[Mick]

maybe some significant changes coming to MLB.....testing underway in the Atlantic League

The drawbacks of MLB as it exists today—or, at least, the drawbacks as understood by the league itself—are visible in the Atlantic League’s alterations. The notion that pitchers must face three batters, or reach the end of an inning, before they are removed addresses the fatigue that fans feel when waves of relievers prolong the ends of games. Requiring two infielders to be on each side of second base effectively eliminates the analytics-informed infield shifts that, over the past decade, have turned would-be hits into easy outs. The elimination of all mound visits, except in the case of injury or a pitching change, kills some measure of baseball’s ample downtime; ditto the between-innings break being cut down from two minutes and five seconds to a minute and 45 seconds. The most extreme change—moving the mound back by two feet—will go into effect only for the second half of the Atlantic League’s season

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainmen...e-atlantic

I say adopt George Carlin's idea to put land mines in the outfield. But instead of actual mines, use (organic) paint mines.

Seriously, what a f-ing joke. I hate all these rule changes other than reducing time between innings.

Why not limit warm-up pitches to two pitches for pitching changes?  Pitchers are throwing in the bullpen to get warmed up for a reason, right?  They should be ready when they come out to take the actual mound.

Something crawled under my front porch and expired.  Nasty, nasty smell.  Went to look, and it was the SF Giants.

Bumgarner pitched well.  SF gave up two runs.  Rest of it was horrid.  SF had five hits.  OF and 1B had no hits and one walk.  Bad-field-terrible-arm LF cuts off great-field-strong-arm to catch a flyball with men on base.

Ugh.

[Mick]

maybe some significant changes coming to MLB.....testing underway in the Atlantic League

The drawbacks of MLB as it exists today—or, at least, the drawbacks as understood by the league itself—are visible in the Atlantic League’s alterations. The notion that pitchers must face three batters, or reach the end of an inning, before they are removed addresses the fatigue that fans feel when waves of relievers prolong the ends of games. Requiring two infielders to be on each side of second base effectively eliminates the analytics-informed infield shifts that, over the past decade, have turned would-be hits into easy outs. The elimination of all mound visits, except in the case of injury or a pitching change, kills some measure of baseball’s ample downtime; ditto the between-innings break being cut down from two minutes and five seconds to a minute and 45 seconds. The most extreme change—moving the mound back by two feet—will go into effect only for the second half of the Atlantic League’s season

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainmen...e-atlantic

I say adopt George Carlin's idea to put land mines in the outfield. But instead of actual mines, use (organic) paint mines.

Seriously, what a f-ing joke. I hate all these rule changes other than reducing time between innings.

Why not limit warm-up pitches to two pitches for pitching changes?  Pitchers are throwing in the bullpen to get warmed up for a reason, right?  They should be ready when they come out to take the actual mound.

Something crawled under my front porch and expired.  Nasty, nasty smell.  Went to look, and it was the SF Giants.

Bumgarner pitched well.  SF gave up two runs.  Rest of it was horrid.  SF had five hits.  OF and 1B had no hits and one walk.  Bad-field-terrible-arm LF cuts off great-field-strong-arm to catch a flyball with men on base.

Ugh.