Wrapping Up, Early
With a new season of Major League Baseball looming, hopefully, this piece has inspired many of you to write your commissioner and lobby for some of these sweeping changes to be enacted.
More from Call to the Pen
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- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
But don’t feel constrained by just these five! Here are some honorable mentions to chew on while you’re sitting through that next call to the bullpen:
- Forget a baseball diamond: can you say baseball triangle?
- Pitcher vetoes- Once per nine innings, a team’s pitcher is allowed to pick one batter that is just out automatically. No questions asked, no time wasted.
- Manager overrides- Imagine this. Next time Dave Roberts calls on Kenley Jansen to pitch, or Cody Bellinger to pinch hit, Bruce Bochy gets to make him choose Sergio Romo or Chase Utley instead.
- Bring back the mercy rule. Good enough for little league, good enough for the big leagues.
- Cut back on commercial breaks: hockey and soccer seem to be pretty popular, and they have way fewer commercials than baseball does.
Next: Will these new rule changes speed the game up?
Whoops. That last one was serious. Not sure how that slipped in there.
Happy spring training, everyone!