It's a solution that could work, but there's one last solution that could work even better. Right now, the official rules say the bottom of the zone is at " the hollow beneath the kneecap." It hasn't always been this way, as the bottom of the zone before 1996 was at "the top of the knees." If MLB reverts back to that, maybe the current craziness at the bottom of the zone would be solved. One thing I admittedly didn't consider, however, is that MLB could do something as simple as turning back the clock. It's tied to the placement of batters' knees, which are a handy reference point for the bottom of the zone. I wrote in my piece last week that changing the bottom of the strike zone would be tricky. And though hitters are seeing more and more pitches at the bottom of the zone, they just can't stop hitting them on the ground. The league's batting average on pitches at the bottom of the zone has decreased, and the league's isolated power has decreased even more. Hypothetically, Deford has a solid argument in thinking that shrinking the plate and the zone along with it would help increase offense. It'd be more fun, a better game both to play and to watch. They'd swing more, put more balls in play.
Batters would have a more reasonable chance to try to connect. If you cut, say, an inch and a half off each side, pitchers would have a 14-inch target. too broad for the pitchers today, especially when so many strikes are on the corners, or even 'on the black,' the small fringe that frames the plate. This was the idea noted sportswriter Frank Deford proposed on NPR earlier this year: The only way to do that, of course, is by making home plate smaller than 17 inches across. One way to do this would be to change the width of the strike zone. Since umpires are operating within the rules in making the strike zone bigger, it follows that the only way to make the strike zone smaller within the rules is to actually change the rules.
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