It’s time for the start of Major League Baseball! Sure, I won’t be able to watch our Minnesota Twins most nights due to the nonsense with Bally Sports North, but the radio will work just fine as we gear up for, hopefully, a great season.
There are plenty of changes this year, and not just with our hometown team. MLB is finally doing things to address some of the reasons fans are flocking away from the game. Let’s face it: Sitting through three hours of baseball, of which maybe a quarter is action, is not for everyone. I love baseball, but even I get sick of watching pitchers tromp around the mound and batters dilly-dally about home plate.
Years back, as a coach, I had a pitcher who took forever between pitches. I finally told him that he was hurting his team by not getting on the mound and throwing a pitch expediently. The defense got bored and just wasn’t into what was happening. You want your defenders on their toes, ready to react to anything hit their way. This pitcher changed his ways and found that he was much more efficient when he didn’t overthink every pitch.
The pitch clock in place in MLB this year has already shown signs of slashing game times. Many spring training games have been done in about two and a half hours, down tremendously from the three-plus hours of last season’s games. Players are adjusting as they go, and MLB is looking at some tweaks to make based on how things have gone so far. The pitch clock had been used at some minor league levels in previous years, so the adjustment is only for veterans, and that won’t take long to get straight.
On social media, I see people howl that baseball shouldn’t have a clock. It doesn’t. You can be down by ten runs in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, and you don’t have to worry about a buzzer ending the game until you have your last out. Speeding up the in-between times is easy and will make the game more watchable. When I was young, games were routinely well under three hours, but the officials have let players have their way too long.
Even in high school baseball, there is technically a clock on pitchers and batters. If you don’t throw a pitch within so long, it’s an automatic ball. If you are not in the batter’s box right away, the umpire can let the pitcher go ahead and pitch.
MLB has also changed the size of the bases, making them slightly larger. This has been done for two reasons. One is for safety, to prevent some of the collisions that occur between fielder and baserunner. Another is to make it a little easier to steal bases, something that doesn’t happen nearly as much as it used to. A couple tenths of a second might make a difference. I was pretty meh about this at first, but it makes some sense. I do wonder if it might leak down to lower levels and force organizations to buy all-new bases!
The last big change is eliminating shifts in the infield. For too long, I would watch three infielders on one side of second base, only there because some computer said that’s where the batter tends to hit the ball. Now, good batters know how to hit the ball the other way, but it seems that’s not important anymore. Everyone wants to hit home runs. How about a bunt at some point when there’s only one guy to cover half the infield?
However, I’m all in favor of putting things back the way they were meant to be. You can still adjust somewhat, but there must be two infielders on either side of second base at the pitch. Some teams have experimented with putting all the outfielders on one side since the rule doesn’t address them, but that could lead to trouble for the defense. Picture an inside-the-park home run on a blooper over the third baseman’s head!
Every time I would see a shift, I thought about what my definition of shift used to be. When we played, if a lefty came up, we’d yell to shift, which would mean the right fielder and center fielder would move over a bit, and the second baseman would play more in the hole between first and second. I’ll be happy to be back to that. And it should help the Twins’ Max Kepler and his batting average!
So how will our Twins do this year? I’m optimistic, maybe even more than I was last year. Carlos Correa is in for the long haul, and I think our starting pitchers are better than last year. Rocco Baldelli has even said he expects more innings out of them! Emilio Pagan will continue to frighten me when he takes the mound, but we have some other good bullpen arms.
Ultimately, it comes down to health. Last season, the Twins were poised to capture the division crown until the injury bug decimated their lineup. If Byron Buxton stays healthy for 120 games and the pitchers’ arms hang on, we will have a shot in September. Hope springs eternal! Win Twins!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is blatteroon, which means a babbler, as in, “The blatteroon found he had to make an adjustment during MLB broadcasts as there wasn’t as much time to talk between pitches.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!