Nine Solutions to Improve The Game of Baseball

[Seven]

Definitely got a good chuckle reading some of these. My genuine opinions on how to fix, how fast an at bat goes is to limit the amount of times a player is allowed to step out of the batters box. Something along the lines of:

Excluding injury, a batter is only allowed to step out of the box once per at bat. First offense of this is accompanied by a warning from the umpire, second offense is a monetary fine. If the batter continues to do this throughout the course of the game, the fine increases.

I was toying with the idea of "adding a strike to the count" but I feel that is unfair, and purists would hate that, which I totally understand.

[Casey2296]

Bring back Max, Patkin, Eddie Gaedel, and the occasional "special event" ala Chicago White Sox Disco Demolition Night.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

Bring back Max, Patkin, Eddie Gaedel, and the occasional "special event" ala Chicago White Sox Disco Demolition Night.

Met him several times. Probably saw him perform a dozen.

[Peter_Spaeth]

How about no more epic at bats. Batter is out on the fifth strike.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

How about no more epic at bats. Batter is out on the fifth strike.

This is better than most of the new rules, I could live with it, but I would like to see stats on how often it happens (I'm guessing not often, maybe a couple times a game.) I have a problem with trying to iron out all the "wrinkles" in the game, and changing the rule here would be one. To me, an epic at-bat starts to get kind of interesting as a battle between the pitcher and batter. As I've said before, just make the batter stay in the box and the pitcher on the mound, and you're knocking twenty minutes off the games. Bag reviews and relief pitchers' warm-ups--haven't they been warming up in the bullpen?--and two-and-a-half hour games will be the norm again as in my youth.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Seven

I was toying with the idea of "adding a strike to the count" but I feel that is unfair, and purists would hate that, which I totally understand.

It seems to me that many pitchers are getting their pitches off MUCH quicker than before, some even "quick pitching" from the old days. I think they've discovered it's to their advantage, keeping the batters off balance, and has nothing to do with rules.