Major League Baseball trying to ruin momentum

This post was provided by News Now Warsaw

By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw

There are different approaches to life.

Some people are “givers,” and others are “takers.”

Givers are the salt of the earth. They are dependable, caring and put others ahead of themselves.

Takers are always looking for new worlds to conquer. They are greedy and they can suck the life out of the most optimistic people on earth.

Baseball is on the verge of becoming a taker.

Commissioner Rob Manfred implemented some radical changes to the sport a couple of years ago aimed at making it a more attractive product for fans in ballparks and watching and listening at home, and they have worked beautifully.

Compared to three years ago, games take more that 20 minutes less time to play, the standing around between pitches is over, the catchers’ visits to the mound after every pitch in an important moment don’t happen anymore — and it’s all because of the pitch clock, a limit on mound visits and other rules changes that have pointed baseball in the right direction.

So, rather than sit and give these new rules time to give us a large sample size and to create data points in fan reaction, Manfred is conjuring up other things he can change.
For example, his office says there is a proposal being considered to realign baseball’s divisions.

In order for this to happen, expansion from 30 to 32 teams would have to take place first.

The thought would be to add two new franchises to the major leagues. Charlotte, Nashville and Portland would all be considered leading candidates for those spots.
One popular model would include Charlotte and Portland, and then baseball would be split into 2 leagues and four divisions.

The commissioner’s office has expressed a fascination with organizing these eight divisions to be hyper-focused on geography.

Yes, the current six-division format is geographically based, but what is being considered would be even more so.

For example, one proposal would put the Cubs and White Sox in the National League Midwest Division with the Cardinals and the Reds.

The Rangers, Royals and Astros would all switch over to the NL and join Colorado in a division. Milwaukee would go back to the American League and be in a pod with Minnesota, Detroit and Toronto. The mythical Portland team would join Seattle, the Athletics and the Giants in the National League.

The question you are asking is the correct one: “Why?”
The idea is that these new divisions would be aligned in such a way as to significantly reduce travel within the division.

But that falls apart because the league has spread out the schedule in recent years so there are fewer interdivisional games in favor of all teams visiting all league cities for one series each year. They would have to reverse course on that and go back to playing more games within your pod.

But now you would have only 3 opponents in your division. If you went back to the old scheduling philosophy, you’d be looking at playing those 3 teams 20 or more times per season. Think about that. A team could win 110 games in a season just because their division is weak.

You’d also be throwing giant buckets of ice water on rivalries like the Cubs and Brewers.
This is Rob Manfred being greedy. He’s not banking his wins from the last round of changes and letting them grow on us.

He’s overdoing it.

What he really should be worried about is finding people, men and women, who know what the strike zone really is and calling balls and strikes accurately.

I believe that I am ready for the automated strike zone.

It would combine the technology of cameras, GPS and AI to allow batters and catchers to challenge pitch calls made by humans.

There is no one moment that brought me to that conclusion. I have just gotten to the point where I am tired of watching batters be called out on three pitches, of which none of them were actually over the plate between the knees and whatever they use for the top of the strike zone these days.

I believe the commissioner has taken his eye off the ball.

The post Major League Baseball trying to ruin momentum appeared first on News Now Warsaw.