A Prediction

After watching the All-Star game last night, I am even more confident in this prediction:

Within the next decade the word "Starter" will exit the vocabulary of pitching. The Rays have already dropped the descriptor, instead using "Opener" to designate the pitcher who begins the game.

The official scoring rule on minimum innings required for the Opener to qualify for a win will be reduced from 5 to 4 and then down to 3.

Roster size rule will be increased from 24 to 25, in order to have a pitching staff large enough to include a sufficient number of "long" relievers to open games. Openers will not pitch in rotation. Depending on opponent and usage circumstances, pitchers will occasionally be Openers in consecutive games. Occasionally, the manager will use specialized match-ups the first several innings of the game and then bring in a long reliever to pitch the last 2-3 innings.

The National League will adopt the DH. With the average number of pitchers used per game increased, the need for pinch-hitters will also increase. Adopting the DH reduces the number of bench players needed for pinch-hitting duties and makes it easier to hold the roster limit to 25 in order to accommodate the increase in pitching staff size.

Eventually no one will teach "pitching" as it has been known traditionally in baseball. From high school up through the minor leagues, pitchers will be taught to throw two good types of pitchers as hard as they can for an inning or two. Within two decades, there will be no one left who was ever taught pacing, varying location, varying pitch selection, and the psychology of out-thinking the hitter.

What we call pitching will be an historical topic of conversation. Throwing will be the new pitching. New rules, no roles, and new categories of achievement will be created to distinguish and reward pitchers who specialize in achieving certain things at different points in the game. Pitchers and their agents will demand this.

Will this be good for baseball?

I don't know but it's clearly where baseball is headed. Already, most managers seem to regard the Starting pitcher as a nuisance -- something that must be fretted over and pitch-counted until finally he can get him out of the game and begin using his specialty relievers.

Your thoughts?

I largely agree with you. One thing though, rosters are already at 25. Maybe you meant expand to 26?

I will also add that I don't like this brand of baseball, and am losing more interest year by year.

Yes, I meant 26. Or maybe even 27 in order to roster enough pitchers to cover where the game is going.

If my prediction is accurate, it will also eventually necessitate a change in how extra innings are played. You saw in last night's All-Star game everyone fretting over the "nightmare scenario" that the game was headed for extra innings with both managers short of pitchers.

MLB will have to adopt an entirely new approach to tie games. A season or two ago, MLB ran an experiment in the low minors where one league adopted the rule that in every extra half-inning, the team at bat started with a designated runner on second base. Maybe they were anticipating what I've predicted here. Or we may see a "sudden death" rule adopted whereby the first team to score wins, even if it's the visiting team. Given the almost circus-like obsession with the launch angle HR swing these days, I don't think it's too outlandish to predict that when a game is tied after nine innings, each team will be allowed to send a coach to the mound to throw to 4 or 5 of his own teams hitters and whichever team hits the most out of the ballpark wins the game. Sort of baseball's version of hockey's overtime "shootout" rule. The Israeli Baseball League already uses this method of settling tie games.

After watching the All-Star game, I decided that the words or title "All-Star" will be replaced by the terms "I Had A Better Year Than You Did" Game. Every pitcher in the major leagues will soon be throwing over 100MPH and what ever happened to knuckleballers!!! The game will be reduced to strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. That's all.

Older pitchers like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale would call the player over to the pitcher's mound of whoever was chatting with the announcer during the game would get knocked out. Bob Gibson was a Gold Glove boxer and he could do it too! Those guys wanted to win and not let a player be distracted whatever the circumstances.

Ted Williams in the OF during play during a REAL ALL STAR game:

Announcer: "Hey TED, close game isn't it!"
Ted Williams: "I don't know why I agreed to this stupid f#cking earpiece!!! Why don't you shut the h@ll up and let me concentrate!!!! This is a BALLGAME and I want to WIN IT!!!"
Announcer: "The fans want to hear what you..."
Ted Williams: "Don't gimme that f#cking fan SH^T! You just want to hear it!! That's ALL! How much did you pay to get in the game??? NOTHING ya cheap bastard!!! You're being paid to announce and probably have the best seat in the house and everyone else had to pay a f#cking arm and leg to get in here!!!!!! You want my F#UCKING OPINION>>> There it IS!!!"...

Sad but probably true...
Sincerely,
Delivery Boy...

I had the same thoughts as I watched the idiot Fox announcers invade the field of play last night. Can you imagine what Bob Gibson would do to that insipid little Ken Rosenthal sticking a microphone in his face?

After watching the All-Star game, I decided that the words or title "All-Star" will be replaced by the terms "I Had A Better Year Than You Did" Game.

Heck, not even a full year. It's the "I had a better half year game"

Also, in reply to those who are trying to figure out ways to shorten the game every year, how about no pitching coach or catchers chatting with the pitcher!!! Cripes, its only 2 batters ago and he needs to be reminded how to pitch in certain situations or to certain hitters!!! If ya visit the mound he's out!!!

A batter gets second on a walk, let's see how many wasted pitches are thrown then!!!

No warmups between innings. You were supposed to be warmed up before a game. Tough beans!!!

Ya don't have to run around the bases on a homer. It's automatic anyways and the crowd can still cheer when ya take the field, unless you are a DH and get paid for doing 1/2 a job.

No throwing to first base holding a runner, the pitcher put him on, so let him suffer the consequences.

No rain delays, ya don't hear the Japanese players complain about it!!!

No 7th inning stretch, wasn't the National Anthem sung before game time anyways!!! We have to reaffirm our patriotism TWICE!!!

Sincerely,
Delivery Boy...

I am in my sixties.... and I too find the game getting boring. I find that I sometimes just have the
game on television... but the sound off. I sometime glance up to see what the score is. Five, six,
or more "pitchers" for both teams each game. Most don't pitch... they throw. Batters (not all) .... strikeout,
walk, or homer.

Maybe the youth like this style... and good for them. The future of baseball is in front of them. Not for me.

Btw.... the interviewing of players while they are in the field.... so stupid. I read somewhere on ESPN that
that made the game "fun". Okay.... so what that tells me is all the other games are not fun. Maybe we need
to do this during the World Series. Have players running around after a play taking "selfies".

All these years I didn't realize that baseball was really boring... that we need the interviews and selfies
to make it fun again....

Oh well.... I still have SOM....

Ya don't have to run around the bases on a homer. It's automatic anyways and the crowd can still cheer when ya take the field, unless you are a DH and get paid for doing 1/2 a job.

The players would never stand for this rule change. Nor would Fox or ESPN. Just as important as helping your team win, another function of the HR is that it allows the hitter an opportunity to make the ESPN highlight reel. This is no small thing. I suppose HR hitters could invent flashy ways of walking back to the dugout after hitting one. But the burlesque that now occurs between home plate and the trip around the bases is too important for sports media/agent/player complex to be abolished.

In the off-season my team, the Cardinals acquired Marcell Ozuna to lead them to the playoffs. He always wears a bright fluorescent compression sleeve on his right arm which is for show, not for go. The first Cards game I saw this year, Ozuna came to bat in the fourth inning with nobody on and one out, down by several runs. He smashed a long line drive to left which he apparently thought would clear the wall. Instead of running for second base, in case it stayed in the park, he danced around at home plate, doing some fancy whirling moves with his fluorescent sleeve before he started waltzing down the first base line. Well, the ball caromed off the wall and rolled halfway back to the infield. As the ball rolled to a stop, there Ozuna stood on first base with perhaps the longest single in Cardinals history. He didn't seem the least embarrassed. Subsequently in the inning someone hit a single which would have scored Ozuna had he been on second.Then someone made an out with no runs scored in the inning.

That's all I needed to know about our new "star" Marcell Ozuna. This is how losing teams play baseball. Making the ESPN highlight reel, even if it means wearing a fluorescent clown sleeve and behaving like a fool, is more important than doing what it takes to produce a run.