Baseball has a foul ball problem

[Cowtown]

Axios Sports

In an attempt to speed up our national pastime, Major League Baseball has embarked on a crusade against sluggishness in recent years, implementing new rules that limit things like mound visits and instant replays.

• And this season, there is a "real possibility" that we could see the introduction of a 20-second pitch clock, ESPN's Jeff Passan reports.

Why that might not matter: What if these rule changes are targeting the wrong thing? What if the real culprit here isn't the time being wasted between pitches, but rather the result of those pitches? What if the real culprit is ... foul balls?

By the numbers: Over the last 20 years, the number of foul balls has increased by 11.98%. To put it another way: there were almost 14,000 more foul balls in 2018 than there were in 1998.

• The shocking truth: Things have gotten so out of hand that there were actually more foul balls than balls put in play in each of the past two seasons. No wonder you left in the 6th inning...
• The big picture: There were 26,313 more pitches thrown in 2018 than in 1998, which is the equivalent of adding 88 games to the schedule. And roughly half of that growth can be attributed to foul balls, according to FiveThirtyEight.

 

[upperdeck]

go to the soft ball rule no more than 8 pitches per batter.. who needs long at bats.. guys would have to learn to get the ball in play..

 

[donniesyracuse]

go to the soft ball rule no more than 8 pitches per batter.. who needs long at bats.. guys would have to learn to get the ball in play..

Ha, in another thread people are romanticizing about Boggs, Brett, Mattingly, and Freese fouling off pitches until they got the pitch they wanted.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Backyard rules.

4 fouls is an out.

 

[Noexcuse]

Why play the game at all. Just do computer sim and call it a season.

 

[NateW]

Why play the game at all. Just do computer sim and call it a season.

Lol. My vote for post of the year.

 

[Noexcuse]

Lol. My vote for post of the year.

Thanks. But really if I’m paying 100 plus a throw to sit in good seats at Yankee stadium with my family I want to get the same 3 to 4 hour experience I got when my dad took me there as a kid.

 

[NateW]

Thanks. But really if I’m paying 100 plus a throw to sit in good seats at Yankee stadium with my family I want to get the same 3 to 4 hour experience I got when my dad took me there as a kid.

Yeah - I just don’t understand why everyone is so worried about changing the game. It’s worked well for so long. Let it be.