Commissioner Rob Manfred is on a crusade. What that crusade is about, though, isn’t totally clear.

With the new rules he’s proposed, he definitely wants to affect the pace-of-action in the game of baseball. However, Manfred seems torn as to what he actually wants to do. Eliminating the four-pitch walk will save a little bit of time every game (though some games go by without a single intentional walk). But raising the strike zone could increase non-intentional walks, which will add time to every game. So does he want shorter games or more offense?

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Speaking to Yahoo Sports on Wednesday after his appearance at Yahoo’s All Markets Summit in New York City, Manfred said: “Our goal is to make sure that our product is as tight and compelling as possible. So what we’re focused on is eliminating points of delay in the game, where there’s no action, it doesn’t affect the outcome of the game. Where we can just move the game along a little quicker.”

But why is Manfred even doing this? Well, he believes that improving pace-of-play will attract a younger audience. As of 2015, the average age of an MLB fan is 53, older than any other major sport. He presumably believes that baseball needs younger fans to survive, and he doesn’t think baseball has enough. So he’s going to try and mold the game into something that these younger people will want to watch.

But changing the game just for that purpose seems like a really extreme solution to a problem that can be solved by different means. So what can Manfred actually do to attract this poorly defined target audience of “young people?” Here are a few suggestions:

View photos Tom Murphy of the Colorado Rockies talks to a young girl during pre-game activities. (Getty Images) More

Stop trying to make them mega fans

Baseball is a lot. It’s 162 games a year, with at least nine innings in each one. If you’re a young person in school, or with a full-time job, and even just an active life, finding the time to watch a game more than a few times a week is difficult. And if you have young kids? You probably don’t even have time to sleep, let alone pay attention to baseball. But that doesn’t mean that shorter games are the answer. Fundamentally changing a game that’s been around (and loved!) for over 100 years is a poor way to react to the lopsided quality of your fanbase.

If Manfred wants to make new mega fans, he’s fighting a losing battle. He needs to make regular fans before he can do that. And to do that, Manfred needs to find ways to lower the threshold of fandom. There is a lot of baseball to consume on any given day in the regular season, but that’s one of the things that makes it great, and that should definitely be emphasized. However, you don’t have to watch all 162 games to be a fan, or catch four-plus games a week. You don’t need to catch all nine innings of a game. Baseball is a delightful buffet of variety, but the average fan probably doesn’t want to watch four baseball games at once, or see games from eight different teams in a week. They root for their home team.

The key here is finding a way to engage people in baseball wherever they are, and however they want to consume it. Give them a lot of options and be ubiquitous. MLB.tv Premium is a great product, but it’s more than most fans need (in both price and features). The single team MLB.tv deal is a great sign of progress and allowing local cable subscribers to watch games on their mobile devices, which is happening for a few teams this season, is also fantastic. It doesn’t address the problem of cord cutters (who are typically younger) who live in the same market as their favorite team, but at least MLB is starting to offer more options. That’s a way to make the threshold of fandom lower, which will allow more people to enjoy the game.

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