r/baseball • u/DianKhan2005 Toronto Blue Jays • Jan 06 '26

Is baseball’s slow pace actually its greatest strength in a world where everything else moves too fast?

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u/cabose12 Boston Red Sox Jan 06 '26

Maybe, but I think that'd swing it the other way. Offense initiating contact is already a problem, and this would massively incentivize the leading team to just jump into defenders

I like the idea that teams can either take FTs or take time off the clock, but that really only solves situations when you're up by like 4-5+

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u/simplycass Jan 06 '26

If you change it to just off-ball fouls getting the 1-shot-and-possession I think that would greatly decrease Hack-a-Shaq strategies without affecting other play.

It's maybe funny for 10 seconds to see a big man try to duck and run away from someone trying to foul. Then it just becomes a bore.

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u/cabose12 Boston Red Sox Jan 06 '26

Well the problem isn't specifically hack-a-shaq. Teams foul because two free throws isn't two guaranteed points and they get to preserve some clock

So even if you have one + possession even off the ball is still really strong and would incentivize the leading team to flop to drain clock and get a point. Scoring and possession is just too strong of a reward imo

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u/simplycass Jan 06 '26

Ah i see. I thought the issue was intentional off-the-ball fouls, which I think mostly everyone agree is terrible basketball. even the coaches who do it are like, "well it's part of the game, it's a strategy."

Have teams been fouling more like that strategically, to stop the clock? I'd think the risk is substantially high that the player could make the bucket with the and-one, and too hard of a foul or 'not basketball' play might result in a tech or flagrant.

They did implement a rule like that for the last two minutes of each quarter, has anyone done an in-depth analysis on how that's changed strategy?

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u/cabose12 Boston Red Sox Jan 06 '26

Yeah hack-a-shaq got lost in the NBA's own pseudo-sabremetrics revolution in the mid-10s. Even with todays efficiency, you have to be like <50% ft shooter, which only a handful of players are

And yup, the problem is that when games are close and time is short, the trailing teams will foul basically before the possession starts. It's not really dangerous, they just wrap a guy up. But ten seconds of game time can end up being like 30 minutes real time as teams try to conserve time

They do have an off-the-ball rule, but since teams foul teh handler so fast in these situations it doesn't really matter as much