PITTSBURGH — Memo to Rob Manfred:
"Mr. Commissioner, Jim Leyland is speaking. Please listen. Thank you."
"I don't know about that," Leyland said last week, a little chuckle in his voice. "I still do a little work with the commissioner. Obviously, I don't have any power with him."
What a shame.
Baseball would be so much better if the people who run it listened to Leyland.
"The state of the game is a little hectic right now," Leyland said. "It's kind of in a little chaos. "It's just different baseball. It's not the baseball that you and I are used to or the type that I prefer with all the strikeouts and everything. I think it's ridiculous.
"At the same time, these are the best players in the world and I enjoy watching them. We just need to clean it up a little bit. But by cleaning it up a little, I mean leave it alone. Just let the game take care of itself. It's taken care of itself for a long time. I don't think we need to be making all of these super changes that they've been making."
That doesn't mean Leyland is against the crackdown on the illegal substances that pitchers have been using, specifically Spider Tack. He just wishes baseball had started its police work before this season or waited until next season. He also doesn't like that everything but rosin has been banned for pitchers.
"I like pine tar for all pitchers," Leyland said. "Pine tar, believe it or not, doesn't do anything for the ball except give you a better grip on it. It doesn't increase spin rate or anything like that. But when you start mixing it with these other concoctions, it does start doing something to the ball and the spin rate. I do think that's cheating. That's totally wrong. The Spider Tack is no good. You have to do something about that."
Some elements of the crackdown have been "humorous," to use Leyland's word. Oakland pitcher Sergio Romo pulled his pants down on the field to prove he was clean. Detroit utility man Harold Castro, who pitched against Houston late in a 12-3 loss, was examined by umpires.
But a couple of other incidents were hardly funny. Seattle's Hector Santiago became the first pitcher to be ejected from a game after umpires checked and confiscated his glove Sunday. Santiago, who is appealing a 10-game suspension, said he was using only rosin to keep his hand from sweating. Last week, there also was an ugly incident when Philadelphia manager Joe Girardi asked umpires to check Washington starter Max Scherzer a third time because he didn't like how Scherzer kept rubbing his hair. A fight nearly erupted between the teams.
"I'm a big Joe Girardi fan, but I didn't think it was necessary for him to have the umpires check Scherzer again," Leyland said. "If you're going to put it on the umpires, put it on the umpires. If they think there's a reason to check a guy more than what they're doing, then that's fine. I just think there are too many games that could be played. We talk about the pace of the game. Now, we're going to walk out to the mound and check a guy in the middle of a game and hold the game up? The managers are going to request that? I think that's kind of ridiculous. Let's not make it a bigger deal than it is. I think that was a little over the top."
The crackdown appears to be serving its purpose — getting more offense in the game. USA Today reported Monday that, since June 3, teams are averaging 4.59 runs a game, up from 4.36, and that batting averages are up to .244 from .236, OPS is up to .730 from .707 and strikeouts are down from 24.2% to 23.3%.
"I think it will all work out," Leyland said. "I think everything will settle down at some point."
Leyland long has blamed hitters more for baseball's problems than anything pitchers are doing. That includes the record number of strikeouts and the length-of-game issue.
"If you watch the games closely with all of these strikeouts, the hitters just don't control the strike zone anymore," Leyland said. "Most every strikeout, the guy either swung at one bad pitch or, in a lot of cases, two. They're not picking up the ball. They're not recognizing balls and strikes. They're swinging at bad pitches all of the time. They got this launch-angle stuff, which I don't like at all. Everybody has been swinging up for 150 years. Now, they make a bigger deal about this launch-angle stuff. They're working underneath the ball all of the time.
"Most teams don't have guys with a two-strike approach, which is terrible. Some of these hitting gurus now tell you, 'We don't want a two-strike approach.' That's ridiculous. In my opinion, there are hitters in every team's lineup that, when you have a man on third with less than two out, they should go into a two-strike approach from the first pitch on. You got these little guys, who are going to hit four or five home runs a year, swinging out of their fannies, trying to lift the ball. That's no good. Your big hammer guys in the middle, they're supposed to knock in runs, hit it over the fence. OK. But the other guys are supposed to complement those guys and set those guys up. There's a knack to winning games. The hitting is ridiculous right now. I know the pitchers are throwing harder. I know they're better. But, at the same time, I blame the hitters more than anything that has to do with the baseball or the pitchers."
The same is true, Leyland said, with baseball's problem that never seems to go away — the interminable length of so many games.
"You've got to get the batter in the batter's box and you've got to enforce the rules. Take a ground ball to shortstop. To me, the hitter on deck should be walking to home plate as soon as that ball is hit. There's nothing else to do. He should be walking up to home plate, getting in the box, getting ready to hit. But they're over there, waiting for their walk-up music, slamming their bat to get the donut off, messing around with their batting gloves, messing around with the pine tar rag ...
"Get the hitter in the box. It could be so easy if they'd just enforce the rules. Why have rules if you're not going to enforce them? But, at the end of the day, we're concerned about the players' union and a grievance. You can't do that. If you're going to have rules, you have to enforce them. Don't keep giving passes to these guys. You can't be afraid of fining guys."
Leyland likes starting a runner at second base in extra innings. "That creates action and strategy." He also likes seven-inning games in doubleheaders. "It makes sense because the games move along. The fans seem to like it." He does not, in any way, like forcing a relief pitcher to face three batters unless he ends an inning. "I think there's a fine line between trying to speed the game up and messing with the integrity of the game. That, to me, messes with the integrity."
That doesn't mean Leyland doesn't understand what Manfred is trying to do.
"Potentially, [baseball is in trouble]. We've lost our younger audience a little bit. That's the audience we've got to get back. Let's face it, the young people want action. They don't want to just sit there. That's why I think getting guys in the box, ready to hit, is the biggest change we can make. It would change the game entirely.
"But, evidently, they don't listen to me too much."
Again, shame on baseball.
