decade:


Year

Game time


2014 3:02.21
2013 2:58.51
2012 2:55:58
2011 2:51:57
2010 2:50:46
2009 2:51:47
2008 2:50:38
2007 2:51:13
2006 2:48:11
2005 2:46:28

Source: Major League Baseball

The three-conferences-per-game rule also has prompted some debate. What happens when the pitcher throws a fastball when the catcher is expecting a curve and they need confer at the mound to get things straight? Should that count against a team's allotment?

"I think umpires have discretion on cross-ups, when it's a safety thing," said Colorado prospect Ryan Casteel, a catcher who played first base in the AFL. "But when a pitcher is struggling and you want to go out and give him a blow, it can be tough. You have to think, 'Is this a spot where I really want to use that timeout?' I'm not a huge fan of that [rule]. But if they think it's going to work, hopefully they can make some adjustments to make it worthwhile."

Andy Haines, who managed the Salt River team in the AFL, said umpires did a superb job enforcing the new rules while handling their other responsibilities. But he thinks umpires need the latitude to exercise individual judgment in unforeseen situations.

"I tell people, 'It's more complex than just having the clock,'" Haines said. "All these variables come in, and baseball plays happen. I don't want to speculate for MLB, but I think it's hard to make it that black-and-white. I want the umpire's discretion involved. You don't want a game decided on a technicality."

Quicker pace, leisurely game

A lot of baseball insiders routinely distinguish between time of game and pace of game. MLB can abide a 13-11 game with 30 hits and eight walks that drags on for three hours, 50 minutes. The 3-1 game with eight hits that runs for 3:30 is more of a turnoff to fans.

Case in point: Game 3 of the American League Division Series, when Baltimore's Bud Norris spent 4 1/3 innings staring at his spikes, stepping on and off the rubber and otherwise lulling fans into a collective coma. It took the Orioles and Tigers 2 hours and 4 minutes to score zero runs, bang out four hits and complete four innings. The game was symptomatic of the entire postseason, when games lasted an average of 3:26:18. Only the 2009 postseason featured longer running times.

Washington Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon might have been referencing games like this in July, when he told the Washington Post that he doesn't watch baseball on TV because it's "too long and boring." But the aversion to long, dull games spans generations. Atlanta Braves president of baseball operations John Hart, who is 66 years old and has been in professional ball since 1969, thinks a balance needs to be struck between quickening the pace of play without disrupting baseball's natural flow.

Hart contends that there's a place for gamesmanship between the lines. He flashes back to the deciding game of the 1995 American League Championship Series, when Cleveland's Dennis Martinez controlled the pace in a 4-0 win over Seattle and Randy Johnson.

"Dennis was great at being able to slow the game," Hart said. "He would get in a jam and take 45 seconds or a minute. He'd get on the mound, step off, wander around, call his catcher out and kind of stop the tempo. There's an art in that, if you will. We're all talking about pace of game, but here's a guy out there who's trying to play the game and we've got an artificial clock on him. That kind of bothers me a little bit.

"On the other hand, if guys are hustling on and off the field, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm also very tired of watching guys step out of the box and wander around and double-glove it. I like to see a fast-paced game, and I think everybody is interested in taking a good look at it."

Taken to an extreme, the focus on time-saving could lead to some frightening scenarios. Can MLB even contemplate the idea of a base on balls in a pivotal spot in the World Series because a pitcher allowed the 20-second clock to expire?

"I can just picture big situations," Appel said. "It's bases loaded and one out and you need to get a big out here. You fall behind 2-0 and you want to step off and relax and get a breather. You don't want to get behind 3-0. You need to get a strike. But if you're on the clock, you don't have that time to take a step back and relax."

As a long-term endeavor, MLB's best bet might be to ingrain positive habits in younger players in hopes of breeding more Mark Buehrles who simply get the ball and throw it. In turn, that will produce hitters who need to make sure they're vigilant rather than adjusting their batting gloves at the plate.

Maybe baseball's new focus on time management will lead to a return of the bullpen cart, as relievers feel compelled to arrive at the mound more quickly. It might even put a damper on the practice of hitters waiting to leave the on-deck circle in anticipation of their "walk-up" music. But it took years for the two-hour, 30-minute game to become the 3-hour game. It's going to take a while to reverse the trend.

"Baseball has been tried and tested over 100 years to get us the game we have now," Appel said. "What does the pitch clock affect? It just affects the length of a game. If that's the biggest thing we're concerned about, I feel like the rules of baseball are pretty good."

espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11903059/major-league-baseball-addresses-pace-play-arizona-fall-league

[mikecubs]

Pitch clock for Double-A, Triple-A use

A pitch clock will be used this season during minor league games in Triple-A and Double-A, but it has been ruled out for the major leagues this year.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday the decision to use the pitch clock in the minors followed a successful experiment in the Arizona Fall League.

MLB officials said details will be announced later, such as how much time will be allowed between pitches and other speed-up measures to be tested in the minors.

Speed-up rules cannot be put in place in the major leagues this year without approval of the players' union, and baseball officials said a pitch clock had been ruled out for this season

"We're in the midst of discussions with the union regarding potential changes," Selig said after his final owners meeting as commissioner, "so it's premature to discuss any details for this coming season at this point in time."

Selig said he is "very pleased with the progress we've made so far, but Yogi [Berra] once said it ain't over 'til it's over, so we're going to have to wait until it's over."

In the Fall League experiment, pitchers had to throw within 12 seconds with no runners on base and within 20 seconds when a base was occupied. There was a maximum of 2:05 between innings and a 2:30 limit for a pitching change. Additionally, hitters were required to have one foot in the batter's box at all times.

Selig is to retire Jan. 25 and be replaced by Rob Manfred

espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12172716/mlb-use-pitch-clock-double-triple-games

[mikecubs]

MLB pace of game is down 8 minutes this year but Manfred rightly still wants a pitch clock, Tony Clark the union head is resisting. Something else that needs to be changed is this.

Moura: Baseball shouldn't play by different set of rules in September

A few minutes after midnight Wednesday, Brett Anderson carried a paint scraper and a black baseball bat to an empty spot in Dodger Stadium’s home dugout. It had been more than three hours since he exited the game he started Tuesday night, and he was bored.

So, one scrape at a time, he shaved his Marucci bat back to its natural wood, as teammates Clayton Kershaw and Scott Van Slyke watched.

“You try to do everything you can to keep engaged,” Anderson said.

There is this obscure baseball rule, in use for only one-sixth of the season, that changes the way the game is played, making continued engagement difficult. Of all the parties privy to the rule, the percentage in favor is minuscule. And, yet, somehow, it has sustained.

From opening day until Aug. 31, major-league teams can have just 25 players on their rosters, with precious few exceptions. Scheduled doubleheaders allow for one more player. For regular-season international trips to Japan, Australia or Puerto Rico, MLB has allotted three more spots per team.

But, beginning Sept. 1, teams can call up 15 players, their entire 40-man roster if they’d like. Few do all 15, but many do a dozen, or close to it, and all those extra players allow managers to piecemeal their way through games.

Tuesday’s game shattered the record for the most players used in a major league game. In more than 200,000 previous outings, the all-time high was 54, and the Dodgers and Rockies combined to use 58 over 16 innings. The game took 323 minutes.

Precedent-setting tends to help enact change.

Only the minor leaguers who are called up for September support the current state of September rosters. Everyone else – managers, players, fans, official scorers and statisticians, broadcasters – would prefer it eradicated.

After the game Tuesday (and Wednesday), Anderson said he would be a huge advocate of eliminating the expanded rosters, or at least adjusting them in some manner.

“I would like something to be done, because baseball’s boring as it is, let alone when there’s a pitching change every two seconds, 40 guys play, and 20 pitchers pitch,” he said. “My personal opinion, I’d like to shrink it a little bit. Pitching at a fairly quick pace like I do, I enjoy fast games.

“These games aren’t that fun, especially when you come out on the losing side.”

MLB has stressed pace-of-play measures in 2015, Commissioner Rob Manfred’s first season. And the league had successfully trimmed more than eight minutes off the average game time through the season’s first five months. But that progress will be lessened if this continues next year.

For several years, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin has been the heaviest advocate for change. Every offseason, he’d passionately broach the topic at the general manager meetings. Every offseason, many GMs would agree, but maybe not urgently enough, because nothing would be done.

This year might mark the tipping point. A Major League Baseball official confirmed Wednesday the league expects the issue to come up again at this year’s meetings, to be held in November in Boca Raton, Fla.

In 2012, MLB executive vice president for baseball operations Joe Torre came out in favor of a change.

“Each team should have equal number of players available every day,” Torre said then. “Just think, you play the whole season with one set of rules, and the most important time of the year, especially for clubs that are in a pennant race ... I just don't think it's fair for it to be done (with a) different number of roster people.”

Torre said the league discussed maintaining the same general regulations for September but designating a smaller taxi squad every day. So, teams could have 35 players in their clubhouses, but would be forced to pick 28 or 30 who could play on a given day. Angels manager Mike Scioscia has long supported the same idea.

The problem with that is it wouldn’t help much. Teams would just deactivate their already unavailable starting pitchers and relievers who’ve pitched on back-to-back days.

And it doesn’t get at the central issue, which remains that the game is played one way almost all the time and then another way during the most important part of the season.

If the goal is to get minor leaguers an early entry into the highest level, expand rosters in April, not September. Maybe it’ll reduce injuries as established major-leaguers transition back to the season. If the goal is to play games at a rapid pace, keep rosters at 25 all year long.

On Sept. 7, at Angel Stadium, the Dodgers and Angels took nearly four hours to play nine innings. It was Labor Day, a 6 p.m. start. Still, by the end of the 7-5 game, the crowd was sparse, the dugouts bored.

“We should probably look into not having this happen anymore,” Dodgers starter Zack Greinke said that night. “Because it’s not exciting to watch.”

www.ocregister.com/articles/game-683023-play-season.html