CHANGING PACE
Raheel Ramzanali: Some off the wall rule changes for all the major sports
Feb 27, 2018, 6:09 am
New rule: James Harden has to bet his beard. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
With rule changes being all the rage in sports these days, here are some other rules I would like to see implemented across all sports:
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MLB - The Dock Ellis Card: Did you know LSD is still banned in baseball? As my co-host Del explained to me, “hey dumbass, LSD is still illegal so yes it is banned,” so yes it is. I think LSD being banned is dumb. If anybody still wants to take a tab of LSD and be a professional baseball player they should be able to do it. I want to take it a step further and implement a new rule where each manager is given a Dock Ellis Card every game and they can use it at anytime to make any player on their or opposing team take a tab of LSD. Could you imagine the fun we would have watching a pitcher try to get his bearings in a 2-1 game?! Facing Aaron Judge? Use the Dock Ellis Card on him and he’ll strike out even more due to the hallucinations. This adds another layer of managing and now AL managers can actually manage games in the regular season!
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NFL - Headset Espionage: The NFL goes to great lengths to prevent teams from picking up each other’s headset frequencies. For those of you that don’t know, the NFL (and pretty much all of football) depends heavily on headsets to communicate with the QB, coaches in the coaches box, and each other on the sidelines. Wouldn’t the NFL be way more fun if each team had 30 seconds worth of espionage use? Meaning, they could listen in to their opponents audio feed and gather all the info they wanted to, but for only a total of 30 seconds. The game within the game would become even better with teams throwing out fake calls during times they feel like the other team is using their espionage time.
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NBA - Gimmick Bet: The NBA is wildly popular because of their superstars. Unfortunately, most of their superstars are gimmick based and that bothers me. The Beard, The King, The Unibrow, etc. will now have to make a bet before each playoff series where they put their gimmicks on the line. Could you imagine how hard James Harden would play if his Beard gimmick was on the line?! Just thinking about the potential bets is making me even more interested in the playoffs. Celtics vs Cavs in the Eastern Conference Finals we get to see LeBron put The King on the line against Kyrie’s Uncle Drew. Loser has to end the gimmick and think of something new for 2019.
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NBA - Houston Rule: A team can delay the start of seven total games by 30 minutes every year (including playoffs) so the crowd can filter in. I get it, life comes up and traffic is the worst so I’m not here to bash Rockets fans for not being in their seats when games tip, but I am going to help the teams out. I think they should be able to delay the start by 30 mins if they feel like the crowd is too thin for a real home court advantage. Now teams won’t be stuck with the predicament of a less than stellar crowd during a playoff game. This gives the crowd time to fight traffic, park, and get in their seats.
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How Astros advanced metrics tell puzzling story about Houston's start
Apr 17, 2025, 5:21 pm
Major League Baseball’s regular season is 162 games long. You can think of 18 games as the first inning of the season, 18 times nine equaling 162. While the Astros 8-10 record is not good, it’s far from disastrous. Think of it as them being behind 1-0 after the first inning. It is pretty remarkable that they have yet to win consecutive games. Even during last year’s 7-19 stink bomb of a start the Astros twice managed to win two in a row.
The Astros’ offensive woes are plentiful. Oddly enough as impotent as they’ve been, the Astros have yet to be shutout. But in half their games they have scored exactly one or two runs. Basically, most of them stink thus far. Exemptions go to Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes, but it’s not like either of them has been outstanding. It’s still early enough that one big series can dramatically alter the numbers, but the Astros badly need Yordan Alvarez to pick up his production. Yordan enters the weekend batting just .224 with a .695 OPS and just four extra base hits. Yainer rhymes with minor. As in minor leagues, where Diaz belongs at his current level of performance. That is not saying Diaz should be sent down, just that any random AAA catcher called up couldn’t have done much worse to this point. Diaz isn’t hitting Altuve’s weight, a woeful .130 with seven hits in 57 at bats. Diaz simply remains too undisciplined at the plate swinging at too many balls. He’s drawn three walks. And now to Christian Walker, who thus far has delivered return on investment for his three year 60 million dollar contract about as strong as the stock market’s performance in Tariff Time. Walker’s .154 batting average and .482 OPS are very Astro Jose Abreu-like. Walker’s 23 strikeouts in 65 at bats jump off the page. He has often looked befuddled in the batter's box. Walker is definitely pressing and frustrated, wanting to perform better for his new team. Jeremy Pena goes into the weekend batting .215 and has one hit in 13 at bats with runners in scoring position. Brendan Rodgers, Jake Meyers, and Chas McCormick all have weak stat lines, with little reason to expect quality offensive output from any of them. Cam Smith is at .200 with a yucky .591 OPS but he’s obviously a young stud work in progress thrown into the deep end of the pool.
All batting orders are top-heavy, the Astros’ on paper more so than many. As I set forth on one of our Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts this week, the first inning should be a team’s best offensive inning. It’s the only frame in which a team gets to dictate who comes up from the start with the batters lined up just as the manager slots them. Add to that, the first inning is a good time to get to a starting pitcher before he settles in. The Astros have scored a pitiful three first inning runs in 18 games, and in two of the games they pushed one across in the first, it turned out to be the only Astro run of the game. Improvement needs to come internally from the big league roster. It’s not as if the Astros have a meaningful prospect at AAA Sugar Land who looks ready to help. Entering play Thursday the Space Cowboys’ team average was .186. Second base hopeful Brice Matthews is nowhere close, batting .180 and striking out left and right. Outfielder Jacob Melton opened three for 17 following the back injury-delayed start to his season.
As exasperating and boring as the offense has been for so many, grading needs to occur on a curve. So, while the Astros’ team batting average is a joke at .216, know that at close of business Wednesday the entire American League was batting just .232. The American League West-leading Texas Rangers scored eight fewer runs over their first 18 games than did the Astros, though that is skewed by the Astros’ one 14-run outburst against the Angels.
Familiar faces return
This weekend the Astros play host to the San Diego Padres at Daikin Park. The Friars are off to a fabulous start at 15-4. The Padres being here creates a mini reunion as both Martin Maldonado and Yuli Gurriel are on their roster. In a telling fact, Maldonado would have the third-highest batting average on the Astros if on the team with his current numbers. Maldonado is hitting .250 with seven hits in 28 at bats. The last season he finished above .200 was 2020. The only season in his career Maldonado topped .234 was his rookie season with a .266 mark in 2012.
Gurriel was last good in 2021 when he won the American League batting title at .319. He fell off a cliff from there, though perked up to have a fine postseason in the Astros’ 2022 run to World Series title number two. “La Pina” is batting .115 with just three hits in 26 at bats. Gurriel may be released soon, and approaching his 41st birthday June 9, that would probably be the end of the line. Short-timer Astro Jason Heyward is also on the Padres, and batting .190.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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