Have you seen this ridiculous proposal to start extra innings with a man on second?

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Freedom is our Strength.

That's dumber than overtime in college football, where the offense starts at the opposition's 25-yard line.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

It's a horrible idea that no baseball fan wants to see but it's going to happen since the player's association doesn't seem interested in other ways to get games done in a timely manner.

It is for games that don't count so who cares?

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Love it!

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

i honestly don't get the "speed up the game" thing that is constantly being talked about

if you're a fan, do you honestly care if the game is 3 hours and 2 minutes or 3 hours and 11 minutes ? It's not like they're ever going to be able to shave 1 hour off the game, we're talking minutes

and on the other side if you aren't a big fan, is the fact that a game is now 10 minutes 'quicker' going to suddenly get you to watch more games ? plus before you went making radical changes like this extra inning baserunner, you could probably limit catcher trips to the mound and other stuff like that first.

This is some stupid shit the NFL would do. Do teams carry a track guy just for his speed and ability to score in an extra inning game?

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also, i thought this was Finnish baseball at first....thought it was gonna be a thread about baseball players in Finland and i was disappointed

How about eliminating one thirty second commercial between the top and bottom of every inning? Nine minutes are saved right there.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Make the pitcher throw underhand if it gets to the 11th inning.

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I don't think its the time of the game, its the pace of play. Limiting catchers' visits to the mound and the amount of time hitters have to step out of the box and adjust their batting gloves on every pitch would drastically help the pace of play.

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I probably could care less if a baseball game is 2:45 or 3:15 really. I think tv would like to guarantee 3 hours or less? Anyway, I would like to see some lessening of all the BS within the game regardless of the total time. Mound visits, batters adjusting every pitch and the like.

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Elections have consequences.

Tom Goodwin comes to mind.

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Faster games would be better.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think you might be underestimating how much "hidden" downtime there is in a baseball game. It's not just players fucking around with their glove or adjusting their batting gloves and crotch in just the right order, think about the time in between outs/plate appearances. The absolute minimum number of PA's in a completed full-length game is 52. There are 17 PA's that lead off any given half-inning, so walk-up time doesn't matter there, but there remain 35 PA's where a batter trudges from the on-deck circle to the box. If we figure an average of 30 seconds transpire from the previous out to the pitcher's set of the next PA, that's 17.5 minutes per game of "walk-up time" at the absolute minimum.

Considering there was an average of 76 PA's per game in 2017, that leaves about 58 "walk-up" PA's on average, which results in an average of 29 minutes of "walk-up time" per game. Now consider that the "average" walk-up time used here is absurdly low (time it yourself next season, it's easily 40-55 seconds even for visitors, and sometimes much longer for the home team batters with an entrance theme). At just 40 seconds on average, the total walk-up time of each game balloons to 43 minutes.

Baseball could easily save probably 20-30 minutes of total runtime per game just by halving the amount of time players are allowed to dick around in between plate appearances. This also has the added benefit of increasing the perceived pace-of-play by the viewer while decreasing total time commitment from a little more than 3 hours on average to around 2.5.

BIBGO! Batters don't call for time, they ask for time and it is given to them. Just don't always give it to them. I hate the OCD batter's box stuff.

Starting extra innings with a man on base is an atrocity that will ruin on-base statistics forever. It's a joke, it's something you'd do in gym class.

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Making Willson Contreras limit his mound visits would save a half hour per game.

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This is 2018, what is up with signals anyway? Just use a headset to communicate, like the NFL does with the QB's. Pitchers should be wearing helmets.

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Great points. When I was watching the Jackie Robinson Little League game I was struck by how fast the game was moving. While that is an extreme, getting to a game time similar to an NBA or NHL game should be the goal.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

They're gonna destroy baseball aren't they

One thing I was thinking about is whether the league actually wants a shorter game, despite their public comments. As ticket prices have exploded, are owners fearful that customers would feel cheated by a 2-hour game? That's less time buying beer, maybe fewer commercials etc.

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2 hours- yes. 2:30 to 2:45 probably not. But what is more important the TV product for viewers or the fans in the stands? Couldn't they just let people buy beer all game long?

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I understand why they did it long ago but no beer after end of the 7th is dumb. No one gets a beer because a handful of people can't stop themselves and drive home.

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Elections have consequences.

The length of the game doesn't really matter but baseball has so much downtime that just isn't needed. Fox goes as far as trying to fill it with crowd shots for about half the time.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Baseball has not done one thing right in the last 10 or so years that I can think of.

-Replay? Disaster. Has really killed a lot of the magic of the game. "Wait for the replay" is the worst thing to happen to the game since 1919.
-The CBA has basically created a league where half the teams are actively trying to lose because rebuilding like that just works. It sucks. Competitive balance is dying, its basically a 12-15 team league.
-Every effort to speed up the game has been shit. Every single one, the games dont feel any shorter.
-Two wild cards per league with the dumb playoff has made even more teams shy to compete. There are basically 3 playoff spots in each league.
-Luxury tax has created a glut of free agents. The natural top-of-the-foodchain franchises cannot spend to open up the market. Everyone is OBSESSED with contract obligations
-No more homeplate collisions is faggotry

They are lucky they have such a great game because if the NFL or NBA was this clueless those leagues would basically be folded. Still, trying desperately to ruin it is dumb. I hate all of this. What did baseball do to deserve all this shit?

Rule doesn't make much sense to me, but it's already done in many of the youth travel leagues/tournaments ("California tie-breaker" rule). Although really, those games typically end because of time limits long before extra innings are an issue.

Why you need it in MLB....

Tough to argue any of these, even as a beneficiary of a tank to championship.

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Spot on.

And I agree with Bagels. I don't know a single baseball fan who complains about the length of the games. Sometimes I root for extra innings.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Baseball isn't a TV show. The "downtime" is when baseball fans talk to each other.

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Freedom is our Strength.

I've never understood it either.

I love baseball; I enjoy it so much that I'm spending quite a few $$$ to attend a game live and god damnit is this shit over yet so I can leave?????

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George