Beginning of Baseball Season

 

For us big time baseball fans there is nothing like spring training and the beginning of baseball. We get real excited over the optimism of our favorite team.

This year the Seattle Mariners look like the team to beat in the American League West or at least contend for it. It has been a long time since we could say that. Last year the Mariners won 87 games and missed the playoffs by one game. Now they have added several new players to the lineup especially Nelson Cruz at designated hitter. Since Edgar Martinez retired as a mariner the team has not done well at designated hitter especially last season batting bellow .200. Nelson Cruz led the major leagues with 40 home runs. Even if he does a fraction of it this season will still be a big improvement. They have also added three more players to the lineup as well. The mariners had one of the best pitching staffs last year, and it looks like it will be the same or better this year.

What is new this coming baseball season is new rules to speed up the game. Primarily the change is the batter has to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box  at all times except between pitchers if they have been brushed back and a  few other instances which we will learn during the season. Another change is adding a time clock to be sure the game is continually moving. The time clock primarily will be used to let the batter, pitcher, and umpires know it is ready to start another half inning.

Another change has to do with instant replay. They will allow the manager to stay in the dug out to decide whether they will make a challenge on a play. I hope this will be better than seeing the manager come out of the dugout like last season when they go out to the umpire and waste time deciding whether to challenge or not. I do not mind the manager going out of the dugout but they should have already made up their minds instead of giving time to decide on challenging. I guess we will see if this will work.

Two things I am not big fan of in baseball. One is the infield shift. I do not mind it if the manager decides to put the shift on a player like David Ortiz. For one thing he has been used to for some time; however, last season the managers went way overboard by putting the shift on players like Justin Smoak who barely hits .200 and spent some of last season in the minor league.

The other thing I am not a big fan of is the five man starting pitching rotation. For many years teams went with a four man rotation. The change did not occur until I would say the last 70s. Most teams you will find that the fifth man in the rotation will end up with a losing record and in most cases the team will go through several pitchers because of injuries and inconsistency. If I were a manager I would go back to the four man rotation.  The only time I would even consider a fifth starter is when the team starts on a long road trip.

One last thing if I were to add another rule change it would be to limit the amount of tosses the pitcher can throw over to first base on a given batter. Anyway let’s play ball and go M’s.