Welcome Aboard Mr. Manfred

There's a new sheriff in town in MLB, and according to this report by Ken Rosenthal, he's open to exploring virtually any change that might benefit the game.

That's great news. However, it comes with a concern in my book.

Those of us who have played any fantasy sports (football, baseball, etc), especially in leagues that have been around for a while, all know the "new guy with ideas" who joins an established league.

• Hey, what is we change the number of keepers?
• Why don't we make it more expensive to keep a player?
• What if the rule is, you can't keep a player drafted before the 6th round?
• How come we can only carry 12 minor league players? Wouldn't it be better if it was limitless?

No one likes this guy. You wanna know how I know that?

I've been this guy.

Some of the ideas that Rosenthal kicks around in his article are good (enforcing the pitch clock is a great place to start). But there are a few that I think have the potential to hurt the game. Eliminating the shift? As Ken points out, we don't even know if the shift is as effective as everyone seems to think it is. Lowering the mound? Guys like Marcus Stroman would actually look like a little leaguer out there.

And let's not open the DH vs non-DH thing. I like the rule as it is. To everyone who says "wouldn't you rather see a professional hitter than a pitcher flailing away?"... I have two responses:

1. You're obviously not a fan of schadenfreude.
2. You've never been part of the unencumbered joy that comes when a pitcher gets an RBI (or better, a HR). The feeling can only be described as Christmas Morning meets the feeling when you use a new toothbrush for the first time (I almst called this 'Christmas Morning on Steroids'... but I didn't want to be the first post to show up under Google searches for 'Manfred and Steroids.' It's a lot harder to have Christmas Morning meet something in a positive way than you'd think).

Finally, comes what I think is the most interesting part of the challenge here.

In order to add offense, you almost, by design, have to add length to a game. Walks are a key component to scoring runs, which means AB's take longer. As such, you really can't "add offense" and "speed up the game" all at once without something drastic.

7 inning games? 2 strikes you're out and 3 balls a walk?

Eek.

Small ball adds excitement, so maybe the goal isn't to find new ways to add offense. Maybe the goal is to make the offense in a game more exciting, and perhaps, by virtue of the cycle* we're in, it's going to take care of itself. A 4-3 victory, with quality pitching that features a suicide squeeze as the winning run can be really darn exciting:

In fact, that's one of the most exciting games I've ever seen live.

To be fair, Rosenthal ends his column with something like "don't get up in arms yet... many of these are spitballing and may never see the light of day" I hope he's right. I'm happy that the new fearless leader of MLB is open to discuss any possible way to make the game greater. I just hope he's patient enough to realize that not every rule change is a good one.