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New MLB Commissioner would eliminate defensive shifts to support more scoring
I'm surprised I'm the first to post this. It was reported end of January.
This is more horrible an idea than the DH ... and shocking, especially coming from the mouth of the baseball commissioner.
Where the fuck do they dig up these morons? First Selig. Now Manfred.
Cliff Corcoran of Sports Illustrated:
Rob Manfred officially became baseball’s 10th commissioner Sunday morning (Jan 25, 2015). In so doing, he stepped out of the shadow of predecessor Bud Selig and into a white-hot spotlight that immediately scalded him. In a SportsCenter interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech, Manfred stoked the ire of baseball fans by not only throwing his support behind the idea of pitch clocks -- which I’ve already railed against in this space -- but by saying that he would be willing to eliminate defensive shifts as a means of boosting offense.
That idea has been floated before, but to hear it come out of the commissioner's mouth is shocking. That’s not just because it would be incredibly difficult to codify (for reasons included below), but because, even more than the idea of pitch clocks, banning shifts would fly in the face of the very nature of the game.
If the first rule of hitting is Wee Willie Keeler’s maxim to “hit ‘em where they ain’t,” the first rule of defense is “play ‘em where they hit ‘em.” Defensive positioning is such a fundamental part of the sport at every level that it’s absurd to even consider limiting a team’s ability to position its fielders however it wants. At every level, fielders come way in for the weaker hitters, move way back for the big boppers and shift around for the rare lefty. Are we to believe that major league hitters need more protection from defensive strategies than Little Leaguers?
http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/01/26/rob-manfred-defensive-shifts-mlb-commissioner
That idea has been floated before, but to hear it come out of the commissioner's mouth is shocking. That’s not just because it would be incredibly difficult to codify (for reasons included below), but because, even more than the idea of pitch clocks, banning shifts would fly in the face of the very nature of the game.
If the first rule of hitting is Wee Willie Keeler’s maxim to “hit ‘em where they ain’t,” the first rule of defense is “play ‘em where they hit ‘em.” Defensive positioning is such a fundamental part of the sport at every level that it’s absurd to even consider limiting a team’s ability to position its fielders however it wants. At every level, fielders come way in for the weaker hitters, move way back for the big boppers and shift around for the rare lefty. Are we to believe that major league hitters need more protection from defensive strategies than Little Leaguers?
http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/01/26/rob-manfred-defensive-shifts-mlb-commissioner
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
They want more scoring! Doucebags. Why not move the fences in 50 feet and make foul balls no longer count as strikes ... make pitchers throw only fastballs ... eliminate one position player ... wtf else???
certainly in a baseball thread.
