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Stuart Miller's "Keeping Score" column in yesterday's New York Times - "A Slow Burn Over a Reluctance to Call High Strikes" - is well worth your time.
Miller's point is that the game could be sped up considerably if umpires made a concerted effort to call the high strike.
The top of the strike zone as currently defined is the "horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants." Not quite the letters, but a tad beneath. I've seen a few home plate umps call it on occasion, but in general, if a pitch is much above the belt, it's called a ball.
Miller points out that games these days feature 27 more pitches than a similar game in 1988; the equivalent of an extra inning. If hitters knew a pitch up there was a strike, they'd arrive at the plate ready to hack - theoretically, anyway.
Former ump Jim Evans has a more radical idea: widen home plate by 5 inches. The current 17-inch plate is the same in Little League, high school, college, even softball. A 22 inch wide plate - and a shorter zone top-to-bottom - would speed up the game as well, he argues.
I'm not sure I agree with that premise, but it would keep hitters from standing so far back in the batter's box.
It's one of those debates we'll keep on hearing.
