Proposed MLB rule changes

[Baldkin]

It'd be interesting to know how much time is used on replay versus managers throwing fits on the field because a call didn't go their way.

 

I don't care. In fact, watching a manager argue with an umpire is WAY more entertaining than watching 4 union hacks huddle around with headsets on waiting to hear if a runner is out at 1B in 0-0 game with 2 outs in the 3rd inning.

 

College football has solved the replay problem. There is absolutely no reason MLB cannot adopt the same system. Having a 5th replay umpire in the booth who presses a button to say "Hold on" to the home plate ump. Then they have 60 seconds to review. Call is over.

 

This would still be infinitely faster than the "Let's wait and see if the guy in the clubhouse says we should challenge this" which happens every game.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Another side of this that needs to be thought through is how pinch hitters are now managed. Knowing a reliever starting an inning has to face at least three hitters really gives an opposing manager the edge in playing platoon advantages with pinch hitters - particularly in high leverage spots late in games.

[Ennder]

If you want to make the game faster paced, shorter and more friendly to newer fans make it 2 strikes, 3 balls and 7 innings. That obviously would alienate older fans so it won't happen. The truth is the original game of baseball was not built for TV or for the current lower attention span fanbase and there isn't much they can do to make it better. I don't have an issue with them trying to fit a square peg into a round hole but they are never going to find the perfect solution because it is an imperfect question.

[adambr2]

Why not just shorten the game to 8 innings and leave everything else alone?

 

That alone is going to knock 20 minutes off games and reduce wear on everyone.

[Oxy]

Why not just shorten the game to 8 innings and leave everything else alone?

 

That alone is going to knock 20 minutes off games and reduce wear on everyone.

 

Fine by me.

 

Can't work though because of all the historical statistics it would screw up.

[sveumrules]

How would shortening games to eight innings in the future screw up historical statistics from the past?

[Tbadder]

DH: it was inevitable. The rule is now on par with death and taxes, two other things I’m against. Again really trying to stick it to small market teams.

 

3 batter minimum: trying to get runs on the board.

 

12 pitchers maximum: this one offends me. It is blantantly anti-small market. It is simply an attempt to get super expensive 7-8 inning pitchers to dominate teams. Problem is only a few teams can afford a full complement of these kinds of players. The Brewers better win the WS quick because they won’t be smelling the playoffs for, well, forever. Boston, NY teams, Dodgers, etc. just gotta be loving this. No more of those pesky innovative teams to worry about. This rule is beyond bull.

 

26 roster spots: all for it

 

One trade deadline: all for it

 

Baseball games are going be longer, pitchers are going to get hurt more often. These changes remind of Bill France, the head of NASCAR, when he said in front of a congressional committee, “we’re not a sport, we’re entertainment.”

 

Pitching clock: read somewhere that an arm throwing a baseball at 90 mph needs more than 20 seconds to recover. Hope that’s true. I hope arms just go exploding everywhere and then we’ll get what this nitwit commish really wants—softball.

[FVBrewerFan]

Want faster games? Call more strikes, period.

Exactly. Bigger/better strike zone, and shorten pitching change times.

 

This three batter minimum nonsense doesn't help the game. Can't wait for a pitcher to come in, get in trouble, have to muddle through an extra batter or two (making him unavailable to pitch the next day), and then have an even worse pitcher come in to relieve him. Great stuff.

 

I am optimistic that this rule will never see the field. Hopefully, it will get negotiated away for something less stupid, and something the players actually agree to.

 

Which is why this nonsense won't even speed up the game. Managers don't pull a pitcher just for fun. It's because hes either struggling or about to face a horrible match-up.

 

Williams starts the 8th in a 3-1 lead. Walks first rh hitter, walks 2nd rh hitter. LH on deck. Disaster waiting to happen. Force him to stay in the game for another batter and that inning could last a half hour. One example, but plenty of similar situations arise.

 

Its stuff like that, not eliminating the loogy. If youve noticed, that role is dying off anyhow. Brewers dont have one, didnt have one last year. Teams want more outs from a reliever, not less. But it just makes strategic sense that an outing will often wrap around part of one inning and the next, based on lineup. This rule takes away a manager's ability to manage.

 

A side effect is burning out your late inning guys, because you cant risk a late inning trying to sneak by with a Barnes or Williams.

 

Finally, Ive never bought the whole argument of "young people will tune in if the game is shorter." Its not an action sport, and will never appeal to masses of young people. Theres barely any baseball diamonds around anywhere, kids dont play baseball. Thats where the problem starts. It will appeal to analytical types, except theyre taking the strategy out of the game. Having more to do, see, eat, drink at the ballpark will draw the millennials too, big reason why Miller Park is popular, even before last season.

 

Nascar and other sports tried to appeal to the masses and failed miserably by driving away their core fans. NFL is getting close to that, if not for the off the charts interest in fantasy football.

 

So lets try this. Keep baseball.....baseball. Then promote it, promote fantasy leagues, educate fans on the game, continue to innovate the game day experience. Work on bringing baseball back to the youth level.

 

What wont work? Stupid rule changes and cutting commercial breaks by 5 seconds. Now get off my lawn!

[Oxy]

How would shortening games to eight innings in the future screw up historical statistics from the past?

 

Same way that moving from 154 to 162 games did. Everybody gets less ABs and IPs.

 

Personally, I wouldn't care since the aforementioned change and the steroid era has put a serious dent into the validity of comparing different eras for season/career counting stats anyway. But it's still something that would keep them from making the change.

[SomewhereInTime]

I was against this until I saw that the end of an inning works the same as three batters. I'm still against virtually all legislative changes made season to season in professional sports, but at least this won't have a huge impact.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Want faster games? Call more strikes, period.

Exactly. Bigger/better strike zone, and shorten pitching change times.

 

This three batter minimum nonsense doesn't help the game. Can't wait for a pitcher to come in, get in trouble, have to muddle through an extra batter or two (making him unavailable to pitch the next day), and then have an even worse pitcher come in to relieve him. Great stuff.

 

I am optimistic that this rule will never see the field. Hopefully, it will get negotiated away for something less stupid, and something the players actually agree to.

 

Which is why this nonsense won't even speed up the game. Managers don't pull a pitcher just for fun. It's because hes either struggling or about to face a horrible match-up.

 

Williams starts the 8th in a 3-1 lead. Walks first rh hitter, walks 2nd rh hitter. LH on deck. Disaster waiting to happen. Force him to stay in the game for another batter and that inning could last a half hour. One example, but plenty of similar situations arise.

 

Its stuff like that, not eliminating the loogy. If youve noticed, that role is dying off anyhow. Brewers dont have one, didnt have one last year. Teams want more outs from a reliever, not less. But it just makes strategic sense that an outing will often wrap around part of one inning and the next, based on lineup. This rule takes away a manager's ability to manage.

 

A side effect is burning out your late inning guys, because you cant risk a late inning trying to sneak by with a Barnes or Williams.

 

Finally, Ive never bought the whole argument of "young people will tune in if the game is shorter." Its not an action sport, and will never appeal to masses of young people. Theres barely any baseball diamonds around anywhere, kids dont play baseball. Thats where the problem starts. It will appeal to analytical types, except theyre taking the strategy out of the game. Having more to do, see, eat, drink at the ballpark will draw the millennials too, big reason why Miller Park is popular, even before last season.

 

Nascar and other sports tried to appeal to the masses and failed miserably by driving away their core fans. NFL is getting close to that, if not for the off the charts interest in fantasy football.

 

So lets try this. Keep baseball.....baseball. Then promote it, promote fantasy leagues, educate fans on the game, continue to innovate the game day experience. Work on bringing baseball back to the youth level.

 

What wont work? Stupid rule changes and cutting commercial breaks by 5 seconds. Now get off my lawn!

 

This here is an excellent point.

 

When you look at the chart posted on MLB.com and see that on average, most teams did around 30 mid-inning pitching changes last year on pitchers that faced less than three batters (eg, about one per team per week), you can kind of then leap to the conclusion that pitchers facing less than three batters isn't the driving force behind long game times. It's the guys stepping out of the box and unstrapping their batting gloves three times when they haven't even swung (Braun, I'm looking at you). Pitchers taking 30 seconds between pitches. THESE are the drivers of long game times. Yes, Joe Maddon doing 6 pitching changes in an inning is annoying, but how many times does that happen? THATS NOT the driver of long game times. Watch a Ryan Braun at bat. Watch a Brandon Belt at bat. Or a Hunter Pence at bat. Watching Hunter Pence hit nearly gives me anxiety attacks, waiting for something to actually happen.

 

This rule change is doing something to make people happy. "YAY, shorter game times!" This will probably shave about 90 seconds off of the average game time, if even that. What it's going to do is force managers into uncomfortable strategic decisions, and possibly burn relievers out.

 

I don't care if MLB wants shorter games, but this isn't going to achieve that. THis isn't even going to come close to achieving that. And as previous poster said, in the event that they change a ton of rules, and make players play a fundamentally different game, and start playing in 2 1/2 hours instead of 3 hours, are a bunch of people going to suddenly say "YES! Baseball, I never realized how cool and interesting and exciting baseball is!" Baseball is STILL going to be a sport that is comprised over 90% of the time of down time and waiting and watching mostly nothing happening. THat's the core of it. That will never change, and if THAT changes, then it's not baseball anymore. Who are we trying to appeal to at that point?

[zurch1818]

Sorry if this idea was already said. I just skimmed the full thread for the first time this morning and didn't see anything about it.

 

I am not a huge fan of the 3 batter minimum rule. I think I would like it better if they tweaked it a little bit and made it like a hockey goalie change...if you come in and face less than 3 minimum batters, the next pitcher has to come in without any warmups on the game mound. Goalies do just fine cold. Pitchers get the added benefit of the bullpen to at least be loose.

[brewerfan82]

Sorry if this idea was already said. I just skimmed the full thread for the first time this morning and didn't see anything about it.

 

I am not a huge fan of the 3 batter minimum rule. I think I would like it better if they tweaked it a little bit and made it like a hockey goalie change...if you come in and face less than 3 minimum batters, the next pitcher has to come in without any warmups on the game mound. Goalies do just fine cold. Pitchers get the added benefit of the bullpen to at least be loose.

That's an interesting idea. However, while I agree that theoretically pitchers should be able to warm up safely beforehand, it feels like there'd be a lot of pushback on that idea for safety reasons. That said, I do agree that there should be a way to get out of the 3 hitter minimum and whatever "punishment" that incurs should apply whether an injury occurs or not to avoid teams faking injuries. So at that point it's a matter of making sure 1.) the "punishment" is harsh enough to avoid teams just routinely taking the hit, and 2.) the punishment isn't unfairly harsh to pitchers that actually have an injury.

 

With them rolling this out in the minors for a year first, it'll be interesting to see if they decide a tweak like this is needed before bringing it to the majors. Here are a couple ideas I've had or heard on the board in regards to a pitcher not reaching the 3 hitter minimum:

 

1.) Zurch's Goalie Rule - No mound warmup allowed for incoming pitcher.

 

The more I think about this the more I like it. The obvious caveat is that people will be worried that managers won't have a reliever ready to go and they'll risk further injury by bringing a guy in cold. However, if the real goal of the 3 hitter minimum is to reduce down time, this accomplishes that in several ways: 1.) encourages teams to reduce pitching changes, 2.) encourages managers to make sure relievers are ready to go right away when needed, 3.) reduces commercial breaks caused by pitching changes.

 

2.) Forced Injury List - If you take a pitcher out early, he must go on the IL.

 

I think this is a viable possibility as long as it's not a full IL stint, which would be too harsh in some real injury situations. Perhaps a 3-day ineligible time period would be more appropriate. If a player truly tweaked something, this would be a reasonable amount of time to let them recover anyways.

 

3.) Just Enforce the Rule - If you want to take a pitcher out early, too bad, you just have to walk however many batters needed to fill the minimum.

 

This could also just be the fallback option for a manager anyways if he wants to avoid whatever punishment is in place for not meeting the minimum batter requirement. Since you don't even need to pitch to a batter to issue an intentional walk, it doesn't risk further injury to the current pitcher and it also doesn't add as much "dead" time as having him actually pitch to additional batters. Also, while this is a little bit of a stretch, I'd argue while it puts the team in a bigger jam and may increase scoring in the game, adding extra runners to the basepaths actually creates more out possibilities for the next pitcher and may actually increase the likelihood of them getting an out or a doubleplay to end the inning sooner than if the walks weren't enforced.

 

I find it really interesting to think about, however, I also wonder if this rule is just being proposed as a future bargaining chip for negotiations in the next CBA.

[JosephC]

I've been hearing for the last 25 years how the game moves to slow and there is too much dead time and the game is losing young fans but in the last 25 years it doesn't seem like attendance has dropped all that much, teams are not getting smaller TV contracts than they had in the past, owners are not losing money and players are not playing for peanuts.

 

Baseball just isn't an action game and baseball's front office just needs to come to grips with that.

 

And shortening games is unlikely change the financial dynamics of the game anyway. Baseball has too much dead time? What about the big gorilla of American sports....football. There are about 160 plays per game at an average of 5 seconds each which totals 800 seconds which is 13 minutes and 20 seconds spread out over 3 hours and 15 minutes. When it comes down to it, there is no significant difference in the dead time of baseball versus football. The difference is that when the play is occurring in football there are 22 guys running around at once and a few of those 22 are going to get run over by somebody on most of those plays. In baseball, on most plays nothing really significant happens, and the only time there is a bunch of movement all over the field is if a guy hits one down the line or in a gap.

 

Let's just say that I have my doubts that the 15 year old kid who really didn't pay much attention to baseball before is now really interested in baseball because (A) pitchers have to face a three batter minimum and (B) now the games will end up being a whole 4 minutes shorter because of these new rules that will make the game so much more exciting.

[TURBO]

I've been hearing for the last 25 years how the game moves to slow and there is too much dead time and the game is losing young fans but in the last 25 years it doesn't seem like attendance has dropped all that much, teams are not getting smaller TV contracts than they had in the past, owners are not losing money and players are not playing for peanuts.

 

Baseball just isn't an action game and baseball's front office just needs to come to grips with that.

 

And shortening games is unlikely change the financial dynamics of the game anyway. Baseball has too much dead time? What about the big gorilla of American sports....football. There are about 160 plays per game at an average of 5 seconds each which totals 800 seconds which is 13 minutes and 20 seconds spread out over 3 hours and 15 minutes. When it comes down to it, there is no significant difference in the dead time of baseball versus football. The difference is that when the play is occurring in football there are 22 guys running around at once and a few of those 22 are going to get run over by somebody on most of those plays. In baseball, on most plays nothing really significant happens, and the only time there is a bunch of movement all over the field is if a guy hits one down the line or in a gap.

 

Let's just say that I have my doubts that the 15 year old kid who really didn't pay much attention to baseball before is now really interested in baseball because (A) pitchers have to face a three batter minimum and (B) now the games will end up being a whole 4 minutes shorter because of these new rules that will make the game so much more exciting.

 

Beautifully stated.

 

The NFL and myself parted ways 2 seasons ago, partly political (that was the final nail in the coffin), and partly because I could no longer stomach the commercial breaks. Team A scores, commercial break. Team A kicks off to team B, commercial break. ETC. I am no longer willing to give up entire Sundays to watch a sport that no longer holds my interest. (Actually Sundays, Saturdays late in the season, Thursday nights and Monday nights) Football games are just as long, and have just as much nothing time as baseball games.

 

Baseball, for whatever reasons, and there are too many to mention, holds my interest, and I don't mind giving up 3 hours of each day for 6 months to watch. I'm a baseball guy, and for most of my life, I was a football guy too, but that went away... If nothing changes in baseball, I'm still a baseball guy.

[jerichoholicninja]

Sorry if this idea was already said. I just skimmed the full thread for the first time this morning and didn't see anything about it.

 

I am not a huge fan of the 3 batter minimum rule. I think I would like it better if they tweaked it a little bit and made it like a hockey goalie change...if you come in and face less than 3 minimum batters, the next pitcher has to come in without any warmups on the game mound. Goalies do just fine cold. Pitchers get the added benefit of the bullpen to at least be loose.

That's an interesting idea. However, while I agree that theoretically pitchers should be able to warm up safely beforehand, it feels like there'd be a lot of pushback on that idea for safety reasons. That said, I do agree that there should be a way to get out of the 3 hitter minimum and whatever "punishment" that incurs should apply whether an injury occurs or not to avoid teams faking injuries. So at that point it's a matter of making sure 1.) the "punishment" is harsh enough to avoid teams just routinely taking the hit, and 2.) the punishment isn't unfairly harsh to pitchers that actually have an injury.

 

With them rolling this out in the minors for a year first, it'll be interesting to see if they decide a tweak like this is needed before bringing it to the majors. Here are a couple ideas I've had or heard on the board in regards to a pitcher not reaching the 3 hitter minimum:

 

1.) Zurch's Goalie Rule - No mound warmup allowed for incoming pitcher.

 

The more I think about this the more I like it. The obvious caveat is that people will be worried that managers won't have a reliever ready to go and they'll risk further injury by bringing a guy in cold. However, if the real goal of the 3 hitter minimum is to reduce down time, this accomplishes that in several ways: 1.) encourages teams to reduce pitching changes, 2.) encourages managers to make sure relievers are ready to go right away when needed, 3.) reduces commercial breaks caused by pitching changes.

 

This was exactly what I was thinking about. I've beaten the "pitchers don't need 10 warmup pitches on the game mound" drum since forever. Simply put, if the managers goes to the ump first to make his pitching chance and the pitcher coming in doesn't want any warm up pitches on the game mound then he doesn't have to face 3 batters. Should take about 1 minute for all this to happen. No break for commercial, no real interruption of game flow, everyone wins.

[Oxy]

How about this one:

 

A batter cannot be charged with more strikes than balls in the count unless he "takes" the pitch for a strike. At the 8th pitch of the AB, a foul ball will be called strike 3 for the out.

[trwi7]

How about this one:

 

-Foul balls are not counted as strikes until the 8th pitch of the AB. At that time, all foul balls will be strikes, INCLUDING THE 3RD STRIKE for the out.

 

This would encourage batters to swing early in the count and force the action to happen. This rule might actually backfire when it comes to time of game, but it should put more balls in play as well. There would be a maximum of a 10 pitch AB at which point the batter either BBs, Ks, or puts the ball in play.

 

This sounds awful.

[Oxy]

How about this one:

 

-Foul balls are not counted as strikes until the 8th pitch of the AB. At that time, all foul balls will be strikes, INCLUDING THE 3RD STRIKE for the out.

 

This would encourage batters to swing early in the count and force the action to happen. This rule might actually backfire when it comes to time of game, but it should put more balls in play as well. There would be a maximum of a 10 pitch AB at which point the batter either BBs, Ks, or puts the ball in play.

 

This sounds awful.

 

I just changed it. Still might be awful, but I think it's an improvement :O

[Oxy]

It still aids the hitter TOO much without giving the pitcher much. Just trying to figure out ways to get more balls in play.

[jerichoholicninja]

It still aids the hitter TOO much without giving the pitcher much. Just trying to figure out ways to get more balls in play.

 

Bigger strikezone. Most strikes, more swinging, more balls in play.

[owbc]

Almost everyone is trying to hit a home run now in every inning, every count, every situation. Probably 90% of the time that MLB players swing the bat the goal is a home run. Any other game action is purely accidental or will be soon.

 

That's all the justification I need for major rule changes to RESTORE the game to a previous state. Baseball has already changed to something new, the goal of any changes should be to get things back to what I would argue is a better version of baseball.

 

Attendance is down 4,000 fans/game from the peak in the late-2000s but it is clear visually that WAY more people are leaving the game in the 6th-8th inning than they used to, generally because that's when games are hitting the 2.5-hour mark. The fans are not invested in the outcome because the games are too long.

 

My main solution is to make stolen bases WAY easier (similar to the current test in the Atlantic league with pitchers needing to step off)--ideally a 75% success rate for the average runner and nearly 100% for the fastest guys in the league. That should greatly change the value equation in favor of fast, exciting but lower-OPS guys who are currently headed to extinction. I also think it is a way to make 3TO baseball more exciting since a walk should lead to more movement on the bases.

[trwi7]

You know what would help stop the all or nothing of going for a home run? Get rid of the juiced ball. Why wouldn't you be going for a home run all the time when you know even decent contact has the potential to go over the fence?

[Oxy]

It still aids the hitter TOO much without giving the pitcher much. Just trying to figure out ways to get more balls in play.

 

Bigger strikezone. Most strikes, more swinging, more balls in play.

 

I think you'd have to give the hitters something too, otherwise you just end up with even more strikeouts and even less offense. It isn't so much that I want more offense and more runs, I just want to encourage more of a contact based approach rather than a 3TO approach. Moving the fences back would probably be enough, but I think there would be too many stadiums where that just isn't possible.

[owbc]

You know what would help stop the all or nothing of going for a home run? Get rid of the juiced ball. Why wouldn't you be going for a home run all the time when you know even decent contact has the potential to go over the fence?

 

I doubt it would be enough. We don't know how much of an impact juiced balls are having because everyone started worrying about launch angle at the same time.