Back in the 80's and 90's we had unwritten rules. You don't go high with the cleats, meaning more than 6-8 inches off the ground, and you can't take a guy out by totally sliding late and going way past the bag. If you did those things expect to have the benches cleared and then get beaned if you weren't already ejected by the ump. And it was okay to bean someone but you never intentionally threw at a guy's head. You drilled him in the back or the ribs with a fastball. It was never a problem breaking up a double play by doing it right. I have no problem with the rules. Anybody can break up a double play without going cleats knee high and/or sliding past the bag into the outfield.
Once Gattis returns: vs RHP: 2B - Altuve RF - Springer SS - Correa LF - Rasmus 1B - White DH - Tucker CF - Gomez 3B - Valbuena C - Castro vs LHP: 2B - Altuve RF - Springer SS - Correa DH - Gattis CF - Gomez LF - Rasmus 1B - Gonzalez 3B - Duffy C - Castro
It sucks a lot, because Rasmus didn't need to do that, and it wasn't an unsafe play (if anything it was safer because he didn't try to get the bag). Reality is players need to learn the rule and adjust. For me, the Bautista play was clearly wrong and should have always been wrong because he grabbed the defender, where as this was an okay play, but technically against the rules.
Keep it old school. Bring back metal spikes and let the runner know if his slide is safe or not. A huge gash to the forehead or arm will do the trick.
Nonsense. People know how to slide into 2nd base without oversliding the bag or barreling into a player. It's not difficult to do and players do it all the time. In a month, no one will be complaining about this change. This is the same complaining as the targeting rules in football leading to a bunch of unnecessaary roughness penalties. After a few weeks, people realized that they didn't, in fact, have to spear people in order to play good football. And everyone moved on. Because it's silly and impossible. Just because you don't fix everything doesn't mean you shouldn't fix the easy things.
I'm with No Worries and Major in that I also think the players will adjust by May and the # of these calls will go down significantly. And I totally disagree that this is a fundamental change to how the game is played. It's minor and easily adjustable.
It's kinda funny that NFL players who slide are wussies, and baseball players who slide are old school butchers.
White up to 5. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Astros' lineup vs. Wily Peralta: Altuve 2B, Springer RF, Correa SS, Rasmus LF, White 1B, Gomez CF, Valbuena 3B, Castro C, Fister RHP.</p>— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) <a href="https://twitter.com/jakemkaplan/status/718887384759300097">April 9, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
SO glad Castro is no longer behind him. He's hitting everything....but needs someone to bring him home when he's on.
There will be inteference called on routine slides too where contact happens to be made. It's going to impact the decision to slide into 2nd and attempt to break up double plays... Something that happens every single game. The impact will be a tad more than what you're letting on. And the effect of the rule (as far as preventing injury) is also minuscule... As I said before, the risk of injury with any slide is more than slides just on double play attempts. I felt they could have policed the occasional excessive events better to curtail the wrong sort of slide, rather than just slap a universal rule that will effect more than what they were actively looking to prevent. Took them 100 years to eliminate two contact/safety rules... And they did that within 3 years. It's not impossible for them to change more... All it will take is another high profile player getting hurt in a way that is preventable.
I'm aware of the stipulations. But it's more of a subjective/judgement call that won't fit every single possible rule. There will be gray areas where intent and intended effect on breaking up a play are questionable both on initial call, and on replay.
Never seen Gattis catch, I'm not sure that's a good idea maybe he shows me something but I don't expect much.
