Not even a week since baseball last discussed potential on-field rule changes, there’s now something new to consider. But unlike the new strike zone and adjusted intentional walk that the league brought up last week, this change is already a little bit more than just a hypothetical proposal. Beginning this season, MLB will use rookie leagues to experiment with a new format for extra-inning games — one where a runner will automatically start on second base for each inning after the ninth.
MLB gets ready to explore new extra-innings rules
Thursday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes a potential change to extra-innings games, World Baseball Classic rosters, and Buster Posey with puppies.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“Let’s see what it looks like,” MLB chief baseball officer Joe Torre told Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, who broke the story. “It’s not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time.”
The last part there is true; an 18-inning game certainly does take time. (Though 18-inning games are few and far between — there were two last year.) The first part of Torre’s statement, however, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Of note: a version of this rule has already been used in various forms of international baseball, and we’ll see it in the World Baseball Classic this spring.
Delirious late-night baseball with position players pitching isn’t good baseball in the sense of game quality, but as Grant Brisbee reminds us, it is amazing baseball in terms of entertainment. It’s also weird baseball, which often makes for the best memories. This potential rule change is another way of MLB trying to control the length of games, but the justification seems to be missing out on the fact that a shorter game does not automatically equal a more entertaining one.
- Grant Brisbee goes through Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projections for next year and highlights his main takeaways.
- The San Francisco Giants spent much of yesterday on Twitter sharing behind-the-scenes action from a team commercial shoot, and Buster Posey absolutely won the day with some cute puppies.
- World Baseball Classic rosters were announced on Wednesday, with 25 of last year’s All-Stars suiting up for their respective countries. The Detroit Tigers will be best represented, with 15 players on seven different rosters.
- Could new pitch tunneling data mean a new age of pitcher individuality? Zach Crizer of Beyond the Box Score investigates.
- Viva El Birdos pushes past the negative news of the PECOTA projections and tries to predict some spring surprises of their own.
- Agent Scott Boras addressed some of the injuries that Bryce Harper was battling throughout last year.
- Homer Bailey hasn’t pitched a full season since 2013, and it looks like this year won’t be his next one: he just had surgery to remove bone spurs on his elbow and will start the season on the DL.
- Javier Lopez has announced his retirement.
- Justin Klugh of The Good Phight digs deep on the backstory of a spring training guest instructor to prove that everything in baseball is connected.The Cleveland Indians are reportedly interested in ... Chase Utley?
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