Innovations we dislike

[roger_that]

Adapted from Ben Grimm's list. If your personal bete-noire is not on here, choose

"other" and specify. Once we have top-votegetters, I'll post a runoff poll. And then a secondary poll of innovations we like.

[metsmarathon]

Ghost runner is the most unbaseballish rule change. Everything else is just fuzzy modifications of that which previously was so.



Even the eh which is essentially a persistent pinch hitter for the pitcher is less of an abomination upon the prior state of the game than starting an inning with a fricking runner already on base and in scoring position with no explanation.



It is an affront to the gods. Not only of baseball but of man and nature.

[whippoorwill]

I don't like the xtra innings stuff either but definitely in my mind inter league play has led to too many other changes in the schedule

[Chad ochoseis]

The ghost runner feels like something out of a six-on-six wiffle ball game at Camp Wakaconda.



And extra innings are great. The point of speeding up the game wasn't to make games shorter as much as to have more actual baseball played during a baseball game. The ghost runner doesn't help with that issue.



The one change not listed is the no-pitch intentional walk, which is an innovation I like. I never saw the point of throwing four performative wide ones, even if once in a rare while something interesting did happen in the course of throwing them.

[roger_that]

=metsmarathon post_id=190696 time=1745526485 user_id=83]
Ghost runner is the most unbaseballish rule change.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

You know, you're not going to uncover anything worth additional polling. Or even get sufficient voting. It's not like someone is going to raise their hand and argue the merits of the ghost runner, everyone here says how much it sucks whenever the situation arises or when we turn attention to things that suck. That's never changed since they announced it. You don't need a poll to measure that.



The 2nd answer is the DH - it interferes with the 9 guys, hit-field foundation of the game. Everyone here is old enough to totally hate it.



The three-batter reliever rule doesn't much bother me in practice but goes against the free-substitution framework of baseball so I'm against it

[Cowtipper]

Manfred really has done everything he can to make baseball much harder to watch.

[roger_that]

Probbly right, Lunchbucket, but I've found that stupid votes in polls tend to get discouraged by announcing a run-off in advance. This bunch may be smart enough to avoid deliberate stupid votes.

[MFS62]

=roger_that post_id=190700 time=1745526993 user_id=128]
The single most enjoyable managerial decision, for me, was whether to take your starter out of the game if he was pitching well but you needed a run.

[roger_that]

I realize I didn't include some of the more offensive, dumber, ideas that got introduced but dropped like the 7-inning doubleheaders. Are there fans who supported this nonsense? It seems that Manfred's been on a crusade to destroy my interest in the game. What an asshole.



I like the idea of a pitch clock because players were just fucking around all the time, and the game had gotten draggy and boring, but my preferred way of dealing with it was simply to do nothing, but to enforce the rule about the ump being the only one to call time out, and then instructing umps not to grant time outs. If you're not in the batter's box, the pitcher can throw a strike anyway, and when you step out between pitches, the same. No automated pitch clock, no need to make sure the batter's eye is locked with the pitcher's, nothing. Just get up there and be prepared to hit the whole time. A faster, more competitive, and better game.

[Edgy MD]

I amn't sure there is anyone here old enough to see TV coverage and broadcasting of games as an innovation, let alone a lamentable one.



If anything, most of our lifetimes has seen starkly reduced TV coverage in favor of cablecasting/webcasting/streaming.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I don't know if ads on the uniforms counts as an innovation, but I dislike them. The Mets kind of lucked out, because some of them are just embarrassing. Braves, I'm looking at you.

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: I amn't sure there is anyone here old enough to see TV coverage and broadcasting of games as an innovation, let alone a lamentable one. If anything, most of our lifetimes has seen starkly reduced TV coverage in favor of cablecasting/webcasting/streaming.

That was kind of what I was trying to get at: the way games are available (or not) during our lifetimes,

[Fman99]

I hate the DH and the ghost runner equally.

[kcmets]

I always thought of innovations (innovating) as something that

is positive or productive but Oxford cleared up that life-long wrong

take on a word today...



make changes in something established, especially by introducing

new methods, ideas, or products



...so I'm still not too old to learn something each day still.

[ashie62]

Some of the innovations listed above have more merits than others



What bothers me to no end is way the game has changed through metrics. For many years now it's about launch velocity spin and crunching numbers. Do they hit fungoes anymore?



Every pitch and outcome is charted by statcast and players are trained to do best they can with the most common outcomes on their chart



If you don't like extra innings isn't the way relief pitchers are trained and used partly responsible for that change?



Who would pitch the 12,13,14th inning anyway?



35-40 percent strikeout rates are almost the norm now, that's offensive



The may train and play robots one day at this rate



The game will never go back but much has been lost

[Cowtipper]

The ghost runner is the biggest insult to the game.



But year-long interleague play really waters it down.



Not letting the pitcher bat sucks because now we don't see the random, crazy stuff that enters baseball lore anymore. No more Rick Camps, no more Bartolo Colons, no more Tony Cloningers. It makes the game more formulaic.



The overuse of random statistics throughout the game. Statcast is stupid. I just don't care. I just do not care how fast a ball comes off a bat. I do not care what angle this or that ball took. It's unnecessary and just adds clutter.



The sport has become, whether consciously or unconsciously, something that exists more to cater to the whims of bettors and fantasy owners than the traditional fan.



Speaking of betting, now they're allowing it. How stupid can they be? Has this game not been marred by multiple betting scandals in its history and now it's actively encouraging it? Are they retar--well I don't know if I can say that word here but I have faith you know where I was going.



Getting too political. Whether we like or it not pride stuff if still very controversial for many people so dipping your toes into that arena is enough to ruffle a lot of feathers. I stopped watching football because it was getting too political. Sports were our refuge to get away from that stuff.



I also stopped watching football because it was becoming more of spectacle and less of a sport. Baseball is, too. The hats after home runs, the stupid props, all that stuff. It's just so contrived and hard to watch.



The bigger bases are dumb too, because they water things down. So does allowing the oven mitt.



All the playoff spots re really bad. The Astros made the playoffs with a losing record in 2020. They should have at least put a clause in the rule that said if you have a losing record, you don't qualify, no matter what place you finish.



Getting rid of collisions made the game a bit too tame and mild. Also disallowing wipeout slides eliminates even MORE excitement.



And automatic four pitch walks. Yet another thing to make the game more formulaic.



And the myriad tricks to try and shorten games. Instead of all these technicalities and shenanigans they could have done two things: Reduced roster sizes to 24 and put a cap of 10 pitchers on a team. That would have forced teams to be wiser in their pitcher utilization, whether they wanted to or not.



So basically every major change since 2010 sucks. Manfred sucks. Bring back Selig and steroids.

[ashie62]

So Mrs Lincoln do you still like baseball?

[Cowtipper]

NO >:-(

[Cowtipper]

It's different than when I was a kid so now I hate it.

[Fman99]

=Cowtipper post_id=191065 time=1745878513 user_id=166]
The ghost runner is the biggest insult to the game.



But year-long interleague play really waters it down.



Not letting the pitcher bat sucks because now we don't see the random, crazy stuff that enters baseball lore anymore. No more Rick Camps, no more Bartolo Colons, no more Tony Cloningers. It makes the game more formulaic.



The overuse of random statistics throughout the game. Statcast is stupid. I just don't care. I just do not care how fast a ball comes off a bat. I do not care what angle this or that ball took. It's unnecessary and just adds clutter.



The sport has become, whether consciously or unconsciously, something that exists more to cater to the whims of bettors and fantasy owners than the traditional fan.



Speaking of betting, now they're allowing it. How stupid can they be? Has this game not been marred by multiple betting scandals in its history and now it's actively encouraging it? Are they retar--well I don't know if I can say that word here but I have faith you know where I was going.



Getting too political. Whether we like or it not pride stuff if still very controversial for many people so dipping your toes into that arena is enough to ruffle a lot of feathers. I stopped watching football because it was getting too political. Sports were our refuge to get away from that stuff.



I also stopped watching football because it was becoming more of spectacle and less of a sport. Baseball is, too. The hats after home runs, the stupid props, all that stuff. It's just so contrived and hard to watch.



The bigger bases are dumb too, because they water things down. So does allowing the oven mitt.



All the playoff spots re really bad. The Astros made the playoffs with a losing record in 2020. They should have at least put a clause in the rule that said if you have a losing record, you don't qualify, no matter what place you finish.



Getting rid of collisions made the game a bit too tame and mild. Also disallowing wipeout slides eliminates even MORE excitement.



And automatic four pitch walks. Yet another thing to make the game more formulaic.



And the myriad tricks to try and shorten games. Instead of all these technicalities and shenanigans they could have done two things: Reduced roster sizes to 24 and put a cap of 10 pitchers on a team. That would have forced teams to be wiser in their pitcher utilization, whether they wanted to or not.



So basically every major change since 2010 sucks. Manfred sucks. Bring back Selig and steroids.

[Edgy MD]

I just realized this poll did not include the egregious latter-day mandatory-defensive-positioning rules.

[roger_that]

I tried to avoid those innovations that are no longer in use, such as that one and the 7-inning games of doubleheaders, etc. Did I include any of those by mistake?

[Fman99]

=roger_that post_id=191351 time=1746092578 user_id=128]
I tried to avoid those innovations that are no longer in use, such as that one and the 7-inning games of doubleheaders, etc. Did I include any of those by mistake?

[roger_that]

You're right. I was thinking of the practice they were designed to prevent.



Essentially this is a rule to codify the positioning that was informally practiced for generations. Not much of an innovation in my book.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=roger_that post_id=191367 time=1746101581 user_id=128]
You're right. I was thinking of the practice they were designed to prevent.



Essentially this is a rule to codify the positioning that was informally practiced for generations. Not much of an innovation in my book.

[Edgy MD]

Or Dave Kingman. Or Carl Paranski.

[Fman99]

Edgy MD wrote: Or Dave Kingman. Or Carl Paranski.

Ah, the cool Carl Paranski shift. That kid was stupefied.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Or Dave Kingman. Or Carl Paranski.

Kingman is probably the better choice being that both Williams and McCovey are presently dead. Paranski? Who knows?

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: Or Dave Kingman. Or Carl Paranski.

Correct, Edgy. I wasn't trying to justify omitting it as an innovation, merely to illustrate why I didn't think it was terribly significant in the game on a practical level. Positioning Lindor as far to his left as is permissible under the current rules is pretty much where he would be playing against any lefthanded batter I can think of if we didn't have the rule on positioning infielders.