Quote:
Originally Posted by TomVeal
In baseball as in war, there are no infallible tactics. In time -- maybe surprisingly soon -- hitters will develop who can both achieve great launch angles/exit velocities and poke balls past the empty side of a shift. If the defense shifts, they'll ring up singles and doubles; if it doesn't, they'll pull the ball.
Changes in tactics don't bother me. What I dislike are artificial efforts to fit the game into some bureaucrat's notion of what he thinks people he's never associated with will like.
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I actually think those who run the game think people like lots of home runs. Home runs went down significantly (though so did other offense) so they livened the balls (it can't be proven to be intentional, but tests showed the baseballs were livelier).
They absolutely should change whatever about the rules will make the game more fun to watch. People will have different opinions about what that is, and I can't say with certainty that the current era with fewer balls in play turns more people off than it turns on. It turns me off, but I'm not everybody. I think they made a bad choice in bringing back lots of HR's, but they shouldn't just let the game develop and not change rules to get the results people will enjoy.
There are some types of baseball that existed at some point that I think almost everyone would agree wouldn't be enjoyable, like mid-60's baseball with a batting champion hitting .301 and very low scoring. Americans (at least) tend to dislike very low scoring games, a big reason that while soccer is so popular in most of the world, that even with so many children playing it, there are four team sports a lot more popular among Americans.
American football, however, is the most successful sport in modern times. The NFL found a sweet spot in the levels of offense, defense, and scoring, and if it wanders even a bit away from that, the rules get changed to restore it. If pass offense gets stronger, they'll change rules so defenders can hit receivers more and holding is called more often. If pass defense gets stronger. they'll do the opposite.
MLB hasn't found a sweet spot that enough can agree on, but they absolutely should change rules to make the game more entertaining, as best they can.