Bryan Price Wants To Slow Down On Speed Up Changes

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Major League Baseball announced three rule changes to speed up game play.

1) No longer will a manager have to go on the field to stall while determining whether to challenge an umpires call.
2) The batter must have a foot in the batter's box at all times.
3) Play must resume immediately following the TV timeout between innings.  The batter and pitcher must be ready.

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Price understands the desire to speed up the game but offered that modern baseball, changes in the design of stadiums and other factor have contributed to delays during a game.

Above all he does not want to lose the strategic part of the game that makes it popular.

"From my perspective as much as we're working to quicken up the game, there are other parts to it that extend the length of the game."

"There have been other things that have developed, like in Philadelphia the bullpen is in the second deck in centerfield.  As much as we use statistical analysis now, its a matchup game with your bullpen.  You don't use Pedro Borbon for 3 1/3 innings anymore.  That is going to ad time. There are defensive shifts; guys running from thirdbase to the outfield and then back and sometimes that's been from one pitch to the other.  There have been managers that will change the shift when the count goes from 2-0 to 2-1, 3-0 to 3-1."

"There have been things that have developed in the game that will add time.  Some of them are within our control and some that aren't."

"I get it.  I think we all enjoy the quality of a 2 and 1/2 hour game. It flows. That being said, if you're a baseball purist, you like all that.  I think we all like to be an armchair manager and manage along the two managers."

"The importance of the pace of game, how about the quality of the game. Baseball is a game with rules and strategies. If we have to change the rules and the strategy of the game to make it quicker, I think we're losing sight of the intentions of the game."

"It's a storied game.  Baseball is a great game for a million different reasons. The thing is we're always going to find a group of people we try to appeal to."

There was a proposal floated that relief pitchers be required to pitch to more than one batter.  Price believes changes like that would detract from the game.

"If you lose enough games with the wrong matchup when the pitching changes are mandated, I don't think the fans will enjoy that a great deal when they're on the wrong end of it."

"I'm glad that we can pause the game without taking the field.  I didn't like to run out there and as soon as I turn around, people are yelling from the dugout to go back.  It's a waste of time. It's embarrassing. Nobody really wants to do it. If we can just hold the game and tell the umpires we want to just take a look at it.  We only have 30 seconds to look at it, who cares if you're on the field or not?"

Price will meet with Joe Garagiola Jr. and Joe Torree from the commissioners office to discuss they rules and how they will be implemented. They will discuss how to communicate to the umpires the pause to determine whether to challenge a call.