In his latest column for The Athletic, Ken Rosenthal chats with five players — Max Scherzer, Daniel Murphy, Paul Goldschmidt, Jerry Blevins and Chris Iannetta — about their concerns over the proposed 20-second pitch clock and their more general thoughts on the league’s pace of play initiatives. All of the players express a willingness to change and acknowledge that they’re in favor of speeding up the game to an extent, though none voiced support of a clock. Iannetta states that the clock “fundamentally changes the way the game is played,” while Goldschmidt shares some concerns he’s heard from Double-A and Triple-A players that have played with the clock but found it to be a headache.
“In some cases, I heard of ways around the rule,” says Goldschmidt. “You could kind of gimmick it. You could slow down the game. You could step off. It wasn’t like it just forced guys to throw pitches a lot quicker. There was a lot of gray area guys weren’t comfortable with.” Both Scherzer and Blevins, meanwhile, expressed some frustration with the fact that they’re routinely on the mound ready to go but have to wait an additional 20-30 seconds for commercial breaks to end. It’s an interesting read for those who have strong feelings, one way or another, on the newest slate of proposed rule changes to the game.
A few more notes from around the league…
- It’s prospect ranking season! Baseball America rolled out their 2018 Top 100 list today, headlined by Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna in the top spot. Of course, the decision was far from easy for them, and the BA staff explained the decision process at length in a separate post for BA subscribers. As JJ Cooper, Ben Badler, Kyle Glaser, Josh Norris and Matt Eddy explain in great detail, there were feelings among the BA staff that any of Acuna, Shohei Ohtani or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. could have been the No. 1 overall prospect this season. Among the factors considered when trying to reach a consensus were the age-old position player vs. pitcher debate as well as Acuna’s proximity to the Majors relative to Guerrero.
- Meanwhile, over at ESPN, Keith Law published the first half of his Top 100 prospects today. There are several notable players that have been traded in the past year on the back half of the list, including Sandy Alcantara (whom the Marlins received as the headliner in the Marcell Ozuna swap), James Kaprielian (who went to the Athletics as part of last July’s Sonny Gray trade) and Franklin Perez and Daz Cameron (who went to the Tigers in the Justin Verlander blockbuster). Angels fans will be heartened to see four entrants on the list — Jahmai Jones, Chris Rodriguez, Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell — as their once lowly farm system begins to build back up.
- Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com looks at the Orioles’ need for a left-handed-hitting outfielder to balance out the lineup and runs down a list of players that have “intrigued various members of the organization.” That includes Carlos Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera and Nori Aoki, according to Connolly, in addition to other names that have been recently mentioned (e.g. Jarrod Dyson). Trey Mancini and Adam Jones figure to be in the outfield regularly, but the Orioles’ hope is that they can acquire a defensively superior option to Mark Trumbo to slot into right field, thus pushing Trumbo to DH.
- In a fantastic column for the Players’ Tribune, Andrew McCutchen bids an emotional farewell to the city of Pittsburgh, which he writes “will always be home” and “will always mean everything” to him. McCutchen recounts the overwhelming experience of the standing ovation he received at the Pirates’ final home game of the season last year, as Bucs fans recognized that they may never see him in a Pirates uniform again. He also shares his experience of finding out about the trade, with credit to Neal Huntington for how he handled the process. Fans of the Pirates, Giants and baseball in general will all want to check out the column in its entirety.
Let’s just have neck to ankles strike zone, start every count 0-2 and have 7 innings games catchers can’t talk to the pitcher to please the broadcaster.
That sounds like a phenomenal idea! Also make it so you cant check runners and you can’t change pitchers. Don’t worry about the broadcast time, we’ll still make it 3 hours long, we’ll just have to add more commercials!
Or just don’t cut away from the game for commercials like IndyCar does… Oh wait that would impact ad revenue can’t do that.
I *far* prefer the “in game” commercials in between plays than a full commercial break. They are less intrusive and they tend to be quick. Win….win.
How much money do you guys who are against all changes get from being shills for the mlb PA. Even the players acknowledge it’s in their best interest for present and future players to speed the game up but you dinosaurs oh here refuse to acknowledge it.
There is an additional 30 minutes of inaction in the game from 1984. That is a problem catching visits, mound visits, manager walking onto the field to stall. Players hate this because it’s going to take them out of their comfort zone, well too bad.
As you mentioned, the game has changed since 1984 and that means more relievers playing a larger role in games which take longer. At the same time, are we even sure it matters to those that watch MLB games? In 1984 the avg MLB attendance was 21,255 and only 7.6% of teams averaged more than 30k/game. Compare that to last season where the average MLB attendance was 29,905 and 46.7% of the teams averaged more than 30k/game. In 1984 no team averaged more than 38,700/game compared to last year where 3 teams averaged more than 40k/game. Last year the Rays had the worst attendance by a large margin, but there were 6 teams who drew less fans in 1984.
And the problem isn’t the commercials there’s 9 mins more of commercial time in comparison to 1984. So don’t blame it on the commercials and the last thing the players want is to get rid of the commercials
I’m all for speeding up the game. But a pitch clock seems like the least effective way to do it. Batters stepping out to adjust their gloves every 2 seconds. Catcher pitcher conferences. Manager visits. Maybe a clock on how long it takes relievers to trot out from the bullpen too
I want the Os to trade for Markakis
Sounds great to me. How much of his contract you willing to pay? There’s still interest if you say “not much”.
screw that. lets just pay his contract and get something back.
It’d be great to have him back. Question becomes how viable a player Atlanta can fill his spot with…
Wrong Vladimir Guerrero link, It’s SR. In the link
Agh, thanks. Need to remember that our player-linker script grabs the wrong one and look into getting that updated.
This is just my opinion, but I would’ve dedicated an article just for prospect lists.
Would Carlos Gonzalez on a pillow contract work for the O’s? That way Hays is not blocked long term.
Hays is ready – just needs consistent playing time. Just say no to CarGo and pay the money to some starting pitchers.
ATL with a ML-leading 8 in the top 100, and arguably more with Pache (!!!), Wentz left off. Nice to see Fried finally make it on – and a little sad to see Maitan not on there (watching from afar).
Maitan would/should be there except that the Braves are cheaters – just like the Bosox – only worse.
Maitan was underwhelming in his first year, which is why he’s not on there. It has nothing to do with the Braves issues.
It’s good to see the angels farm come back to life. All of a sudden it’s starting to look pretty good here, eppler has done a good job so far.
Dope to see so many current (5) and ex-Yankee (5) prospects on the list. I wonder if guys like Thairo Estrada, Dominic Acevedo, Nick Solak, Bill McKinney and Freicer Perez would’ve landed in the top 101-150 rankings?
From what I’ve heard from the national guys, maybe somebody like Perez could’ve snuck in that range, but I’d guess probably not on the others. I’ve yet to see an outlet project Estrada as a regular, for example, and I think the general opinion is that Acevedo ends up in the bullpen. They’re good prospects and potentially useful players still, to be sure, but I doubt they’d crack any top 200 lists
I guess I tend to go buy production rather than a prospects cache (draft position., pre=performance expectations, etc). Yankees seem to do really well with fly-under-the radar guys.
Estrada is an interesting point to me. He has a glove good enough to play 2b, SS or 3b and to stick at SS in particular. He seems to do everything right except show power. Lesser guys have made the list based on hype vs production.
Same can be said for Acevedo. A career 2.82 ERA in 332 IP (68 GS) and more KO than innings pitched. Yet….barely talked about outside of NY. He’s only 23 and is very near mlb ready.
I actually meant to reference Domingo GERMAN not Acevedo.
German/age 25/2.54-453 IP-443 KO-73 Starts
You screw with the rules of baseball enough and you lose all the intricacies of the game. Baseball is not supposed to be cookie cutter. Some games are long some aren’t, maybe pitchers need to get better and actually record a 1..2..3..inning once in a while. I bet that scenario rarely happens even for best pitchers in league..No time clock!!!
Doing away with the four-pitch intentional walk really sped the game up, didn’t it?
Cut commercials (yeah, right…) and cut down the mound visits by a catcher to 1 per inning (not three PER BATTER)..
Other solution to speed up the game: fire Manfred and get someone in there who doesn’t try to pander to the generation that has the attention span of a goldfish.
“the generation that has the attention span of a goldfish” is who is needed to grow the game. Those are who the NBA has attracted and it’s why their ratings are up and their players are more popular. Statements like this from a relic shows why MLB has the oldest in age fan demographic of the three major sports.
Who has the least amount of top 100 prospects?
Royals, they have Zero.
The Royals are in for some though years. Not much value on the team (Perez, Herrera, Merrifield?) and no top prospects. But at least they won a world series in their window, so nothing to complain about.
How about cutting down on the commercial breaks,,,,,,oh wait, can’t do that,,,, MLB will lose too much money!!!! No problem, Manfred, just keep destroying the Great American past time. Baseball has no Time Limits!!!
The PA and players are more pro commercials then the MLB? I dunno why it’s so hard for people like you to understand it’s hilarious you think all that money from commercials isn’t shared with the players. Hilarious
Always great to see the up and coming. Question – is there any reason in the videos that we do not see fielders fielding? Only batting which is great, but just a part of a player.
I think it’s just tougher to get. You know exactly when the player’s going to be hitting, so you can have a camera on them in those moments. Defensively, you’d need to sit there pointing the camera at the player all game waiting for a ball to be hit their way, and there’s probably not huge demand for watching, idk, Victor Robles tracking a medium-deep fly ball among fans
Can someone tell me what the heck is wrong about the time of games today? Just let the game be, no need for change. Geesh
There’s too many empty stadiums on most nights. Could be a money problem in some cases, could be a problem with the game, or the time.
The empty stadium is often the result of bad product. If you win, they will come.
It has lost popularity amongst the youth and is characterized by said generation as slow and boring. As such, in order to survive, it is attempting to adjust to draw them into the game. If they fail to garner the support of the instant gratification generation, they will lose revenue, which in turn will cost the game talent (eventually, as athletes will choose sports with better paydays).
Name a sport with better paydays then baseball? Basketball well you gotta be tall usually to play basketball. Football? Unless your a QB you aren’t getting paid better than baseball and baseball probably won’t give you CTE
Well you see c1234 the players have acknowledge that the games take too long and the pace of play has to improve.
The easy solution is mound visits. One per inning for the catcher and the pitching coach. The any time there’s a foul tick off the ump or catcher, just have a gentleman’s unwritten rule where the catcher can kill a bit of time and walk to the mound
Agreed…..cutting down on mound visits by the catcher will have an impact on speeding up the action.
Determine a certain amount per inning for both the catcher and/or the pitching coach.
1 per game for the catcher and 1 for the pitching coach. There is already suppose to be a limit of one per inning now.
To me the root cause is offense. All those things are done to improve pitching and counter offense. It would be EASIER to just increase the mound height back to pre-1969 regulations and eliminate the DH.
Manfred is really terrible at his job. It’s almost like he doesn’t even like baseball.
Ikr he needs to be fired, he thinks he himself can change the game if baseball while at the same time 99% of people are against it. How selfish of him.
99% of people aren’t against it. The mlb does polls and asks people what they liked to see change and the vast majority say the pace of play sucks. The players acknowledge this problem too, you are in the minority. Quit throwing around made % that everyone knows are false but you apparently.
Yea off with Manfreds head. Here’s a stat only one of the four guys I hang with watches MLB,and that’s maybe during the playoffs. I’m in my thirties and the overall majority of the guys I know care more about the NFL draft then any MLB game.
Scherzer makes $20+mil a year, he can wait for the commercial to end.
I really don’t like this new commissioner a friend of mine told me he is going to void the Stanton deal because the Yankees have become too powerful. If that happens I will not be a baseball fan going forward.
Did your friend also tell you they took gullible out of the dictionary?
A friend of mine said his dad could beat up my dad, I punched him in his liver and he no longer says stupid things anymore and now is a better adult for getting punched.
????
With friends like that who needs enemies.
Orioles always claimed that they didn’t want to put themselves in a situation where they were stuck with a guy at DH. They a guy they could rotate from DH to the outfield. But that situation along with age that was their “justification” for not resigning Nelson Cruz. Now look at them trying to find an outfielder so they can move Trumbo to to DH. How ironic
Even worse…have you seen Trumbos stats? When he plays on the field as outfielder or 1B he is a great hitter.
But when he is the DH he is Sooo terrible. As an O’s can I simply do not understand why they do not trade him to a NL team that needs power. He has always been a terrible DH. Probably always will.
The Pirates have openly tried to trade McCutchen for the past 18 months, so obviously their fans are “shocked” and thus “outraged” that it happened.
Which makes sense when you understand how ignorant the media keeps the fan base here.
The local sports radio midday show was parsing an interview that Pirates’ president Frank Coonelly gave to another station. Coonelly stated that the Pirates opening day payroll from 2015 to opening day payroll in 2016 (when they were criticized for not spending enough) went up $15 million. The hosts declared this to be a lie.
Why?
Because even though the 2016 opening day payroll was $15 million more than the 2015 opening day payroll, it was less than the payroll the team had at the end of 2015 after it added Happ, Soria, Ramirez, etc. to the team. OK, except…
A) He compared opening day payrolls. Well crafted and spun talking point, sure. Lie? No.
B) That destroys their favorite and most often repeated anti-Pirate talking point, which is that the team never added during it’s window. But they don’t recognize the cognitive dissonance.
So, caller after caller proceeds to slam the team as smarmy liars (for comparing the opening day payrolls without mentioning their increased payroll at the end of 2015 after they added multiple pieces) “who never added to the team when it was in contention”. And then they top it off with “they must think we’re stupid.”
This was after the morning show spoke about how the team needs to seek “contrition” (yes, they used that word) and then an hour later (after learning of the Coonelly interview) asked why they are getting involved in distractions like what they fans think and should be focused solely on making the baseball team better.
If they traded Cutch straight up for Aaron Judge, it would be spun here as a salary dump. “Nutting just put $14 million in his pockets to buy more ski lifts!”
You’re 100% correct, FWTJBT…there are just not enough true baseball fans in the PGH area. Here’s what we do have: 1000’s of front-running hometown team fans, that don’t really understand the business side of the game and how the Pirates fit into it.
Also, you have 1000’s of folks who take everything said by the radio media as gospel, and the radio media in PGH is garbage.
And finally, you have 1000’s of stubborn yinzers who, even when presented with lucid, factual arguments defending the Pirates FO, would rather double back with their “they just don’t spend enough so they don’t care about winning” line than learn from real MLB fans about how the game is played outside the lines.
The fans want the team to do the same thing with Cutch and Cole that they did with Bonds and Bonilla. Let them walk for nothing.
That worked out well, right?
Ironically, I remember when the fans screamed about how trading Nate McLouth (I can’t remember how to spell his name) proved that the Pirates didn’t care about winning. Even though they traded him for Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke and Gorkys Hernandez and opened up a spot for a rookie…named Andrew McCutchen.
It wouldn’t be for nothing. They still get a draft pick of their own that they can develop to deepen the system. They essentially got nothing for Cutch anyways. I think one more season and a draft pick would be better than a failed starter and 4th OF.
They’d have to qualify him and he’d likely accept because no one is going to pay him that much. Even if he rejected it, it’s far from certain he’d get a $50 million offer. None of the batters who got QO’s have been signed yet. Many of them are younger and better than Cutch.
Crick is likely to start on the 25 man roster and while some scouts say Reynolds is a 4th OF, other have said he could be an all star. Writing off a 22 year old 2nd round pick makes no sense.
The Pirates got much more for Cutch than the Tigers got for JD Martinez, who is much better.
Great post. Very well thought out with facts. Exactly the opposite you’ll hear from anyone who ever utters the owner is cheap. This applies to all fans and any media, you can completely disregard anything any of those people have to say about baseball if they refer to the owner as cheap. This applies to all teams because these fans are all ignorant and most of them have no idea what the payroll is this year or last year. Jays fans specifically have this problem because it’s essy for ignorant fans to spout out and spend other people’s money by saying spend more on the payroll!
People can make any argument they want. I’d just prefer that those arguments don’t directly contradict/refute each other. Especially in consecutive sentences.
Pace of play is such a waste of time. All the clocks and visit rules and the like will take a 3 hour, 2 minute game and cut it to 2 hours, 59 minutes. The powers that be are risking fundamental changes to the way the game is played in order to maybe save 180 seconds
They’re not trying to make the games shorter. They’re trying to make the commercial breaks that much longer. If they actually cared about the length of the game they would shorten the commercial breaks. It is literally the only way to do it on a consistent basis without destroying the game.
Nobody but the fans want less commercials because that means less revenue. The players if anything want more commercials. It’s the inactively during the games it’s increased 30 minutes sense 1984
Commercials=money i.e. Revenue. How would any of these suggested changes destroy the game?
I think most people would like to see the pace of play improve. The question is how? People also want to see offense, and (unless I am mistaken) I recall an article that did a study on time between pitchers, and how the shorter the time a batter has to think, the worse they hit. Therefore (if true) one would think that pitchers would want to “get it and go”??
Australia has shortened cricket matches with a new version of cricket called Twenty20. They are seeing HUGE increases in fan turnout to those games. Not saying MLB should make that drastic change, but they might have to if they lose the interest of fans one day in the future.
I agree with many that the constant mound visits by catchers are just ridiculous. I really have no idea what they are talking about that cannot be communicated with signs. But really this is an obvious area where I think MLB could save time. Be interested to see any stats on how much time is spent on catcher visits and if that would make a difference.
There are some great articles about the cricket changes…it definitely worked for the sport. I’ll watch it from time to time and vastly prefer the newer structure/approach. I don’t think it’d work for baseball, nor would I want it.
I enjoy going to a game, scoring it (or reading in between innings). I appreciate the fact it is a bit slower and I don’t mind, though I’m not lugging around kids or rushing to get into work at some ungodly hour.
Poor Blake Rutherford….. from top prospect to nobody because he switched pinstripes.
Jealousy isn’t a good look T!
If MLB was truly interested in speeding up the pace of play, they would have hit the Red Sox with harsher penalties for using electronic devices to steal signs. One of the main reasons for the slower pace of play is catchers continually going to the mound to verbally relay the pitch or change signals out of fear of those signs being stolen. MLB showed a characteristic lack of integrity in refusing to recognize that its lack of punishment of teams using electronic devices to steal signals only serves to encourage that practice therefore leading to a slower pace of game when other teams attempt to defend themselves against that illegal practice. If they decide to limit the amount of times a catcher can go to the mound during an inning, you can only expect the usage of electronic devices to steals signals to increase exponentially.
Rick the league has said they will be listening to communications between teams on their phones in the dugout to clamp down on sign stealing from devices. That’s per Rosenthal via hot stove on mlb network today
iverbure
That is very interesting. I suspect that since MLB has established a simple slap on the wrist will be the punishment for such transgressions, teams won’t care whether MLB is listening to their communications or not. It will likely take a much harsher punishment to deter teams from attempting to gain an added advantage especially since the baseline has already been set. I just wish MLB would have been more aggressive with its punishment because oftentimes, the trip to the mound has been completely unnecessary but has taken place because of the paranoia over whether signals are being stolen. Remove the paranoia and the mound trip and thus the slower pace of play disappears.
I agree. If they get rid of a majority of mound visits which they should, they need to have harsh penalties if you are caught stealing signs with electronic devices.
For those of you who are severally pro players on no pitch clock could you please link me to a written proposal of the changes they’ve proposed. Because as an outsider unbiased opinion of this is I’ve seen the league AND PLAYERS acknowledge they should speed up the game but I’ve seen two proposals from the league and 0 from the PA.
This has been so thoroughly beaten to death that there’s no sense going in to detail anymore. These asinine ideas are solutions to a fallacious problem. 1) Games are primarily slower because of what they try to do with the media product and 2) kids aren’t losing interest because baseball is too long and boring, they’re losing interest because nobody plays youth baseball anymore so they don’t get why it’s interesting when a pitcher throws a curveball over for a called strike on a 2-0 count.
I know I’ve been told that no one plays youth baseball anymore, but from someone who lives in rural South Georgia it is hard to imagine since youth participate numbers are higher than they have ever been. There isn’t a mall within roughly 100 miles of where I live, but almost every single weekend of the year you can find games going on. And, yes I have been told it is mainly in the urban areas where baseball is having issues.
Even going to Jr. High and High School games there are tons of participants and fans. If anything in this area the game is growing by leaps and bounds.
Yea Sports Illustrated did the article on Georgia being being continuing hotbed for baseball. I think it was around the time Clint Frazier and Austin Meadows were entering the draft.
*continuing to be a hotbed
I live in the middle of high school region 2 AA, and I’ve seen tons of great players in the amateur ranks pass through the decades (including Byron Buxton among many others). Our local school was state champs for AA and local rec teams are always in the top five for their age classes.
I think that one of the most important aspects that gets overlooked in the development of youth baseball (and young people in general) is the need for QUALITY volunteers who are not afraid to make sacrifices, to make mentor type bonds with players. If quality volunteer coaches are lacking then the programs suffer tremendously. It isn’t just the star travel ball players that need attention, but the kid who strikes out almost every atbat too. They can develop a love for the game despite not being adept at it. To be honest I’ve seen the kids who were all stars in 7/8 year olds get passed by over time by the kids no one wanted at that age.
Does Blevins complain when he gets his bloated paycheck that’s bloated because of TV money from those commercials? If pitchers would just throw the ball this wouldn’t be an issue.
Steve,
” Keith Law published the first half of his Top 100 prospects today. There are several notable players that have been traded in the past year on the back half of the list,”
So is that the back “half” of the first half of his top 100 published- or- the “back half” of his new top 100 that was not published yet??
Every manager in MLB: Goes to bullpen 6-8 times after the 5th…wonders why the game is slow.
Actually there are 5 Angels on that list. You are missing Jamie Baria in at #62.
I can’t wait for some improved pace of play. Reduce mound visits and add the pitch clock. I’ve been to minor league games with the pitch clock. I loved it. The game felt fast and crisp. Players that cannot adapt will be replaced by players that can.
How about upping the minimum from one batter faced to two? No more 4 and 5 pitcher innings that are stopped every time for a manager’s visit and the. Commercial break for every one of the relievers to jog in and warm up. That’s how you get half innings that take more than a half hour with 15 minutes of dead time.
And I’d get rid of all coaching visits other than removing the pitcher. Pitching coach wants to give the guy advice about how to handle a guy? Do it when he’s sitting on the bench while your team is hitting. It’s not high school, let the pitcher and catcher figure it out when they’re on the field.
Bring back the bullpen buggy. That should save about as much time as the automatic walk did.
I loved the cart. I can’t remember which one it was, but I remember playing one of the classics on Nintendo back in the day and the pitchers coming out on the cart was the best part of the game to me.