The electorate is divided, and their opinions are nonnegotiable. When the vote is finally held this November, one side is guaranteed to be unhappy.
Baseball's strike zone, as it turns out, has a lot in common with Trump vs. Clinton.
"It's a split decision around here," Joe Mauer said, "depending on who you ask."
MLB's competition committee last month recommended eliminating the bottom 2-3 inches of the strike zone, sources told ESPN.com, raising the lower boundary from "the hollow beneath the kneecap," as the official rules currently state, to "the top of the hitter's knees."
It might not sound like a big change, but players know the difference could be profound.
"It goes against everything I've ever learned — keep the ball down, so they can't hit the ball out of the park," Twins righthander Tyler Duffey said. "If I can't pitch down there, I'm really in trouble. You won't be talking to me, because I won't be here anymore."
Mauer, though, believes a tightening up of the strike zone would simply be a logical correction, a necessary reversal to a trend he says he has seen over the past five years or so. More low pitches are called strikes now than when his career began. But there are other changes to the game, too, that can't be fixed with a rule change. The proliferation of pitchers throwing close to 100 miles per hour or more, the pitch limits and bullpen specialization that keeps relievers fresh, and the ability to induce even the fastest pitches to break as they approach the plate.
All those factors have contributed to an explosion of strikeouts — and a dramatic decline in the number of balls put in play.
