As far as adding the time element, that baseball can take forever, that players can fiddle-**** around on the field, that's not why I enjoy the game.

They can speed it up with a time limit between pitches and there will still be plenty of down-time to eat your hot dog, sip on your beer, and shoot the **** with your friends.

The modern reality is television and online streaming makes speeding the game up a necessity and they're not going away.


I don't know the best way to enforce it, although I don't think the umpire should be counting out loud. That seems quite distracting.

The shifts are highly data influenced. If players would/could hit away from them with regularity without making more outs in the process of trying, the shift would go away against that player.

Saw a tidbit over the weekend on one of the broadcasts about how the teams that use the shift most all have losing records. Made me chuckle. I also wonder if that will hold up over the course of a whole season.