The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Manfred: MLB open to making changes
Stagnant games ‘troubling froma fan perspective.’
MIAMI — With home runs, strikeouts and game times at record levels, Commissioner Rob Manfred says baseball is open to making changes in the sport’s rules.
Major League Baseball proposed several initiatives last off season, including a 20-second pitch clock, a limit of one mound trip by a catcher per pitcher each inning and raising the bottom of the strike zone slightly to its pre1996 level. The only change the union agreed to was to allow intentional walks to be signaled without throwing pitches.
“There have been dramatic changes in the game, the way the game’s taught, the way the game is played at the big league level,” Manfred said Tuesday during a meeting with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America .“There is a dramatically increased tolerance for strikeouts by offensive players. There’ s much, much more emphasis on the home run as the principal offensive tool in the game. There’s a dramatic increase in the use of relief pitchers, even to the point of kind of a rotating bottom of the roster between Triple-A and who’s in the big leagues.”
The percentage of plate appearances resulting in home runs peaked at 2.99 percent in 2000, the height of the Steroids Era, according to data compiled by the commissioner’s office. After sinking to 2.28 percent in 2014, it rose to 2.67 percent the following year, 3.04 percent last season and 3.30 percent this year.
The percentage of plate appearances resulting in strikeouts has increased for 12 consecutive years, from 16.4 percent in 1999 to 21.6 percent this season.
“Fans like home runs, it seems, and fans like strikeouts, it seems, and we have a lot of both,” players’ association head Tony Clark said.
Manfred agreed, but only if the strikeouts are by a dominant pitcher, such as a Clayton Kershaw.
“I think where it gets troubling froma fan perspective is tons and tons of strikeouts, no action, lots of pitching changes,” Manfred said.
The average ratio of relievers to starters per game has climbed from2.01 in 1990 to 3.15 last season. It stands at 3.10 this year at the All-Star break but rises each season after active rosters expand from 25 to 40 on Sept. 1.
MLB also is concerned about the increasing length of games. Nine-inning games have averaged 3 hours, 5minutes this season, up from 2:56 in 2015.
On other topics:
■ MLB may award multiple All-Star Games to host cities. Next year’s game will be at Washington and in Cleveland in 2019. The Dodgers (who last hosted in 1980) and Cubs (1990) hope to get All-Star Games.
■ MLB expect sits efforts will cause a rebound in the number of African-American players, just 7.7 percent on opening-day rosters this year, down from18 percent in 1991. “I think the draft results suggest that we have made a difference and I’m very optimistic you will see an increase in the number of African-American players at the big league level,” Manfred said.