Not looking good. According to Freddie.

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/ye ... d-baseball

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I'm telling ya, and people scoff, but dropping the schedule to 120 and truly making it a summer game would be the bestest medicine they could come up with.

i agree with this. and i think the same will happen to the NFL at some point.

bloating the sport will end up making it sink under its own weight.

dropping that many games will really screw with the records and such.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Has a sports league reduced the number of games? I think adding more playoff teams would definitely generate more interest. Maybe adding some more features that will appeal to kids. This game is dying a slow death at the youth levels.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I agree in principle but I think 120 games is a little short. Maybe 148.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

you want a healthy game or not? Quit living in the past, MAN!

No, you gotta get rid of April entirely and you can't watch the WS wearing mittens

I am fine with it. I just think that will be part of the argument for not doing it.

And I dont really see how losing games suddenly makes people want to watch or play as a youth, and makes the game healthier.

Kid: I am not sure what sport to focus on.

Nardi: Baseball dropped to 148 games.

Kid: Sold, baseball for me it is!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The game needs rule changes to make trying to take walks a less effective strategy. The game is starved for balls in play.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Something called "The Cubs"?

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You can easily play 148 games if you start in late April. Bring back real scheduled doubleheaders.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Drop it to 120 and bring (2) new franchises in.

I don't think it's comparable. The NFL has weekends, and a few weeknights. It's 17 games vs. 162.

The NFL has a penalty and replay problem, but MLB has allowed replay to creep in there as well. MLB should embrace the human element and dump replay. Have the umpires call a more generous strike zone as well. Push baseball culture towards putting the ball in play. Have the umpires push these changes.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

I don't think the 40 and older crowd really has a problem with the game. If the game doesn't find a way to appeal to the youth, it will be dead in about 30 years.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Baseball as presently constituted, is a grind. All the joy has been sucked out of it for several reasons. Just making games more important means less grind.

I disagree the over 40 crowd doesn't have a problem with the game. It fucking sucks as is. I didn't watch the WS.

The games themselves are too long and it's too expensive to go to more than a few. Those things aren't helping.

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Do that and you can do 154. MLB has to embrace tradition, and get back to the game before it became a contest of walks, strikeouts and home runs.

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

It's December.

More playoff teams is not automatically a good thing. It used to mean something to make the playoffs in MLB and NFL. It still is a lot to win a division, but the WC one game kinda sucks. If they wanted to expand to a 3 game series, that would be better. Having 7 or 8 teams in each league making the playoffs in baseball simply ensures that at some point a third place 84 win team is going to win a pennant/World Series. Similarly expanding the NFL playoffs ensures that an 8-9 or 7-10 wild card team is going to play in the Super Bowl. Its just a matter of when and not if those scenarios take place if MLB and NFL further expand playoffs. The first two rounds of the NBA and NHL are largely a waste and the fact that half the league gets to play into May is ridiculous.

148 games would be fine. Highly doubt that would happen, but I would certainly be behind that. I also think they could schedule 2-3 divisional Sunday doubleheaders each season (Sox Tigers, Cubs Reds, etc) and give teams a Monday off. You could even do 7inn games on those days.

Expand the rosters to 30, with only 25 active on game day. This allows you to carry a third catcher, and have the previous and next day's starting pitcher inactive. If somebody is banged up a needs a couple days off, or a reliever threw 40 pitches the night before, they can be inactive as well. Doing this eliminates the 10 day IL and you can go back to the 15 day IL for anything that is not concussion/covid related.

It doesn't really matter to me if a game takes 3+ hours, its the downtime that really bites. Relievers don't need 8-9 pitches after coming in from the bullpen. Batters don't need to step out of the box after every pitch. Get rid of the downtime, and that would help the game. Replays are part of this. The monitor that the umps are watching should automatically shut off after 75 seconds. If you can't overturn the safe/out then, the call on the field stands.

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Again, I agree but that must be balanced against the heart of the game which is TIME and REPETITION.

Everyone complains about the length of the games but every change made just lengthens the games more.

Here are some suggestions:

1) Eliminate all replay reviews. This is a fucking game. Entertainment. It's not life and death. Sometimes the calls will be wrong. That's life.
2) Make whatever changes are necessary to reward batters who are attempting to put balls in play rather than trying to coax walks. i would start with using the rulebook strikezone- letters to knees. That may seem counterintuitive and as if it would result in even more strikeouts, but I don't believe that would practically be the case. I think the bigger strikezone would result in players looking to hit earlier in counts rather than constantly taking strike one. I would try that first and if it didn't work move on to more radical changes like a 5 ball walk.
3) They have already fucked around with the ball and lied about it. But I think a deader ball is good for the overall health of the game. The most elite sluggers should be struggling to hit 50 in a season.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

To my point above, just make the replays shorter. If its an obvious Angel Hernandez wrong call, fine take a look at that and overturn it. If its an obvious blown call it shouldn't take more than 40 or 50 seconds to overturn anyway.

Every time guys like Javy Baez slide into a bag and try to hook their arm they waive to the dugout to challenge. If your fingertip looses contact with the bag for a millisecond and you are called safe, so be it. I'm sure Rickey Henderson and Ty Cobb had the benefit of that more than once during their careers.

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People have many ideas on how to save baseball and many are good. In my mind though I cannot see the end of the biggest problem. It is triangular and unbreakable. The guaranteed contracts, the owners revenue fed by the artificially high broadcast revenues. It is like some strange inflationary cycle that makes no sense in reality.

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Elections have consequences.

The game doesn’t suck, but it has changed a lot in the past 25 years. The beauty of the game has always been the pace and human element. Sosa and McGuire saved and hurt baseball with their home run race. Fans loved the long ball and now we have a boom or bust sport that may be too slow to keep the attention of kids.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I agree on the scheduled doubleheaders.

Also MLB should have one game each day that starts at 2:30 PM EST. There are a billion sports bars showing 1985 strongman competitions at that time slot.

I really think MLB should limit each team to 4/5 pitchers per game. This would force pitchers to focus less on K’s and more on efficiency. The game now is a 5 inning or less starter followed by 5-7 relief pitchers stomping around the mound between max effort 99 MPH fastballs and 95 MPH sliders.

I think that's a good idea too.

Relax. Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

The walk numbers could easily be solved by a real strike zone.
I don't mind the natural, slower pace of the game...to an extent. I am all for putting pressure on both batters and pitchers to keep things moving along, I just don't think it's fair to do one and not the other. If you force the batters to stay in the box, then you also need to put a clock n the pitchers. Both are fine with me.

The real delays and dead space (which was blatantly obvious in the playoffs this year) is the high number of pitching changes. Something has to be done there.

162 games equates to revenue. the game would absolutely be better served by fewer games and a shorter season, but there is zero chance of this happening. Ideally baseball would live May 1 and the World Series conclude by mid-October 1, but that will never happen. You'd be looking at a max of 128 games in the regular season. It would easily make the sport better, but no one wants to look at anything that reduces revenue.

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I'm not sure I like those artificial rules, but these four-inning starters have to go. I know the game changes, but starting pitching has pretty much been the backbone of the sport. It's killing their bodies, too. If you could have Burhrle or deGrom for ten years, who would you choose? I'm gonna have to say #56, despite deGrom being insanely good.

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More double-headers is good, but . . . real double-headers or the day-night thing?

I realize players hate them, but fuck 'em.

They may be coddling themselves right out of business.

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If it wasn't for records, 120 would be plenty. No reason to pretend it wouldn't be. Baseball is being played for 7 months. 8+ if you count ST.