Baseball’s Plan To Save Itself From Boredom: An Update

hey it's Michael this week the daily is. revisiting some of our favorite episodes. of the Year listening back and hearing. what's happened in the time since they. first ran today we return to a historic. plan that Major League Baseball rolled. out this past spring to try and save the. sport from the tyranny of the Home Run. and then explore whether the plan has. actually worked it's Friday December. 29th.

so Mike the last time that we had you on. to talk about baseball you came on to. talk about how the sport was weathering. or not weathering the pandemic and the. reason we've asked you to come back is. because baseball is now experiencing. another major change so tell us about. that change this season baseball will. operate under new rules that are the.

biggest changes in on the- field play. certainly in my lifetime if not the. history of the game wow just give me a. couple tastes of this change there's. three big rule changes coming this. season the pitch clock kind like a shot. clock sort of yeah a shot clock that is. a big change what else the bases are. bigger you won't be able to notice it. with your ey. [Laughter].

but they are bigger correct and then you. have major league baseball creating. these rules about where Defenders. fielders in the field can. stand what is driving these changes Mike. baseball is facing a semi existential. threat in terms of its appeal to fans. mhm.

the game has become not only too long. but too boring the non baseball fan or. baseball hater will sort of be laughing. at that because they'll say it was. always boring it was always. boring but it has tipped over the edge. and I think as a fan and as someone who. has covered the game and keeps a close. eye on it and still talks to people. within the game that the home run is to.

blame hm that is a provocative thesis. yeah look the game has become addicted. to the Home Run and because of that. addiction to the most exciting play in. the game the whole game has become. boring so explain how it is that the. home run has made baseball boring how we. got to this point where we need these. reforms so to understand that we need to.

go back to the early days of Major. League Baseball where the Home Run was. this engine that powered the growth of. the sport way back in the early 1900s. home runs were not the key driving force. of the game mhm but then came the. 1920s a hard-hitting lefty named Babe. Ruth comes along and.

captures the. country's attention through his slugging. that ball blazes like a bullet when he. connected this is the site the fans came. to see. Ruth and helped the sports popularity. grow and set it on a. trajectory that it follows in the. decades that. come the Home Run comes to create and. Define the IC ionic moments and players.

of the. game the Bobby Thompson shot her round. the. world figures like Mickey Mantle Hank. Aaron it's gone it's. 7:15 there's a new home run champion of. all times and it's. Henry and then the story of the Home Run. takes a dramatic turn in the 99s fans.

witness this extraordinary. Chase between Mark Maguire and Samy Sosa. to break the single season home run. [Music]. record hello and goodbye home run number. 58 for Maguire make it 59 6 number. 61 Maguire Feelgood story of two.

Sluggers crisscrossing the country as. they try to hit the most home. [Music]. runs here comes the man of the hour Mark. Maguire who is on the night of September. 8th. 1998 Maguire and Sosa are actually. playing against each other and with the. whole country.

watching down the left field line is it. enough. gone there it is Maguire breaks the. record and the Home Run has never been. more Central correct but what happens is. that in the years that follow we find. out that that chase that felt so good. was built in part on a lie that the. players were using Bann drugs steroids.

correct and it leads to a reckoning in. the sense that the sport needs to police. itself from performance-enhancing drugs. but by no means does anyone turn away. from the Home Run why not because a new. phenomena further fuels the drive for. the Home Run M and that's the money. ballif foration of. baseball.

all I just explain that for the 25. listeners who didn't read the book or. watch the movie teams become very. focused on statistics and the greatest. chances. mathematically of scoring and preventing. runs let me give you an example of what. this looks like teams have so much data. about where players are hitting the ball. that they begin to rearrange their.

defenses and as the sport is grappling. with all of these changes on the field. the Home Run. emerges as Far and Away the most. appealing way to score right because. it's the only way to literally transcend. and cut through all these data driven. defenses that you just described unless. you're going to put your players on each. other's shoulders in the Outfield to try. and stop the ball from going over the.

fence there's nothing your fielders can. do so in the wake of a steroid Scandal. that was in part inspired by perhaps an. overemphasis on home runs we get a data. driven system that still. overemphasizes arguably home runs all. roads keep leading back in baseball to. the Home Run and it becomes so extreme. that it leads to the problem of boredom.

that the sport is now. confronting we'll be right. back so like how. exactly do home runs become boring home. runs themselves are not. boring but everything else that comes. with everyone in the game concentrating. on them is.

because instead of trying to learn how. to spray the ball around the field. hitters start to concentrate on doing. everything they can to just try and hit. a home run they Chang their swing to. have more of an uppercut to try and hit. it out of the park but because you're. swinging up you're also more likely to. miss so when the process of this. happening you end up with one of three. results a strikeout a.

walk or a home run and home runs don't. happen all that often so the action on. the field goes way down because you. don't have just regular good. old-fashioned hits right you don't have. good oldfashioned baseball anymore you. just kind of have an endless Home Run. Derby at the same time teams that are. pitching are trying to do everything to. prevent that home run so they're. bringing in different pitchers they are.

encouraging pitchers to try and make. sure that they get that strike out so. there's no contact to the bat mhm and. all of these things are slowing the game. down correct and games become longer. they become 20 to 30 minutes longer on. average and so at what point does the. league say to itself all right enough we. have got to do something about this. we've got to make this sport more fun we. got to make it faster so it being. baseball it took a.

while and in this story there's one. person who made that call so I went. directly to him the commissioner of. baseball Rob. Manford so I've KNN you for almost 17. years we have screamed at each other but. I remember so what does man in here. today so he knows there's a problem we. did fan based research and fans wanted a.

game brisker Pace more athleticism they. wanted that best form of baseball back. it was it because baseball was too. boring I don't think it was too boring I. think that baseball changed he doesn't. say that baseball has a boring problem. disected he confirms that there's a real. Pace issue I had a great consensus we. needed to fix this so over many years he.

plots this change waiting till you got. an agreement so that the players. understood it was coming talking to. players about them we refined the rules. we had testing at the minor league level. what these changes would be we played. 8,000 games in the minor league. literally with these rules all that work. finally. culminates this season so tell me more. about these rule changes you started to.

hint at them at the beginning of our. conversation let's do it in more depth. and how they're supposed to actually fix. baseball's problems so again there's. three big changes coming this season the. pitch clock the bigger bases and where. fielders can stand in the field so let. me start with the. fielders remember we talked about those. data driven defenses essentially. computers telling teams where players. should be on the field right which of.

course encourages people at bat to just. hit home runs over the fielders heads. you can't do that anymore you can't. stack the defense on one side and. because of that it opens up much more. space for a player to hit a ground ball. or a base hit up through the middle or. through one of the holes got it and like. what about the pitch clock what does. that have to do with the home run on the. face of it it doesn't have anything to. do with the home run.

Sluggers will still be waiting for the. perfect pitch but the fact that there's. a clock means that the pitches will be. coming more quickly and the game will be. moving faster a Ticker on your screen. that gives the pitcher 15 or 20 seconds. to deliver a pitch H and if the pitcher. doesn't pitch before the clock goes off. it's a ball got it and then you have. have the larger bases right one of the.

byproducts of the push for the Home Run. meant that if you had a runner on base. and you were looking at the numbers you. wouldn't want the runner to try and. steal H because the risk of getting. called out stealing was too great. because if the batter hit the home run. that person would never come home. correct and you wouldn't get the extra. run so it was worth it to not steal mhm. of course stealing is exciting stealing.

is exciting it's perhaps the most. action-packed. non-home run event of the game and those. larger bases it just makes it easier to. steal MH and it also makes the game a. bit safer because bigger bases gives. more space and potentially less. collisions right at the same time. there's a new rule that limits the. number of times a pitcher can try and. pick off a runner h because it's just. slowing the game.

down so my ticking together this is a. campaign to make baseball more exciting. by doing a few things elevating the. other parts of the game that aren't home. runs like the base hit or the stolen. base and making those home run hitters. just be less of a drag on the overall. pace of the game yeah I mean I think the. way to look at it is that baseball's not. trying to kick the home run right.

they're trying to kick the problems and. things that come with it that there's. other things going on got it I'm very. curious Mike how baseball players and. fans have been reacting to these new. rules. surprisingly it's been. embraced and spring training games are. more than 20 minutes shorter than they. were last year more balls are being hit. in play more players are trying to steal.

bases but as Manford and I talked about. the real test starts in the regular. season right when the games actually. matter what could go. wrong well lots of stuff could go around. this is a high-risk undertaking and in. theory you could imagine moments where. teams blame a loss on one of these new. rules and it'll all come down on Manford. baseball is different it occupies a.

place in our culture that is very very. different and it comes with the burden. that when you make a mistake people care. a hell of a lot more about it than if it. was in another Sport and if the. criticism gets to a certain point. they'll find somebody else to take the. job and I'm okay with that I really am. you know of course there's a very strong. possibility that these rule changes. won't make make Manfred a lightning rod.

that they're going to be embraced maybe. they're even going to be celebrated. right they're going to make the sport. better and maybe even Usher in a golden. era in the sport Golden Era I don't know. about that but a more appealing faster. efficient product that is not going to. take 4 hours to watch a 9 Inning game. mhm good. chance and and in that sense we're.

watching an American. institution Embrace new and different. things in a potentially positive way. which is you know progress progress a. bit. remarkable oh Mike as always thank you. very much thanks for having. me after the break Mike Schmidt gives us. an update on how the first season went.

with those new rules in. [Music]. place it's now the end of the year and. the baseball season and its playoffs are. long in the books so to get a sense of. how these rule changes went I called up. commissioner Rob Manford to see what he. thought and he was extremely pleased I. mean you don't need to be the. commissioner to look at the numbers and.

see that this went about as well as. baseball could have. hoped well the fastest Game of the Year. in 1 hour and 50 5 minutes wow the time. of game came down substantially almost a. half an hour Jack do you guys have. dinner plans tonight or what this was a. lightning quick game um no not not that. I know of.

and there was more action Middleton's. first pitch Seager hits it there were. more hits than last. season but perhaps the biggest most. dramatic change was that stolen bases. went through the roof there goes yell. dancing around there he goes there he. goes throw to second base on one hop he. is safe at second this season there were. more stolen bases across the game than. there had been in any year over the past.

three decades a Mad Dash around the. bases for yell so what we ended up with. was a season in which the number of home. runs did not go down but the other. action on the field went. up one of the things that Manfred was. happiest about was that baseball saw all.

of these benefits without any major. disasters along the. way he said look the players adjusted to. this even more quickly and efficiently. than we thought they would there weren't. as many violations of the new rules that. changed the outcome of games in really. high-profile and disastrous. ways baseball still faces some.

significant. challenges its World Series had its. lowest ratings in history which is not a. great sign on the other hand 70 million. fans went to games this year which is. the highest number since 2017 certainly. a bounceback to prepandemic. levels and there was just this feeling. that baseball was even more relevant. than it ever had been there was a buzz.

around it and as a lifelong fan I was. like well that's that's kind of. [Music]. cool today's episode was produced by Rob. zipco and Carlos PRI with help from will. Reed and muj Zi it was edited by Lexi di.

with help from Michael benois it was. fact checked by Susan Lee contains. original music by Dan Powell Alicia be. and Diane W and was engineered by Chris. Wood our theme music is by Jim brunberg. and Ben Lanser of. wonderl the daily is made by Rachel quer. Lindsay Garrison Clare tennis ketter. Paige cowt Michael Simon Johnson Brad. fiser Chris Wood Jessica Chung Stella.

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Sophia Milan mahima chablani Elizabeth. Davis Moore Jeffrey Miranda renan. burelli Maddie masello Isabella Anderson. and Nina. lassam that's it for the daily I'm. Michael babbaro from all of us here at. the daily happy New Year we'll see you. in. 2024. [Music].