Suggested Adjustments To MLB Baseball

[julio]

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.

Perhaps we should time a few. We could do that easily enough - whether when watching current games, or by reviewing archived games. I'd be tempted myself - pick a game with multiple pitching changes, pull up the archive on mlb.tv, get out the stopwatch. Hmm....

[el-pietro]

MLB have an example here - as they say themselves its an extreme version

How the 3-batter minimum will change baseball

Phillies had the fourth most appearances by relievers facing less than 3 batters that didn't end an inning and the most total appearances by relievers facing less than 3 batters.

[andyb]

Thanks for posting that article. Really interesting. Two other charts in the article reinforce what I was saying though:

First, it looks like about 2/3 of these outings end an inning. So the effect of the rule change would not be as great as advertised. And second the batters faced per reliever has been going UP the last few years. As starters pitch fewer innings, we actually need the whole inning from most relievers more.

Now the chart with the Phillies having the most of these appearances might be a sign of the inexperienced analytical manager over-managing. Kapler really trusts matchup analytics. What these analytics don't account for is wear and team and frequency of appearances. Over time we wore Seranthony out. Maybe we wear out our Morgans also with too many short appearances over the course of a season.

Might other point is this new rule will CHANGE behavior. It will weed out LOOGYs a bit. We'll just have left-handers better trained to get right-handed batters out. Is that good or bad? I have no clue. But we are really doing much to shorten games here.

[andyb]

Full text of the new rules:

MLB, MLBPA ANNOUNCE ON-FIELD AGREEMENT

Good news is the inning breaks go down to 2:00 (from 2:05 in the regular season but a much higher 2:25 in the postseason).

With 17 typical breaks that will take 1:25 off a standard game, but a more substantial 7:05 off of a postseason game.

[julio]

Here's a link to the joint press release, as issued by MLB and the MLBPA (note: .pdf file):

http://www.mlbplayers.com/pdf9/5484962.pdf

One thing that jumped out at me: Beginning in 2020, active rosters in September will expand to 28 (which we knew) - but that's no longer discretionary; the release says "From September 1st through the end of the championship season, all Clubs must carry 28 players on the active roster." (Emphasis on the 'must' added by me.) No more waiting until the AAA post-season is over; the Active Roster minimum (which increases from 24 to 25) goes to 28 on September 1st. So some kids on optional assignment will be getting a cup of coffee, even in organizations that might otherwise not do that.

With regard to "two-way players" - To qualify as a "two-way" player, he has to have met certain minimums, either in the current season or the prior one.Upon reflection, this could work.

• First, there's no restriction on using pitchers as pinch-hitters, or as DH. So a pitcher who hits well enough to be a "two-way" player can qualify by starting as a DH in 20 games...not an unreasonable hurdle, and realistically, clubs aren't going to want starting pitchers playing in the field... but DH? Sure. (This argument assumes a universal DH - but that decision is clearly coming.)

• Second, for a hitter to be designated a "two-way player," he needs to pitch in 20 innings - in extra-inning games or blowouts...after which he'd gain the "two-way" designation and be available to pitch in other situations. Again, if the guy's good enough that you want him to pitch (as opposed to need him to pitch when everybody else is unavailable), that's not a tremendous hurdle.

Also - not only is the DL for pitchers increasing from 10 to 15 days... so is the minimum time a pitcher must stay on option if optioned to the minors. No more optioning a pitcher to AAA when you want to skip a single start. I might argue they should increase this limit to 20 days - which would guarantee that optioning a pitcher in this way would always burn an option year... but that's just me.

[andyb]

I think they need to consider minor/foreign league playing time the previous year for the 2-player rule. Or a first-year player could not be designated 2-way until they exceed the limits. I guess the effective limitation is that they use a pitcher slot, but that would have limited the Angels last year till Ohtani got 20 starts at DH. Which was a good 6-8 weeks into the season.

[zambonir]

Only 4.7 percent of relief appearances during the 2018 regular season lasted fewer than three batters without ending an inning, and that includes any outings that might have ended prematurely due to injury. On average, the outings in question occurred once every 3.2 games or 6.4 team games—roughly 25 times per team all season, or approximately once a week.

As a percentage of all relief appearances, last year’s rate of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it outings was actually the lowest since 1985.

The New MLB Rule Changes Aren’t Big—but They Could Be the Start of Something...

[andyb]

The Blue Jays are being proactive about paying minor leaguers more:

Blue Jays ready to embrace change, finalizing minor-league...

While draft picks do not have much choice, I wonder if a policy like this would have a positive effect on the players that sign for modest dollars out of Latin America. Would they be a little more likely to sign with a team that paid their rookie league players more?

[BostonRoss]

Yeah, but they're Canadian dollars!

[zambonir]

The Athletic article about minor league life is a must-read. And, bottom-line, whatever an individual team might do, MLBPA spent $2.6 million to lobby the federal government to remain exempt from labor and minimum-wage laws. And the MLBPA continues to not represent minor leaguers.

‘I can't afford to play this game’: Minor-leaguers open...

[zambonir]

Just found this while looking for something else. 7 years ago!

https://www.philliesphans.com/t/mlb-moving-toward-streamlining-bloated-september-roster/40747