the first new MLB rules since '96

it's amazing how baseball has convinced itself that it's impossible to make players actually play the game faster so instead they come up with shit like this.

yeaaaah...it does seem possible that someone could come in and have a terrible day *cough greg holland, cough*, throw 10 pitches to the first guy, 8 to the next, 9 to the third, or whatever. and you'd not only be forced to watch greg holland suck for 3 batters in a row, but also throw way too many pitches in the process?

or an old schooler like Tony Larussa might just visit the mound and tell him to hit the next 2 batters on the first pitch and gtfo?

opposed to 3-batter min

i don't like the endless pitching changes, but unintended consequences will likely be worse

kinda like term limits

and whoever tweets for NBC Sports, it's not "the MLB" you savage

if that got out of hand it wouldn't be difficult to institute a rule that if a pitcher is removed for an injury he has to sit for x games (like if you do an injury roster replacement in the playoffs)

i don't really get why relievers need eight warmup pitches -- that's what the bullpen is for. come in, throw two or three to get the feel of the mound, and get going

i'm out on anything that takes strategy out of the game and again, they could just.....execute pitching changes faster? like maybe the tubby manager doesn't have to stroll out to the mound to "take the ball?" maybe the new pitcher doesn't need a dozen warmup throws off the mound after having fully warmed up in the bullpen?

it doesn't take strategy out of the game, it just changes the strategy. you could argue it requires more strategic thinking to plan by batches of three batters instead of being able to swap out pitchers for each batter.

you could, but i wouldn't

i'm out on anything that takes strategy out of the game and again, they could just.....execute pitching changes faster? like maybe the tubby manager doesn't have to stroll out to the mound to "take the ball?" maybe the new pitcher doesn't need a dozen warmup throws off the mound after having fully warmed up in the bullpen?

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 11:57 AM (eleven minutes ago

right, or enforce a damn pitch clock!

i think they should just implemented this rule in the minor leagues so that it can work there and then never be properly implemented and enforced in the major leagues, several years later

xp lol

Even though I hate the glacial pace-of-play and the sheer pointlessness of many pitching changes--cf. my whining about the Brewers in last years NL playoff thread--my instinctive reaction to the three-batter idea is no. That seems to be an overly drastic and artificial intervention...I'd have to give it some thought to explain better.

the endless dance of trying to get/avoid hand-on-hand matchups is 'strategy' that isn't very interesting to me

Found this James tweet pretty illuminating:

In 1958 there were 11 major league games in which a starting pitcher was removed before pitching 5 innings or allowing a run to score.

In 1968 there were 11; in 1978, still 11. In 1988 there were 15; in 1998, still 15.

In 2008 there were 32.

In 2018 there were 125.

honestly that still doesn't seem like very much as a proportion of all games played, just over 5% right?

yeah it's an arbitrary stat, the point is that there are a lot of pitching changes and games are taking too long

If you just focus on the increase from 1998 to 2018, you're looking at the same number of games (no expansion since then, right?). That seems like a huge jump to me (and an exponential jump; twice as many by 2008, eight times as many by 2018), and not arbitrary. It shows that needless pitching changes are happening at both ends of the game.

I meant that 5 innings/no runs cutoff is arbitrary. agreed about the message

some of that is the rays using openers; more of it is teams recognizing the third-time-through-the-order penalty. i suppose i'd rather see a great starter go all nine, but if you wanna use a new reliever at the start of every inning i don't see a reason to outlaw it -- it's the in-inning pitching changes that are slowing things down

Good point...Obviously he based that on the five innings a starter needs for a win, so to the extent that starter wins are a relic, yes, arbitrary.

t shows that needless pitching changes are happening at both ends of the game.

don't know if "needless" is correct there. it might be that managers/front offices are learning that in certain situations, it's better to bring in a reliever relatively early in the game, before the pitcher faces a lineup for the dreaded 3rd time through the lineup, and before the pitcher qualifies for the all-important "win" or "quality start"

oops, xposts

Obviously he based that on the five innings a starter needs for a win, so to the extent that starter wins are a relic, yes, arbitrary.

this is a very minor thing, of course, but one of the things about bill james that annoys me is that he seems to find a lot of ways to keep the old stats alive

Say goodbye to the disabled list.

Major League Baseball is renaming its designation for hurt players the "Injured List" and getting rid of the DL, a fixture in the game since 1966, a source familiar with the plan tells ESPN.

News at ESPN: https://t.co/6HytAl2eS5

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 7, 2019

sounds good to me!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/whats-not-to-like-about-proposed-mlb-rules-changes-nothing-except-for-one/2019/02/06/7a184fa8-2a56-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html

Baseball is fine. This obsession w/ shortening the games—by what, 15 minutes?—is stupid.

I hate the idea of a pitch clock, but fine. What I fear is that watching televised baseball will mean—from now on—hours of staring at an ONSCREEN COUNTDOWN for every pitch, which would seem to run counter to so much about what sets apart and elevates baseball. I like the languor of baseball, and I like the idea that to some degree players dictate the pace.

If they're going to do this I hope that we are only alerted to the clock when it expires.

My life already feels like a constantly ticking clock ffs

I think Joe Posnanski was dead set against the pitch clock, but once he went to a game that had one he became a fan, saying you really don't notice it. If it manages to speed up deadly slow pitchers like Jon Lester then it's a good thing. I do think putting it on screen is probably a mistake, unless they just turn it on for the last 5 seconds.

I like the "three-batter minimum" rule. I'm not so sure about the "runner on 2nd in extras" one, b/c it seems like every team would then put a light-hitting fast dude like Billy Hamilton on their roster who could just steal 3rd and score on a ground ball. maybe if you speculate that it has to be the manager or hitting coach, then I'd be in

what's the penalty if a pitcher doesn't pitch before the pitch clock runs out

he has to back up 5 yards

there's been a pitch clock in the minors for years and it is almost never a factor. once pitchers get used to it and the idea that they don't have endless time to fuck around, no one will notice it. penalty is a called ball

i don't think the guy-on-second-in-extras thing will ever actually happen in the majors, but if it did, that would be bad imo

To be clear I only object to having to stare at a countdown clock.

Yeah the runner on 2nd thing is awful. But so is three-batter minimum! I mean there's already a cost that comes with carrying a LOOGY— it means more work for the rest of your bullpen. It's one of the things that makes bullpen management interesting.

Ugh, I wish they'd just leave the game alone.

I don't think that overmanaging your bullpen LaRussa-style feels like an abuse of the rules or anything, it just makes the game more boring to watch

I agree w that but I also don't object to being bored occasionally. God forbid anybody should have to just be alone with their thoughts for a couple minutes. I'm nearly always doing something else when watching a game anyway.

Televised football and basketball games don’t constantly show their countdown clocks, so I really doubt they would show it for baseball.

Xposts

I was under the impression, which I totally pulled out of the ether, that the runner to be placed on 2nd was the first batter due up in that inning, so there's no way to guarantee a Billy Hamilton.

If they are going to change the DH, just go ahead and do it, don't put it up for debate or comment or anything.

xp - pinch runner then

it's the last batter of the previous inning who gets put on second; not sure if you're allowed to pinch run for him

Only year we ever won baseball at my school in 20 years (the Darren Shred year), the title game involved an extra inning and the start-on-second rule. We scored, they didn't. Can't remember how they determined the baserunner.

Televised football and basketball games don’t constantly show their countdown clocks, so I really doubt they would show it for baseball.

they do in football once it gets below :25. in basketball it's always on the screen, but the shot clock essentially drives the pace of the game sometimes so I get why that's necessary. feel like the smart thing to do in baseball is to just display it when it goes under :05

Don't display it at all, totally unnecessary. If they go over, you'll know!

clem the reds released yr man. he's still only 21, but the injuries may have done him in

https://www.sbnation.com/a/mlb-2017-season-preview/game-length

the article that convinced me a pitching clock is necessary

that's a great article. rip firewalled grant brisbee

a friend writes:

Of all the issues that MLB is allegedly discussing with the Players Association the one with the greatest potential for mischief is…September call-ups.

This seemed to be the favorite topic of complaint among baseball’s talking heads last fall – oh, the impurity of a team with 37 players on its roster competing with a team that has 34 players.

I get the concern about expanded benches and bullpens contributing to The Great Slowdown. But in a $10 billion industry where the union famously could care less about anyone (minor leaguers, stadium workers, striking hotel employees) outside their little guild and the owners are comically greedy, one month of 40-man rosters is the closest thing baseball has to a genuine share-the-wealth program. (Set aside for the moment clubhouse tipping and the teams’ revenue sharing plan).

Under the terms of the current CBA:

After completing 43 game days on a ML roster players become fully vested in the MLBPA’s defined-benefit pension plan and receive a minimum annual payout of $34,000 at retirement. (Annual benefit amounts increase with additional service time.)
With one (1) day of service time players receive comprehensive lifetime health insurance (including dental, vision and Medicare supplemental) for themselves and their immediate family.
(The CBA also includes provisions for long-term disability coverage and employer-funded IRA contributions. Dunno what the service-time requirements are for those benefits.)

It seems likely that getting called up in September is the main pathway for scores (maybe more) of fringe and AAAA ballplayers to accrue service time each year. Of course the rewards for making it past the Service Time Threshold look pretty paltry stacked up against an average major leaguer’s compensation package. But for normal people that is a fantastic level of economic security. In fact, if baseball was still the national pastime, someone could run a great Huey Long/Francis Townsend-type campaign around the notion of “Every American a September Call-Up.”

Maybe Tony Clark & Co. will come up with a savvy proposal to preserve or even enhance this benefits windfall for baseball’s have-nots by trading off a more restrictive September roster rule for reduced (i.e. more generous) service-time requirements. Obviously, ending the big overflowing September rosters in exchange for a full-season 26-man roster would not achieve that goal.

i would suggest, then, that only 25 players from expanded september rosters be available for each individual game. it wouldn't completely end the parade of relievers (since you could just swap in fresh ones tomorrow) but it might make managers at least consider the possibility of an 18-inning game

wow I actually remember that Brewer game