Baseball is America's pastime, but many see baseball as a boring sport and have no interest in watching it. This has caused MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to test ideas of evolving the sport to make it more exciting to new viewers and gain interests in the league. These changes have included changing extra innings rules to have a runner begin at 2nd base, changing the playoff format to include an extra wild card team, adding a pitch clock, and eliminating defensive shifts. This has caused mixed reactions from players and fans, and this article will be no different.
One of the biggest reasons viewers find baseball boring is the scoring. Baseball is typically a slow, low-scoring game and the outcome can be predictable if a team is able to create 3 run lead or more. Make no mistake, teams have comeback from down 3 runs or more multiple times with the largest comeback in MLB history being 12 runs. However, more often than not teams are able to hold their leads and can take some of the excitement out of the game. This differs from a sport such as football since football has more scoring opportunities and certain scores are weighted differently. In football a touchdown is worth 6 points with an extra point kick, a field goal is worth 3 points, a safety is worth 2 points, and there's defensive touchdowns that are worth the same as offensive touchdowns. This allows for scoring to be less predictable and keep the game exciting with turnovers being possible, defensive scores, and numerous ways for teams to make a comeback. In baseball each runner that touches home plate is 1 run and that's the only way to score so there's only one way for a team to make a comeback and that's get more runners to cross home plate.
Baseball could become more exciting by changing the scoring of the game so that leads are not as secure and there is more than one way to comeback from a deficit. Some ways that the scoring can change is make runs based on how many bases the scoring runner had to touch to score. For example, a home run would be 4 runs since the scoring runner touched all 4 bases, it would be 2 runs if a runner was on 2nd and scored, etc. This would also cause base runners to be more aggressive and tactful since they would want to score the most runs on every base hit. Games would have higher scores, similar to football, even if there aren't as many runners reaching home plate as the score would suggest. A major con of this system is while base runners would be more aggressive in some instances, there may be times where a runner is reluctant to take an extra base since they know scoring from that extra base is less runs.
Another thing baseball could try is rewarding defensive players for robbing hitters of a homerun. Instead of it saving a run and bring an out, it could also add a run to the defensive team. This would allow baseball to have defensive scores and keep fans engaged regardless of which team is batting since a score can come at any time by either team. A major con is that once a team takes a lead or is holding onto a tight lead late in the game the team batting may resort to playing small ball so there is no opportunity to rob them of a homerun and have a defensive score.
The probability of MLB changing their scoring rules is extremely slim and likely would not be well received by players and fans who have been around the sport for a long time. However, this is just one idea among many that Manfred could consider for evolving the game and make it more enjoyable for outside viewers. Let me know what you think of this idea in the comments and any others that you would like to see explored in the future by MLB.