MiLB Rule Changes AKA What the Actual Fuck

[Fman99]

Reading this today. Starting extra innings with a runner on 2nd base? This is dumb ass stuff if you ask me.

[nymr83]

Its worse than that. Trojan horse to get that change to the majors one day.

I think its terrible. I'd rather have TIES!

[Vic Sage]

they should just settle it by arm wrestling.

[Guest 41Forever]

Awful.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

For the problem they're allegedly trying to solve, terrible. They could just make all games 7 innings.

[Frayed Knot]

These were the changes that they were supposedly only going to institute in the extreme lower levels of MiLB where the 'fans' in the seats are mostly members of the friends and family plan plus a few scouts thrown in.
That it's going in across the board including the upper levels is shocking and, IMO, stupid. It's like they haven't realized that it's not the time of games that's the problem but rather the dead time within them.
And it's not that extra innings take too long or that there are too many of them, it's that they've allowed the game to slip into a situation where it usually takes over 3 hours just to get through the 9th.

[Zvon]

They do this shit and I'll turn my back on baseball. That'll be a very sad to for me.


Nah, who am I kidding? But I will stop watching after the 9th in formal protest.
And Fred, Jeff and Saul. I know you have nothing to do with this but if it happens I won't even buy a Mets jacket, jersey, or cap. (that'll show 'em!)

Yo, baseball! The game has been fine for a hundred years. Great, even. DON'T FUCK WITH IT!
Especially with such a stupid move. To me, that would be bizarr0 baseball. Bush. Little League stuff.

LEAVE MY GAME ALONE!

[Guest d'Kong76]

Next will be one ball and five strikes in extras...

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't see how this would shorten games anyway. Sure, it makes it more likely that a run will score in the top of the inning, but it makes it equally likely that a run will score in the bottom of the inning.

So we won't have shorter extra-inning games, we'll have higher-scoring extra-inning games, which are, therefore, likely to actually be longer.

[Edgy MD]

I doubt they'll be longer. I'm fairly certain that the math will show that they'll be shorter.

But it's another byproduct of the tragedy of affiliation that has undermined baseball for the better part of a century.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I don't care. It's a minor league rule change and the # of minor league games I watch every year is about zero. I predict this rule won't make it to MLB.

[seawolf17]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I don't care. It's a minor league rule change and the # of minor league games I watch every year is about zero. I predict this rule won't make it to MLB.

You're right - there's no way this gets past the union. But still, it's stupid at any professional level.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I doubt they'll be longer. I'm fairly certain that the math will show that they'll be shorter.

I agree. I'd bet that it's likelier that one team rather than both can score the new rule baserunner. Plus, some games will end when the home team's first batter drives in the winning run. This new setup should promote sac bunting, especially for the home team when the visitors couldn't score in their extra inning half. Sac bunting makes sense in a sudden death situation when there's a runner on second with no outs.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I do go to a handful of minor league games every year. I love watching baseball and not really caring about the outcome (go Isotopes, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

I wonder if the st00pid runner on second thing got tested out in some winter ball league or some place already? Or are they running it out for the first time now across all minor league levels? I have a bad feeling fans are going to love it IRL, despite overwhelmingly hating the idea of it.

[Benjamin Grimm]

And who is the runner who starts the inning standing on second base? I think it should be the person who would be due to bat ninth in the inning. And I guess you can decide to pinch-run for that person, and he would end up taking the original player's spot in the batting order.

It's an awful idea. Hopefully it will be one-and-done in 2018. I agree that it's not likely to go into effect in the big leagues, but as long as it's present in the minors, it's a threat to do so.

I don't like this idea either, but it's better than the one currently on the table: Any regular-season game that's still tied after 12 innings goes down as a tie, and does not have to be replayed. Standings would then be on the point system, like in the NHL. Two points for a win, one for a tie.

[MFS62]

Where do I line up to vote against this?
You want to speed up the game?
How about the 20 second pitch clock Charley Finley tried?
How about keeping hitters in the batter's box?
How about limiting the total time for commercials between half innings? (You want to put five of them in there? Then limit them to, say, 20 seconds each?)
How about limiting the total time the catchers and managers/coaches can spend between the lines per game?
That's a way to start.

Later

[Edgy MD]

The 20-second pitch clock was already established in the minors last season. They are reducing it to 15 when there are no runners on base. And they've certainly curtailed mound visit length and frequency, both at the major and minor-league levels. Aggressively and, to my thinking, counter-productively.

The runner on second is a rule in the deeply risk-averse WBC play.

To Ben, yes, the runner will be the guy who made the last out the previous inning, or whoever they put in to replace him.

I deeply doubt this will be one-and-done. These things have a way of sticking around, if only because the leadership is averse to admitting mistakes.

It often seems that the folks who run baseball don't like baseball.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: The 20-second pitch clock was already established in the minors last season. They are reducing it to 15 when there are no runners on base. And they've certainly curtailed mound visit length and frequency, both at the major and minor-league levels. Aggressively and, to my thinking, counter-productively.

Have those shortened games?
What do the numbers show?
Later

[bmfc1]

As long as they keep it in the minors, I don't care and likely neither do the players, announcers, employees... really anyone but the managers who are judged, in part, on wins and losses (which isn't fair) and definitely the pitcher who gets the loss. The teams have 22 or 23 players so they can run out of players in extras. Plus, they have to get on a bus to Altoona right after the game and that's far so a game going until 2 AM isn't good. Let's see how it works. Yes, as Edgy said "[t]hese things have a way of sticking around" (see, e.g., hockey shootouts deciding games, which I hate even though it's exciting) but at AA and below, it really doesn't matter. I go to one or two games in Bowie (AA) every year and no one cares about the result.

[Edgy MD]

I think we have it backwards though. It's not OK to cheapen minor league baseball because no one cares about the results. No one cares about the results because we have so cheapened minor league baseball.

[Benjamin Grimm]

That sounds about right to me.

[seawolf17]

Edgy MD wrote: I think we have it backwards though. It's not OK to cheapen minor league baseball because no one cares about the results. No one cares about the results because we have so cheapened minor league baseball.

Correct. I get that running a MILB team is tough; there's not a lot of money in it, I'd guess, and you have to deal with the whims of your affiliated franchise stocking your roster in ways that are probably largely out of your control.

A friend of a friend raised a good point -- this is a money move because there's no money in extra innings; your beer sales are done, but you're still paying all your staff. Let someone score and shut it down. I say FUCK THAT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_professional_baseball_game

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm telling you guys. 7 inning games in the minors would much more efficiently solve all the problems this gimmick purports to solve. If it wasn't auditioning to be a mlb stunt it wouldn't be like this.

[seawolf17]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm telling you guys. 7 inning games in the minors would much more efficiently solve all the problems this gimmick purports to solve. If it wasn't auditioning to be a mlb stunt it wouldn't be like this.

This makes an enormous amount of sense, actually. If you've ever seen minor league middle relievers, you'd know why. Every Ducks game we ever go to, for example, gets through the first six innings in an hour and then grinds to a halt.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I went to a double-header last year in AAA and both games were scheduled for 7 innings. If they're already doing it, they should just do it.

[Edgy MD]

Minor League doubleheaders have been seven-innings-per-game for decades.

[G-Fafif]

I could see seven-inning games at the lower levels and at AA and AAA until, say, mid-June, the idea being longer games won't be as much of a burden on fans once school is out and eighth and ninth innings will help ready potential callups.

The runner on second thing is reprehensible. I wouldn't be against experimenting with it in Instructional League or something nobody sees, except the DH was once an experiment and it hasn't become any better an idea. I also dislike the college football OT bit where they start each team's series on the other team's 25. Just play the game and accept that once in a while the game will go on for a while (though in college, I'm sure they're concerned about getting the players back to their dorms so they can study).

At the risk of falling into Bob Costas territory re his mid-'90s argument against expanding playoffs (he liked to say we'd have wound up with "The Giants win the pennant...and the Dodgers win the Wild Card..."), I shudder to think of what would have been diluted had the top of the 10th on July 4, 1985, started with a runner on second and so on. Same for any other marathon game you hold dear.

[nymr83]

Yes exactly G-fafif. the idea sucks and if you let it happen in the minors without protest it could soon be coming to an MLB park near you!

i dont care what they do in WBC - that is an exhibition tournament where the primary goal should be "no injuries"

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

This is all about artificially adding "excitement" to games (and saving $$ as Wolfy mentioned) while saying its about game length, injury prevention, etc

[Edgy MD]

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[bigpurple:lreu54lz]Keep baseball boring![/bigpurple:lreu54lz]
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