Skip to content
Phillies
Link copied to clipboard

Phillies wary of rules changes

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Inside the clubhouse, there is resistance to change. Baseball players are a conservative bunch, and for more than an hour Saturday morning, the Phillies listened to players union officials explain what may or may not happen to a game rooted in tradition but one that strives for younger appeal.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Inside the clubhouse, there is resistance to change. Baseball players are a conservative bunch, and for more than an hour Saturday morning, the Phillies listened to players union officials explain what may or may not happen to a game rooted in tradition but one that strives for younger appeal.

Major League Baseball officials want a quicker game. The players point to delays caused by instant replay. Baseball suggested a smaller strike zone to increase on-field action. The players want to see the data to support that idea.

"I'm glad I'm older," said Phillies reliever Pat Neshek, 36, "so I don't have to deal with this in, like, five years."

The game, it appears, is headed for change. It will not be drastic at first; the elimination of the four-pitch intentional walk is a quirk that has generated indifference. But the commissioner's office can impose unilateral, on-field rules even if the players union disagrees. The two sides would like to reach a peaceful consensus.

But last week, commissioner Rob Manfred blamed "a lack of cooperation" from the players as a reason more changes will not come in 2017. The union has its reasons.

"The idea that I can get here," union chief Tony Clark said Saturday, "and now I'm trying to stay here but the rules are changing on me... it just becomes a difficult conversation."

Manfred cited league studies that showed fans are frustrated by the elongated games and lack of action. The game's demographics have always skewed older. With strikeouts and home runs both at or near all-time highs, there are fewer balls put in play than ever before.

That, more than the pace of play, could be a problem.

Management suggested raising the strike zone, which some believe has been incorrectly enforced in recent seasons. Do that, Manfred said, and strikeouts will plummet. More balls will be put in play.

"I'm glad the players love the game the way it is," Manfred said at a news conference in Arizona last week. "We know based on fundamental research what our fans think of the game. It's in the players' interest and in our interest to respond to what fans think of the game."

Clark professed caution. Front offices have devalued strikeouts now, but that does not mean there could be a proliferation of contact hitters in the near future.

"A lot of what happens in our game is cyclical," Clark said. "There's something that may happen during this period of time that may suddenly shift philosophically. Now it goes back the other way. You always have to be careful about making a sudden change against what you think is happening right now.

"So, if that's the case, is it going to shift again even without anything happening?"

Many players inside the Phillies clubhouse are just as skeptical. Some see no problem with the current pace of play; it is all they have ever known. Phillies games averaged 3 hours, 3 minutes last season. It was the fourth time in the last 20 seasons their average time of game surpassed three hours.

The average time of a major-league game last season was 3 hours, 5 minutes.

"Baseball has been the same game for over 100 years," Phillies righthander Clay Buchholz said. "It speaks to the fact of how good guys are nowadays. Offenses are better. With the strike zone stuff, I didn't really understand it. If you want to speed the game up, moving the strike zone to a position where it's better for hitters is only going to counteract that. I don't really understand that side of it. If you call more strikes, that would be a way to speed up the game."

Buchholz, of course, is a pitcher. And pitchers have benefited from a larger strike zone. Vince Velasquez, another pitcher, said the best way to quicken the pace is a harsher enforcement of the replay procedures. There is too much wasted time, he said, between a close play and the actual replay process. But replays are infrequent.

The time between innings will not change. The league and its owners are beholden to their television partners, who need commercials to pay the massive rights fees that have helped franchise values skyrocket. Baseball has experimented with a pitch clock in the minors, which could condition the next generation of big leaguers, but is viewed as too radical a change by current veterans.

"The scarier thing for me is: What's going to happen in 10 or 20 years?" Neshek said. "If they're doing this stuff now, what's really going to change? We have to protect our necks. We have to take a stance."

mgelb@phillynews.com

@MattGelb