How do you like the new “three batter” rule?

[Moose Milligan]

From @TonySoprano's favorite THE ATHLETIC:

 

Quote

 

Stark: Managers plan for the new three-batter rule — ‘I’m having a hard time’

Jayson Stark Mar 6, 2020 226 

He is still a week away from dealing with a rule that is guaranteed to have him reaching for his Advil stash. But Terry Francona is already losing sleep over an imaginary game he has managed only in his mind.

In the dream, it is June in San Diego. Francona’s Indians are playing the Padres. And the new three-batter rule is hanging over the manager’s head as he frets about how he would handle a pitcher who doesn’t even pitch for him anymore.

“What if (Corey) Kluber goes 7 1/3?” Terry Francona muses. “And we’re playing San Diego, and they’ve got (Eric) Hosmer and (Manny) Machado (coming up)?”

In another year, in a previous life, not a problem. His team employs a lethal situational left-hander (Oliver Pérez) and a sidewheeling situational right-hander (Adam Cimber). So….

“So we’ve got an answer,” Francona is saying, the managerial wheels churning over this still-fictional dilemma. “But right now we don’t.”

Right. Here in the year 2020? Here in baseball’s first season of requiring all pitchers to face at least three hitters, unless an inning ends first? Here in this strange new orbit all managers are about to enter? He would be correct. Now, they don’t.

“We’ve got half an answer,” Francona goes on. “Pick your poison. Who do you want to face? And that’s not fair.”

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been surveying managers who are still trying to reprogram their managerial brains now that the rules, and their world, have changed. Frankly, they’re struggling. They’re processing. They’re venting.

Joe Maddon (Angels): “You’re going to be put into situations that you never, ever wanted to be in — and you worked hard not to be in.”

Bud Black (Rockies): “A team should be able to do what they want to do with their players.”

Torey Lovullo (Diamondbacks): “It’s not going to be as simple as people think.”

There is no more challenging aspect to the day-to-day life of a modern manager than maneuvering through the daily bullpen chess match. But now imagine Magnus Carlsen, your reigning world chess champ, showing up at the chessboard next week and being told, “Sorry, Magnus. Your king has to move three squares now instead of one. Good luck to you.”

Well, that’s how baseball’s newest rule change feels to the men who have spent a lifetime managing their bullpen chess pieces one way and now are being told that way will no longer be permissible, beginning in spring-training games on March 12 and then carrying right through the season, the postseason and, presumably, the rest of time.

Rest is behind a paywall.  But you get the idea.

[interloper]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

From @TonySoprano's favorite THE ATHLETIC:

 

Rest is behind a paywall.  But you get the idea.

Gonna be interesting! I don't know if I hate it. I reserve the right to hate it later. Right now I kind of think it's funny to throw all these managers something else to deal with and have them stress out a little. 

That's easy to say knowing none of this matters a lick for the Orioles. 

[SteveA]

Just now, interloper said:

Gonna be interesting! I don't know if I hate it. I reserve the right to hate it later. Right now I kind of think it's funny to throw all these managers something else to deal with and have them stress out a little. 

That's easy to say knowing none of this matters a lick for the Orioles. 

It hasn't been in effect so far this preseason.   I believe it goes into effect on Tuesday for exhibition games.

[interloper]

Just now, SteveA said:

It hasn't been in effect so far this preseason.   I believe it goes into effect on Tuesday for exhibition games.

Yeah I know. It's just that we're going to lose a million games so who cares if one of our relievers gets torched facing a guy he wouldn't normally face. 

But I will 100% enjoy watching that happen to the Yankees. 

[Frobby]

At the risk of violating Tony’s “no bumps” edict...

Having watched 40 games worth of baseball, I barely even notice the impact of this rule.   I’m sure there have been situations where either the Orioles or their opponents would have switched a pitcher out without the rule, but you really don’t notice it not happening.    So far, I’m still in favor.    

My guess is we’ll notice it in the postseason.  

 

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

At the risk of violating Tony’s “no bumps” edict...

Having watched 40 games worth of baseball, I barely even notice the impact of this rule.   I’m sure there have been situations where either the Orioles or their opponents would have switched a pitcher out without the rule, but you really don’t notice it not happening.    So far, I’m still in favor.    

My guess is we’ll notice it in the postseason.  

 

I barely notice it either, but for that reason I'm not in favor of it.

Part of the reasoning behind the rule, IIRC, is too make sure that the game moves along at a quicker pace and ending in a shorter game.  Games are well over 3 hours now and if MLB wants to make a dent in the time it takes to play a game, pitching changes isn't the hill to die on, IMO.  I mean, how many times in a game does a manager make a pitching change when a pitcher hasn't faced 3 batters?  I'm sure that data exists somewhere, but I don't believe it occurred in every game.  And even then, how many times did it happen in a game?  

I believe I said it earlier somewhere in this thread, MLB wants to have it's cake and wants to eat it, too.  They want high scoring games with lots of runs because that's supposed to generate more excitement, but they want all of that to happen in less than three hours.  MLB would love a 2:45 minute game, but they'd abhor the thought of it ending in a 2-1 pitchers duel because the casual fan wouldn't be enthralled by it.  The causal fan, MLB thinks, wants to see an 9-8 slugfest with lots of homers and leads being traded back and forth.  Unfortunately, with all that scoring, the game will take 3+ hours.  Neither scenario I've outlined comes to their pace of play conclusions because a manager wanted to use a lefty in a high leverage situation for one batter.  

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I barely notice it either, but for that reason I'm not in favor of it.

Part of the reasoning behind the rule, IIRC, is too make sure that the game moves along at a quicker pace and ending in a shorter game.  Games are well over 3 hours now and if MLB wants to make a dent in the time it takes to play a game, pitching changes isn't the hill to die on, IMO.  I mean, how many times in a game does a manager make a pitching change when a pitcher hasn't faced 3 batters?  I'm sure that data exists somewhere, but I don't believe it occurred in every game.  And even then, how many times did it happen in a game?  

I believe it was about 25-28 times a season for the average team.   So, once every 5-6 games.   

One of these days I’ll go back and look how often some of Girardi’s Yankees teams did it.    
 

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, Frobby said:

I believe it was about 25-28 times a season for the average team.   So, once every 5-6 games.   

One of these days I’ll go back and look how often some of Girardi’s Yankees teams did it.    
 

He did seem to be the primary culprit.

I would assume that the rate went up in the playoffs.  

[Oriole1940]

This is another example of the current  people trying to fix something that is not broken.  I trust the folks who put baseball rules together at the beginning much more than those who are tinkering with it.  Please let baseball alone.  I know in your infinite wisdom you think you can improve on it, but you cannot.  If everything in this damaged society worked half as good as baseball, it would be a  far different world.  

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

He did seem to be the primary culprit.

I would assume that the rate went up in the playoffs.  

Just eyeballing the 2012 Yankees, it looks like Girardi brought Boone Logan into a game mid-inning 12 times and removed him after two batters or less with the inning still ongoing 12 times.    He did it with Clay Rapada 19 times.    So that’s 31 times right there, without bothering to look at the other 16 pitchers the Yankees used in relief that year.   I saw one game where Girardi brought in Boone for one batter in the middle of the 9th with nobody on base and down by four runs.   Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!

[Moose Milligan]

20 hours ago, Frobby said:

Just eyeballing the 2012 Yankees, it looks like Girardi brought Boone Logan into a game mid-inning 12 times and removed him after two batters or less with the inning still ongoing 12 times.    He did it with Clay Rapada 19 times.    So that’s 31 times right there, without bothering to look at the other 16 pitchers the Yankees used in relief that year.   I saw one game where Girardi brought in Boone for one batter in the middle of the 9th with nobody on base and down by four runs.   Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!

Managers gotta manage.  I bet Girardi felt like he put his stamp on the game by bringing Boone Logan in for one batter in the 9th and down 4 runs.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Managers gotta manage.  I bet Girardi felt like he put his stamp on the game by bringing Boone Logan in for one batter in the 9th and down 4 runs.

I misremembered - it was Rapada, not Boone.    And, it was against the Orioles!     The best part is, Girardi pulled Rapada after one batter and Mark Reynolds immediately greeted the next pitcher with a homer to increase the lead to 6-1 in the 9th.    Total backfire in addition to being a waste of time!

[DrungoHazewood]

On 9/7/2020 at 10:11 AM, Moose Milligan said:

I barely notice it either, but for that reason I'm not in favor of it.

Part of the reasoning behind the rule, IIRC, is too make sure that the game moves along at a quicker pace and ending in a shorter game.  Games are well over 3 hours now and if MLB wants to make a dent in the time it takes to play a game, pitching changes isn't the hill to die on, IMO.  I mean, how many times in a game does a manager make a pitching change when a pitcher hasn't faced 3 batters?  I'm sure that data exists somewhere, but I don't believe it occurred in every game.  And even then, how many times did it happen in a game?  

I believe I said it earlier somewhere in this thread, MLB wants to have it's cake and wants to eat it, too.  They want high scoring games with lots of runs because that's supposed to generate more excitement, but they want all of that to happen in less than three hours.  MLB would love a 2:45 minute game, but they'd abhor the thought of it ending in a 2-1 pitchers duel because the casual fan wouldn't be enthralled by it.  The causal fan, MLB thinks, wants to see an 9-8 slugfest with lots of homers and leads being traded back and forth.  Unfortunately, with all that scoring, the game will take 3+ hours.  Neither scenario I've outlined comes to their pace of play conclusions because a manager wanted to use a lefty in a high leverage situation for one batter.  

Have you ever watched a Tony LaRussa game?  If there wasn't a rule about a pitcher having to face a full batter he would have carved out a role for a LOOGY who only pitched the first half of the count to a batter.

The problem with trying to solve game times is that it's not one thing.  Every single thing you fix is only going to shave off a few minutes. But when you spend a century adding a minute here and a minute there suddenly you look up and a standard issue, nine-inning Yanks-Sox game goes 11 hours and they break for tea after the bowler throws the 45th over.

[DrungoHazewood]

On 9/7/2020 at 12:15 PM, Oriole1940 said:

This is another example of the current  people trying to fix something that is not broken.  I trust the folks who put baseball rules together at the beginning much more than those who are tinkering with it.  Please let baseball alone.  I know in your infinite wisdom you think you can improve on it, but you cannot.  If everything in this damaged society worked half as good as baseball, it would be a  far different world.  

I've said this many times, but leaving baseball alone is a great way to make sure it's completely different in a few years.  If you like some particular style of baseball, say the way it was played when you were young, then leaving it alone is an excellent way to ensure that you'll never, ever see a game of baseball anything like that as long as you live.

99% of the rules were the same as today when games were two hours, a homer was hit once every three or four games, there were two strikeouts a game, 90%+ of starts were completed, batters hit .400, teams used seven pitchers the whole year, and sometimes players hit 27 triples in a season.

[Moose Milligan]

19 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Have you ever watched a Tony LaRussa game?  If there wasn't a rule about a pitcher having to face a full batter he would have carved out a role for a LOOGY who only pitched the first half of the count to a batter.

The problem with trying to solve game times is that it's not one thing.  Every single thing you fix is only going to shave off a few minutes. But when you spend a century adding a minute here and a minute there suddenly you look up and a standard issue, nine-inning Yanks-Sox game goes 11 hours and they break for tea after the bowler throws the 45th over.

That's kind of what I was alluding to, it's not one thing.  But the thing they're picking on here doesn't happen in every game.  If they want to shave the time of the game down, they need to focus on repeatable things that happen in each game, not just something that might happen a couple times a week.

What's the pitch clock that they don't enforce, 20 seconds?  Shave it down to 15 and enforce it.  2 minutes and 30 seconds between innings and half innings instead of 3 minutes.  They won't do that because that eats into commercial time but if they REALLY wanted to make an impact they'd do something over the course of the entire game to shorten it.  

I've unfortunately watched Tony LaRussa games.  Good manager, yet still obnoxious about matchups.