The negotiations in MLB didn't get any better yesterday. The players gave up more in their quest to get the luxury tax threshold raised, even though they still haven't asked for a guarantee that more than a few teams would even approach it. This was met with more middle fingers and moons from the owners, who seem to want to just declare an impasse. The fight in the future is dependent on the players having enough fight left.
The players have acquiesced to every rule change the owners wanted in order to get the owners to be anything more than a pimple on the ass of life. The shift is banned and there is a pitch clock.
The first two are fine. The game needs to move faster, and a pitch clock might be an end-around to deal with baseball's velocity problem. If a pitcher can't rest for a minute or two after every pitch to reload fully for the next one, then he might not be able to consistently throw 102 MPH for every pitch. It is definitely worth seeing. Bigger bases are supposed to make the tag harder and give runners more time to steal bases. Again, sure. Can it really hurt to experiment? Getting motion on the basepaths is a goal.
The problems arise when the shift is banned. Hitters have been talking about this for a long time. The problem is that banning the shift doesn't really change the hitters approach. It will reward them for the blinkered approach that caused the shift. The evolution of strategy should be counterbalanced by another.
It is not allowing the game to equalize itself. Banning the shift will allow left-handed pull hitters to deposit line-drives over the head of second basemen, which will cause more singles, more runners, and more action. On the left side of the field, there were already singles on offer. The shift would not have gone away if hitters had taken the easy base hits where the shortstop used to be.
Banning the shift and allowing hitters to maintain the pull-and-lift approach will not solve the strikeout problem or the homers problem in baseball. Allowing hitters to spray to all fields would have been beneficial.
We've listened to hitters moan that they couldn't make contact to right field or up the middle because they couldn't see a third baseman or shortstop in those spots. More singles will be opened up if those fielders are moved off those spots. Those were already there. You aren't changing behavior or strategy here.
Hitters have a tough job. They have to face powerful velocity and breaking pitches from pitchers who know what to do to get unnatural spin. This is an overstep.
Thankfully it will be a while before we have to watch any of this, because the owners aren't going to accept anything but total surrender to get everyone back on the field.
The hockey player had a night in Chicago last night.
There is only one King of the Crease, and only one winner of the Hart and Vezina Trophies. He lives in the city.
We should not be wasting these highlights on a Sunday. Would you save them for the week when more people are around?
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