By Jordan Long
Major League Baseball is well into Spring Training. There are new rules to increase the pace of play. MLB thought about having a pitch clock but decided against it. There will be a limit on mound visits this season. According to CBSsports.com, Commissioner of Major League Baseball Rob Manfred said, “I am pleased that we were able to reach an understanding with the Players Association to take concrete steps to address pace of play with the cooperation of players. My strong preference is to continue to have ongoing dialogue with players on this topic to find mutually acceptable solutions.”
The rule is 6 mound visits per game and teams can have one more for every extra inning played. A catcher who needs to converse with a pitcher can do so but that counts as a mound visit.
I agree with limiting mound visits by coaches. Sometimes coaches spend a lot of time talking to the pitchers. For every trip out it adds time to the game, especially in tight baseball games. This means in close games they can’t talk to their pitcher if they exceed the allowed amount of jaunts and it could end up hurting a team in those close games.
The problem with the rule is catchers need to talk to their pitchers. It helps the pitcher calm down when they are throwing the ball wildly. If they limit this, catchers won’t be able to talk to their pitcher, which could be important especially for strategy. They will need to rely on signs. If they fail to converse, it could cost them the game.
Major league Baseball is trying to speed up the game. This is understandable. I agree with limiting mound visits by the coaches but not by the catcher. It will be interesting to see how this influences the games this year. A team may lose a game because they are at the limit of their visits. Once the year is over, we will see if time was really saved per game.
What do you think of Major League Baseball limiting the mound visits?
This is a start. That’s all it is. The biggest thing is to get rid of Nomaritis. Nomar Garciaparra started this undoing gloves and fastening them back together again. I saw a player w/o gloves in the 2017 WS and it was so refreshing. Baseball to me is too slow and boring. If MLB could stop hitters from backing out of the batters box after every pitch and stop this thing w/the gloves that would speed up the game. Another thing is pitchers playing around w/their hat and other things on the mound before they pitch the ball. If you can do away w/all of this figeting/fussing around it would speed up the games. I can remember when NL games would be over in about 2 hours. Not that way today.