It’s starting to feel like 2023 and beyond will see a pretty glaring shift in baseball, with the amount and extent of changes to the rules being at least an attempt to change the way The game is played instead of pawing at the edges. The pitch clock seems almost certain. The auto-attack zone won’t join us, but it won’t be far behind either. We have seen universal DH; Think about how silly that sounded just 10 years ago.
It’s like a moratorium on changes, or some directive on where field people can stand and where they can’t, coming. The latest installment of genius, although it may not arrive until 2024, is something of a second-base piece of cake. It will look like this.
The idea is to give more weight to the directive on where those entering the field can stand. Up until now, the preliminary ideas of keeping two players on the field on each side of the second pillar have not made much of a difference to the younger ones, because the short laner or the Second place can be placed right after the second person. That’s not all that far from when the three players on the pitch are on a second side now. Given the range of some of the league’s central midfielders, they can still get to those positions to land.
What MLB really gets with this is to try and save our notion from our whole lives that a well-hit ball in the middle has to be a hit. That’s what you were taught in a minor league. If you send a backup box, you’ve timed it perfectly. These days, more often than we remember and maybe even more often than not, we see that angle jump out of the bat, our initial instinct is only, and then look when the camera turns. to a stop or the second person standing right there to spin it into an easy exit. A lot of us have that inner struggle.
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With this “pie slice,” you can still position a middle infielder behind the bag, he just has to be on the bag, cutting down some angle. The deeper you want to play him the more of the middle of the diamond opens up. At least so is the thinking.
But what it ignores, is that the problem isn’t really shifts. There are plenty of open spaces on the infield if hitters want them. But hitters aren’t paid to dribble singles through the open spaces, nor do teams think they can string enough of these together. Think about how many singles it takes to score multiple runs in an inning. Then think about doing it against:
Sure, you’re saying, that’s Shohei Ohtani. But whatever tomato can that teams are pulling out of the ‘pen, more likely than not, they have stuff just like this — if only for an inning. But then there’s another palooka right behind him. Are you really gonna get five singles in a row off that?
There has never been a rule that infielders have to stand in certain spots. The four of them were put there because teams figured it was the best place to put them. Now we know better. And plenty of things don’t look the way we’re used to in other sports. I remember in hockey when a guy teeing up a slapshot from one of the circles had a decent chance of scoring, with no screen or traffic whatsoever. You might see that a handful of times in the whole NHL now. Remember when the three-point shot was a gimmick?
The problem is the pitchers, and it has been for years. They throw too hard, and they throw with too much movement. Move the mound, change the ball to have less spin, find a grip substance that doesn’t enhance spin, and crack down hard on the stuff that does. Get to the root of it. Because merely moving infielders a few feet isn’t going to solve much. What MLB thinks it needs to put on offer for hitters is already there. Except they know that it isn’t profitable to take it.
The argle-bargle:
- The USWNT moved into the final of the Women’s CONCACAF championship, and once again didn’t give up a goal to a severely limited opponent in Costa Rica in a 3-0 win. It’s hard to complain about a win, but like most of the tournament, the US looked creatively limited against a packed defense. Their first two goals came off a scrambled corner and caused a turnover deep in Costa Rica’s half. And these are perfectly acceptable ways to score, and what the US has specialized in for years, but aren’t going to be available against the best teams in the world come next summer. The US is far too much playing in front of or around opponents instead of cutting through them. We’ll find out more Monday against Canada, who is a real ass team that hasn’t given up a goal in the tournament either and probably won’t be solved by wingers trying to win a race to the end line.
- Of course, the Royals won their first game in Toronto without 10 players thanks to their “enlightened” views on vaccinations. In fact, that sort of attitude is going to keep Andrew Benintendi any chance which association? join the Yankees at the end of the season, as they may have to go to Canada after the season. That’s exactly what he deserves.
Why is it that every time we hear about a certain athlete who has cost his team his team by not being vaccinated, no one asks how they will prevent and protect the population from a pandemic? the world has killed 6 million people? Watching these Mensa members wrestle will be well worth it.
