Change to strike zone, intentional walks

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

You know how you could increase the action when you've got a "record low rate" of balls-in-play? How about, um, finding ways to put more balls in play?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy MD wrote: Jeff Passan reporting that baseball is looking into experimenting with starting extra innings with a runner on second base.

TERRIBLE idea! Worse even than the DH!

[Guest d'Kong76]

I was going to start a thread when this 'news' hit and decided the idea
is so stupid it's not thread worthy.

[Frayed Knot]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: You know how you could increase the action when you've got a "record low rate" of balls-in-play? How about, um, finding ways to put more balls in play?

Hence their proposed strike-zone shrinking idea.
Not sure it'll work out how they intend, but that's the idea behind it anyway.



As far as this runner-on-second in extra innings thing, there's no indication that it's ever going to advance beyond the rookie and Arizona Fall leagues, but the disappointing part about all this is that they seem to be attacking this pace of play issue in all the wrong ways. Stay in the box!; Throw the damn pitch!; Make quicker pitching changes!; and Cut back on the plague of committee meetings on the mound!.

[Edgy MD]

Know what would make for fast pitching changes? A subterranean bullpen below the mound!

Then, when you decide to make a change, the mound lowers into the ground, taking the failed pitcher with it, and then quickly raises back into place with a new guy.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Know what would make for fast pitching changes? A subterranean bullpen below the mound! Then, when you decide to make a change, the mound lowers into the ground, taking the failed pitcher with it, and then quickly raises back into place with a new guy.

to signal a pitching change, the manager tossed a smoke bomb onto the mound and poof, a few seconds later, new pitcher is standing there.

[Frayed Knot]

In all seriousness (not that subterranean mounds and smoke bombs don't merit consideration) but the idea that a warmed-up pitcher then needs to throw an additional eight warm-up pitches after being summoned from the pen dates from a time when bullpen mounds (particularly for the visiting team) were either substandard or nonexistent, but that's hardly the case these days. And if they do claim to to need additional pitches so as to get used to the "real" mound, do they really need as many as eight?
I'm sure the reliever's chapter of the union is going to swear that this is a non-negotiable perk they can't do without but that would be the first place I'd start. Well that and teleporting them in from the bullpen. I mean, sure you'd run the risk of rearranging some of their DNA, but that's a small price to be paid for the 20 seconds or so you'd save by not having them walk. Plus, if Todd Coffey ever makes it back to a ML roster it would save us all the sight of watching a fat man sprinting.



btw, making the IW automatic would shave something like 10-12 seconds off the time of an average game. Cutting out, or at least down, the warmups following the warmups would be more like several minutes per.

[Benjamin Grimm]

And anyway, who's the guy who starts the 10th inning standing on second base? Is it someone that the manager designates? Or is it whoever would be scheduled to bat ninth that inning?

And if that runner scores, what pitcher is charged with the run? And if that's the winning run, does the pitcher who started the inning get the loss?

Of course, these things are minor considerations compared to the abomination that this rule is. Hopefully it never gets past the talking stage.

Is the issue that the games are too long? Or is it really that they end too late in the evening? If it's the latter, just start each game a half hour earlier. Problem solved!

[Frayed Knot]

My guess would be that the designated runner is the last out of the previous inning. I mean if we're going to go all sunday morning softball rules here we might as well go all the way. Keg on the side of the field is optional if for no other reason that most of the guys playing at that level are still under 21.

The thing with the Rookie League and AFL games is that the "fans" in the stands are essentially the friends and family set; no one else really goes to those games (aside from the ones Tim Tebow is in) other than scouts.
So, even if implemented, I don't think it's in any danger of moving higher than those games whose attendance is usually measured in the dozens.

[Edgy MD]

I thought it was pretty clear that this was an experiment with consideration of moving the rule up to higher levels.

The odd part is that, while Rookie League and AFL games are games that, possibly more than most, give front offices night terrors of pitchers exceeding their pitch counts, they are also games with 35-man rosters. Sometimes more.

And hey, Joe Torre, you know what we call it when backup infielders are called on to pitch? FUN! You ought to look into it.

[dinosaur jesus]

Could we try to get people to go to those Arizona and Gulf Coast League games just to boo when they stick that runner at second? Probably not; you'd have to attend an awful lot of games before you got one that went to extra innings. But there ought to be some way to let these people know what a dumb idea it is.

Also, I'm to lazy to check on this thoroughly, but my impression is that there aren't nearly as many really long games, or extra-inning games in general, as there used to be. I did take a look at four teams in 2016 and in 1976: the Mets, Yankees, Cubs, and White Sox. (These totals include a little bit of double counting, a few of the games were between those teams.) In 2016, the four teams combined played fifty extra-inning games, of which two went over thirteen innings and none over fifteen. In 1976, they played seventy-three extra-inning games, of which twelve went over thirteen innings; that includes a nineteen-inning, seventeen-inning, and three sixteen-inning games.

The kind of game that Torre complains about--the eighteen-inning job where the utility infielder pitches--has always been extremely rare, and is probably more uncommon now than it's ever been. What he and the other execs are really trying to address is the fact that when games do go to extra-innings, they take forever to finish, even if it only takes ten or eleven innings. But the strategies that are among the real culprits in extending games--using three pitchers to get three outs, using the same pitchers in the same roles every night, whether they're really needed or not, etc.--have also accomplished what this idiotic rule is intended to do: they've shortened ballgames.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, there's nothing like selling an idea by exaggerating the symptom it's meant to cure. 18-inning games average right around two per year, or 0.08% of all games.

[fimg=500]http://www.baseballprospectus.com/u/images/extradragon1.png[/fimg]


And, yes, the number of extra-inning games in general is at a low point recently although that could be mere random variation rather than trend.
From Baseball Prospectus (as is the above graph): Since 1998, an average of 8.5 percent of all games have gone into extra innings. In 2016, only 7.6 percent did [approx 1 game in 13] tying it with 2005 for the lowest in the 30-team era. And since 1998, there have been an average of 446 total extra innings played per season. In 2016, there were 426. Since 1998, there have been only four seasons with fewer than 425. All told, baseball is coming off a season with the fewest extra-inning games and fewest extra innings in general in years.

[Frayed Knot]

Good Lord, John Harper is on board with this nonsense
I mean he does say that this runner-on-2nd ploy shouldn't be MLB's priority #1, but also adds that he at least isn't opposed to it on a limited basis (only after reaching the 12th inning and not in post-season)
and sees merit in the potential "instant drama" it would create even while admitting that it's both "gimmicky" and "artificial". Gee, ya think?!?

I'm starting to smell that maybe some of these scribes (and there have been several in addition to Harper) are rallying behind any idea won't lengthen their working day.
But what I really wish is that those cozying up to this idea while citing emptying stands during extra innings games as part of their ammo would point out the fact that these games frequently being past the
three hour mark before ever getting to extras just might be the bigger problem.

20 years ago ('96 season) the Mets played 1/4 of their games (40) in under 2:30
By 2006 that figure was just about halved to 21. This past year there were six! (< 4.0%)
Yeah, not enough contrived "drama" in extras, that's the problem!

[Edgy MD]

I tells you, it's not unrelated to Trump. Crazy ideas get people talkin', and get folks tak'n' sides and get page clicks and point-counterpoint screaming matches on television, so sure, get behind some crazy shit. It's good for television. Nobody tunes in for discussions of the same-old-same-old! Make sure you quote that stupid chestnut about how insanity is doing the same way.

Next thing you know, you wake up in the morning, Trump is president, players are starting innings on second base, Vin Diesel is running your local energy concern, Steve Harvey is on the Supreme Court, and we're all trying to talk Russian.'

What happened to the grownups?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy MD wrote: What happened to the grownups?

Scorned as "elitists".

[Frayed Knot]

The world started to go to hell when the ice cream companies, seemingly all at once as if in collusion, started repacking their products in 48 oz containers while slyly keeping the carton in the same shape and proportion as their old 64 oz standard hoping that we wouldn't notice.
It's been all downhill since then.




More stats on extra-inning games:
- in 2016, 43% of all XI games ended in the 10th inning, and less than 1 in 6 (16%) went longer than 12

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd be okay with the man-on-second thing if it only applied after the 99th inning.

Actually, no, I still wouldn't be okay with that. I'd hate to see the game get all stupid after watching for 99 innings.

[dinosaur jesus]

This runner on second thing is no more ridiculous than what football, hockey, and soccer do to end tie games. It's only a terrible idea if you think that baseball should be better than that. Which it should, but that's kind of a hard position to argue. And baseball executives certainly can't afford to think that way, since they have to compete with those sports.

I do miss half gallon half gallons of ice cream.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Does anyone know how frequently a runner scores when he's on second base with nobody out?

It's entirely possible that this would only increase the number of runs that score in extra innings without really shortening the games by much, because the "free" runner scoring in the top of the inning may often be offset by that runner also scoring in the bottom of the inning.

And if the runner doesn't score in the top of the inning, I can envision a lot of intentional walks leading off the bottoms of innings.

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Does anyone know how frequently a runner scores when he's on second base with nobody out?

the average team scores 1.0932 runs with runner on second in 2016, no outs. Of course, that's skewed slightly be that runner actually GETTING there, if you think a pitcher that has given up a double is MORE likely to give up a run than an average pitcher in any moment.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Edgy MD wrote: What happened to the grownups?

The zombie infiltration is more real than previously thought?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Ending in ties would be more preferable than this proposal, not that I'd support that solution either.

[TransMonk]

I feel like the MLB is just fine without slow-pitch softball rules.

[Frayed Knot]

Does anyone know how frequently a runner scores when he's on second base with nobody out? the average team scores 1.0932 runs with runner on second in 2016, no outs. Of course, that's skewed slightly be that runner actually GETTING there, if you think a pitcher that has given up a double is MORE likely to give up a run than an average pitcher in any moment.

Yeah, you're basically looking at an average of 1.1 runs scored when starting from a runner-on-2nd/none-out vs 0.5 runs when starting from the standard none-on/none-out situation. But those are averages which combine a bunch of zeros plus that occasional 8 run inning and everything in between. The more telling numbers here are the odds of a team scoring at least one run in their half-inning which will jump to around 63% from the 27% of the time when starting with bases empty.

And Grimm is right about this all not necessarily shortening the game, especially when you consider that the go-to move for a lot of managers will often be to play for exactly one run by immediately bunting the runner over to 3rd then hoping for a Sac Fly/infielder grounder that would get him in, only to see that strategy matched in the bottom half of the inning*. Bunting the runner over slightly increases the chances of scoring a minimum of one run (63% to 67%) but decreases the overall average of runs a team is likely to score that inning (1.13 to 0.96) based on the time honored axiom known in scientific circles as 'BiFL'.
I heard an argument yesterday that this will be good training for teaching both hitters and pitchers situational ball at the lower levels to which I reply: Fine, just keep it there.



* that the home manager gets to match still makes this better than the NFL method where we just saw a Super Bowl end even though one team never got a chance to touch the ball in overtime, but that's a whole 'nother subject

[seawolf17]

Stupid idea. Just play the fricking game.

[Fman99]

Starting any inning with runners on base is fucktarded. Like, DH level stupid.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I actually think it's significantly worse than the DH, and I hate the DH.

[dinosaur jesus]

Frayed Knot wrote: Yeah, you're basically looking at an average of 1.1 runs scored when starting from a runner-on-2nd/none-out vs 0.5 runs when starting from the standard none-on/none-out situation. But those are averages which combine a bunch of zeros plus that occasional 8 run inning and everything in between. The more telling numbers here are the odds of a team scoring at least one run in their half-inning which will jump to around 63% from the 27% of the time when starting with bases empty.

Okay. So if we had a breakdown of how likely a team was to score 1 run, 2 runs, etc., we could calculate the chances of one team scoring more than the other, ending the game. Those chances would certainly be higher if you started with a runner on second, but not that much higher. Maybe a 10% difference? That would mean 1 game in 10 was one inning shorter--which amounts to about 1 game a year.

Another factor is that if you start with runners on base, the inning will probably take a little longer to play. More stepping off the rubber, more conferences on the mound, more intentional walks, more pitching changes. The net gain in game time might be pretty close to 0.

[Chad ochoseis]

Even if it does shorten the game, the complaint that the game is now taking too long is a catchall complaint for various actions that extend the length of a game without adding excitement - time taken between pitches, time working the count, conferences on the mound, etc., etc., etc. It doesn't have anything to do with extra inning games, which most fans love. So this is addressing the wrong problem.

Personally, I have no problem with game length at all. I could see cutting time between innings (which, as has been pointed out, will never be agreed to by the networks), but I like strategizing. I like hitters battling pitchers by going deep into the count. I like close plays being subject to review at a manager's request. I'm good with the game as it is. But I recognize that I'm in the minority of baseball fans in general, and I may even be in the minority of fans here in the CPF.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't mind the pace of the game. I just don't like how late the postseason games end. And it's a problem for MLB, too. People won't bother to watch a World Series game if they know they're going to go to bed before it ends. (Unless their favorite team is involved, of course.) The simple solution to that particular problem is to have the first pitch at around 7:15 Eastern Time.