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Yankees News: New Commissioner, New Rules- How Does It Affect The Yankees?

By Antonio Mendes

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This week Major League Baseball’s new Commissioner officially introduced himself by releasing a lengthy message to all fans. Robert D. Manfred Jr. touched on what he thought were the bigger tasks in the league, and what was to stay or go. After the sweet nothings from Manfred to the League were spoken, he then touched what we all care about most; the actual game. Some things gave a positive connotation, but that slowly went downhill.

Manfred’s first objective is to broaden the game of baseball starting at it’s foundation, Little League. He wants to put fields in areas that aren’t fortunate enough to have them, and give opportunities to kids to find a love for the sport we love now. It’s refreshing to hear this as his most important priority, all children should have the chance to find something they love. Places that aren’t as wealthy or urban as some of ours don’t have the money to give the kids what they need. The needs to find a passion they aren’t even sure they’d like or not. This will also give teams a wider range of talent to invest in. Giving a kid who started from nothing, a chance to be a legend.

“As Commissioner, I will draw closer connections between youth baseball and MLB. I want to inspire children’s interest in baseball and help parents and coaches foster that passion”

Next Ill bring up the topic of something the Commissioner called “One Baseball”. This also goes with what I just brought up. He wants to mold the relations between all forms of baseball down to the tee (literally). Baseball, and every sport for that matter is like a pyramid. The foundation is what keeps the sport strong, with no foundation (In this situation the Little Leagues, Amateur, Single A, etc.) the sport would lose everything it has been in the last couple of decades. Manfred is trying to keep the enthusiasm throughout the baseball world, and he should be praised for that.

Once the Commissioner moved more into detail about Major League Baseball he lost a lot of steam with the fans, including me.

Pros:

  1. Pitch Clock
  2. Player Relations

Pitch Clock:

A pitching clock is an area where I highly agree a rule should be placed. How many times during a game do you see a pitcher walk around the mound two or three times, sing a song in his head, look at the birds, pitch, and then do the same thing the next pitch. It’s extremely unnecessary and aggravating just for people watching, imagine how it is to batters. If you take away, say those extra 10 seconds the pitcher has to throw, its making the game go faster. This is also NOT giving an advantage to anyone. If I have the time to tweet “Any day now Clay Buchholz” in between pitches, you need to go faster.

Player Relations:

Next, Manfred wants to have strong player relations customs. This is one of the most important things he brought up in my opinion. If you look at the NFL, the relation (if any) Roger Goodell has with the players isn’t exactly ideal. We mostly all love football, but the NFL itself is a different story. The MLB’s image relies heavily on Robert Manfred, and his relies on the players and fans. No one expects a commissioner to have a perfect image, but he must understand everything he does reflects the MLB.

Cons:

  1. Modernization/Additional Offense/Taking Away Shifts

Modernization

I put these three together because they all correlate to each other. The Commissioner spoke of “Modernizing the game”. Former Commissioner Bud Selig was one for keeping a lot of aspects of the games traditional. He dragged his feet on the replay system, which could’ve been implemented at least a decade ago I think. However, it seems Manfred is showing signs of going too far for the years to come. This leads to the “Additional Offense” circus, which is stirring up the most controversy out of anything he has said thus far.

Additional offense would be great, a lot of fans miss the days when there were players blasting 50-60 homers a year. Those days were also referred to as the ‘Steroid Era’ though. Now just as in other sports, defense is winning championships in the MLB. Madison Bumgarner just won a championship for the San Francisco Giants almost single-handedly, even Kansas City Royals fans thought it was amazing. So whats wrong with that? Well in my opinion a pitcher is only as good as his fielders are.

The Giants shifted 494 times last year, and were successful 25 of those 494. This might seem like it’s almost a near useless tactic, but if you look at numbers for the rest of the MLB they made the most of the shift (I mean they did win the World Series). The Royals shifted 695 times and were successful only 21 compared to the Giants 25 attempts, despite using the shift nearly 200 times more. The team who used the most shifts? The Houston Astros, with a whopping 1,562 times, and 44 hits saved. Where are the Yankees in all this you ask? Hope you aren’t drinking anything. The New York Yankees were 2nd in the MLB with 950 shift attempts and only 16 net hits saved. With the infield additions we made this off-season that number will I think be in the thirties in 2015.

Shifting has become a huge tactic in the last couple of seasons. What I don’t understand is how this ISN’T ‘Modernized Baseball’. This brings what to me is an exciting part of baseball, that puts even more strategy behind every team. It is no longer an “If the ball happens to comes my way, I got it” game. Yes, with Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann, and Stephen Drew being on our team it is a pain nearly every game. New Yankees hitting coach Jeff Pentland made it apparent he will help deal with the shift this off-season. I believe the positives outweigh the negatives in shifting, and hope it stays. 

“Sometimes you have to think around more in the middle of the diamond than pull,” he said. “But obviously that’s between me and the player.

One person who extremely disagrees with Rob Manfred over the situation is Buster Olney.

Eliminate shifts? Wow. It might be a worse idea than telling pitchers they’re only allowed to throw pitches that are straight.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) January 25, 2015

These are both spot on arguments. To take away shifts would take a lot of adjusting, and to add rules for it would take away more from the game than just defensive shifts. Another argument would be, which umpire is going to judge these circumstances. Each ump already has their own job, adding more to that would just anger them. Once again these are just speculation, there is no guarantee this will happen. If it does however, the MLB and Manfred will be dealing with a lot of unhappy organizations.

So what are your early speculations on Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr., and do you agree or disagree with what he is going to adjust in the years to come?

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