It’s his first day as the new Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and Rob Manfred is already causing a stir. In an interview with ESPN, Manfred stated he wanted to “modernize” the game. Said Manfred in the interview:
“I would be aggressive about using the clock over the long haul, I think it’s a helpful thing in terms of moving the game along. I think the second set of changes that I would look at is related, and that relates to injecting additional offense in the game. For example, things like eliminating shifts, I would be open to those sorts of ideas.”
Adding clocks to the pitchers is something I somewhat agree with. Take former Mets starter Steve Trachsel for example, who was aptly nicknamed the “Human Rain Delay,” he was well known for taking an average of about 3.7 hours between pitches, give or take.
Many of you may agree that some pitchers are adept at slowing the pace of game. The clock would definitely speed up the game. Another suggestion said by many is eliminating walk-up music, because many batters don’t step into the batters’ box until they hear a particular part in the song, which slows down the game.
However, something I love about baseball that sets it apart from football, soccer, basketball, and all the other popular sports, is that there are no clocks in it. An inning can take 10 minutes or it can last longer than half an hour, and I love that. Because I am old-fashioned, if it were up to me, I probably would not choose to implement the clocks for in between pitches. I would just make the umpires tell the pitchers and batters alike to speed the game along if it’s trudging slowly to due just standing around, just like college baseball.
Adding the clocks is one thing I don’t entirely disagree with. However, I can not just sit here and not voice my concerns over Manfred stating he would be open to eliminating defensive shifts. I completely 100% disagree with this.
My main argument for keeping the shift can be summed up with an old proverb, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Why get rid of it? More importantly, why do you want to add more offense to the game? If you want to do that, suspend Matt Harvey and Clayton Kershaw. There will always be great pitchers, and having your shortstop on one side of second base or the other isn’t going to change a strikeout.
There would be more runs scored if the shifts were outlawed, but why is that a good thing? Why is it such a priority to “inject more offense into the game?” If the Mets are playing the Dodgers in the NLCS this season, I want to see the Mets’ shortstop on the other side of the bag when lefty Adrian Gonzalez comes up, because chances are he pulls the ball. It’s strategy.
Eliminating defensive shifts from baseball is like football eliminating certain defensive alignments, or eliminating zone defense in basketball. You’re anticipating what the opponent is going to do and you act upon that assumption. If you’re wrong, you pay the price. In football, they gain a lot of yards or a touchdown. In baseball, they get a base hit.
If you want to inject more offense, why not eliminate sacrifice bunts? Implement the DH rule in the National League? Move all fences in the league in 10 feet? To me, all of those are as crazy as eliminating shifts. It’s a part of the game!
Instant replay is one way to modernize baseball as Manfred said he wants to do. It adds a few minutes to games, but overall, the game isn’t changed. Clocks doesn’t change the game, it just makes it faster. Eliminating shifts would immediately change the game of baseball and, in my opinion, must not happen.
Don’t change baseball. It’s a perfect game in an imperfect world. If teams are going to score less runs because of Kershaw, Harvey, Felix Hernandez, and others of the like, great. If Miguel Cabrera, Giancarlo Stanton, and Nelson Cruz destroy baseballs left and right, awesome. There is no need for teams to score more total runs.
Of all the games I watched last year, it was Kershaw’s no-hitter that was the most fun to watch. 15 strikeouts and no hits, literally the definition of a game without offense. But I was smiling the whole time, practically begging the Padres not to score runs, let alone get a hit. We all watched Matt Harvey in 2013 seemingly take a no hitter into the 7th almost every game. It is great fun to watch Lucas Duda hit a baseball, but it’s so much more fun to watch Matt Harvey blow a 100 mph fastball past Chase Utley.
To quote the legendary albeit fictional author Terence Mann from the Field of Dreams:
“The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.”
“But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”
The only thing Rob Manfred should change about the game is the signature on each baseball from “Bud Selig” to “Rob Manfred”. Leave the shifts alone. Leave the game alone.
