Sometimes when flipping channels I'll stop on a major league baseball game and watch a few batters or a half inning. I used to watch a lot of baseball when I was young. Not so much the last few decades. If the Blue Jays have a good team in the playoffs I might watch a game if I remember when it's on.
So I'm randomly watching this game with the terrible California Angels. The announcers to fill time in this game between bad teams. They mention in their random banter this idea being kicked around baseball executives.
The idea is to make the strike zone both lower and wider.
I hear this and it's like aha! that would work. This change would simultaneously accomplish the following
- reduce walks
- reduce strikeouts
- reduce home runs
Baseball would immediately benefit from this change. They should make it. The number of at-bats resulting in some kind of ball-in-play has been in decline for decades now.
The analytics guys are geniuses. But the problem is that they "solved" baseball. Through intense and computer-assisted analysis they found "flaws" in the design of baseball rules. This led to overemphasis on walks and home runs as the optimal offense strategy.
The simple change in the strike zone would (for a while anyway) defeat or at least set back the analytics wonks.
With more batters putting the ball in play, then defense and baserunning becomes more important again. Walks, strikeouts, and home runs will still be an integral part of baseball, as they have been since the start in the nineteenth century, but just not quite as much. I hope MLB makes this change.
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