Tony Clark told the press after meeting with the Twins squad that the players were willing to police pace of play improvements:
“We were moving things a long in a way we were hopeful was goiong to land on some common ground,” Clark said. “There just wasn’t enough common ground to address some of the concerns. It lent itself to the league implementing certain facets of the rules. and it led to players having an interest in focusing in on a number of things they can control themselves.”
There’s no pitch clock, like the league threatened to use. Fines are expected to be handed to habitual offenders of current rules. And now players want to take it upon themselves to change?
If the players want to speed up the game, then MLB has won. Just the threat of installing a pitch clock or punishing teams with by assessing ball and strike penalties has led to behavior modification.
Maybe Rob Manfred is a master persuader. He made an outrageous opening bid in announcing the league would unilaterally impose a pitch clock. He then paced the players by repeatedly saying he wanted a negotiated solution. This got the players talking about how to speed up the game on their own. He finally led the union to a negotiated solution without a pitch clock, and now the players are trying to avoid that option at all costs. Manfred is a trained negotiator, after all, and appears to be very good at moving the players in the direction he desires.
Most players are fighting for their job or the next contract. If they feel taking a bit more time to get ready gives them a better chance they are going to take it
Players couldnt even stop taking steroids ahead of the anonymous testing in 2003 even though they knew the results would determine if punitive testing would be performed
Preventing a clock for next year has no effect on hitters and pitches who are not guaranteed a job or are looking for a bigger contract.
Manfred backed down because players were getting militant over this offseason and he wanted to cool things off.. Clark said in Boston over the weekend they are going
to look hard at what happened this offseason when its over with and get imput from agents on details of negotiations and look at the final numbers. A collusion grievance is still a possibility and Manfred likely knows this.
I dont question Manfreds negotiating ability, he wouldnt be making 20 milion a year as commisioner if he did not have it. Takes a lot of skill to keep 30 owners working together to reign in salaries, even if it is in their common interests
As someone who hates extra inning games in regular season, I would suggest awarding tie games to the team who kept off the field the longest through the first 6 innings (before a tie becomes a real possibility). The danger of course is teams on offense delay the game early trying to get an advantage in which case the rule keeping them in the box during an AB has to be endorced