Baseball Commish Manfred open to discussing length of schedule

[NorthSideSox72]

My personal preference is to start the regular season a week later, more towards mid-April as opposed to early April, and end the season a week earlier as well. Playoff format unchanged, but starts a week earlier. Spring Training starts a week later maybe, except in WBC years.

 

[Balta1701]

My first instinct was to say no way, but as I think about it more I could see it being a decent idea. I'm probably in the minority, but I think spring training is too long. However, I couldn't very well argue to start the season early because of weather concerns...unless they somehow worked the schedule to where the first week+ is played in warm areas and/or domes. I also understand the reasoning for the long spring training.

 

Baseball being played until damn near November is a recipe for disaster, especially if the World Series ended up being the Sox vs. the Mets (or similar cold climate areas). That's certainly a pro for shortening the season by a week.

 

I also have an issue with the limited number of teams that make the playoffs. Along with the long season, some teams are essentially eliminated in July. I'd like to see a better playoff system, but to do that, you'd have to shorten the season (by more than 8 games). Adding the second WC team was a good start, though.

I totally get people saying that NFL's preseason is too long, but I don't buy that for MLB for one reason above all others - pitchers need time to get their arms stretched out and adapted to pitching every 5th day. You can't stretch out pitchers by making them throw more often, you can't stretch out pitchers by just dumping them into 5 inning games, that's the one thing you have to work up to.

 

Hitters could probably deal with a training camp 1/2 as long as the one they have now. Pitchers? Maybe you could cut a week off, but that leaves no margin for error if a guy has any setbacks or elbow tightness or dead arm or all those other things that happen during camp.

[Dick Allen]

I like 154. It works better with the added wild card to the post season.

 

But how funny that he wants to speed up the game AND add more offense, which are opposites. The more offense you add by taking away the low strike, the longer the innings, the more frequent the pitching changes, the higher the pitch counts, etc. And no matter how effective the clock would be on pitchers and hitters, it won’t offset the added time for longer offensive innings.

If they can eliminate 30 seconds per half inning, that's 9 minutes right there. Keeping guys in the box will eliminate even more than that. You elimate 15-20 minutes of down time per game, it will keep fans more engaged, and IMO grow the game. They don't have to cut an hour out of it. There is plenty of down time in baseball. Eliminating some of the unneccessary delays is good.

 

Most people don't really care if it is a long game if things are actually going on. But if it's waiting for a replay or hitter to get back in the box, or the constant trips to the mound not only by coaches (I'm looking at you Mauer), it gets old quick. I read an article last year where a 1-2-3 inning with no pitching change took almost a half an hour during a game last year.

[Balta1701]

If they can eliminate 30 seconds per half inning, that's 9 minutes right there. Keeping guys in the box will eliminate even more than that. You elimate 15-20 minutes of down time per game, it will keep fans more engaged, and IMO grow the game. They don't have to cut an hour out of it. There is plenty of down time in baseball. Eliminating some of the unneccessary delays is good.

 

Most people don't really care if it is a long game if things are actually going on. But if it's waiting for a replay or hitter to get back in the box, or the constant trips to the mound not only by coaches (I'm looking at you Mauer), it gets old quick. I read an article last year where a 1-2-3 inning with no pitching change took almost a half an hour during a game last year.

Here's a stunner.

 

I agree word for word with this post.

[Buehrlesque]

I get the weather issues but have always thought there's a surprisingly simple solution - everyone in the northeast starts the season with a 6 game road trip unless they have a dome.

 

Gets a little cold in the November part too...but that's as much for TV scheduling as anything and I don't want to lose games because TV needs an offday.

The problem with this though is that those warm weather/dome teams don't want their home schedule loaded in April either (typically lower-attended games in general, kids in school, etc.). It also could be seen as a competitive disadvantage to have less home games in crunch time at the end of the season.

[witesoxfan]

If they can eliminate 30 seconds per half inning, that's 9 minutes right there. Keeping guys in the box will eliminate even more than that. You elimate 15-20 minutes of down time per game, it will keep fans more engaged, and IMO grow the game. They don't have to cut an hour out of it. There is plenty of down time in baseball. Eliminating some of the unneccessary delays is good.

 

Most people don't really care if it is a long game if things are actually going on. But if it's waiting for a replay or hitter to get back in the box, or the constant trips to the mound not only by coaches (I'm looking at you Mauer), it gets old quick. I read an article last year where a 1-2-3 inning with no pitching change took almost a half an hour during a game last year.

 

Worst, most boring game I've ever been to was September 5th last year in Minnesota. A 10 inning game took 4:30 to complete. 17 pitchers were used. It was absolutely awful.

 

On the plus side, I was able to guzzle down 6 beers at $8 a pop, so I got kind of drunk for $50.

[Balta1701]

The problem with this though is that those warm weather/dome teams don't want their home schedule loaded in April either (typically lower-attended games in general, kids in school, etc.). It also could be seen as a competitive disadvantage to have less home games in crunch time at the end of the season.

You could have that rebalanced pretty well by the end of April IMO.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

I get the weather issues but have always thought there's a surprisingly simple solution - everyone in the northeast starts the season with a 6 game road trip unless they have a dome.

 

Gets a little cold in the November part too...but that's as much for TV scheduling as anything and I don't want to lose games because TV needs an offday.

 

Exactly. Nice weather teams get to know they'll always host true Opening Day and bad weather teams get to know their first home stand has a better chance of not being terrible weather (attendance). Pretty much a win, win throughout the league I would think

[Dick Allen]

Exactly. Nice weather teams get to know they'll always host true Opening Day and bad weather teams get to know their first home stand has a better chance of not being terrible weather (attendance). Pretty much a win, win throughout the league I would think

Most April dates in the northern cities are crapshoots. It might be really nice or really awful. If I owned the Sox, I would prefer to open the season on the road, but more important to me would be as few April home dates as possible. People just aren't going to buy advanced tickets when they can wait a month or two and know they can wear some shorts to the game.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Dick Allen

[Balta1701]

Most April dates in the northern cities are crapshoots. It might be really nice or really awful. If I owned the Sox, I would prefer to open the season on the road, but more important to me would be as few April home dates as possible. People just aren't going to buy advanced tickets when they can wait a month or two and know they can wear some shorts to the game.

After the year that Cleveland had like 6 games snowed out I vaguely recall seeing a study showing that simply having the most obvious, at-risk cities start a week later would cut down weather postponements early in the year by some ridiculous fraction, like 75% or somewhere close to that.

[LDF]

i would love the idea of the sox opening on the road or in a dome of some sorts. start the season on fri, and the first weekend series. like this the home team will have the fans there on the weekend. will help in the attendance. also start the season a week later than normal.

 

edit ~~~ i still think the season is several weeks too long.

Edited February 24, 2015 by LDF

[Dick Allen]

After the year that Cleveland had like 6 games snowed out I vaguely recall seeing a study showing that simply having the most obvious, at-risk cities start a week later would cut down weather postponements early in the year by some ridiculous fraction, like 75% or somewhere close to that.

They are starting about a week later this year. Last year the White Sox opened at home and the weather was pretty nice. It was awful a few days later when the Cubs opened. It's not just the postponements, it's playing in bad conditions, and the likelihood those conditions could occur, that will keep people away.

How many out of area White Sox fans plan a trip to Chicago to watch the White Sox in April?

[knightni]

Just play the first 8 games at the home of warm weather or domed teams.

 

Less weather issues and no lack of revenue.

[flavum]

Just play the first 8 games at the home of warm weather or domed teams.

 

Less weather issues and no lack of revenue.

 

It really doesn't matter though. Weather can be just as bad on March 31st as it can be on April 14th.

 

The first 8 of 10 series are in the division for every team. And that's probably by design so there are more opportunities to make up games later on.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

As the article states, most fulltime players averaged 150 games a year so there is that. And cutting the number of starts from an average of 32-33 to 30-31 might reduce the load on SP's? Dunno, just thinking of obvious benefits. But if the cut in games means a cut in regular season revenue then I see that as a non-starter, unless they expand playoffs by one round?? Think that make even less sense doesn't it?

Umm no the article said fewer 9 percent of position players played in 150 games. I'm good with a 154 game schedule . The only thing to do with the playiffs would be no 5 game series . Make everything 7 games except the 1 game playoff which you can increase to 3 or 5. Playoff teams then benefit from extra revenue from playoffs with full stadiums , thus more incentive to make the playoffs.