![]() It’s going to be interesting, because everyone’s human out there. “So it was easier for me to just pivot to first base very minimal effort. “I’d say 90 percent of the time when I pick off, it’s when I come set and feel weird, or I’ve got a bad grip on the ball,” said Arizona’s Zac Gallen, whose 144 pickoff attempts led all pitchers last season. And the average time of a game stretched to 3 hours 11 minutes in 2021, the longest it had ever been. 243 last season, the lowest it had been since 1968. ![]() By 2021, stolen bases had declined to 0.46 per game, a 50-year low. And if a batter or pitcher needed a few extra seconds to gather his thoughts or recover from a high-stress fastball, he could do so as often as he liked. Infielders were positioned in the most likely places that batters would hit the ball, costing left-handed hitters, especially, countless hits. Stolen bases were rarely seen to be worth the risk, even for the fastest players. While data analysis has promoted more exciting plays in football (more passing, less punting) and basketball (more 3-pointers, fewer midrange jumpers), in baseball it has slowed the game down. In many ways, baseball is trying to reverse engineer the on-field impact of its information revolution. So teams that aren’t necessarily viewed as having that as a big part of their arsenal, it’s going to be available to them on offense.” We aren’t really known as a running team, and I think we’re like 13 for 16 this spring. “But I’m starting to think it’s the bigger bases. “Putting aside pace of game - which obviously is going to be huge - I initially thought the shift would have the biggest impact because it’s going to lead to less efficient positioning of the defenders and therefore more balls getting through for hits,” Rick Hahn, the Chicago White Sox’ general manager, said about halfway through the exhibition schedule. And with bigger bases (18 inches square, from 15), the distance between first and second (and between second and third) is four and a half inches shorter than before. Now, they can disengage from the rubber only twice per plate appearance a third pickoff try, if unsuccessful, would result in a balk. Stolen base attempts were up to 3.1 per 100 plate appearances, from 2.1, and so was the success rate, which was 77.2 percent compared with last year’s 71.3.īefore, pitchers had unlimited opportunities to pick runners off. Yet that game, against the Seattle Mariners, was completed in 2 hours 29 minutes, and the average time of spring training games, through Wednesday, was 2:35 - 26 minutes faster than last spring. Batters must be looking at the pitcher with eight seconds left on the clock Machado failed to do this in the first exhibition game of spring training and was called for an automatic strike. Pitchers have 15 seconds to start their delivery with the bases empty, and 20 seconds with a runner on base. ![]() But then you’re also going to see some pretty good defense.” ![]() “It’s going to be cool to see more offense, more first-to-third, more runs are probably going to be scored. “Going up there when you’re hitting, you’ve just got to get up there and go,” said Manny Machado, the star third baseman for the San Diego Padres, who added that the adjustments would be worth it. But it cannot hurt to have more stuff going on and less waiting around. Rule changes alone will not fix everything, and much of baseball’s quirky charm - the pitch-by-pitch rhythms, the absence of timed quarters or periods - will always remain. The sixth game of the last World Series, between Philadelphia and Houston, attracted 12.5 million viewers, the fewest ever for a decisive game in prime time. Yet discounting the pandemic-influenced seasons of 20, attendance has fallen steadily since 2015, and last year’s average was the lowest since 1996, which had come in the wake of the 1994 strike. arena, despite having twice as many games. No other sport comes close to baseball’s volume of events - 81 home dates for each of 30 clubs, with an industry average of 26,566 fans per game, far more than the capacity of any N.B.A. produced record revenues of nearly $11 billion in 2022. Baseball is hardly in crisis the just-completed World Baseball Classic was a rousing success, and M.L.B.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |