Suggested Adjustments To MLB Baseball

julio 2019-03-14 17:34:54 UTC #121

Man, I wish you hadn't told me that! I was feeling charitable toward MLB there for a bit.

Oh well, Back to seeing dark clouds everywhere!

bkeich 2019-03-14 17:36:17 UTC #122

28 is too small, but 40 was way, way too big (and no team really hit it). 31 sounds about right, you can add 5, but something like that. What you are now going to have is teams playing games with starting pitchers, sending them "down" to AAA after they start and then bringing them back up. I would rather see a slightly bigger increase from 26.

3 batter minimum - HATE IT. Just forcing teams to "cheat" and come up with ways around it.

One has to wonder how a player gets designated "2 way". Obviously it can't just be what you did last year since Rookies would be excluded. What if a guy like Ohtani didnt pitch last year due to an injury and this year he is able to. Maybe it will just be that each team can designate 1-2 "2 way players" really only way I think it works.

el-pietro 2019-03-14 17:38:14 UTC #123

I realise the players on the 40 man aren't exactly impoverished but many have had to put up with a lot just to make the 40 man. Every day in the majors is almost an extra 3k in their bank account.

On its own this isn't a huge deal but it feels like another move the MLBPA has made at the expense of minor leaguers who struggle to survive for a summer. Am I right in saying players in extended spring training don't get paid?

Let me be clear, I am very much on the side of the millionaires over the billionaires. But I think both should be doing what they can to help those kids struggling to make ends meet in spring training and in the minor leagues.

bkeich 2019-03-14 17:44:11 UTC #124

When this happened in the 60s the solution was to lower the mound, which actually has a pretty big impact. It does slightly change the way pitchers have to throw, but to me that would be the easier solution, but we may have already reached a limit where the mound is as low as it really can go (I guess they could make the field flat, but honestly that changes alot of things, including fielding up the middle, etc.).

I think they need to avoid messing with the mound until it gets extreme.

Hitting and Pitching fads come and go based on how teams win. In the 80s suddenly (due to KC) there was a slap hitter, ultra speed craze for years that honestly made the game more exciting in alot of ways, but HRs werent the "thing". Now it is all HRs and strikeouts, but I suspect this will change if a team wins another way (yes, I know there are analytics pointing this way, but some team gets 2-3 base stealers that can get on base and win a WS and watch how fast the league changes again).

OBP will be back, slap hitting will be back (I suspect), it just isnt in vogue right now.

Speeding up the game is easy, pitch clock does it. Right now the breaks between pitches is just way, way too long when you are going to need 350 pitches in a game. Years ago when it was 250 pitches it wasnt as big a problem.

julio 2019-03-14 17:58:00 UTC #125

Well, perhaps some, but given the 10-day limit on recall, and given that September only lasts 30 days, there won't be a whole lot of this. Clubs could cycle through their AAA rotation (e.g., call up De Los Santos to start, then option him, then call up Irvin, start him, option him, etc.) - but assuming a club has a regular five-man major-league rotation available, they wouldn't do this much - and not with AAA guys who aren't real close to the majors (unless a club that's out of the race decides to give several kids about two starts each, just to see what they can do).

If this does become a problem, a simple rule fix would be to prohibit the recall of any player optioned in September (except in case of a certified injury that sends a player to the DL, I suppose). In this case, if Eflin were optioned to give De los Santos a callup and a start, Eflin would be gone for the rest of the season.

philsphan67 2019-03-14 18:00:21 UTC #126

The game needs to speed up.

September baseball can be brutal when both managers have 15+ pitchers to bring in. They certainly can be more creative and allow 32 (pick a number) to be called up and only dress 26 players and 13 pitchers each night.

The pitch clock IMO is the #1 issue, the minor league games are 15-20 mins faster now. I don't like the extreme change of pushing the mound back and I think the pitch clock will help more pitchers actually pitch and not take more time and throw as hard as they can. I read somewhere (no link) that a physics professor figured out that every 2 seconds a pitcher rests beyond 20 they add 1 mph on their fastball. Obviously there is a limit, but the less time makes the batters think less and hopefully just put the ball in play and the pitchers might start pitching again. Watching Bartolo Colon pitch is fun.

I think the 3 batter minimum is really needed in the play-offs - I read it won't make that much of a difference across all the pitching changes during the season. I am a big Bruce Bochy fan, but watching him start the 9th inning with 5 consecutive pitchers for 5 different batters a few years ago was brutal and bringing NO new fans to the game.

Baseball does change slowly.

zambonir 2019-03-14 18:28:05 UTC #127

September call-ups are usually a nice reward for third-string catchers and AAAA bench players (if they are even on the 40. Thinking of when Andy Tracy was).

Prospects too, but for them those extra two-three weeks aren't going to make a difference in the big picture (in some cases it makes a difference negatively, i.e. Maikel Franco's service time suppression had to factor in his call-up from the previous September).

Wasn't the original point of the expanded rosters to see your young players ahead of next year and reward a few guys in the minors, rather than to change the way you approach the game in the heat of a postseason race?

andyb 2019-03-14 18:29:48 UTC #128

I always thought the solution to September was to stick with the 25 man roster but make it a game day limit. Taking the 4 other starters out of the active roster would essentially give you 29, maybe a couple more if you rest some multi-inning relievers.

There is a real benefit to getting more players some playing time. Just getting away from the ridiculous number of players used (and the Phillies did have all 40 by the end of the year) will mean fewer 3rd inning pinch hits and 15-pitcher games.

I wonder if they are playing a bit coy on rules to move players from the 28 to 40 man rosters because they have not thought it through too much.

julio 2019-03-14 21:30:31 UTC #129

it would seem that MLB may have anticipated this. The Morning Call is reporting an additional change for 2020:

a stint on the injured list will revert to a 15-day stay for pitchers, rather than the 10-day stay implemented in 2016.

This will make it harder to just "hide" a pitcher on the DL to skip a start - and in September, make it difficult to DL a pitcher to justify an early recall of an optioned player.

Now, if they couple this with a requirement, attached to the "3 batter" rule, that states any pitcher removed due to injury, before satisfying the 3 batter (or end of inning) minimum, must go on the Disabled List, there would a a significant deterrent to that particular form of cheating.

bkox 2019-03-14 22:07:33 UTC #130

What I wished they would have done is still allowed up to 40 on the MLB roster.. but with a set roster for each game that couldnt go above a certain number for that game. Still allows teams to evaluate players without allowing teams to use 20 pitchers in a single game.

zambonir 2019-03-14 23:35:46 UTC #131

I just don't know if this is a real problem. The Phillies called up three starting pitchers last September (Suarez, De Los Santos and Anderson) but it wasn't until the 11th, and none of them made a start. Eickhoff made one. If you really want to look at a young starter (or even two) you can probably find a reason to put someone on the DL. Or just release someone, if you have a veteran 5th starter or free agent-to-be. Since you can't make trades in August I'm sure that will actually happen, both before and after 8/31.

Similarly, Walding got all of three ABs in September. Plouffe couldn't even get added back to the 40. Cozens saw a fair amount of action but with the new rule they could have just put Quinn or Williams on the DL. If you want to bring up a Halseley and really let him play you can. And if you just want to lengthen your bench you can. Can do one of each, even.

No reason to add relievers at all, teams will have already used far more than 8 over the course of the season (and they'll all be playoff-eligible) but no reason to have 9 (but if you want 9, you'll just have to value that more than a position player). And these days nobody waits until September to add a K-Rod (just look at Seranthony, and that will probably be Edgar Garcia this year too).

In 2017 the only call-ups were Crawford, Perkins and Jake Thompson. That seems exactly right to me. A prospect, a bench player and a pitcher (who was used as a reliever in this case).

Lucky_Beagle 2019-03-15 00:11:34 UTC #132

My thoughts:

I am not totally in favor of the 3 batter limit. How about a compromise? Once a game you are permitted to bring in a LOOGY for a single batter (or righty) but all others must be 3 batters or end the inning.

26 man roster, I am ok with it if it limits another relief pitcher from being added to the roster.

Trade deadline, I am in favor. I wouldn't even care if they moved it to the All Star break.

I believe limiting the sept roster to 28 is short sighted. I think 30 is a better number. It allows some minor leaguers to be called up, gives some AAAA type players a reason to put forth a good season for the reward of a call up.

The pitcher/fielder designation didn't make a lot of sense to me. Any team that used a positional player without the game being out of hand or extra innings should have some type of discipline brought against them. Does these mean a pitcher can't pinch hit unless the same conditions are applied?

allentown 2019-03-15 00:38:20 UTC #133

My take is that reducing the number of pitching changes will both increase scoring and shorten games, both things baseball says it wants to accomplish. I like the 3 batter rule and see no need to expand the roster. I think the single trade deadline at end of July is a good thing. I'm not opposed to a larger than 28 roster in September -- it is a good reward for the non-MLB guys on the 40-man.

zambonir 2019-03-15 02:03:21 UTC #134

Seems like if they really want to reward minor leaguers in September they could just cap the game roster at 28 and have no limit on call-ups. If the Phillies want to pay guys to not pitch or give prospects a taste of the major league clubhouse (and a major league salary) instead of sending them home (or to Clearwater or wherever) as soon as the minor league season is over, they could. That way there is no competitive advantage for teams who don't want more guys on the payroll, and also no competitive imbalance when a team in a pennant race faces a team that's playing for nothing. And on any given day you don't need that 7th bench player or 6th starter or 10th reliever.

andyb 2019-03-15 02:04:14 UTC #135

I generally like the 3-batter rule, but to be honest I would bet the Phillies had less than 75 of those short outings in a year and half of them ended an inning. So this eliminates a mid-inning change every 3 or 4 games. Not a game changer.

allentown 2019-03-15 02:53:28 UTC #136

Five minutes every 3-4 games. That's more of a game-changer than any other changes baseball has made or proposed. I think the impact would have been twice as great as you state, had the 2018 Phillies been well-endowed with lefty middle relievers/Loogys. I'm also not at all sure that this trend of frequent pitcher changes had crested.

julio 2019-03-15 03:25:20 UTC #137

As a rule, AAAA type veteran players shouldn't be getting callups in September, because they shouldn't be on the 40-man roster. By definition, if you're on the 40-man, and you're in the minors, you are on optional assignment - and that can only happen to a player in three seasons. Players on optional assignment should be prospects - players who needed to be added to the 40-man roster (to avoid the Rule 5 draft), but who need seasoning. It's a waste of a 40-man roster spot to put somebody marginal (the "AAAA type") on the roster and option him out - not that most such players have options years remaining anyway.

These marginal veterans tend to get "selected" when they need to be called up (injury fill-in or some such), and then waived/outrighted back to AAA when it's time to ship them out again. As such, there's no roster spot available for them in September, so no September call-up.

zambonir 2019-03-15 04:16:03 UTC #138

Sometimes teams do have more permanent depth that you would say are AAAA. Plouffe was certainly that but he didn't quite survive. Pedro Florimon was originally that. So was Wilson Valdez originally, Guys like Andy Tracy, Mike Fontenot, Pete Orr, some catchers here and there. Some of them were probably already on the 25, some of them got September call-ups, some may not have. It really depends what the systemwide picture is like. The last two seasons the Phillies have had very little room on their 40. When you don't have a third catcher and you have to DFA the guy who was your 5th starter in April there's little chance you'll be adding someone from Allentown. But teams do do it, and they do like to occasionally reward the guys they signed to provide leadership and fill holes. It's just not to prevalent - or important - to make rules around.

andyb 2019-03-15 13:32:26 UTC #139

The breaks are something like 2 minutes and 5 seconds. Maybe there is 3 minutes of interruption, but not 5.

And remember that we will not eliminate mid-inning pitching switches. I think there will be almost as many. Just the type of left-handed pitcher will evolve into a more balanced pitcher that can get right-handers out also because they will have to face a few more of them.

Strikeouts are the problem. As I said, I am fine with the 3-batter rule. It just won't fix much.

allentown 2019-03-15 14:02:26 UTC #140

The breaks seem a lot longer than 2 minutes and 5 seconds. That may be how long the reliever has to throw warmup pitches, but the manager slowly strolls to the mound, chats with the pitcher and catcher while the reliever continues to warm in the pen, the manager finally makes the wave, the reliever strolls in, the manager hands him the ball, he and the catcher say a few words to the reliever, the reliever takes his warmup throws.