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February 13, 2021

MLB CONTINUES TO POISON REAL BASEBALL

As Yogi would say, it’s deja view all over again. Another season is arriving and we will be presented with a game that is called baseball, but one that is increasingly foreign to longtime fans. MLB and the Players’ Association are at war over a number of issues while the lords of the game, seemingly beholden to analytics and a need to make the game more exciting for fans, are implementing rule changes that none of us would have dreamed about years ago. And whenever you try to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place, it simply ain’t good.

Let’s face it. The game has been going in the wrong direction for years. Pitching is a mess with the epidemic of Tommy John surgeries and no one seems to know – or tries to find out by talking with former pitchers – why it is happening to some 25 percent of big-league hurlers. Thanks to analytics, six innings and three runs is considered a quality start, and the complete game is fast becoming an

anachronism. On the other side of the ball, hitting has become more of a strikeout or home run game, with almost all hitters swinging for the fences no matter the situation or the count. And with an obviously juiced baseball and smaller ballparks, the home runs are flying out at a record pace.

And that brings us to the coming season. Following last year’s truncated 60-game campaign, no one knew what to expect in 2021 with the Covid-19 virus still wreaking havoc, but MLB announced a while back that baseball would have a full, 162-game season with spring training beginning as usual in February and the season starting on April 1. And what about the supposed “temporary” rules that were imposed last season – expanded playoffs, a universal designated hitter, seven-inning doubleheaders, and beginning the 10^th inning with a runner on second base? Temporary, my foot. MBL continues to play the fans, looking for ways to increase revenue while allegedly trying to shorten the game for the sake of those same fans. Again, my foot. 

A couple of weeks ago MLB took a step backward and said they wanted to put spring training off for a month and play a 154-game season, but would pay the players for 162. This drew the ire of the Players’ Association. Their point was that the pitchers were already ramping up for a February spring training and to shut it down for any length of time, or even to keep working through an extra month might lead to injuries. Without the players, MLB couldn’t impost the month’s wait and the shorter season. Here’s what that impasse has also led to.

MLB’s last offer to the players was to couple the universal designated hitter with expanded playoffs. The players want the DH in both leagues and MLB figured they’d dangle that carrot to get the expanded playoffs (and expanded TV revenue) that they wanted. The players wouldn’t relent on the playoff change, so both the expanded playoffs and universal DH are out for 2021, at least for now.

Think about it. American League pitchers virtually never hit. But with interleague play, they must take their turns at-bat in National League ballparks. Again, that opens them up to injury and chances are, with little practice, they aren’t going to add to the offense. Does it really make sense not to have the DH in both leagues? The AL has had it since 1973, nearly half a century ago. Those of us who like pure baseball and would like to see the increased strategies involved when pitchers had to hit, have very little chance of that happening again in both leagues. The DH will eventually become universal.

Then there are the other rule changes. For some reason, seven-inning doubleheaders just don’t seem like baseball. A baseball game should be nine innings. Period. It was one thing in the shortened 2020 season with Covid-19 leading to an increase in doubleheaders. Years ago there were many more doubleheaders than today and no one complained. MLB and the owners today don’t want to lose a gate, so the double bill was either eliminated or made into day/night twin bills so there could be paid admissions to both. There’s really no reason this coming season to make doubleheaders seven-inning affairs. It sounds like high school baseball.

Then there is the runner on second to begin the tenth inning rule. This could really mark the beginning of making baseball into something else and something less. How many elongated games are there anyway? MLB acts as if an occasional 14 or 15-inning game is a nightmare. But to put the runner on second, in scoring position, to start the tenth inning just doesn’t seem in keeping with the spirit of the game. What’s odd here is that analytics say the sacrifice bunt is worthless, a useless out when trying to push a runner into scoring position. But look at all the free outs the epidemic of strikeouts is producing and the lack of action that results. Yet that’s okay because those players striking out might just hit a home run, the best way, they tell us, to win a ballgame. So if MLB insists on putting a runner on base to start the tenth inning, why not put him on first and let good, old-fashioned baseball sacrifice him to second?

What’s next? If a game goes past 14 innings will there be a home run hitting contest to decide the winner? Hey, tie games in hockey and soccer are already decided by a shootout. It wouldn’t surprise me if some genius comes up with the homer-hitting contest idea. After all, the fans love those home runs.

And speaking of home runs, MLB also announced that it’s changing the baseball for 2021, deadening it “slightly.” One study already said the new ball will only shorten the distance by one or two feet compared with the old ball. Will that really stop all the free swingers from hitting home runs when they’re not striking out? I doubt it. MLB and the analytics guys have fallen in love with the home run. They feel a 500-foot blast is more exciting than a key stolen base, a well-executed hit-and-run, a perfectly placed drag bunt or a timely squeeze play. Forget about those things, just hit the home run.

So this is baseball today. MLB complains the game is too long and picks on things like hitters stepping out of the box or pitchers taking too long to deliver. But how much time is wasted when there are eight to ten pitching changes a game? Or when the umpires don the headphones on a replay challenge that make take three or four minutes? There are always other ways to skin a cat, yet MLB seems to be constantly taking the wrong way. Much of its reasoning is to increase revenue, and much of it is because the game has become so beholden to analytics. I’ve heard many people over the years say that baseball was the most perfect game ever invented. Guess what friends. It ain’t that way anymore.

Bill Gutman

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