Don Mattingly Says Changing Strikeout Mentality Would Speed Up MLB Play

Major League Baseball is focused on implementing wholesale changes to speed up the pace of play starting in 2018, and Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly told reporters on Wednesday that he thinks a focus on reducing strikeouts could help expedite that process. 

"Analytically, a few years back nobody cared about the strikeout, so it's OK to strike out 150, 160, 170 times, and that guy's still valued in a big way," he said, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). "Well, as soon as we start causing that to be a bad value—the strikeouts—guys will put the ball in play more."

Mattingly added that if teams started to view strikeouts as a bigger detriment to overall performance, it could cause players to re-evaluate their approach at the plate: "Once we say strikeouts are bad and it's going to cost you money the more you strike out, then the strikeouts will go away. Guys will start making adjustments and putting the ball in play more."

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred pitched rule changes—including a pitch clock, adjustments to strike zone dimensions and limits on mound visits—for the start of the 2017 season, but the players' union rebuffed those suggestions with the exception of a new protocol that will eliminate the antiquated intentional walk procedure. 

"I have to admit that I'm disappointed we could not even get the MLBPA to agree to modest rule changes — like limit trips to the (pitcher’s) mound — that had little effect on the competitive character of the game," Manfred said Tuesday, per USA Today's Bob Nightengale. 

However, change appears to be on the horizon in some shape or form. 

According to Nightengale, MLB has the ability to impose rule alterations for the 2018 season without the MLBPA's consent.

As far as Mattingly's point is concerned, Manfred said Tuesday that home runs have increased by 32 percent and strikeouts are up by 67 percent since 1980. According to Nightengale, Manfred noted "baseball had more inactivity during games than at any other time in history."

With Manfred determined to modernize the game and a slew of opinions circulating the sport on how best to institute reforms, debate figures to rage on through the spring and summer as MLB hunkers down and examines its options moving forward.