Are strikeouts ruining baseball?

[The Gray Eagle]

One thing is for certain, we're never going back to the days of 8-9 man pitching staffs where the top starters throw 250+ innings.

It could be done if they fixed the ball. They would need a deader ball, to point where teams only average about one HR every other game, maybe 90 per season, and where only the best power hitters are likely to hit a home run more than 7 or 8 of times per season. Pitchers in that environment could pace themselves more, because one bad pitch to a mediocre hitter wouldn't likely be a home run anymore, it'd much more often be a single or even an out.

Part of the reason pitchers don't go 9 much anymore is because they are giving max effort on every single pitch. If they didn't have to do that, they could throw more innings.

It would take years with a deader ball for things to move back that way, and it wouldn't be easy to tweak the baseball just right to get to that point. But it seems like it would be possible to get there by experimenting in the minor leagues over time. If MLB wanted to do that.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

It could be done if they fixed the ball. They would need a deader ball, to point where teams only average about one HR every other game, maybe 90 per season, and where only the best power hitters are likely to hit a home run more than 7 or 8 of times per season. Pitchers in that environment could pace themselves more, because one bad pitch to a mediocre hitter wouldn't likely be a home run anymore, it'd much more often be a single or even an out.

Part of the reason pitchers don't go 9 much anymore is because they are giving max effort on every single pitch. If they didn't have to do that, they could throw more innings.

It would take years with a deader ball for things to move back that way, and it wouldn't be easy to tweak the baseball just right to get to that point. But it seems like it would be possible to get there by experimenting in the minor leagues over time. If MLB wanted to do that.

Well, we DO have a deader ball ... which has cut the HR rate and increased the fly ball out rate. The problem seems to be the hitters haven’t adjusted yet. Once the adjusted launch angle is no longer resulting in HRs, one assumes they will go back to hitting line drives ... which should result in fewer Ks as well.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

It could be done if they fixed the ball. They would need a deader ball, to point where teams only average about one HR every other game, maybe 90 per season, and where only the best power hitters are likely to hit a home run more than 7 or 8 of times per season. Pitchers in that environment could pace themselves more, because one bad pitch to a mediocre hitter wouldn't likely be a home run anymore, it'd much more often be a single or even an out.

Part of the reason pitchers don't go 9 much anymore is because they are giving max effort on every single pitch. If they didn't have to do that, they could throw more innings.

It would take years with a deader ball for things to move back that way, and it wouldn't be easy to tweak the baseball just right to get to that point. But it seems like it would be possible to get there by experimenting in the minor leagues over time. If MLB wanted to do that.

The reason pitchers aren't going deeper in games is pitch count, plain and simple. The guys throwing 250+ innings a year were also throwing 130-140+ pitches a game to amass those innings. My golden example of how treatment of pitchers has changed is Roger Clemens when he struck out 20 batters in 1986. He threw 138 pitches that night. No one these days throws 138 pitches in a single outing, let alone a 24-year-old making his fourth start coming back from shoulder surgery.

I think guys are going max effort because they know they've only got 90-100 pitches, if that. I don't think pacing themselves would allow them to stay in the game longer so much as being more efficient. Maybe they can do that pitching to contact, but they'd also need more aggressive hitters that aren't interested in working counts to get their pitch.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

The reason pitchers aren't going deeper in games is pitch count, plain and simple. The guys throwing 250+ innings a year were also throwing 130-140+ pitches a game to amass those innings.

The part that’s overlooked is that pitchers are going less deep into games because the alternatives in the bullpen are less worse than the starters. Across sport it’s happening that the skill delta between the very best and the next bests isn’t as much as it used to be - and when you add the fatigue factor, and the seen-him-3-times factor, the guy in the bullpen is often a much better option by the time you get to the 6th inning.

 

[bankshot1]

"My golden example of how treatment of pitchers has changed is Roger Clemens when he struck out 20 batters in 1986."

I remember hearing about this one as a 12 YO kid, the next day.

Spahn v Marichal July 2, 1963 @ Candlestick Park

16 innings no relief pitchers

Spahn one of the greatest pitchers ever, in a losing effort, facing one of the greatest lineups struck out just 2 guys (Mays and Marichal) .

Spahn lost on a Willie Mays HR in the 16th.

Say Hey!

It was Spahn's 201st pitch of the night.

Marichal struck out 10 in a 16 inning CGSO (227 pitches)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196307020.shtml

1-0

we will never see anything remotely akin to this again.

 

[jon abbey]

we will never see anything remotely akin to this again.

Good.

 

[Max Power]

Good.

Because... ?

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Because... ?

Because it's pitcher abuse.

 

[jon abbey]

Exactly.

 

[bankshot1]

No one wants to see a pitcher's arm fall-off, but a classic duel, paricularly among aces, and in the cited game, (granted it was a freak of a game) two of the greatest ever, who wouldn't want to see that duel?

 

[Max Power]

They pitched a combined 38 years in the majors and both made the Hall of Fame. Maybe if they weren't "abused" they would have pitched until they were 60?

 

[jon abbey]

No one wants to see a pitcher's arm fall-off, but a classic duel, paricularly among aces, and in the cited game, (granted it was a freak of a game) two of the greatest ever, who wouldn't want to see that duel?

Me. I would rather watch a great pitcher stay healthy and be able to pitch well every five days, and it's impossible to watch a guy go over 130 pitches now without constantly thinking about how and whether he'll be able to rebound. Johan Santana pitched a 134 pitch no-hitter when he was 33, and his career was over a couple months later.

FWIW, this was the best baseball game I ever attended, 10 innings from Nolan Ryan and 9 from Dwight Gooden. Would the game have been just as entertaining to me if they had each been pulled after 7 innings? Yep, given everything that was on the line (NY had to win this game and game 6 to avoid Mike Scott dominating them for a third time in the series, so a must-win for them).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198610140.shtml

 

[bankshot1]

Jon you're just pissed that Marichal v Spahn involved two Boston pitchers.

Some guys can throw forever.

Spahn was 42 when he pitched that classic game.

The only starts he missed was for WW2

Speaking of Nolan Ryan

Here's another one where the reigning Texas stud (148 pitches) faced the old gunslinger (123)

no real (h)arm done

Nolan beat Roger 2-1

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TEX/TEX198904300.shtml

Roger got some revenge by beating Nolan the next week @ Fenway

 

[Max Power]

Me. I would rather watch a great pitcher stay healthy and be able to pitch well every five days, and it's impossible to watch a guy go over 130 pitches now without constantly thinking about how and whether he'll be able to rebound. Johan Santana pitched a 134 pitch no-hitter when he was 33, and his career was over a couple months later.

FWIW, this was the best baseball game I ever attended, 10 innings from Nolan Ryan and 9 from Dwight Gooden. Would the game have been just as entertaining to me if they had each been pulled after 7 innings? Yep, given everything that was on the line (NY had to win this game and game 6 to avoid Mike Scott dominating them for a third time in the series, so a must-win for them).

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN198610140.shtml

But pitchers are still getting hurt as much as ever. If Tommy John surgery didn't exist, the average career would be done at 25. My guess is that throwing as hard as you can for 90 pitches in 5 or 6 innings is just as taxing as 130 mixed effort pitches in 9.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

My guess is that throwing as hard as you can for 90 pitches in 5 or 6 innings is just as taxing as 130 mixed effort pitches in 9.

Assuming you're right about this - and it's a pretty big assumption - would a team be better off letting its best pitchers throw more "mixed effort" innings, and thereby lowering the number of innings thrown by middle relievers? I'm guessing the answer would be no, insofar as a) the "third (or fourth) time through the batting order" effect seems to be real, and b) not every starter has good enough stuff to go deeper than six innings into a game every night anyway by any means, and if you're trading marginal effectiveness for the first two-thirds of a game for hypothetical effectiveness in the final third, that trade wouldn't pay off the majority of the time.

Meanwhile, Joe Sheehan tells me that the Mariners are batting .198 this season - and .177 so far in May. Super yikes. Early season and cold weather caveats aside, if the Mariners (.198), Indians (.213) and Brewers (.213) were to keep hitting - i.e., not hitting - at their current rate, these would be three of the four worst batting average seasons in MLB history, alongside the 1910 White Sox (.210). That is not a recipe for entertaining baseball.

 

[BaseballJones]

Really interesting article here from 2013 (before all this really took off) about pitchers and hitting success various times through the order:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/22156/baseball-proguestus-everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-the-times-through-the-order-penalty/

Here's the conclusion of a fascinating article:

"Let’s recap what we learned today about the “times through the order” penalty.

• The first time through the order, pitchers pitch better than they do overall. This “first time” effect is magnified in the first inning, especially for the home pitcher.
• Starters get progressively worse as they face the lineup for the second, third, and fourth times. The fourth-time penalty gets masked in outdoor games, especially at night, and in the ninth and later innings.
• A pitcher’s career “times through the order” patterns have almost no predictive value. We can assume that all starting pitchers have roughly the same “true talent” TTOP, regardless of what they have shown in the past.
• Good and bad pitchers show around the same magnitude of TTOP. The third time through the order, all starters are expected to pitch around .35 runs per nine innings worse than they do overall.
• Pitch count does not seem to have much of an effect on the TTOP. For example, going into the third time through the order, whether a pitcher has thrown 60 or 75 pitches doesn’t seem to matter much.
• For an individual batter, the number of pitches seen makes a huge difference. The largest difference is from the first to the second time through the order. If a batter sees fewer than three pitches in his first PA, he hits 10 points better his second time at the plate. If he sees more than four pitches his first time up, he hits 25 points better on his second go-around!"

The fourth bullet point is interesting. And he goes on to say this a short while later:

"In an article I wrote two years ago about the benefit of “quick hooks,” I showed that a typical NL team could add from a half to a full win per season simply by removing a starting pitcher who is not an ace whenever he comes to bat in a high-leverage situation after pitching at least five innings, even if his replacement is a league-average reliever. Even in AL parks, where pitchers don’t bat, managers should be inclined to replace a pitcher, especially a fourth or fifth starter, as soon as he faces the order for the third time. These mediocre or worse starters are likely at or near replacement level by this time, even if they have been pitching well."

So here's the thing. He's talking about non-ace pitchers. He's talking about how this effect really is for decent, mediocre, or worse starters, not top-level starters. Because those guys, I guess, if they're good enough to stay in the game in the later innings, it's because they're dominating and they're just so much better than the hitters are. So when Blake Snell, who was an elite pitcher (having won a CYA already), was DEALING last year in game 6 in the WS, while the overall point is that pitchers do worse when seeing the lineup for a third time, it probably wasn't the right move with him at that point. Elimination game, and Snell is maybe your best pitcher. And he's ON.

Remember, he got taken out after only 73 pitches, and he had given up just two hits. He had retired 10 straight guys before the single by Barnes in the 6th, 4 of them by strikeout. He was overpowering, and he still had tons left in him.

Being slaves to this methodology may win you more regular season games when you're throwing average starters out there, but when you have a stud, and he's dealing, he needs to keep going, unless he's wearing down.

But interestingly, this article points out that adopting this approach over the course of a season "could add from a half to a full win per season". A half to a full win. Yes, I know teams look for all kinds of advantages, but all that for *maybe* a half to one full win?

I do wonder what this approach will do for pitching contracts. If starters are, moving forward, only expected to pitch 5, MAYBE 6, innings, will they start to get paid less because they're shouldering less of a burden?

By the way, how much more valuable would Pedro Martinez have been in this pitching environment? He was the king no matter what era he pitched in, but he didn't throw as many innings as some other aces. Imagine if he was told they only ever expected him to go five or six innings, so go ahead and air it out and not worry about going deep into the game? The guy would have been absolutely impossible to hit.

 

[Max Power]

Assuming you're right about this - and it's a pretty big assumption - would a team be better off letting its best pitchers throw more "mixed effort" innings, and thereby lowering the number of innings thrown by middle relievers? I'm guessing the answer would be no, insofar as a) the "third (or fourth) time through the batting order" effect seems to be real, and b) not every starter has good enough stuff to go deeper than six innings into a game every night anyway by any means, and if you're trading marginal effectiveness for the first two-thirds of a game for hypothetical effectiveness in the final third, that trade wouldn't pay off the majority of the time.

Of course not. That's the entire point of the thread and reason Theo Epstein has his current job: the optimal strategy for winning baseball is not the most fun version to watch. Jon Abbey is arguing that it's a safer version of baseball for pitchers, and I don't think that's been shown to be true. Every effort to limit pitcher use has been counteracted by an increase in effort by those pitchers they're trying to help.

If teams were limited to 10 members of a pitching staff, pitchers wouldn't all air it out on every single pitch out of necessity and strikeouts would come way down. I don't think they're going to do anything as drastic as that any time soon, but they're slowly moving in that direction. There were new rules put in place recently defining what a pitcher is for the purposes of creating a roster (Ohtani is still a unicorn). It wouldn't surprise me to see the number of allowed pitchers on a roster to drop slowly over the next few years until some kind of equilibrium is gained.

 

[jon abbey]

Jon Abbey is arguing that it's a safer version of baseball for pitchers

I'm not exactly arguing that, I'm arguing that throwing over 120 or 130 pitches in a MLB game is a major risk for any pitchers doing so in today's game. How that compares to current usage, I don't really know and you may be right that the current way guys are mostly used is just as dangerous in its own way.

 

[OurF'ingCity]

But interestingly, this article points out that adopting this approach over the course of a season "could add from a half to a full win per season". A half to a full win. Yes, I know teams look for all kinds of advantages, but all that for *maybe* a half to one full win?

Also, unless I missed it in the article, there is no consideration of how pulling a starter early will increase the number of bullpen innings and thus increase fatigue, increase risk of injury to bullpen, require cycling through more bullpen arms, etc. Obviously I haven't done the research but seems to me that would reduce, and perhaps entirely negate, any benefits of the marginal advantages discussed in the article (particularly if you are a postseason contender who will want bullpen arms as fresh as possible in October and might actually be willing to sacrifice a regular-season win or two to achieve that goal).

To me the most interesting point in the article was the counterintuitive notion that "working the count" is in some ways not a great strategy because it's actually in teams' interests to have starters pitch further into games (although the article does say that "working the count" is still beneficial because hitters who see more pitches do better in subsequent at-bats). Obviously, "working the count" would be a good strategy against aces where you just need them out of the game ASAP, but it suggests that when facing bottom-of-the-rotation pitchers there is an advantage to being more aggressive at the plate, particularly in the early innings. This is probably common knowledge to most managers at this point, but I found it interesting.

 

[CoffeeNerdness]

Last night's rally started with two singles and Barnes shut the door with three nasty Ks. I found it all rather entertaining. Today's product is far from perfect, but "ruining the game" takes are hotter than New England in late May (apparently).

 

[NoXInNixon]

The next logical move would be to make every game a bullpen game. Don't have any starting pitchers on your staff, just a bunch of guys who throw two innings at a time two or three times a week. Don't ever let any pitcher face the same hitter twice in a game. I bet the Rays will try something like this within ten years.

 

[BaseballJones]

The data in the article shows that overall, the increase in hitters' success from the first time through versus the second time through is bigger than the increase from the second time to the third time.

So NoXinNixon, you may be on to something. If we want to increase win expectancy, it does seem to make sense, on an individual game basis, to let pitchers just go once through the order before being pulled. This data would support such an approach.

Of course, then we have to ask about wear and tear on arms and what's the physiological impact of this approach. Because they couldn't do the current approach if they only had 10 pitchers like they used to - way too taxing on the bullpen guys, so you need more of them. This approach here would require even more of that.

 

[BornToRun]

Last night's rally started with two singles and Barnes shut the door with three nasty Ks. I found it all rather entertaining. Today's product is far from perfect, but "ruining the game" takes are hotter than New England in late May (apparently).

Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. Watching one of our bottom of the order guys go down without putting the ball in play while there’s a guy on third is infuriating but watching Matt Barnes eviscerate people and knowing that they are utterly helpless to make contact (Ohtani excluded) is supremely entertaining and deeply satisfying. I love me some flame throwing bullpen arms. Let it rip at 98+ and dare them to hit it.

 

[OurF'ingCity]

Of course, then we have to ask about wear and tear on arms and what's the physiological impact of this approach. Because they couldn't do the current approach if they only had 10 pitchers like they used to - way too taxing on the bullpen guys, so you need more of them. This approach here would require even more of that.

I think technically you could do this - if an average pitching staff has, say, 13 guys, you could plan to have each one throw ~3 innings every third or fourth game. Or, more realistically, you might have 1-2 really good pitchers that would be "normal" starters and then on the days when normally the 3/4/5 starters would be going, you'd instead do the "once through the order" approach.

Putting aside the physiological impact, though - which I agree with - I also just think this would harm teams in other ways. For example if you took this approach you really couldn't use LOOGYs or take advantages of handedness matchups at all. Nor would you have nearly as much control over who pitches in the highest-leverage innings vs. lower-leverage innings - you'd have to have a much more "set" approach to when each pitcher would be pitching to avoid scenarios where a pitcher would be asked to throw three innings for three days straight or whatever. Given that even the BPro article acknowledges the benefits from a more "optimized" approach to the "TTOP" problem are marginal at best, I think teams would just be giving back whatever gains they were making, plus some.

(In effect, using an "opener" is basically a variation of this strategy, and the fact that we see teams doing this occasionally when circumstances call for it, but not routinely, is a pretty good indication that teams have concluded that a "nothing but bullpen pitchers" approach isn't optimal.)

 

[cannonball 1729]

The reason pitchers aren't going deeper in games is pitch count, plain and simple. The guys throwing 250+ innings a year were also throwing 130-140+ pitches a game to amass those innings. My golden example of how treatment of pitchers has changed is Roger Clemens when he struck out 20 batters in 1986. He threw 138 pitches that night. No one these days throws 138 pitches in a single outing, let alone a 24-year-old making his fourth start coming back from shoulder surgery.

I think guys are going max effort because they know they've only got 90-100 pitches, if that. I don't think pacing themselves would allow them to stay in the game longer so much as being more efficient. Maybe they can do that pitching to contact, but they'd also need more aggressive hitters that aren't interested in working counts to get their pitch.

I think this is a key part that's sometimes overlooked - pitchers today have to be max effort because hitters are stronger and more patient. In the olden days, the bottom of the lineup was a good place to conserve effort; if you left a ball in the wrong part of the zone to a number nine hitter, it wasn't leaving the yard, so there was less risk in pitching to contact at the bottom of the order. Now, pretty much everyone except the pitchers can put the ball in the stands, so there's no place to let up and conserve energy.

The next logical move would be to make every game a bullpen game. Don't have any starting pitchers on your staff, just a bunch of guys who throw two innings at a time two or three times a week. Don't ever let any pitcher face the same hitter twice in a game. I bet the Rays will try something like this within ten years.

Funny - Tony La Russa came up with exactly this idea in 1993 when he instituted his "three-man platoon" strategy of having every game pitched by three three-inning pitchers. Didn't work then, but that's because his team wasn't any good. Now that actual good teams are open to it, you're right that it's only a matter of time.

 

[cannonball 1729]

I think technically you could do this - if an average pitching staff has, say, 13 guys, you could plan to have each one throw ~3 innings every third or fourth game. Or, more realistically, you might have 1-2 really good pitchers that would be "normal" starters and then on the days when normally the 3/4/5 starters would be going, you'd instead do the "once through the order" approach.

FWIW, La Russa's setup was three three-man platoons that would pitch every third day (so nine pitchers) plus 4 regular relievers.

 

[ledsox]

MLB Now just did a segment on too many k’s and the consensus seems to be that the mound should be moving back at least a foot. That seems to be the best way to attenuate the velocity.

They had a doctor on 2 weeks ago and his initial studies with college pitchers showed no ill effects or excess strain while throwing from 63’8”, which would be right in the middle of the diamond. This would help with pitcher reaction time on comebackers as well but could make breaking pitches even tougher to track.

The ball was mentioned and it was stated that the average barreled ball is traveling 6 feet less this year, down from 348 feet to 342.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

How would moving the mound back impact stolen bases and leads?

 

[cannonball 1729]

How would moving the mound back impact stolen bases and leads?

Moving the mound back a foot only moves the mound a half-inch closer to first, so it's probably not a huge difference. Even moving it back three feet would only make it an inch closer to first.

 

[Pitt the Elder]

I doubt anyone would seriously consider this since it goes against tradition, but what about removing a player from the field and giving teams a second (or first?) designated hitter? It opens up a lot of space on the field and shifts the focus of analytics-based defensive alignments from smothering hits to defensive survival. Teams would be forced to consider whether to play with 4 infielders or 3 outfielders (or something in between) on a batter-by-batter situation and in different game situations. It would also increase the incentive of hitters to make contact and try to hit the ball where they ain't.

I would rather see this than pushing the mound back, which would fundamentally change how pitchers pitch.

 

[8slim]

Thanks to those here who mentioned the Simmons/Theo podcast. Listened to it yesterday and it was a joy. Theo’s thoughts on the state of the game were enlightening. Unfortunately I dont expect him to stay in his current position long enough to be able to enact any meaningful change. And I’m not confident that Manfred will actually do anything.

 

[teddywingman]

All of this is interesting to consider.

I maintain a previously stated position that pitchers are affected by length of games, potentially more than by pitch count.

Throw 100 pitches over 3 hours, or a 100 over 2 hours. I feel like this aspect of pitching never gets discussed. Of course nobody throws complete games anymore! They're sitting there with tightening muscles for an extra hour.

 

[jon abbey]

The Friday night Yankee/White Sox game was one of the most exciting May games I think I have ever seen, Rodon and Montgomery combining for 13 6 0 0 0 24, both just pounding the zone with unhittable stuff and neither walking a single batter. That left five half innings for relievers in a scoreless tie, three of those half innings (against very good relievers) produced a run and the other two had threats erased by a double play and a triple play. The dominance of the SPs made the eventual runs that much more exciting, and the fact that the game was 9 innings (instead of 7, which is just not acceptable in a non-Covid season) forced both teams to use relievers.

 

[NoXInNixon]

Not that this change would ever happen, but if baseball were being invented today, hitting a ball over the fence would be a ground rule double instead of a home run.

 

[ledsox]

Amazingly, that Yanks-Wsox game is the only one in the modern era where both starters struck out at least 10 and allowed no walks or runs. But would anyone be surprised if that happened again next week?

 

[moretsyndrome]

"My golden example of how treatment of pitchers has changed is Roger Clemens when he struck out 20 batters in 1986."

I remember hearing about this one as a 12 YO kid, the next day.

Spahn v Marichal July 2, 1963 @ Candlestick Park

16 innings no relief pitchers

Spahn one of the greatest pitchers ever, in a losing effort, facing one of the greatest lineups struck out just 2 guys (Mays and Marichal) .

Spahn lost on a Willie Mays HR in the 16th.

Say Hey!

It was Spahn's 201st pitch of the night.

Marichal struck out 10 in a 16 inning CGSO (227 pitches)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196307020.shtml

1-0

we will never see anything remotely akin to this again.

Not completed in four hours and ten minutes, that's for sure.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Not that this change would ever happen, but if baseball were being invented today, hitting a ball over the fence would be a ground rule double instead of a home run.

Okay, I'll bite. Why?

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Okay, I'll bite. Why?

more in game action when a runners on 2b?

 

[tims4wins]

One side effect of the 3 True Outcomes Era is the impact on pace of play. Because hitters are gearing up for every pitch trying to hit it out, and because pitchers are gearing up for every pitch to max out effort / velocity, both sides need more time in between pitches, and thus pace of play suffers. I wonder if we'd enjoy the 3 True Outcomes Era more if games were quicker paced, even with the exact same results.

Edit: and this leads to, possibly, a potential solution: if there was a true pitch clock, that was short enough in between pitches to prevent this max effort situation, then perhaps home runs go down, strikeouts go down, balls in play go up?

 

[jon abbey]

Amazingly, that Yanks-Wsox game is the only one in the modern era where both starters struck out at least 10 and allowed no walks or runs. But would anyone be surprised if that happened again next week?

Yes, the walks part would be surprising.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

more in game action when a runners on 2b?

Yeah, but if we're inventing the game today, we're assuming the game never existed before, right? So how would we know it would result in more game action? In fact, why are we assuming that the playing field would resemble the ballparks of today? Why wouldn't we just say that hitting a fair ball that leaves the confines of the field in the air is a home run, but mandate that the fences be at least 400 feet down the lines and 500+ to centerfield? Make it more of a challenge.

Are we assuming that cricket also doesn't exist? Doesn't baseball borrow the different treatment for balls leaving in the air vs on the ground from them?

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Yeah, but if we're inventing the game today, we're assuming the game never existed before, right? So how would we know it would result in more game action? In fact, why are we assuming that the playing field would resemble the ballparks of today? Why wouldn't we just say that hitting a fair ball that leaves the confines of the field in the air is a home run, but mandate that the fences be at least 400 feet down the lines and 500+ to centerfield? Make it more of a challenge.

Are we assuming that cricket also doesn't exist? Doesn't baseball borrow the different treatment for balls leaving in the air vs on the ground from them?

I assumed he meant reinvented rather than invented.

 

[DJnVa]

Johan Santana pitched a 134 pitch no-hitter when he was 33, and his career was over a couple months later.

Are there more data points for young pitchers not throwing a lot of pitches than a 33 year old Johan Santana a year after he missed the entire season with an injury? Perhaps the issue was throwing that many pitches AFTER an injury to a pitching shoulder. And prior to his first injury he hadn't gone over 200 IP in a few seasons--was he overworked?

 

[canderson]

The existing CBA expires at the end of this season right? So next year we'll almost certainly have* the universal DH but I wonder if the clock from MiLB gets implemented.

* This is in addition to the work stoppage I think occurs, but ymmv.

 

[jon abbey]

Are there more data points for young pitchers not throwing a lot of pitches than a 33 year old Johan Santana a year after he missed the entire season with an injury? Perhaps the issue was throwing that many pitches AFTER an injury to a pitching shoulder. And prior to his first injury he hadn't gone over 200 IP in a few seasons--was he overworked?

I'm sure there have been countless articles and studies that you could google as well as me. No one is definitively sure about anything, like much in life.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Are there more data points for young pitchers not throwing a lot of pitches than a 33 year old Johan Santana a year after he missed the entire season with an injury? Perhaps the issue was throwing that many pitches AFTER an injury to a pitching shoulder. And prior to his first injury he hadn't gone over 200 IP in a few seasons--was he overworked?

So your argument is he was overworked long term rather than in just one game?

Pitchers used to go 300+ innings. I'm guessing Santana would have been done long before age 33 if he were allowed to go 300. Pitch counts were high and IP totals were high. Neither are true today.

 

[Max Power]

Yes, the walks part would be surprising.

Would it? The record for most strikeouts without a walk was set last week. And it broke the record set way back in... one week before.

With the deader ball lowering homer rates and drop in walks, the three true outcomes game is rapidly becoming the one true outcome game.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Would it? The record for most strikeouts without a walk was set last week. And it broke the record set way back in... one week before.

With the deader ball lowering homer rates and drop in walks, the three true outcomes game is rapidly becoming the one true outcome game.

The BB/9 hasn't really dropped at all in a long time. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/pitch.shtml

 

[NoXInNixon]

Okay, I'll bite. Why?

Because a home run is too valuable, and so everyone is trying to hit them, making the game more boring. Someone inventing a sport from scratch would want it to be exciting to watch.

It's also logical. A batter is awarded second base when the ball bounces out of the park because the fielders can no longer make a play on a ball that is out of play. It should be the same principle when the fielders can't make a play because the fences are too short.

 

[Mystic Merlin]

Because a home run is too valuable, and so everyone is trying to hit them, making the game more boring. Someone inventing a sport from scratch would want it to be exciting to watch.

It's also logical. A batter is awarded second base when the ball bounces out of the park because the fielders can no longer make a play on a ball that is out of play. It should be the same principle when the fielders can't make a play because the fences are too short.

So, essentially eliminate the homer? Or make a homer conditioned on a minimum fence distance (and height?)? Or conditioned on a minimum distance the ball was hit?

Eliminating the home run and replacing it with ground rule doubled would depress runs, I don’t think that’s a good idea.