Major League Baseball is speaking with the Players Association about playing-rule changes, as it does annually. Those changes “almost exclusively” concern pace-of-play issues, commissioner Rob Manfred said this past week in a telephone interview.
One proposal being discussed — with “still a ways to go,” a person in the loop cautioned — is limiting mound visits at least by teammates, if not by coaches and managers as well. The players understandably have been more hesitant to disrupt the pace to which they have become accustomed, and just as they negotiated the terms for when a player can legally exit the batter’s box during an at-bat, concepts are being exchanged for when a pitcher can receive a visitor. For instance, there is a desire to see an exception made for when a pitcher and catcher are confused on signs.
Though officials have been encouraged by the institution of a pitch clock at the Double-A and Triple-A levels, as well as the Arizona Fall League, Players Association executive director Tony Clark steadfastly has opposed that in public, and that does not appear to be a serious consideration for major league installation. It seems like the best scenario there calls for pitchers to get used to working efficiently in the minors as they adhere to the pitch clock then retain that mindset as they graduate to the majors.
Baseball’s average regular-season, nine-inning game in 2016 lasted 3:00:42 according to MLB, up from 2:56:14 in 2015. The 2014 season registered an all-time high average time of 3:02:21. That is why Manfred repeatedly lamented last year that focus on the issue had been lost, and that is why you can expect some changes, however incremental, to be in place by Opening Day.
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As Manfred prepares for his third season atop the sport, with spring training opening next week and Sunday’s Super Bowl winding up a football season that saw TV ratings drop universally, growing and diversifying baseball’s fan base remains his top priority.
In that broad initiative, “There are probably 10 things that matter. Pace of play is one of those 10,” Manfred said. “I don’t think it’s at the top of the list, but it is a factor that people continue to focus on.”
The focus of the country has changed since the Cubs outlasted the Indians in an epic World Series, and I asked Manfred how he saw these most interesting times impacting his primary goal.
“We see baseball as one of those fundamentally unifying American institutions,” he said. “I think that we need to go out there and put the best baseball product we can put on the field. That’s the single best contribution that we can make to American society.”
Of course, the game might not unify everyone if its competitors, managers and front-office folks follow the lead of many NBA players and coaches and speak out against President Trump. Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein got the ball rolling this past week by challenging some of Trump’s comments about crime in Chicago. Manfred can silence team officials if he feels anyone crosses a line. It is not as simple when it comes to players.
“I don’t know what to expect in that regard, because it’s such a unique period of time,” Manfred said, when I asked him if he expected baseball people to speak out. “We’ve never tried to muzzle our players as long as they’re not inappropriate like John Rocker [who drew a 14-game suspension in 2000 for hurling a bunch of bigotry in a Sports Illustrated interview]. Players have a right to express their political views, just like anyone else in the United States.”
Any such storms would challenge what has been arguably Manfred’s greatest attribute as commissioner: He has proven quite skilled at defusing controversies, many of which occurred without precedent. He welcomed Alex Rodriguez back into the fold following A-Rod’s nasty legal battle that concluded with a yearlong suspension for illegal performance-enhancing drug usage. Manfred secured sizable suspensions for Aroldis Chapman and Jose Reyes, and appears on track to do the same for Jeurys Familia, for their violations of the game’s domestic-violence program even though none of the three faced criminal charges that stuck.
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Just this past week, Manfred resolved the long-running case involving former Cardinals employee Chris Correa’s hacking of the Astros’ proprietary database. Though you might not have agreed with Manfred’s specific decision to permanently ban Correa, penalize the Cardinals $2 million and give their top two 2017 amateur draft picks (56th and 75th overall) to the Astros — I would’ve liked to see the Cardinals, who already sacrificed this year’s first-round pick as compensation for signing Dexter Fowler, lose their first-round pick in 2018 — you have to respect his process. Manfred released his full report issued to the two teams, with findings and conclusions. The Astros already have accepted the results. This, like the others, will pass because Manfred dealt with it substantively and without emotions.
“People like to make fun of lawyers,” said Manfred, who rose through MLB as a labor attorney. “I actually think being a lawyer is an advantage. … Did I want to put the St. Louis-Houston thing behind us more quickly? Of course. Who wants controversy in their sport? But we have a really good investigative team, and we waited until the federal government completed its work, and with all of our facts, we made a disciplined decision.
“We’d been working with both clubs on the development of the facts, so the clubs were not surprised by results. The process gets us to results.”
Given that a primary storyline of this Super Bowl is whether the NFL’s wormy commissioner Roger Goodell will have to face his nemesis Tom Brady (after avoiding him for two years) at the postgame celebration, such a process and results carry great value. Manfred mustn’t get distracted from his mandate to inflate his product’s following. It is worth seeing whether shaving a few minutes from the only game without a clock will help.
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