Manfred accepts pace agreement
Commissioner also pleased to see recent signings
GLENDALE, Ariz. – After a rancorous and at times confounding offseason, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred did not enact the sweeping changes he sought in pace of play initiatives.
Instead, he’s left with a trial year in which to speed up the game – and an uneasy peace with the Major League Baseball Players Association.
Manfred reflected the frayed if not damaged relationship between labor and management Tuesday afternoon as he addressed the news media at a Cactus League event.
“We did not proceed with rules we could have changed unilaterally,” Manfred said, referring to pitch clocks and timers to ensure batters remain in the box. “Instead, we made an agreement with our players.”
That agreement kept the clocks out of the game but ushered in a cap on mound visits – no more than six per nine innings by player or coach.
While there has been blowback from players – Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli stated flatly that it’s simply “not baseball,” – many players believe it won’t make a material difference.
However, MLB Chief Baseball Officer Joe Torre noted Tuesday that the cap will severely impact some teams. He said in 2017, major league teams averaged seven mound visits. However, some teams averaged as many as 16 mound visits per game.
Manfred said players acknowledging that pace was a problem helped forge the agreement.
“Publicly and privately, players admitted pace of game was an issue,” Manfred said, “and an issue we needed to improve on. Given that public acknowledgment, it was prudent to proceed in a limited manner.
“We reserved our rights to proceed on the clocks in 2019 if we decide that’s the case. I’m hopeful we’ll see progress this year and that we’ll see ingoing dialogue with players.”
Said Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw: “We all want to play a quick game, to have a crispness to it, to create the best product out there for the fans. There’s a crispness to it when a game is 2 hours, 45 minutes. The three, four-hour games I don’t think benefit anybody. Sometimes the game will dictate that, but everyone benefits from a quicker game.
“Ultimately, the commissioner’s office gave us enough dialogue to where we didn’t agree with everything they implemented, but it’s not going to effect the integrity of the game.”
Meanwhile, Manfred seemed relieved that two of the top free agents available this off-season – outfielder J.D. Martinez and first baseman Eric Hosmer – found homes with the Boston Red Sox and San Diego Padres. They remained unsigned as of Manfred’s last public comments.
Martinez got $110 million for five years from Boston, while Hosmer received a franchise-record $144 million from the San Diego Padres. Jake Arrieta, the 2015 NL Cy Young Award winner, remains unsigned, and Martinez’s contract in particular seemed well below both his own expectations and those within the industry.
And while more than 70 free agents overall remain unsigned Manfred nonetheless sought vindication in the fact that the deals they ultimate agreed to mirrored press reports from weeks earlier.
“We’re glad that in the last few days we’ve seen a number of important signings in the free agent market,” he said. “At the end of the day, we want players signed. I guess I would just make a couple points:
“Market activity is, by definition, bilateral. Clubs make offers and players and agents have to accept that offer. For a number of weeks I’ve been saying that there were press reports about those offers.
“I think recent activity suggests those press reports were accurate and part of the delay was players deciding to accept those offers. There’s nothing wrong with that. It does take two parties to make an agreement.”