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I'm not on board with the shift prohibition at all. If a team wants to put all 7 position players in the infield or in the outfield or on the left or right side of second base, that's their business. For every benefit to defensive setup, there's a cost. I love watching a batter score a double because they bunted up the third base line on a shift.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention -- those times a baserunner stealing second or advancing to second on a shallow base hit keeps right on running to third because nobody's covering it due to a shift.
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I'm not a fan of changes more concerned with TV packaging than the game itself, I always kinda liked the length of a game not being governed by a clock. I really don't like the bigger bases and putting a man on second in extra inning games. What next? Shorten the distance between bases to speed up the game even more?
I hate the runner on 2nd to start extra innings...other than that, I like most of the new rules...
I always hated watching a pitcher throw multiple times over to first to hold a guy so I really like that rule...you get 2 chances to pick him off...if you fail to pick him off by the 3rd time, he gets rewarded an xtra base...so I like that.
The pitch clock is the best one
And banning the shift is a great one too...you'll see batting averages rise up now...and teams like my Guardians are strike out the fewest in the big leagues and put the ball in play will benefit greatly.
I hate the runner on 2nd to start extra innings...other than that, I like most of the new rules...
I always hated watching a pitcher throw multiple times over to first to hold a guy so I really like that rule...you get 2 chances to pick him off...if you fail to pick him off by the 3rd time, he gets rewarded an xtra base...so I like that.
The pitch clock is the best one
And banning the shift is a great one too...you'll see batting averages rise up now...and teams like my Guardians are strike out the fewest in the big leagues and put the ball in play will benefit greatly.
Or, they could just learn to hit to the opposite side of the field to punish a defensive shift.
I'm not a fan of changes more concerned with TV packaging than the game itself, I always kinda liked the length of a game not being governed by a clock. I really don't like the bigger bases and putting a man on second in extra inning games. What next? Shorten the distance between bases to speed up the game even more?
Extra-innings base runner is dumb. I'd rather change the rule to allow non-playoff games to -- *gasp!* end in a tie after, say, 12 innings than this silliness.
I'm fine with the bigger bases as it has shown a reduction in infielder/baserunner injuries.
I used to agree with the idea of not letting a clock determine the pace of the game until games started routinely stretching out well past the three-hour mark. It's not just for TV packaging but that fans are losing patience with being asked to invest more and more of their time watching a game that already involves people mostly standing around. I foresee adjustments to the pitch clock rule details but I fundamentally support the idea of not letting the pitchers and batters stand around all damn day until they're good and ready to get going. They've abused that luxury to the detriment of the fan experience.
Ricky Henderson chimed into on the rule changes, the end of the shift, the limit of two pickoff attempts and the slightly larger size of the bases that shortens the distance between bases by a few inches. He said: 'You gotta let these kids run’
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Yesterday was Opening Day with all 30 teams playing. Per the NY Times: "MLB’s 15 games on Opening Day averaged 2 hours and 45 minutes Thursday, 26 minutes shorter than last year’s average,..."
With the pitch clock, it was actually enjoyable to watch the Dodgers - Diamondbacks game from L.A. last night. The pace of the game is now such that I can sit and watch and not be bored out of my skull as I wrote about on here ten years ago in this posting.
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