Detroit Tigers Links: The end of the takeout slide may be near

Joe Torre, now MLB's chief baseball officer, sounded a few interesting notes during last week's general manager meetings in Boca Raton, Florida. Among them was the possibility that MLB would do away with the takeout slide at second base in light of the injury to Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada during the playoffs.

There appears to be a growing consensus that plays like that should be eliminated from the game. While no decision has been made, it seems a good bet that changes to the rules to prevent that kind of slide will be forthcoming. Or perhaps they'll simply enforce the rules already on the books?

The pace of play saw some improvement this season, even though it probably didn't feel that way at all to Tigers' fans in 2015. Average game times were down to two hours and 56 minutes, a decline of six minutes from 2014.

Also under review is the New York attorney general's call for one-day fantasy sites like Fanduel and Draft Kings to stop accepting entries from New York residents. The question of whether these sites should be treated like other forms of gambling is one that will no doubt take some time to play out in the courts.

Finally, and perhaps most interesting, were Torre's comments on the use of replay on players sliding into bases. There appears some pressure from major league managers to allow a sliding baserunner some leeway were he to come off the base for a moment. In reference to that particular idea, Torre stated that "before, we accepted the imperfections of the game." That seems a very difficult statement to reconcile with most other rulings made in recent years where replay is concerned. Whether or not an idea like that has any traction or not, we'll have to wait for the Winter Meetings in December, if not longer, to know.

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Red Sox trade four prospects to Padres for Craig Kimbrel - John Sickels, Minor League Ball
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A host of great young players, led by Carlos Correa and Kris Bryant, exploded on the scene in 2015. If it felt like the year of the rookie, there's a good reason for that.

Optimizing the Swing – Alan Nathan, The Hardball Times
Is it true that the curveball is easier to hit for power because its topspin is converted to backspin, thus improving its carry distance? One man wades into this somewhat technical and difficult to reconcile debate.