I still hate the phantom runner and 7 inning doubleheaders. DH in the National League is great. I have news though, Bumgarner and Greinke while maybe good hitters for pitchers, they are terrible hitters. You can look it up. Greinke has a .600 career OPS. Bumgarner is at .532. Any manager who lets either of them hit this season should be fired.
Excellent points Joe. It’s easy to not want to change.
I remembered how surprised I was when in an earlier column of yours not too long ago, you noted that baseball almost instituted the DH back near the very beginning- late 1800’s or early 1900’s. How different things would have been over the years. All the energy and time pit in arguing about the DH would never have happened. And if anyone suggested that pitchers should hit for themselves they would have been laughed right out of the room.
And a pitching clock? Absolutely. Would solve the time problem way better than a batter minimum, etc. watching guys step out of the box between every pitch, pitchers taking forever to pitch. The anticipation and silence between ‘moments’ in baseball is part of its beauty- but the extended non-action is NOT part of that beauty. Watching old clips of parts of games where a pitcher works quickly is such a joy.
Hi Ronald. It is good to see that you are back. I have been looking for you, because I have been remiss in acknowledging comments to my postings in 60 Moments (I have not been around much myself, as it has been a busy time in my racket these past few months). So, thank you for your comments regarding that thing I posted a couple of weeks ago (the poem about John A. lol and so on). I truly appreciate it.
If you have not already watched it, I highly recommend Master of None (Netflix). There are only two seasons, 20 episodes in total, so it is not a huge commitment. It is single camera, gorgeously shot, and it is poignant and hilarious. Cheers.
Hi Nik. I always appreciate your comments and recommendations.
Since this whole pandemic thing has started I’ve watched 2 years of Star Trek Discovery. 2nd year was fantastic. One year of a Star Trek Picard- also superb. All 5 years of The Good Fight. All of those only available on CBS All Access. Next all 7 years of Brooklyn 99, and all 6 years of Justified on Hulu. And why am I gaining weight? 😀
Right now am in the first year of Schitt’s Creek. Netflix. It’s hilarious. And I did stream the new Andy Samberg Hulu movie “Palm Springs”- simply outstanding.
Why would anyone (other than perhaps with Ohtani) put a pitcher in the DH spot to begin with? You mentioned Greinke and Bumgarner as possibilities. Their career OPS+ are 61 and 46 respectively. Including those two, there are 16 active players with 500 career plate appearances with OPS+ of 61 or below. 8 are pitchers (Including the hapless Johnny Cueto with a -36. .103/.128/.105 in 618 PAs. He has 1 double.)
Four of the 8 position players are career backup catchers, three are utility infielders, and then there is Lewis Brinson. These eight have combined for 62 MLB seasons, averaging 138 PAs a year. They have a combined 35 AL seasons, and a combined 3 starts at DH with one of those being in the player's rookie season. (Thanks, Ned Yost and John Farrell for the other two!)
As far as the 7 inning doubleheaders and zombie runners, it is OK in this Covid shortened season to get it in and expose players less, but I wouldn't want to see them in a real season.
How many innings in a season would the zombie runner save anyway? Even if every extra inning game ended in the tenth with it (and it wouldn't), there were only 117 games last year (4.8%) that made it past the tenth. (44% of extra inning games end in the tenth anyway) The average team played 18 innings last year past the 10th, (about 3 per month) and only 6.4 innings beyond 12. (About 1 per month.)
I really don't like the runner. I would even rather have ties (gasp!) after 12 than do this, and I hate ties. (There were 37 games beyond 12 innings last year, which would have meant 74 ties distributed among 30 teams, or about two and a half per team)
In a regular year, 7 inning double headers would favor the team with the superior starting pitching much more than a regular game. I understand doing it with Covid, but not in a normal season. There were 33 total double headers last season. The average team had 2.2, so this would save 4.4 innings per year, per team. That is negligible.
Couldn't agree more with rule changes! I resisted openness to the "zombie runner" (in my mind: The Extra-Innings Running Man) but as of its implementation, I've done a 180. I would love to incentivize more triples and balls in play - what rule changes could we make to accomplish that? Perhaps and perhaps unfortunately, regulating the shift may be the only way, but it would disincentivize always trying to lift the baseball into the outfield seats quite so much. I like it when there are longer outings by starters and I know others do as well. How could we incentivize that? How about this: you only get the zombie runner in extras if your starter goes 5 (or 6) innings. I'm sure others could come up with better ideas than that, but it would bring back a little of that "(starter) vs (starter) tonight!" marquee magic.
When I was a kid we went to a 20-something inning AAA game in Columbus; the highlights included 14th inning and 21st inning stretches, and at least one inning where both teams put up the same crooked number. We loved it. I was roughly the age Joe was when Carew was hitting, etc. Now that I can't operate on 5 hours of sleep, I have no desire to see such a game. Even so, I think the ex-nihilo runner is weird and I'm not sure I like it. I think a better solution would be to cap extra innings at three and then call the game a tie.
There does seem something *more* revolutionary/sacrilegious about ties in baseball; all those paeans about being able to play forever, etc. But it would feel less contrived.
Quite separately, I think either pace of play will improve, or 7-inning games will become the norm.
So, you essentially want MLB to adopt the college pitcher/DH rule? Fine by me. Pitcher starts the game hitting for himself, gets pulled from the game but can remain as the DH, changing it from a 9-man lineup to a 10-man lineup. Simple.
And while I generally don’t want to have too many changes to the game, I’m fine with the 3-batter minimum, don’t care if the DH goes universal or it remains as it was, even a pitch clock. But no way will I ever like the runner on second in extras. Nope. Don’t like it, never will.
I agree re: the extra inning runner. At a minimum, it shouldn't occur right away... If our only goal is to avoid the 18 inning marathon, maybe we could play 12 or 13 innings before we resort to giving the offense this kind of advantage?
I don't recall any Billy Martin stories along these lines -- Joe may have been writing hypothetically -- but I do remember Earl Weaver putting an off-day starting pitcher in the DH slot so that he wouldn't have to pinch hit for the "real" DH if the other team changed starting pitchers before the slot came up. The league responded with rule 5.11(a)(2), mandating that the DH "named in the starting lineup must come to bat at least one time..."
I guess this is where it needs to be pointed out that the "really good hitting pitchers" Bumgarner and Greinke have hit .177 and .225, with OPSs of .532 and .600, respectively, over about a season's worth of career plate appearances.
I have wondered myself. For instance - Shohei Ohtani (moot now, but stay with me here) - If he hits for himself when pitching (so - DH spot), when he is pulled for a relief pitcher, why should he not continue in the DH spot?
This is a good summary of my feelings towards the rule changes too. I have been a diehard NL fan and haven't liked the DH*. For most of baseball's history, a person could be away from the game for a decade and come back to the same sport, integration (embarrassingly late for that) and the DH not withstanding. I am an infrequent watcher of football and hockey, and I've been sometimes been caught by surprise over the last 20 years at things that have changed (e.g., where kickoffs are placed, overtime shootouts, overtime wins, among others). That being said, these new baseball rule changes (in baseball or the others sports) haven't destroyed the games and often have fixed problems that have evolved with time. This is the perfect season to try them out for baseball, and I suspect they might grow on me too.
(* I had always felt the DH was a logical inconsistency. If it makes sense to have a DH for a pitcher, why not do it for a light hitting shortstop? When the DH started, there were a lot of banjo-hitting shortstops in like Belanger, Brinkman, Harrelson, Bowa, etc. Why not have DHs for them? Where would it end--at full platooning? I guess after 40 years that hasn't happened so I'll concede this is a one-shot deal just for pitchers.)
As John Oliver likes to say to the "where do you draw the line?" people, you draw the line SOMEWHERE.
In this case, pitching is so different from every other position--and, importantly, has evolved more from the original role in the early days of baseball than any other position--that you can make a special rule for that aspect of the game without having (non-forced) logical inconsistencies.
And for the record, I'm someone who:
1. Thinks it would be "better" baseball if pitchers batted for themselves and
2. Loves the DH, because if teams aren't going to give the slightest hoot about the development of batting skills for pitchers, why should I?
Hi DJ. I was reluctantly conceding the DH point. It's just that any time you have something that says "X applies, except for ..." then line drawing could get very subjective. Without the "except" part, the line is pinned to one side so the subjectivity isn't there. I've never had the time to go back through old newspapers or magazines when football made the complete transition from two-way player to the offensive/defensive squads that are the rule now. Football was different because they probably had to make substitution allowances for frequent injuries, so players re-entering was always occurring anyway. But I can imagine that QBs (like pitchers) might have been the first position to routinely play one way, and then it rapidly evolved to include everyone. As I said, I haven't heard anyone in baseball recommending that beyond pitchers after forty-plus years, so I can accept the "everyone bats except pitchers" approach and continue to enjoy the game.
I think the issue is a trade off. I.e., would you sacrifice defensive ability in your shortstop if he were a much better hitter. You might have to think about it (How much better is his bat, how much worse is his glove) but it's choice you would make. The fielder who is so good with the glove that you don't care if he can't hit... that guy is basically a unicorn in today's game.
OTOH, we have lots of guys who can't get hitters out very well, but who hit so good you have to play them. They're called outfielders. Every NL pitcher is in the category of "we don't care if he can't hit". No manager would ever say "We need to put Jay Smith on the mound four six innings because we've got to have his bat in the lineup."
Were you thinking Derek Jeter with your first paragraph (i.e., sacrifice fielding for hitting)? I agree about the all-glove no-hit player being a unicorn. That wasn't the case decades ago, but certainly is now.
I still hate the phantom runner and 7 inning doubleheaders. DH in the National League is great. I have news though, Bumgarner and Greinke while maybe good hitters for pitchers, they are terrible hitters. You can look it up. Greinke has a .600 career OPS. Bumgarner is at .532. Any manager who lets either of them hit this season should be fired.
Excellent points Joe. It’s easy to not want to change.
I remembered how surprised I was when in an earlier column of yours not too long ago, you noted that baseball almost instituted the DH back near the very beginning- late 1800’s or early 1900’s. How different things would have been over the years. All the energy and time pit in arguing about the DH would never have happened. And if anyone suggested that pitchers should hit for themselves they would have been laughed right out of the room.
And a pitching clock? Absolutely. Would solve the time problem way better than a batter minimum, etc. watching guys step out of the box between every pitch, pitchers taking forever to pitch. The anticipation and silence between ‘moments’ in baseball is part of its beauty- but the extended non-action is NOT part of that beauty. Watching old clips of parts of games where a pitcher works quickly is such a joy.
Hi Ronald. It is good to see that you are back. I have been looking for you, because I have been remiss in acknowledging comments to my postings in 60 Moments (I have not been around much myself, as it has been a busy time in my racket these past few months). So, thank you for your comments regarding that thing I posted a couple of weeks ago (the poem about John A. lol and so on). I truly appreciate it.
If you have not already watched it, I highly recommend Master of None (Netflix). There are only two seasons, 20 episodes in total, so it is not a huge commitment. It is single camera, gorgeously shot, and it is poignant and hilarious. Cheers.
Hi Nik. I always appreciate your comments and recommendations.
Since this whole pandemic thing has started I’ve watched 2 years of Star Trek Discovery. 2nd year was fantastic. One year of a Star Trek Picard- also superb. All 5 years of The Good Fight. All of those only available on CBS All Access. Next all 7 years of Brooklyn 99, and all 6 years of Justified on Hulu. And why am I gaining weight? 😀
Right now am in the first year of Schitt’s Creek. Netflix. It’s hilarious. And I did stream the new Andy Samberg Hulu movie “Palm Springs”- simply outstanding.
I’ll look into Master of None next.
Take care and keep posting when you can
Why would anyone (other than perhaps with Ohtani) put a pitcher in the DH spot to begin with? You mentioned Greinke and Bumgarner as possibilities. Their career OPS+ are 61 and 46 respectively. Including those two, there are 16 active players with 500 career plate appearances with OPS+ of 61 or below. 8 are pitchers (Including the hapless Johnny Cueto with a -36. .103/.128/.105 in 618 PAs. He has 1 double.)
Four of the 8 position players are career backup catchers, three are utility infielders, and then there is Lewis Brinson. These eight have combined for 62 MLB seasons, averaging 138 PAs a year. They have a combined 35 AL seasons, and a combined 3 starts at DH with one of those being in the player's rookie season. (Thanks, Ned Yost and John Farrell for the other two!)
As far as the 7 inning doubleheaders and zombie runners, it is OK in this Covid shortened season to get it in and expose players less, but I wouldn't want to see them in a real season.
How many innings in a season would the zombie runner save anyway? Even if every extra inning game ended in the tenth with it (and it wouldn't), there were only 117 games last year (4.8%) that made it past the tenth. (44% of extra inning games end in the tenth anyway) The average team played 18 innings last year past the 10th, (about 3 per month) and only 6.4 innings beyond 12. (About 1 per month.)
I really don't like the runner. I would even rather have ties (gasp!) after 12 than do this, and I hate ties. (There were 37 games beyond 12 innings last year, which would have meant 74 ties distributed among 30 teams, or about two and a half per team)
In a regular year, 7 inning double headers would favor the team with the superior starting pitching much more than a regular game. I understand doing it with Covid, but not in a normal season. There were 33 total double headers last season. The average team had 2.2, so this would save 4.4 innings per year, per team. That is negligible.
You are so right about everything.
Couldn't agree more with rule changes! I resisted openness to the "zombie runner" (in my mind: The Extra-Innings Running Man) but as of its implementation, I've done a 180. I would love to incentivize more triples and balls in play - what rule changes could we make to accomplish that? Perhaps and perhaps unfortunately, regulating the shift may be the only way, but it would disincentivize always trying to lift the baseball into the outfield seats quite so much. I like it when there are longer outings by starters and I know others do as well. How could we incentivize that? How about this: you only get the zombie runner in extras if your starter goes 5 (or 6) innings. I'm sure others could come up with better ideas than that, but it would bring back a little of that "(starter) vs (starter) tonight!" marquee magic.
I
When I was a kid we went to a 20-something inning AAA game in Columbus; the highlights included 14th inning and 21st inning stretches, and at least one inning where both teams put up the same crooked number. We loved it. I was roughly the age Joe was when Carew was hitting, etc. Now that I can't operate on 5 hours of sleep, I have no desire to see such a game. Even so, I think the ex-nihilo runner is weird and I'm not sure I like it. I think a better solution would be to cap extra innings at three and then call the game a tie.
There does seem something *more* revolutionary/sacrilegious about ties in baseball; all those paeans about being able to play forever, etc. But it would feel less contrived.
Quite separately, I think either pace of play will improve, or 7-inning games will become the norm.
I was 10 years old in 1970, when the Pirates were always competitive and the lack of a salary cap wasn't a factor. I'll take that again.
So, you essentially want MLB to adopt the college pitcher/DH rule? Fine by me. Pitcher starts the game hitting for himself, gets pulled from the game but can remain as the DH, changing it from a 9-man lineup to a 10-man lineup. Simple.
And while I generally don’t want to have too many changes to the game, I’m fine with the 3-batter minimum, don’t care if the DH goes universal or it remains as it was, even a pitch clock. But no way will I ever like the runner on second in extras. Nope. Don’t like it, never will.
I agree re: the extra inning runner. At a minimum, it shouldn't occur right away... If our only goal is to avoid the 18 inning marathon, maybe we could play 12 or 13 innings before we resort to giving the offense this kind of advantage?
I don't know the Billy Martin pitcher-DH story. Anyone care to elaborate?
I don't recall any Billy Martin stories along these lines -- Joe may have been writing hypothetically -- but I do remember Earl Weaver putting an off-day starting pitcher in the DH slot so that he wouldn't have to pinch hit for the "real" DH if the other team changed starting pitchers before the slot came up. The league responded with rule 5.11(a)(2), mandating that the DH "named in the starting lineup must come to bat at least one time..."
I guess this is where it needs to be pointed out that the "really good hitting pitchers" Bumgarner and Greinke have hit .177 and .225, with OPSs of .532 and .600, respectively, over about a season's worth of career plate appearances.
I have wondered myself. For instance - Shohei Ohtani (moot now, but stay with me here) - If he hits for himself when pitching (so - DH spot), when he is pulled for a relief pitcher, why should he not continue in the DH spot?
This is a good summary of my feelings towards the rule changes too. I have been a diehard NL fan and haven't liked the DH*. For most of baseball's history, a person could be away from the game for a decade and come back to the same sport, integration (embarrassingly late for that) and the DH not withstanding. I am an infrequent watcher of football and hockey, and I've been sometimes been caught by surprise over the last 20 years at things that have changed (e.g., where kickoffs are placed, overtime shootouts, overtime wins, among others). That being said, these new baseball rule changes (in baseball or the others sports) haven't destroyed the games and often have fixed problems that have evolved with time. This is the perfect season to try them out for baseball, and I suspect they might grow on me too.
(* I had always felt the DH was a logical inconsistency. If it makes sense to have a DH for a pitcher, why not do it for a light hitting shortstop? When the DH started, there were a lot of banjo-hitting shortstops in like Belanger, Brinkman, Harrelson, Bowa, etc. Why not have DHs for them? Where would it end--at full platooning? I guess after 40 years that hasn't happened so I'll concede this is a one-shot deal just for pitchers.)
As John Oliver likes to say to the "where do you draw the line?" people, you draw the line SOMEWHERE.
In this case, pitching is so different from every other position--and, importantly, has evolved more from the original role in the early days of baseball than any other position--that you can make a special rule for that aspect of the game without having (non-forced) logical inconsistencies.
And for the record, I'm someone who:
1. Thinks it would be "better" baseball if pitchers batted for themselves and
2. Loves the DH, because if teams aren't going to give the slightest hoot about the development of batting skills for pitchers, why should I?
Hi DJ. I was reluctantly conceding the DH point. It's just that any time you have something that says "X applies, except for ..." then line drawing could get very subjective. Without the "except" part, the line is pinned to one side so the subjectivity isn't there. I've never had the time to go back through old newspapers or magazines when football made the complete transition from two-way player to the offensive/defensive squads that are the rule now. Football was different because they probably had to make substitution allowances for frequent injuries, so players re-entering was always occurring anyway. But I can imagine that QBs (like pitchers) might have been the first position to routinely play one way, and then it rapidly evolved to include everyone. As I said, I haven't heard anyone in baseball recommending that beyond pitchers after forty-plus years, so I can accept the "everyone bats except pitchers" approach and continue to enjoy the game.
I think the issue is a trade off. I.e., would you sacrifice defensive ability in your shortstop if he were a much better hitter. You might have to think about it (How much better is his bat, how much worse is his glove) but it's choice you would make. The fielder who is so good with the glove that you don't care if he can't hit... that guy is basically a unicorn in today's game.
OTOH, we have lots of guys who can't get hitters out very well, but who hit so good you have to play them. They're called outfielders. Every NL pitcher is in the category of "we don't care if he can't hit". No manager would ever say "We need to put Jay Smith on the mound four six innings because we've got to have his bat in the lineup."
Were you thinking Derek Jeter with your first paragraph (i.e., sacrifice fielding for hitting)? I agree about the all-glove no-hit player being a unicorn. That wasn't the case decades ago, but certainly is now.
Not specifically...