lwarring

Baseball should adopt the 3 ball walk rule. Baseball is full of multiples of 3 and fewer balls for a walk would encourage more strikes.

There has been many suggestions made to change the pace of play issues in baseball and I would like to suggest another. 3 ball walks. Your first reaction might be to declare such an idea as "Blasphemy!" which is understandable. Baseball has had a 4 ball walk in place for quite some time and this would be quite a change to something quite fundamental to the game. Some folks might not know that 4 balls for a walk hasn't always been a thing in baseball. The rule had evolved for some time and didn't settle on 4 until 1889. (Wikipedia article) Here are 3 reasons why I think this change would be an improvement 1. Encourage more strikes The first reason for a reduced number of allowed balls is to encourage more strikes. As a pitcher, if I have 1 fewer pitch to throw out of the zone, I would more inclined to throw strikes. More strikes should mean more swings and more contact. I believe baseball is at it's best when the ball is in play and I believe more strikes being thrown would help that. 2. Quicker at bats. Outside of the effect of more strikes being thrown, the elimination of an extra called ball would shorten long at bats automatically. You could argue that the number of at bats that go to a 3 ball count are small, which might be true but the combination of 1 less ball being thrown and an approach that favors more strikes, I think this would make a difference. 3. The rule of three Baseball is a game designed around the number 3 and multiples of 3. 9 players, 90 feet, 3 strikes, 3 outs, etc. It almost seems odd that the number of balls allowed should not be 3. If you are a bit OCD like me, 4 balls for a walk just seems out of balance.

I have thought the same thing. It's hard to know just how much impact a hitting coach has on a team, but I felt like disciplined at bats where less frequent last year for many. Its still to be seen if last year was an oddity or the start of a trend. fingers crossed.

I agree. It's just noise for noise's sake. Then again, I struggle with all the forced noise even when I am at the ballpark. The constant air raid noises and prompts to cheer get old, quickly. Its like someone got a new toy and can't get enough of it.

I like the idea of a female play by play announcer, but I suspect Dan wouldn't do well with it. He seems to need to constantly show he is the alpha male with Cory and I suspect would do the same thing with a female play-by-play announcer.

I get frustrated with Byron's unwillingness to recognize that making the ESPN highlights isn't worth being on the IL for 10 days or worse. The rest of his team needs him to stay healthy and that may mean making smarter choices about contact with the wall. Not sure if this is Rocco's job or Nelson's job to pull him aside and say "We love the effort, but we need you on the field. Turn it down from 11"

I have always assumed a catcher's ability to call a game (pitch selection) has got to me their most valuable asset. What pitches are thrown and where they are thrown seems to be a huge factor in pitcher success and unless a pitcher is shaking off a catcher often, the catcher is the one deciding how best to deceive the hitter. Unless a pitcher has a very simple (therefore predictable) pitch pattern it would depend almost entirely on a catcher to determine pitch choice. A catcher that knows the right pitch sequence and placement would automatically make your pitching staff better and one that doesn't or is too predictable in their choices can only make hitting easier for the opposition. As a batter, a catcher can only make an impact 3 to 5 times a game and even if they are great only make a positive impact 1 or 2 times a game on average. A starting pitcher can only make an impact once every five days and then rarely for more than 7 innings. So, wouldn't it make sense to accept a catcher that bats .125 if they can call a good game since they would be making a positive impact almost every game and for the entire game?

I would argue against any expansion of the 25 man roster. Imagine how long it would take to complete a game if managers had access to a 12-15 man bullpen. We would see matchups starting in the 5th inning. I believe this would also be the ramification of shortening games to 7 innings or less. If pitchers only had to cover 7 innings, matchups might begin in the 3rd or 4th inning and a 7 inning game would still take 3 hours.

If the younger crowd are bored with anything other than home runs and strikeouts, should MLB give that to them? Should baseball become (even more of) a Home run derby contest if it satisfies the short attention spans of today's youth? In my opinion, shifting the advantage to the hitter, but in a way that doesn't make everything about the home run would help. Larger parks? Baseball is at its best when the ball is in play.

Good for the fans but bad for the Twins financially = not likely.

I agree. MLB pushes opening day earlier and earlier and WS starts later and later. I think this is the issue. Theres no reason to play baseball in March or November. Dbl headers or shorter schedule is the solution. they will never do it due to revenue loss, but it'd be the right thing to do. April 15 - Sept 15th ish with playoffs until Oct 15

I would think a 'mound visit' is anything that can't be done within the pitch clock time. If the catcher can talk to the pitcher when returning the ball and they can deliver the pitch before the timer hits bottom, no problem. If they have to call time for the visit, then it's a mound visit.

I agree, shortening time between pitches should be a focus. Less willingness to grant time out for a batter, perhaps. Allow the pitcher to begin delivery when they are ready instead of having to wait for the batter to do their lengthy routine before every pitch. Pitch clock with a ball called if not delivered on time. I would like to see some tweaks to how replay is done. Instead of waiting on every close play for a team to review a replay and call the field and indicate if it needs review, how about if they simply have 5 or 10 seconds to say they want it reviewed. if a manager is sure it's wrong, call for a review immediately, else move on. For 100 years baseball survived with a few missed calls.

Glen is/was definitely a true MinneSOta Twin. Grew up here, played college ball here, to my knowledge wintered over here.. Maybe I missed something in his final game, but I couldn't figure out why, if Molitor's intent was to give Glen a farewell outing, he didn't send him out to start an inning so he could get a cheer on his way off the field, and why it wasn't on Sunday instead of Saturday. I kinda felt like it wasn't very obvious what was going on, if that was the intent.

#1 - I think this will only work if they eliminate the 'loop-hole' where stepping off resets the clock. If you don't pitch within X seconds of getting the ball back, it's called a ball, no matter what. Not the end of the world. #3 - The loophole here is 'injury'. What do you do if all the allotted relief pitchers were used up and the current one is injured (for real or pretend)? Also, any change to relief pitcher changes is still going to be limited to 2 minutes minimum 'cause the TV folks are going to want it to be a commercial break. #4 - two thumbs up. The decision process for a review now is a joke. #6 - I don't mind bunting, so I would have to disagree. I think baseball is at it's best when the ball is in play. To me, baseball that is all strikeouts and home runs isn't as enjoyable. The more time we can watch something going on, even if it's just a runner being thrown out, the better.

The Tigers seem like the poster child for why a GM wouldn't just throw money at the problem when trying to improve a club. It seems the owner decided to go 'all in' a few years ago and then continued to spend even when the formula didn't work.

I will go against the grain here and suggest keeping Plouffe and consider trading Sano, provided it was for a game changing pitcher. Sano may end up being great, but we have enough bats now and coming up. What we seem to always lack is top level pitching. Take a risk and get an ace and trust that we will have plenty of bats to fill in the void. I feel the Twins farm system seems to be good at identifying and/or creating good position players but seems to lack the ability to scout or develop good arms.

For God's sake... bring back the pine trees and end the madness