Let's make baseball more exciting

America's national pastime may be past time. Baseball is floundering, according to critics.

This, of course, marks about the 50th consecutive year that people have said that. During that time, major league baseball has expanded, seen revenue grow and expanded its fan base.

But still.

Baseball is floundering, at least in the easiest way to measure it: Excitement.

As we complete the first weekend of the 2018 season's second half, baseball sees less action than ever.

Thanks largely to the development of new analytics (data! data! data!), baseball has become focused on home runs, strikeouts and such esoteric measurements as launch angle, defensive runs saved, spin rate and more. They all slow down the game, which is significantly different from the NBA, where the analytics revolution improved the game by revealing that the things we fans like watching actually help teams win.

Baseball? Analytics slowed it down.

Professional sports have a long history of changing rules to improve. Basketball added the 3-point basket and the shot clock. The NFL changed pass-defense rules and made field goals harder. Baseball added the designated hitter and lowered the pitching mound. Hockey . . . I'm sure hockey did something, too.

Baseball needs an update. This former sports editor has some suggestions for rule changes to make baseball more exciting in the smartphone era by adding action:

Pitch to your own team. This works in early youth baseball and some softball tournaments. The batting team sends one of its pitchers on the mound with a limited number of pitches per batter. Fans say this would minimize pitching, but I disagree. It increases the importance – it would just make it more about being able to throw to a spot the hitter wants, rather than throw it past the hitter. Automatic action!

Bigger strike zone. This is counterintuitive, but it might work. If the strike zone were over home plate from the ground to the top of the batter's head, hitters would swing more. Walks largely disappear. More action, although maybe it looks like cricket.

No pitching changes. One of the biggest culprits in baseball's loss of offense is the number of pitching changes in a game as we see a series of fresh relievers coming in to throw 95 mph. This rule would require a starting pitcher to stay in the game. The entire game. He gets tired? Teams get hits. Voila!

Punish strikeouts and home runs. Remember in "Bull Durham" when Crash Davis said that strikeouts were fascist? They still are. And home runs are selfish. So add a penalty to both the pitcher and batter when there's a strikeout (maybe a punch to the stomach?). And if someone hits a homer, they lose their next at-bat. You want to emphasize action? Punish the things that take it away and reward hits and action.

Gambling. This is the last refuge of the scoundrel, but how about this: Introduce ballpark gambling on where the next foul ball will go or how many strikeouts there will be or how long it will be to the next fair ball. In other words, make the lack of action the thing that seems like action!

Suck it up. Baseball has been around for about 150 years. It survived the Black Sox scandal, the Great Depression, the offensive drought of the 1960s, the steroid era and George Steinbrenner. It will survive this.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.