MLB commisioner Rob Manfred has announced that he will retire in 2029. How do you think he has done so far? And what can he do the next five years to further the game of baseball?
Humidors everywhere? The sanctity of the statistics must be preserved
Freely available data and stats! You can do super cool queries on some data and even find archival clips on the MLB Film Room site
Negatives:
Astros sign stealing scandal, both the investigation (news orgs had to bring it to light) and the punishment were really poorly handled
Fucking with the baseballs both juicing (possibly tainting a single season HR record?) and deadening them. You gotta be consistent in-season for the sanctity of the statistics
Humidors everywhere? Isn’t it kind of fun that the ball plays differently in different stadiums because ya know, some places are dry and others are wet. Kind of like how each stadium is a little different
Extra innings ghost runner. This has been said enough times but I’ll just add my voice in here too: it’s awful and must go
Inter-league play
Blackout restrictions
Neutrals
Humidors everywhere
Bigger bases
Universal DH
All in all…I’m torn. I appreciate some rule changes that shorten game time without affecting the all holy numbers. But I don’t really like the standardization he’s brought to the game. Some of my favorite things about baseball are the unique characteristics of each team, city, and stadium. Baseball is a local game, not a national one like the other major sports. I’m intensely invested in my team’s division and, to a lesser extent, those in my league.
Robert Manfred is the only commissioner worse than Bud Selig. Baseball has perfected the art of trading ten dollars tomorrow for one dollar today under his stewardship.
Kill the guy on second… The “Manfred Man,” The “Zombie Runner,” etc… Figure out something better for extra innings. It’s almost embarrassing, especially when explaining it to kids and newcomers…
The rule should have been that the batting team in extras gets their first batter in the inning a free IW, and the manager can decline it if they would rather have the guy take his at-bat. Yes, it may lead to more double-plays, but maybe the solution is to build a roster that doesn’t hit into so many double-plays.
I’m good with that, as an Orioles fan with Mateo and Mullins on the team… I guess I’m the old bastard on this one, really. I was okay with long games. Last O’s game I attended went 13 innings and I got to see damn near the whole team play. I absolutely loved it and wished it went to 33 innings… I get it, but I love watching live baseball. I hate the ghost runner so much. It reminds me of playing in the yard with just my sister when we were kids… Doesn’t belong in MLB, though. At least in my opinion. I like the choice of an optional intentional, though… That’s not a bad idea, really…
The thing that bugs me the most about the Manfred Runner is that it fucks with the batting order. For 150 years, we’ve had the notion that three guys are guaranteed to get to bat in every inning. Then Manfred plops an extra guy on 2nd, out of thin air, and if he makes an out then only 2 guys come to bat.
Any solution that would ensure that three guys make plate appearances is better than this.
I agree with that. It just seems so far out or place in baseball the way it is. Sad thing is, there was probably a whole damn committee of executives planning that change… and probably not a damn single one of em fans of baseball… Sad, really… I totally plucked that outta my ass, though. I have no real knowledge of how that decision was really made. But it seems fitting for the way shit’s gone the last few years…
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