Should MLB shorten the regular season (team, schedule, league, design)

[blazertrek50]

Originally Posted by dspguy

In my opinion, the season is long enough that it evens out the lows and highs of teams and players. Teams and plsyers commonly slump over 10-15 games or they streak for 10-15 games. But over 162 games, that evens out. I feel like, in general, the best team in each division does indeed win their division.

Could they go to 154? Sure, I suppose so. Based on my logic, shortening the season by 8 games isn't a big deal. But more DH to shorten the season? That's probably not a good solution. Considering that most games are played outdoors, adding in forced DH along with day-night or twi-night DH for makeup games doesn't seem like a great idea.

Baseball thrives on its stats that go back to the dawn of time. There's a lot of history there. People don't follow the sport simply because of the numbers, but I think many people have a good idea of what these numbers mean. And that gets lost if the season is shortened too much or if the game duration is lowered to something like 7 innings. Hell, a 7 inning game would probably change the sport a lot more than a 100 game season would.

Jim Kaat has lost it , to consider 7 inning games. I admire the man for his career and love of baseball but 7 inning games would ruin Baseball and make it uh... Softball or little league lol.

[Dport7674]

I don't understand the "Hurry the game up!" point of view.
(Especially if I'm at a game. If I'm at Wrigley or comiskey...might as well make an afternoon out of it.)

I agree with the idea of more double headers later if there's still snow on the ground early in the season.

[JonasW]

7 innings?! Good grief. That won't even fix what's wrong with long games but sure would ruin the game.

[skeddy]

shorten it to 150 games, start two weeks later

[ryanthegoldengod]

The much bigger problem is time of games. Sometimes I watch old games and it's mind blowing how fast pitchers used to work. But pitchers--and pitching coaches--have surrendered to the groupthink that slowing down especially when you're laboring is the best plan. Pitch clock. No other answer. Won't solve every problem but it will go a long way. AA games with pitch clocks move at a much more entertaining pace.

Oh, and 7 inning games? No. Sacrilegious not to mention it won't solve the problem. Pitchers who act like human rain delays will still act the same. So instead of 9 boring innings you will get 7 boring innings.

[ryanthegoldengod]

Originally Posted by Count David

The last thing baseball needs is penalties. That's what makes it unique, it doesn't have all sorts of infractions about players and coaches doing things wrong, at least not in comparison to basketball, football, and hockey.

I suppose you could enact those if you wanted to water down the game with unnecessarily penalties, and more "bad" calls to anger each team and its fans when things didn't go their way. In NBA/NFL/NHL, it distinctly feels like the referees are managing the flow of games, as opposed to the action on the court/field/ice, which leads to further speculation regarding who the league wants to see win/etc.

Unless you yourself have ever pitched, stepped in the box for an at bat, or played defense on a baseball field, you would understand why everything takes so "long". For the guys out there, none of this takes long at all.

Baseball is not for those with short attention spans, it never has been, never will be, and never should be. It is a "pastime". The bigger question to ask is why we think we no longer have any time to pass.

There's already penalties. Balks, catcher interference, runner interference, leaving the bag before the ball is caught, etc. And there wouldn't be many pitch clock penalties. Pitchers would learn to throw a pitch within 20 seconds just as they learn not to balk. It's really not that hard. First world problems.

[Mike from back east]

An old thread but the question is still valid. Vote if you haven't.

I think the season is too long. I'd like to shorten it, but with greed at work it will never happen.

If it stays at 162 games, with a month of playoffs, then I'd change how the season starts. I hope they do not increase the number of wild cards, that seems way overboard, but they want to sell more tickets, beer and ad time on TV.

For a long time I’ve felt the MLB regular season started too soon, especially in colder cities. There are 15 cities/teams that I’d not have home openers until at least mid-April:

Boston
New York x 2
Philadelphia
Baltimore
DC
Denver (I’ve seen snow plowed off of Coors field, and shovelers clean snow in the stands, so they can play.)
Minneapolis (good grief, this IS the "frozen north" as it’s called.)
Milwaukee
Chicago x 2
Detroit
Cleveland
Toronto
Pittsburgh

The reaming 15 teams could host the first two weeks, maybe even some interleague play.

[Statz2k10]

I'd like the season to be decreased. 162 just is to many if you're going to have as many playoff teams making it. I know they aren't going to decrease that so it would be nice to at least cut back to 154 or even better 144. If they cut back to 154 they could increase the divisional series to 7 games.

[87112]

Baseball season starts in many places where one has to wear a winter jacket to games and than ends in the same manner. Its massively too long in this time where attention spans are so small due to the internet.

I say cut 30 games out of the season

[Charlie&Rose]

It`s all about money. Who would pay all those overpriced players? As it is....a guy cannot even afford to take his kids to a game....unless you are rich.
I would love to see the play offs the way it used to be....just National and American league.