Allow me to play protagonist in opposition to the Brave New World experiments that MLB is conducting in the minor leagues in the hopes of importing them to the majors.
British author Aldous Huxley described his 1931 novel, Brave New World, as a “negative utopia,” a parody of novels that portrayed a hopeful vision of the future. Set in a futuristic World State whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the book lays out a dystopian society that is challenged by two protagonists, Bernard and John.
Might we apply Huxley’s fiction to baseball? Yes, we can, and for some changes, I am too late.
We already have the pitch timer, which speeds up the game but takes away the tension of dramatic moments when the pitcher might need extra time to compose himself. Some pitchers work faster than others. Does anyone remember Luis Tiant’s endless windup? Mark “The Bird” Fidrych talking to the ball? Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky walking off the back of the mound, then turning back and charging to the rubber? Now we have uniformity – baseball’s Brave New World.
In addition, MLB has already
–increased the size of the bases (which Red Sox manager Alex Cora says look like pizza boxes);
–eliminated defensive shifts
–extended the designated hitter rule to the National League
–limited mound visits
–imposed a three-batter minimum for relief pitchers (greatly reducing the lefty-righty mental chess that managers employ and I enjoy)
–allowed managers to signal for an intentional walk instead of making the pitcher throw four balls (doing away with the possible drama of a wild pitch)
–required batters to keep one foot in the batter’s box during their at-bat (eliminating the natural tendency for a batter to step out to refocus in a tense moment)
–limited the pitcher to three pickoff attempts, and (the crown jewel)
–started extra innings with a man on second base, which I put right up there with Huxley’s depiction of citizens being engineered through artificial wombs!
MLB is not done yet. They have experimented in the minors with moving the rubber one foot back, increasing the pitching distance to 61 feet, six inches. MLB can sure spin a ridiculous gimmick, calling the change “meaningful without being disruptive.” Fortunately, MLB hasn’t adopted that one yet–the goal of fewer strikeouts.
I want someone to create a graph. The Y-axis would be the number of strikeouts. The X-axis (although too subjective to chart) would be the number of hitters who are more concerned with launch angle and hitting the ball out of the park than getting on base. I predict the graph would show a direct correlation.
Baseball has become “hit a home run, strike out, or walk,” and neither the players nor the managers — and especially not the sabermetric-guided general managers — seem to care much about the strikeouts.
The reason everyone is striking out is that they are jumping out of their spikes, trying to hit the ball out of the park. It is simple geometry to recognize that when you are uppercutting rather than swinging on an even plane, your odds of hitting the ball decline drastically. Also, if you are holding the bat down at the knob, you have less control and are less likely to make contact.
I see this tendency at the high school level in softball and baseball, where even the smallest hitters hold the bat down at the very end, often resulting in a longer time to move the bat through the strike zone.
Yes, pitchers have increased velocity and spin rate. But I’m sure bat speed has increased for all these MLB hitters who lift weights and work out year-round. They need to apply that speed to making contact instead of trying to hit the ball out of the yard with every swing.
I used to care a lot if I struck out. It is something that is actually under the control of the batter to a great degree by simply prioritizing making contact. But players don’t seem too bothered by getting rung up anymore.
Herb Washington (photo courtesy Baseball Hall of Fame)
MLB has also experimented in the minors with a designated pinch runner who can be substituted at any point in the game as a baserunner. Does anyone remember sprinter Herb Washington, who played in 105 MLB games for the Oakland A’s without batting, pitching, or fielding, playing exclusively as a pinch runner? The “double-hook” designated hitter eliminated a team’s right to use a DH if the starting pitcher doesn’t go five innings, meaning pitchers would then have to hit for themselves.
The goal, according to ESPN, is “to see starters pitch longer into games, creating more value for them and increasing late-game strategy.”
Isn’t that what National League fans have been saying all along, that the DH killed not only late-game but all in-game strategy? So, all of a sudden, MLB wants that strategy back?
Next up: the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) System. In other words, robot umpires. Rather than completely remove the umpire from the process, MLB experimented in this year’s spring training games with a hybrid challenge system. Umpires called the game as usual, but each team had two chances to challenge a pitch per game.
When challenged, the ABS determined whether the call should be overturned. I can live with that, just as I already live with the timeouts for challenges in the NBA. But this could be the slippery slope to ABS for every pitch, thus eliminating the human element. I have to admit I enjoy watching batters, pitches, and managers react to the occasional awful umpire call.
Coming soon: the automated check-swing call. The only problem is that the MLB rulebook doesn’t define a checked swing. It just says a swing is “an attempt to swing at the ball.”
But I’m afraid all my protests, like those of Bernard and John in Brave New World, will be in vain. Baseball rules are not set in stone like the Ten Commandments. But neither should they be at the mercy of today’s sabermetric gurus.
