Yankees, Joe Girardi ponder pace of play improvements
TAMPA – If Major League Baseball really wanted to speed up its pace of play, New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi has a suggestion: Make it more like pro football.
“I’m a big proponent of trying to introduce some type of communication through headphones. Like they do in the NFL,” Girardi says. “I think you could speed the game up that way in certain instances.”
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He says baseball could operate the same way assistant coaches in the press box do in relaying information to the sidelines and then on to the players on the field.
“You’d put earpieces in certain people. You could put it, realistically, in your hitters’ helmets and you could say what you wanted and then it’s not a sign from me, a sign to the third base coach and then a sign to the player.”
So instead of a batter stepping out of the box or catchers making multiple trips to the pitcher’s mound, the discussions could take place electronically.
“The thing about signs, signs take time,” Girardi says. “It used to be five people giving signs and there were dummy plays -- and now they communicate through a headset.”
Give Girardi credit for coming up with a new way to cut down on dead time during the game.
As for the new intentional walk rule, it won’t have much of an impact.
“It’s not that big a deal,” says Yankees outfielder Matt Holliday. “Really, how often does (an intentional walk) happen? More in the National League probably.”
Of the more than 184,000 plate appearances last season, just 932 ended with an intentional walk.
That averages out to one every 2.5 games.
Opponents of the new rule say there’s always a chance something crazy might happen – whether it’s a wild pitch, a stolen strike or a hit.
But in his 14-year career, Holliday’s never seen anything like that happen in any of his 1,773 games. “Those are one-in-a-million type deals. I don’t really think it affects the game.”
However, Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez was involved in one of those one-in-a-million type plays last September, when – with one out and runners on second and third – the Tampa Bay Rays called for an intentional walk.
Sanchez had homered earlier in the game and was facing reliever Enny Romero in the bottom of the eighth inning.
“They were walking me intentionally,” Sanchez recalls, “and one of the pitches was over the plate and I just swung at it.”
The result was a long fly ball to the warning track in deep center field for a sacrifice fly – just a few feet short of another home run.
Despite that play being among the highlights of his impressive rookie season, Sanchez isn’t upset about pitchers having to throw all four balls anymore.
“Regardless of what kind of rule is put in place, baseball will always be a game of fun,” he says. “We just got to follow the rules.”
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