7 Inning Games?

ESPN’s Buster Olney reported on his blog Sunday that an unnamed baseball executive was recommending that MLB games should be shortened to seven innings. In his post, he says that this executive suggests that shortening the length of the game would solve all of the problems that baseball has, with his three major problems being (1) longer game times, (2) having an older audience, and (3) a higher frequency of pitchers injuries. To his credit, Olney states in the article that this will never happen in baseball and argues against the idea throughout the post.

This is the most asinine idea that I’ve ever heard proposed in baseball. Not only do I believe that the length of the game is not the cause of any of the three problems that this executive is trying to solve, but I also don’t believe that those problems are actually problems.

Phillies at Cubs Series Recap (April 4-6, 2014)

Wrigley Field opened its 100th anniversary season with baseball with a visit from the Philadelphia Phillies against the Chicago Cubs. Coming home off a series loss to the Pirates in Pittsburgh, the Cubs needed to have a good series against the Phillies, especially with a very tough April schedule ahead of them. Instead, the RISP bug struck again with the Cubs putting up 10 hits in game two without getting a run and 5-for-17 (aided by a 4-for-7 in game three) with RISP. The only positive comes with a 8 run outburst in game three.

What’s the Better Outcome for 2014?

I read an article on FanGraphs the other day in which Dave Cameron listed off the five things he believes about the 2014 season. The first of these is that the Cubs might be a better team than most people think. He even goes as far as to say the Cubs could finish the 2014 season at or near 0.500, which would be a huge leap forward for a team that was four games away from losing 100 for only the fourth time in franchise history last season.

2014 Opening Series Recap

The 2014 season opened for the Chicago Cubs with a three-game set in Pittsburgh. Coming out with a 1-2 record is about what we should’ve expected from this team as Cubs fan, but there were a lot of bright spots in the series, and one glaring weakness that seems to have carried over from previous years. While the team looked incapable of driving in runs for most of the series, I think the positives are a lot more exciting and can give us a better look at what this team is capable of throughout the season.

2014 Cubs Preseason Preview

Yesterday, I gave my overall look at how I think the 2014 MLB season is going to turn out around baseball, but this is a Cubs-based blog and I am a big Cubs fan, so I have to take a look at the season for the Cubs. The biggest headline in Spring Training, not surprisingly, surrounded the prospects coming up through the farm system. While most of those players aren’t going to make impacts on this season, the successes and development that players like Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, Eric Jokisch, and Kyle Hendricks showed this spring speaks volumes for what this team is going to look like in the next few seasons. As I told somebody that I met at an Arizona Fall League game in Mesa last October, this is the first time in my lifetime (admittedly not as long as some Cubs fans) that I am legitimately excited about what the future for the team looks like and that is something that every Cubs fan can be excited about.

It’s official! Happy Opening Day!

2014 MLB Preseason Predictions

With the first stateside game for the 2014 MLB season taking place in San Diego tonight between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Padres, baseball experts, pundits, and fans alike are all getting their predictions and dreams for the 2014 season down for people to see. I didn’t have much luck last year with my choice of the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers, but I wasn’t that far off on most of my other picks for the division winners and the early playoff winners. This year, I’m going the same direction with the World Series, but have some changes with the division races.

Two Big Names, Two Big Contracts

By now, you have likely already heard that the MLB offseason has closed down with big contract extensions for two of the biggest names in the sport:  Miguel Cabrera with the Tigers and Mike Trout with the Angels. Both deals were announced within a few days of the end of spring training and lock up the best hitters in the American League to long-term extensions with their current teams. Which contract is going to work out better for the teams involved? Are either going to backfire? Only time will truly tell how these contracts are going to help or hurt each team and player, but let’s take a look at the deals and see which one is more likely to be a success.

How Long Is Too Long?

With the close of the 2014 Cactus and Grapefruit League schedules and Opening Day 2014 looming just around the corner, baseball fans around the world are anxious to get the season started. While the 2014 Spring Training schedule was significantly shorter than say the 2012 season, which included the last World Baseball Classic, the question still looms among fans, players, and team executives:  Should the Spring Training schedule be shortened?

Before I start my debate on this, I will mention that it’s not likely that in Bud Selig’s last year as commissioner he would even consider making this one of his last legacies in the league. I think we’ve seen that legacy already with the addition of instant replay reviews to the game. However, the discussion could definitely be started by the yet-to-be-named replacement to Bud Selig when that individual takes over in 2015.

Baseball already owns the longest regular seasons (by games) of any of the major sports played in the United States with 162 games. For a team that makes the playoffs, they could add an additional 20 games to that list, if they were a wild card team that played the maximum number of games in the postseason (1 wild card game, 5 division series games, 7 conference series games, 7 World Series games). While players don’t play every game or even complete games in Spring Training, teams end up playing around 30 additional games in the spring, giving MLB teams up to 212 games that they have to prepare teams for.

2014 International Opening Series

The 2014 Major League Baseball season opened over the weekend with a two-game series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks in Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney, Australia. It’s the first time that the regular season has opened in an international stadium not affiliated directly with a Major League team since the 2012 season opened in Tokyo, Japan with two games between the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics. That served as the fourth time that the season opened in Tokyo (2000 – Mets/Cubs, 2004 – Yankees/Devil Rays, 2008 – Red Sox/Athletics).

By now, we all know that the Dodgers swept the two-game series with outstanding pitching performances by Clayton Kershaw and Hyun-Jin Ryu. That gives the Dodgers an early two-game lead in the NL West, but with 160 games still to go for both teams those two games are likely to be overshadowed by games later in the season.

The bigger questions surrounding this international opening series is this: Why play these games in the first place, especially as regular season contests, and what might these mean for baseball’s future?