Baseball season's back, so it's time to finally fix some things

Baseball should be better.

The major leagues return this week after two seasons affected by the Covid-19 pandemic followed by a 99-day lockout that delayed the start of spring training and pushed back opening day by a week.

The lockout was a bad look, but do you know what's worse? Baseball is . . . (looks around) . . . kind of boring.

I've loved the sport for decades, but it's gotten harder to watch over the past 20 years. I can already hear all my baseball-loving friends objecting, but they're wrong and I'm right.

Baseball is boring, even when the Giants are winning 107 games.

Consider two facts:

• There are far fewer hits, as well as fewer balls in play than at any time. The league-wide batting average keeps dropping (last year's was the sixth-lowest in history) while hitters strike out 50% more often than they did 30 years ago. It's not uncommon to play 20 minutes and have only a few balls put in play. That's boring.
• Games are much longer. Forty years ago, the average game took 2 hours, 33 minutes. Last year, the average game took 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Compared to even a few decades ago, there is way less action spread over way more time.

And baseball – unlike other major professional sports – responds to problems by doing nothing. Maybe forming a committee to study the issue.

The NFL changes rules to encourage passing and scoring. The NBA eliminates defenses that slow down the game.

Baseball forms a group to look at how to knock 30 seconds off a game that takes 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Baseball has always been a slow game – a daily sport with a lot of time spent standing around on the field and a lot of relaxing in the stands. But the recent trends (encouraged by advanced statistics) lengthened games and decreased action to the point that it's like watching curling (no offense to Canadians).

Changes are coming. National League teams will use a designated hitter this year after 50 years of it being an American League-only rule. Next year, there will almost assuredly be a pitch clock, forcing pitchers to work faster. There will be bigger bases to encourage base-stealing. There will be some sort of rule banning the infield shift, allowing more hits to go through.

Those are all good, but baseball should go further. The sport needs to speed up – not just to please kids who love video games, but to keep people like me engaged. Three-hour games with 12 total hits are hard to watch day after day.

Major league baseball should learn from the NFL and NBA and keep making changes. A shorter season? Maybe. Move the pitching mound back to encourage hitting? Consider it. Force teams to lose their designated hitter when they pull a starting pitcher in order to encourage leaving that pitcher in? Sure. Bigger bats or harder infield? Maybe.

There are surely unforeseen consequences for every change, but I know this: They're worth considering.

Baseball is still a great game, but if my favorite childhood sport wants to fully capture people like me – and more importantly, gain interest among people under 50 – it needs to change.

The new (potential) rules are a good start.

Keep tweaking the sport. Get more action. Take some risks.

Stop the slide toward curling!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.