Not long after I hit "publish" on this morning's column outlining five ways baseball could improve itself for now and the future, I came across an interesting counterpoint to one thing I mentioned.
I said I would be open to shrinking the strike zone, but Cleveland Indians pitcher Andrew Miller told the New York Times why that might be looking at it backwards.
"I'm very intrigued by why we have talked about making the strike zone smaller," he said. "I think if you make it larger, they'd actually strike out less, because they'd put the ball in play more often."
Maybe he's right about that.
Maybe....
Credit: Marcus Hartman
Credit: Marcus Hartman
Credit: Marcus Hartman
Credit: Marcus Hartman
I'm not a hitting expert, but as a fan I don't like the extremely selective approach many modern hitters take.
It might be the statistically smart play, but it's less enjoyable to watch long at-bat after long at-bat.
Sometimes hitters appear too eager to put themselves behind the eight ball by taking too many decent pitches to try to get a better one, and the result is more strikeouts, more walks and longer games with fewer balls in play.
Since hitters no longer fear striking out, would a larger strike zone fix that, or exacerbate it?
Source: All power to the state of the game, for better or worse
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