MLB competition committee to vote on rule changes Friday

[jabba72]

I'll applaud baseball and the commissioner if they get the average game length down to 2.:35 like the minor leagues average is. The 2 pickoff limit is sketchy, but they must think it increases pressure on the run game and pitcher resulting in more steals. 

[Frobby]

I certainly don’t think it will hurt the game to see 25-50% more steals.  Steals are fun.   

One thing about these changes — they can always be changed back if they don’t work as intended or the results are too extreme.   I’m fine with a little experimentation, especially when these things have been tried in the minors already.
 

[Shiloh]

[emmett16]

On 9/10/2022 at 8:36 AM, Frobby said:

The shift rule bothers me more in principle than it does in practice.  Some guy hits the ball to the same area 75% of the time and you can’t adjust your defense to account for that?   Boo!  But I do think it will boost offense, which is good.  

I don’t mind the change, but I was hoping it would have happened organically instead of being mandated.  I realize it’s hard to ask the players to take pay cut by hitting ball the other way and no try to hit a HR every AB, but I just assumed batters would eventually make an adjustment to take advantage of what the defense was giving them.   I think the long term outcomes will be beneficial and batters w/o power will stop selling out for HRs trying to raise their pay and start to focus more on OBP skills.  I guess we will see.  

[Frobby]

41 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

I don’t mind the change, but I was hoping it would have happened organically instead of being mandated.  I realize it’s hard to ask the players to take pay cut by hitting ball the other way and no try to hit a HR every AB, but I just assumed batters would eventually make an adjustment to take advantage of what the defense was giving them.   I think the long term outcomes will be beneficial and batters w/o power will stop selling out for HRs trying to raise their pay and start to focus more on OBP skills.  I guess we will see.  

I think the long and short of it is, it’s hard for most hitters to hit to all fields.  It’s not just a matter of trying to hit homers.   It’s not that easy to handle pitches with different velocities and different breaks and control the direction the ball is hit.  I think a lot of hitters would try to beat the shift if they thought they were capable of doing it. 

In 2002, about 43% of batted balls were pulled, 29% to CF, 28% opposite field.  By 2012 (roughly the start of the advent of shifting), it was 40/35/25.  It’s still about 40/35/25 today.  So it’s not like hitters have gotten pull crazy in the last decade, or even the last 20 years.   

(Sorry, the data doesn’t go back much earlier than 2002.)

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Frobby

[emmett16]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think the long and short of it is, it’s hard for most hitters to hit to all fields.  It’s not just a matter of trying to hit homers.   It’s not that easy to handle pitches with different velocities and different breaks and control the direction the ball is hit.  I think a lot of hitters would try to beat the shift if they thought they were capable of doing it. 

In 2002, about 43% of batted balls were pulled, 29% to CF, 28% opposite field.  By 2012 (roughly the start of the advent of shifting), it was 40/35/25.  It’s still about 40/35/25 today.  So it’s not like hitters have gotten pull crazy in the last decade, or even the last 20 years.   

(Sorry, the data doesn’t go back much earlier than 2002.)

 

I realize the batting break down is just about the same, and that’s kinda my point.  Starting back in 2012 with the start of the shift massive holes started opening up, holes that had never been there.  It’s easier to hit a ball the other way than it is to hit it over the fence.  You don’t need perfect contact and massive EVs.  I guess I always thought that there would be some natural progression and a team or player would try to take advantage of the new holes created and start a new trend.  But in an age of getting paid to hit the HR and launch angle, no one took that gamble with their careers.  It just seemed to me that making hitting into the hole a focus, a player could really impact his OBP.  I think I was just wrong.  

[calsmanystances]

Jayson Stark had an interesting article on the rule changes. Worth a full read. Given the middle IF prospects we have near the big leagues, I thought this part was interesting:

https://theathletic.com/3604919/2022/09/19/mlb-rule-changes-pitch-clock-shift-ban/

 

This has a chance to dramatically change how teams are built.

In what ways, you ask? Here are two:

It’s a great time to be an athletic middle infielder. Let’s begin with another Epstein observation from the press conference: What fans want, he said, is having games decided “by diving plays” — not “by whose front office devised the best algorithm” to position all their shifting infielders.

So on that note, let’s talk about Mike Moustakas. Nothing personal. He just came up over and over as the poster boy for second basemen you’ll never see again in baseball.

“When you’re putting a roster together now, this is going to impact how you view defense. I’ll use Mike Moustakas as an example. He’s played a lot of second base, but he’s not a second baseman, He doesn’t have the foot speed to play second base. But in a shift, he could do it.” — one club exec

Well, not anymore. Teams are now going to rethink which positions they can sacrifice defense for offense. And in a world without shifts, second base won’t be one of those positions. I’d love to be an agent for an athletic free-agent middle infielder this winter. That’s going to go well.

“When you put together your team now, you may have three positions that are all about defense only – second base, shortstop and center field.”  — the same exec

It’s time to collect left-handed pull hitters. You know what has changed since these new rules were announced? How front offices watch games every night. They now amuse themselves by tracking all the outs that would be hits with no shift. And all of a sudden, they have a newfound appreciation for left-handed mashers.

An executive of one team told me about a left-handed hitting player in his system who might not still be on the 40-man roster — but was kept around because the new shift rule would change his value. Another exec brought up Matt Carpenter, a perfect example of a left-handed pull hitter whose career was almost ended by the shift and now will be looked at in a whole new light.

“I think there are guys who are going to add 15 to 20 points to their average because of this. Matt Carpenter is one. Anthony Rizzo is another. Those are guys whose average has just been brutalized by the shift. But now I can see guys like that having much greater value, because they do hit the ball the other way in the air. They just hit most of their groundballs to the right side. And the shift has turned them all into outs.”  — one longtime exec

So who knows — in future years, players like that could add even more value. And why would that be? Because …

 

[emmett16]

Mike Elias check list:

-Athletic Middle Infielders

-A stable of left handed pull hitters

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[CharmCityHokie]

40 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

I really dislike the ghost-runner rule, it just doesn't feel right. 

I don't care as much about the position-player pitching rule (they really should only be doing it in blowouts or extra innings) but it is interested that they're keeping the amount of pitchers on the active roster limited while also limiting flexibility of using someone off the bench. 

[Number5]

I think this recent trend of making petty knee-jerk rules changes to combat any little thing a team is doing legally that isn't pure vanilla is just silly.  I mean are these things really worth worrying about?

[Can_of_corn]

2 hours ago, CharmCityHokie said:

I really dislike the ghost-runner rule, it just doesn't feel right. 

I don't care as much about the position-player pitching rule (they really should only be doing it in blowouts or extra innings) but it is interested that they're keeping the amount of pitchers on the active roster limited while also limiting flexibility of using someone off the bench. 

I read a Fangraphs piece the other day about forfeits and I've advocated for just forfeiting if you are in an obvious losing position.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/stop-wasting-everyones-time-and-quit-already/

[SteveA]

MLB also says they will ramp up stricter enforcement of the balk rule.

Says that it may force some pitchers like Clevinger, Jansen, Gausman, and Luis Garcia of the Astros to change their deliveries.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/35660530/mlb-plans-emphasize-enforcement-balks-changes-kick-in

[Can_of_corn]

Manny with the first clock violation of the Spring.

 

[Frobby]

48 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Manny with the first clock violation of the Spring.

 

Followed by a single.