Strikeouts are killing baseball

Then you don't need the other rule.

 

Why not both?

 

Pitch clocks and other ways to keep things moving don't matter until they figure out a way to cut back on the strikeouts, walks, and home runs.

Otherwise, you just have a boring two and a half hour game instead of a boring three-hour game.

The ball needs to be in play. People need to be doing things. It's why it's so boring to watch 7-year-olds play.

 

Deaden the ball and shrink the strike zone.

Imposing the 20-second clock would charge up the running game.

If you throw over to first and don't get the runner, it's a ball. Ergo pitchers will be reluctant to throw over, ergo runners will take bigger leads, ergo more stolen bases (and possibly the revival of the hit and run).

 

I'm actually on board with limiting pitchers throwing to first in some way. There are times where it just gets excessive and drives any rhythm the game had to a complete halt.

 

It can be dramatic if a talented base stealer is on first. But as stolen bases decline, this gets less frequent.

 

If the 20-second clock was strictly enforced, pitchers could still throw over, but they'd have to do it fast.

 

A more optimistic take:

Stop Worrying: Strikeouts Can’t Kill Baseball – The Ringer

 

There already is a 20-second pitch clock in the minors, and some college conferences use it as well. They could add it to the majors, but in theory it might become a self-enforcing kind of thing as it becomes a habit while this next wave of pitchers makes its way up the ladder.

 

More on the three-result crisis:

More whiffs, walks and long balls: Baseball faces an existential crisis

 

That was a great story. I read that last night. The lead was about Joey Gallo during a series in June.

In a performance that, depending upon one’s viewpoint, served as either a pinnacle or a nadir for the trend that has come to be known as “Three True Outcomes,” Gallo did the following in those 12 plate appearances: walk, home run, strikeout, walk, walk, strikeout, strikeout, walk, strikeout, walk, strikeout, strikeout.

So boring. And yet he had an OBP of .500 and went deep. How do you tell him not to do that?

I have no idea what the solution is to any of it.

 

Back up the fences, maybe?

I don't know, either. It's like the athletes and the front-office brains, in tandem, have outgrown the game.