He's only been baseball commissioner for a couple of days and already he is thinking about destroying the natural evolution of the game.
Rob Manfred is not what baseball needs right now. The first act he is considering? Banning defensive shifts. You know, the ones where infielders KNOW where certain hitters are likely to hit the ball and then position themselves accordingly.
He thinks that's limiting runs. And since fans want to see more runs, he's going to stop those shifts.
What next? Removing the defensive players' gloves? I'm sure we'd see more offense that way, too. And bring in the outfield fences about 30 feet. We'll see way more home runs, too.
Only an idiot would be this short-sighted about such a major new rule. It doesn't belong in baseball. And if this is only the FIRST change he's trying to accomplish, I can't imagine what's coming next.
I didn't think I'd long for the days of Bud Selig. Bud's been gone for less than a week and I miss him already.
And IF Manfred would do his homework, he'd discover that the league batting averages of balls hit in play are actually UP in 2012-2013 (.298) versus way back in 2000-2002 (.296) when balls were flying out of parks in record numbers. The shifts have not hurt baseball, just some poorer hitters who haven't learned to (or don't know how to) adjust.
I was hoping that someone with a brain would be the new commissioner. It looks like I was hoping for too much.
How far is a shift? Maybe they need chalk lines for fielder boxes at each base.
ReplyDeleteALL shifts started at sometime in baseball history. It's ALWAYS based on where hitters have a tendency to hit. That IS the game. It's too bad the commissioner thinks he has the power to stop defenses and their strategies.
ReplyDelete