After giving a glowing review of current Pittsburgh Pirate second baseman Adam Frazier, former fellow All-Star second baseman Freddy Sanchez had a few thoughts on the current state of baseball.
"We have to evolve," Sanchez said with the PM Team on 93.7 the Fan Wednesday evening. "That's the beauty of baseball. You're always looking for better ways to drive the ball or hit the ball."
That was Sanchez's remarks regarding the idea of launch angle and exit velocity.
Since Sanchez played in an era of baseball before the importance of such statistics and tracking, he doesn't think he would be able to make it in the league today.
"If I played today I wouldn't have a job!" Sanchez said. "I wasn't hitting homers."
Despite being a phenomenal hitter and fielder, he's right when he says he wasn't hitting home runs.
Sanchez's career high in dingers was 11 in 2007, the year after he won the MLB batting title.
Chris Mueller chimed in calling Sanchez an "artist" at the plate, and that tied into the following questions that centered around possible rule changes throughout the league.
When asked about the idea of banning the defensive shift, Sanchez harshly disagreed.
"Baseball is a game of strategy… It's all fair game," he said. "It's the offenses turn to figure out how to beat it. It's a chess match."
Sanchez said the fielders should be able to play wherever they please, even alluding to a situation where if a centerfielder wanted to play rover, let him.
A rule new rule that was added to MLB last season was each team starting extra innings with a runner on second base.
This is also a rule that Sanchez is not a fan of.
"I'm not a fan of big league baseball putting a guy on second base," he said. "I think it's extra innings, you gotta earn it."
In terms of getting more eyes and viewers to the game of baseball, Sanchez had a few new thoughts that may catch some ears.
Sanchez's thougths on why people don't watch is how the season and the games are long and fans don't stick around to watch or are putting off watching to another day because there are games every day.
"As a fan I'm thinking that it's too many games," Sanchez says. "I'm not going to watch today, it's on tomorrow anyway."
With no sense of urgency, baseball as a sport can drag on all day or all summer.
Pirates' play-by-play voice Greg Brown joined the PM Team later in the show and vehemently disagrees with Sanchez
"I would argue vehemently with Freddy," Brown said. "And ask him to come come to his senses."
"I really get so tired of so many people… this knee jerk reaction 'we have to fix baseball'" Brown said. "Constant changing. I'm hoping smart baseball people get together and talk about the importance of the game."
Hear both interviews here on 93.7 the Fan.
