Sometimes, rule changes initially made by baseball are met with immediate disdain, and the concerns about these rule changes are largely proven false. The best example of this has been the divisional and wild card eras. These changes actually proved beneficial for the game.

Then, there are changes where it seemed like a great idea, but it hurt the game. A classic example there is the automatic walk. Sure, we don’t notice it anymore, but with the loss of the automatic walk we lost the anything can happen at anytime moment in the game. The random wild pitch or batter swinging at a ball just out of the zone has forever been eliminated

Remember, what makes baseball truly great is that every pitch means so much and that in any moment anything can happen you have never before seen. With the automatic walk, that was gone forever. That’s just what Rob Manfred has sought to do as the commissioner. He is looking to take away what makes baseball great.

Manfred keeps pushing his agenda to try to change the game while failing to do what actually needs to be done to grow the game. In the end, we are getting some many rule changes, perhaps more than at any other point in Major League history, forever changing the game and making it almost a new sport:

1. Automatic Walks
2. Elimination of LOOGYs
3. Universal DH
4. Pitch Clock
5. Bigger Bases
6. Expanded Postseason

Beyond that, Manfred wants the ability to implement more rule changes in 2023 and beyond with a 45 day notice to the players. You can only imagine what flat out dumb ideas Manfred will come up with to further ruin the game.

The sad part is this does nothing to actually accomplish the stated goal of increasing offense. It’s not like eliminating the shift or adding a universal DH is going to make Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer suddenly forget how to pitch. It doesn’t work that way, and in the end, all MLB is accomplishing is maybe adding an extra 1-2 runs per week . . . if that.

That’s the problem. As we see with the universal DH, it accomplishes nothing to actually increase the offense. Rather, what it does is eliminate the strategical aspect of the game. That is the part of the game which keeps fans engaged during the time between pitches. That’s the part that makes baseball interesting. That is what makes baseball great.

The sad part is MLB is undergoing all of these radical changes which have no impact while ignoring baseball’s real and very fixable problems. All MLB needed to do was to lift lockout restrictions, and they needed to be better at promoting the game through social media to help catch the attention of the younger fans they covet. They really, really suck at social media.

That should come as no surprise because the people in charge think the best way to grow the game is to fundamentally change it, piss off their core diehard fans, and to institute a lockout leading to the cancellation of games. At some point, we just have to ask ourselves what are we even doing anymore?