Major League Baseball has proposed rule changes involving the strike zone and intentional walks that are intended to speed the pace of play and create more action and balls in play -- and more runs scored.
The first of the two proposals is a no-brainer: pitchers don't have to actually throw the four pitches when they want to intentionally walk a batter.
The pitcher or manager simply tells the umpire that they want to intentionally walk the batter and he will be awarded first base and the game will go on.
I understand baseball purists have had a hard time with the way the game has changed over the years, and so my answer to them on this issue is simple: the game has adapted through many changes over 100-plus years and has been fine and will continue to be fine.
For instance, the Buster Posey rule basically legislated home-plate collisions out of the game. For all the whining and belly aching about how it would hurt the game, nobody really misses those plays.
The intentional walk rule is good and will take about a week for people to adjust to it and understand that it actually has made the game better in some small way.
The strike zone rule is completely different. I hope officials think about it because there probably will be unintended consequences.
ESPN baseball writer Jayson Stark wrote Saturday that the logic behind this proposal is "the adjustment in the strike zone is designed to produce more balls in play, more baserunners and more action at a time when nearly 30 percent of hitters in the average game either walk or strike out, the highest rate of 'non-action' in history."
On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable theory -- take away low strikes and pitchers will have to bring the ball up in the zone, increasing the number of pitches ripe for hitting.
That all sounds good, but I'm not sure it's realistic. There are a few human elements in play that probably will be a bigger factor than the new strike zone itself.
If hitters know pitches at the knee or below are almost always going to be called balls, the natural adjustment will be to swing less. Considering how many pitchers out there have issues with consistency and location, that probably is going to lead to more walks, not more hits.
More walks are good for scoring more runs, but more walks are not good for speeding up the pace of the game or making it more fun to watch. More walks also mean higher pitch counts for pitchers, and by extension that might mean more pitching changes, further slowing things.
Then there are the pitchers, who often say umpires will give you strikes that are borderline strikes if you consistently hit the same spot. If veteran umpires, who can be a little rogue when it comes to following new directives, decide they'll call the old strike zone anyway, that will lead to more strikeouts, not fewer.
Another adjustment pitchers will likely make is to try to throw inside more, leading to more hit batters, more dead action and, yes, longer games.
I'm not saying I hate the idea of a new strike zone, and I do think umpires have allowed pitchers to expand the zone beneath the knee. But sometimes when the people who run these leagues propose new rules, they don't often consider the unintended consequences. They need to figure out if the new rules will actually correct what they are meant to correct.
A higher strike zone could mean more balls in play, but for all the reasons I just laid out, I'm guessing it will lead to more walks and more strikeouts.
That's not good for growing the game. It will be less watchable and less interesting for casual fans, and it's not good for making games shorter, either.
Sports on 05/27/2016