Baseball Changing Important Rule

[Jim Koepke]

The four pitches of an intentional walk may be a thing of the past:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...04a0b274e172e?

Wild pitches, passed balls and a pitcher not being able to throw a strike after throwing a walk will be missed.

What if a manager wants an intentional walk, but also wants to change pitchers and wants a few more moments of warm up? Tell the pitcher but not the umpire?

jtk

[John A langley]

Another Not very good idea

[Scott Brader]

They keep trying to make up ways to speed up the game. They could save themselves a lot of trouble if they just called the rules that already exist. For example, there have long been rules about how long a pitcher can take to deliver a pitch once he gets the ball from the catcher. Get rid of the thirty seconds to a minute between pitches and the game will speed right up. The umpires do not have to grant time just because a player asks for it. Watch some of the old games; the players rarely asked for time because the umpires were not likely to give it unless there was a legitimate reason to stop the flow of the game. They also have long television timeouts (I know - they pay the bills) every time they change pitchers. That gets really long in today's game of bringing in a pitcher to face a single batter sometimes.

I have been a baseball fanatic since I was a kid, but I have found my interest in the sport dwindling greatly in the last couple of decades. The no-pitch intentional walk is one more nail in the coffin. Even when coaching kids baseball I wanted the opposing pitcher to have to put four more pitches on his arm if they wanted to walk my strongest hitter.

Scott

[Mark Blatter]

They will save 14 seconds per game on average. To put that into perspective, that is double the length of the average Pro Bull ride.

It does show that sports is truly a 'profession'. It is all about money, not the sport, and the leagues will make any change to improve their profit.

[Scott Brader]

It is all about money, not the sport, and the leagues will make any change to improve their profit.

You nailed it!

[Brian Tymchak]

They will save 14 seconds per game on average. To put that into perspective, that is double the length of the average Pro Bull ride.

It does show that sports is truly a 'profession'. It is all about money, not the sport, and the leagues will make any change to improve their profit.

Not sure how this particular move improves profit. If that were the case, I would think MLB would try to lengthen games to add advertising dollars.

The auto walk doesn't make much difference to me. It always seemed useless to me throw those 4 pitches.. (although it does up pitch counts). I wish they would crack down on the batters that have to step out to readjust and retrighten their hitting gloves, and then go through their rituals to take their stance for every pitch. Then we would get some meaningful improvement in game times.

[Scott Brader]

I wish they would crack down on the batters that have to step out to readjust and retrighten their hitting gloves, and then go through their rituals to take their stance for every pitch. Then we would get some meaningful improvement in game times.

They enacted that rule a couple of seasons ago; however, they put enough exclusions in the rule that it ends up having very little real impact on the game length.

[Jamie Buxton]

It is a trivial tweak. What I'd like to see is that all umpires use the same strike zone. That would be a big (and good) change.

[Scott Brader]

What I'd like to see is that all umpires use the same strike zone.

Using the strike zone in the rule book would speed up the game dramatically! This tiny (and floating) strike zone has been horrible!

[Jamie Buxton]

And while I'm fixing the rules... Everybody bats. This one is a safety issue, in my mind. A pitcher who is considering throwing at a batter will think twice if he knows he is going to step into the box next inning. If you want to keep over-the-hill sluggers in the game, you can keep the DH. But everybody bats.

[Jerome Stanek]

make a rule where the batter only can ask for time or leave the box 2 times for each time he is up

[Pat Barry]

I liked watching the intentional walks! And it takes a lot more than 14 seconds to do a typical intentional walk. Not sure how someone calculated that.

[Jim Koepke]

I liked watching the intentional walks! And it takes a lot more than 14 seconds to do a typical intentional walk. Not sure how someone calculated that.

Not every game has an intentional walk. The 14 seconds is an average determined from all games, intentional walk or not.

For an answer better than that you will have to look at the WSJ article from which the information was quoted.

jtk

[Lee Schierer]

Another Not very good idea

I agree, I have seen wild pitches thrown during and right after intentional walks. It will remove part of the game.

[Brian Tymchak]

Using the strike zone in the rule book would speed up the game dramatically! This tiny (and floating) strike zone has been horrible!

Agree 110%!