Manfredball and the MLB’s Crisis of Confidence

This season’s rule changes merely deflect from the game’s real problem: Hitters aren’t hitting major-league pitching.

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Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels pitches against the Oakland Athletics on October 5, 2022, in Oakland, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

America’s pastime is suffering a crisis of confidence. With viewership and ballpark attendance trending down since the juicing days of the early aughts and with concerns over the popularity of the NFL and the NBA, the league has decided to enact a number of sweeping changes in an attempt to give the fans, in the words of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, “the kind of game that they want to see.”

The idea is to give fans shorter games with more offense. But the rule changes demonstrate MLB’s imperfect understanding of its own game.

Sure, baseball needed a tuneup. Game times have risen from 2.5 hours to longer than 3 hours in 2021. Minor rule changes —like the three-batter minimum for relief pitchers—attempted to address the problem, but games kept getting longer.

Now pitchers have a 15-second pitch clock starting when they receive the ball, 20 seconds with a runner on base. Hitters have to be “alert to the pitcher” with 8 seconds left on the pitch clock. 

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  1. Andrew W.

    A fundamental misunderstanding (and mischaracterization) of what baseball being "untimed" means. In no way is it in reference to the time during and between innings. The untimed nature refers to the fact that there is no set (timed) endpoint. Of all your arguments, only the adoption of the "California tiebreaker" rules sits in opposition to the nature of an untimed game, and even then, both teams get to start with the same circumstance in extra innings.

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  2. Randall Briggs

    Great article! The changes are an abomination. But, then, so is the DH rule that nearly everybody has come to accept.

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  3. Token Liberal

    Sorry, I love the new rules. Except they are not that new to me as I live in a city with a AAA team. I've been enjoying shorter minor league games live while watching major league players adjust everything in between every pitch on TV. Enough of that. Games with less dead time are just better.

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    Rboard

    When the league tells you where you can and can't place your fielders, it's not the same game.

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    Joe Lancaster

    Good explainer. I’ll learn to live with most of the rules changes, but I’ll never stop HATING the ghost runner rule.

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    Richard Maxton

    Good stuff, David.

    Not a fan of the pitch clock, but I'll learn to live with it (and it should be at least a few seconds longer). But the limit of pick-off attempts is stupid. That the batter is timed on a pitch clock is even more dumb. I say if the batter's not ready when the pitcher throws, that's on him. "Pay attention, pal."

    Increasing the base size and shift limitations I'm less irritated by. Honestly, I wouldn't care at all about the base size increase EXCEPT that they've also limited the pitcher's ability to pick a runner off.

    The "ghost runner" rule though. . . .ABSOLUTELY the worst. Regular season or play-offs, the game should be the same. And with the ghost runner rule that just isn't the case. Kill it. Kill it with fire.

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    Ethan Cordray

    I dislike the Ghost Runner rule, but I generally like (or tolerate) the other changes.

    While I agree that the biggest fundamental problem is too-good pitching, I think advanced metrics have also caused problematic changes on the hitting side. Most hitters concentrate on power now, because that's what the metrics say is most valuable. But that "optimized" approach gives up versatility, making hitters more vulnerable to both specific "optimized" pitching techniques and to "optimized" fielding in the form of the defensive shift.

    I agree that hitters should have simply learned to adjust, focusing on contact over power and employing a broader suite of hitting tools (like bunts).

    However, I like these rules changes because they might help incentivize that sort of adjustment behavior. Easier base-stealing makes singles more valuable, which both the clock rules and the base sizes help with. And while banning the shift doesn't reward hitters for learning how to beat the shift (in fact it does the opposite), it does decrease the defensive methods available against hitters and so empowers hitters with good contact-over-power techniques.

    If these changes are combined with more robust enforcement of existing pitching rules (against foreign substances and ball-cutting, balks, etc.) I think they can improve the game without distorting it too much. While they might not be perfect, I think they're going in the right direction.

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    Dennis

    Excellent article. Rob Manfred is a pipsqueak.

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    Little.Billy.Wright

    Two good articles here, it's just that they are totally at odds. 1) Hitters can't hit major league pitching; 2) Shift cuts down 20 hits per season for some players. Personally, I hate the shift, but accept it because an un-shifted infield looks more like baseball to me. Also I will bet this will go a long way to fix alleged problem #1.

    Another question I don't see asked: MLB already had a rule to speed up at-bats - prohibiting batters from stepping out of the box. It was NEVER enforced. Why mandate an abomination like the pitch clock before you even try to enforce the rules you have? Should have penalized UMPIRES for ignoring the rule.

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      Richard Maxton

      Excellent point.

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  10. Ams

    Sorry, I'm happy about the changes, including the ghost runner. I love how short Spring Training games have become! If I want to watch baseball in its "purer" form, I can always watch college baseball. But, my experience with college baseball is that it puts forth an inferior product because the players are inferior. (Lots of walks, hit batsmen, and field errors.) Worse, the games take forever! I can take my son to a game at noon, leave at 3:00 pm, and there's still two innings left!

    I am a working mom who has plenty on her plate at the job and at home. I can't stay up until 3:00 am to see who wins some 16-inning marathon. Thank you, MLB!

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