MLB Rule Change Suggestions

00:00:05
Speaker 1: For the people.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Perfect way to label this one, and he often does articles that are for the people because the people get involved. Stephen Nesbitt with us right now from the Athletic put out an article to the people saying what rule changes should MLB make and it was a mailbag to analyze the suggestions. Stephen, great to chat with you, and I want to go right to the one that it listed, like the most response, the most fire. There's always that one right from your article. So what was the one that we should lead this conversation with.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: I mean there's like the realistic one and then there's the unrealistic one. Do you have a favorite?

00:00:45
Speaker 2: Oh, aj, what do you want?

00:00:47
Speaker 3: Well, it's just the realistic one first, because the unrealistic ones something so crazy, like a pitch cla yeah.

00:00:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. The realistic ones had to do with the pictures, and that always gets a lot of people going because it does feel like sixty feet six inches in some sort of gospel, but in reality it was just a distance. They moved the pictures mound two in nineteen eighty sorry, eighteen ninety three or something like that. They lowered the mound in nineteen sixty eight, as we know, after the year of the picture, and there was evidence that that worked right eras went up, batting averages went up, And the problem with that is that it wasn't really a clean body of evidence, I guess because they also changed the strike zone at the same time the walks went up. It was a more friendly environment for hitters in many different ways. So lowering the mound I think would help hitters certainly, but I don't think it is like really the one sort of end all, be all rule change that would fix the hitting environment completely. The other thing that sort of the other side of that coin is to move the mountain back, which was discussed at length a couple of years ago. It was tested in the Atlantic League moved it back one foot in the Atlantic League. There have been talks about having it two feet back. A little bit further back you'd be at the true sort of geometric center of the infield diamond, but they really didn't see positive improvement in the Atlantic League experiment. Now, the problem there also is that guys can't throw strikes, and so this just made it worse. You had more movement from that far back, So if you couldn't already already couln't land your sinker or your slider or you're sweeper in the strike zone, then you have even tougher time from a couple feet back. So they've tested a number of different things, and it does feel like you guys can attest to this too, Like if you're going to make one change to the game that isn't going to radically change how the game looks, then moving the mound down further or moving it back farther certainly seems like a relatively minor fix from a just an aesthetic standpoint, and it could have a positive effect on the game. It also will make movement harder, and I'm just gonna keep guessing that pictures will continue throwing hard and harder no matter how far back you asked them to throw from. So I don't think that problem is going away, that the average velocity continues to climb. As far as more of an absurd thing that drew some attention, There is so much focus still on the extra innings rule to add a runner at second base, that one was probably two to one comments versus any other topic when I ask for people's favorite rule changes. Now, if you ask baseball fans, what's one rule do you want to change. Almost every single response is undoing a rule change that already happened. That's just sort of the way we are. We can't sort of getting our creative hats on and come up with something super zany. Like one person did on here, which I enjoyed, was why not make the infield dirt smaller to prevent them from backing up? Okay, that's interesting, that's new to me. But extra innings rule is not particularly popular. That Rob Manford has added a runner at second base, the Manford Runner or the ghost runner. Some people say incorrectly, that's a wuffle ball thing, that's really not a person on second base. But it's not popular to have that there. And yet it's successfully getting games over quickly. It's saving arms, it's saving bullpens, And so I understand the desire to have it look more like baseball. And for all the changes baseball has made, the League Office has made to try to make baseball look like baseball, right, don't let third basement lineup in shallow right field, ban the shift, A lot of things they want to make baseball look like baseball used to be. And yet that's one thing with the extra endings, like no, No, we just got to get the games over with. If we're going to restrict how many pitchers can be on a roster, then we want to not be burning guys in the extra innings. We don't want anymore's position players pitching, which is another rule change we can discuss, and so extra innings the one I went with. People had all sorts of you know, their version of their favorite extra inning plan. One of them, the simple one is play the tenth inning normally. Maybe you start a run around first in the eleventh, run around second in the twelfth. There are a lot of different ways you could do it. This person had it sort of invented a showdown where the home team, I believe it was just gets to pick if they hit or if they pitch. There are three outs to end the whole thing. You put your picture out there, you put your five hitters with run I think it was a run around first was the idea. And if the pitcher gets three outs before a run scores, then his team win. If he gives up a run, his team was as simple as that, so it would get the game over quickly. Do I think it is going to happen? No? Do I think it's like as Mickey Mouse is, what's happening now? Pretty close.

00:05:32
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00:05:40
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00:05:44
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00:06:33
Speaker 3: Steven a couple of things. First of all, lower the mound all you want. Places like Toronto and other places, they'll figure out a way to make the mound still higher than it should. Because if you've ever sit on the rogersoner Round mound, it's like you're on top of Mount Everest and you're looking down.

00:06:45
Speaker 5: I mean, hoseell.

00:06:46
Speaker 3: I remember you go up there and you stand up there next to your picture, and I always had to make sure I was at the top because otherwise I was like three feet shorter than the picture. And I'm like, this guy's not that tall. Why am I hurting my neck looking up at him? So there will still be people that skirt the rules. Also moving the picture, the mound back or whatever. How about we just learned to make strikeouts matter. If you want to cut down strikeouts, make the matter when guys get paid. That'll cut that down. And then the last one, I actually liked the Manford I wasn't a big Manford runner Manford man guy until now that I broadcast. I think it's great because it gets games over and we don't have these eighteen inning slog fests for I'm fine for it going back to the regular way in the postseason. And then the last thing you said was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. Because let's say your best picture is your closer and use them in the ninth inning. Well, guess what teams aren't gonna want to risk bringing in a starter or another guy to pitch that.

00:07:35
Speaker 5: So that that was a terrible idea.

00:07:37
Speaker 3: Now, if you want to say, do the home run derby or something like that, okay, I could deal with that a little more. But the pictures and the injuries. We already have too many injuries to pitchers.

00:07:44
Speaker 5: So I don't know. Just my two cents.

00:07:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first of I definitely did not grade these on realisticness, and I'm not necessarily condoning many of the suggestions. I want a creativity more than anything. But if aj, if I give you this, we ended the all start the game last year with the swing off, and it was fun, it was interesting. Would it make you mounts to borrow that phrase again? Totally? Would you if you're going to go to a sort of non baseball version of extra innings. If we say you could play the extra rings regularly, or you can have this middle tier, which is what they're doing now, of putting a runner on base in scaring position, or if you're going to go sort of zany to make it an entertainment thing to make people really want to stick around almost root for extra innings. Would you ever go there where you want to swing off, where you want a quasi version of baseball, where it's three outs to end the whole thing.

00:08:34
Speaker 3: I'd rather have the swing off what It'd be more exciting. It'd be over quicker than the three out thing. I think a swing off. The problem with the swing off is teams aren't built the same, so your three best hitters for the swing off might not be equal on every team. Now on the All Star Game, they were supposed to be. But it would have been so much cooler if it was Judge and Otani and the rest of the starters that had already jumped on their private planes and flown home. Yeah, but I think it'd be cool. It won't happen. I actually, I think the best umpermise of what you have in order to keep the game shorter and to keep him from going twenty innings is what we have now most games. I mean, I mean, heck, we I don't think we've had a game go to the was it past the fourteenth inning since this rule came into play, So I mean, I think that's all right. I'mbout one hundred percent sure, But I think that's the longest one I've seen. I mean, I remember going eighteen nineteen innings, not regularly, but every once in a while it would jump up on You can't have that in today's game. There's too many injuries already, and we're trying to keep people's attention. So let's keep people's attention, all right.

00:09:33
Speaker 4: So the runner at second is called the zombie runner because he died and came back to life, the resurrected runner, whatever it is. It's not a ghost runner. Definitely not the Manford Runner. That sounds weird because Manford never played, so that's not going to happen to me.

00:09:50
Speaker 5: Why are all the rules Why are all.

00:09:52
Speaker 4: The rules to increase offense when the or that not? Why are the rules that are like gimmicked about to increase offense?

00:10:03
Speaker 5: Why is that?

00:10:04
Speaker 4: Because is that more fun than watching a pitcher dominate? Is that more fun than or is it because of the fact that some of your rules that you came up with here, could we have, you know, more injuries to pitchers. If we have less injuries to pitchers, then maybe we can have just a better product completely out on the field.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Pretty hard to reinvent the product though, And so what the league is left with interesting here, if you guys agree, is if the league is going to force something, it can only force certain things. It can't force contact, it can't necessarily force the strike out right down. It can really encourage it. But who's to say that they make any of these changes that are recommended by fans here that are intended to bring strikeout rates down and intended to put the ball and play more, bring like stuff and velocities down. I guess PEG and how dominant they are in today's game, the game would continue to evolve in the way that incentivizes the players. Then the clubs, like teams won't be like you know what, the league really feels like. It feels like they're really trying to get some more runs across the board. Interest fans, they don't like three true outcomes, but TIEF are still going to operate the way they always do. We have a set amount of money to score the most amount of runs and allow the fewest amount of runs possible to win the most games, and so they're going to play the most efficient brand of baseball in the league doesn't necessarily want that. So our rule change. Is that intended to fix something that's broken in the game from a competitive standpoint, or are they intended to fix something that's sort of broken from a fan perspective? Was the shift moved out of the game because it was ruining gameplay? No, the shift that moved out of the game because it looked bad and people didn't like the way that it looked compared to the game they're used to. And so you walk through each rule change, and I would challenge most people to think through the rule change and think who was this or actually endings rule was not for fans. Fans kind of dug the game that won on eighteen innings. Even as a beat writer when I was missing like a date night with my wife, it was kind of fun to sit through those and see I remember like a pitcher playing left field randomly and pictures having to hit the in extra innings in the National League game that zany stuff was cool. It's like awesome to write about afterward too. And so this was done for fans because fans they wanted to sorry. This was done for teams because they wanted predictability. And when is the game getting over? And do I need to make four roster moves before tomorrow's game? And it's rare. I think that Major League Baseball is going to make rule changes for teams and for players. I think most of the rule changers are going to be what does the fan want, which the league has said is the driving force of what the league wants to do.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: How does baseball compare to other leagues changing their rules? I followed Baseball way more, but the other major leagues, you know, obviously, big rule change in hockey was the blue line. You know, they don't have the center line anymore, so you couldn't go. So there was changes in there to aid more open offense. Football has changed a ton, but mostly around safety. How is Major League Baseball done compared to the other four leagues?

00:13:10
Speaker 1: It was interesting. We wrote a story a couple of weeks back with Mike Borkanov, who is our one of our basketball writers, and it was sort of the story was like all the juice that baseball has right now compared to basketball, and it was the premise was like his baseball sort of reovertaking basketball as the numbers two sport in the US, and that it's interesting. It's fascinating for me, as someone who's covered baseball for a long time, for like the prevailing narrative to be that baseball is doing things right. For a long time, that was not it. That was not the conversation that was being had around baseball. And yet the conversation and now is, Hey, these rule changes came in and they've really interested a lot of people. There are some stars at the top of the game. There are some interesting teams. You may not like the Dodgers, but I think they're certainly interesting, and so compared to basketball, I think basketball people look in like this is a game that needs some innovation. This is a game that is running to little defense, happening way too much scoring, way too much three point like efficiency. Same conversation, and they haven't yet made big sweeping rule changes to fix a lot of that. Hockey has done a lot of messing around that. You mentioned the blue line of too I pass all that sort of stuff, but they've been I think most of their messing around has been in like overtime and extra extra any the shootout at the end of it. Football field like changes a bunch of things every year, but is it so consequential that it truly changes the nature of the competition.

00:14:32
Speaker 5: Not really.

00:14:33
Speaker 1: It's like tickoffs and things like that that you mentioned as far as safety. So Baseball, I think these rule changes were pretty radical once you consider the landscape of like these leagues. How often do they change something as big as the pace of play? You know, we've talked about the shot clock or the play clock. That's a long time ago that these were implemented, And so baseball, it does feel like, is the sort of most recent sport to make big changes like that. And so I don't know that the premise. I think of our previous story, which was about the infield shift and sort of the lack of impact that has had on truly bringing back base hits, which is pretty predictable. But I think fans so other way. Other ways they thought that the game was sort of some parts of the game we're fixed in some ways by these rule changes. That conversation around the game still is that they've they're going in the right track. So I don't think that necessarily the league is open to these massive, sweeping, real changes that we're that we're suggesting in this story.

00:15:28
Speaker 3: But by the way, you mentioned that the player, the rule changes aren't made for the players. Tommy has his own rule. They made him rule change for him, right, Should we.

00:15:37
Speaker 5: Take that.

00:15:39
Speaker 3: A little bit to allow other guys to get to that possibility?

00:15:42
Speaker 1: That's the rule change in the scheme of But no, it's not.

00:15:45
Speaker 5: No, I disagree. That's a huge rule.

00:15:49
Speaker 3: Hold on, that's a advantage for the Dodgers.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: It isn't. It is an advantage, but it's not a thing that fans care about one iota. Right, there is a roster construction rule. That's that's all it is, right, So it's not something like you would never you would never ask fans like, hey, how do you guys feel about this roster construction rule? Or when this guy can come on? Whatever. They don't care enough for that to be a consequential le chain, is what I was trying to say.

00:16:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, OK, that's.

00:16:14
Speaker 3: Fair, it's pretty conch it's pretty qut consequential when it comes to.

00:16:18
Speaker 4: Sure fans gripe. Fans gripe about their payroll. They're not going to be like, oh they got an extra pitcher. No actual like players and other teams complain about it.

00:16:31
Speaker 5: More.

00:16:31
Speaker 2: Thans are pretty smart. Yeah, fans are pretty smart. I mean, I remember since I was a kid hating September call ups because I'd be like, why are the games all of a sudden? I have all these extra players and they take an extra.

00:16:42
Speaker 4: I don't say that. You don't say that September callups made some people's careers.

00:16:47
Speaker 2: Okay, Scott, it was hurting my fan experience.

00:16:53
Speaker 5: Eric, it was hurting your fantasy team, That's what it was doing.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: Soine, I'm fine with an extra catcher, nine more pitchers. No, I'm good. Okay, we can bring up an extra catcher compromise, Steven, great article, though, thanks for joining us to go over all of it. I encourage everyone to check it out in the Athletic. It's posted. There's a lot more in there. Appreciate you man, good catching up.

00:17:16
Speaker 1: Thanks guys.

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00:18:19
Speaker 6: The best nickname in the minor leagues is now the best nickname in the Major League. Just Nixon Garcia. The password is up with the Pirates. He came up because Ryan O'Hearn has gone on the injured list and this is a newfound thing for the Pirates. Hey, a back goes down and you have the depth to replace with someone who should give you a capable fill in. Garcia was acquired in the off season four situations like this. He is triple a depth who should in the long run be potentially an everyday regular in a corner outflot spot. I would not expect him right now to provide the same thump that Ryan O'Hearn was before his injury, but at the same time, he's also going to be significantly better defensively in right field, so there's gonna be a little bit of a trade off here. Garcia had an injury of his own back tightness that kind of sidelined him a little bit. In April. He's back and full speed. Now there's I would say solid power here, but he does a really good job of getting to it and there's not a ton of swing a miss for a guy who does have the ability to kind of go on a home run bingch solid replacement. I don't expect him to be, all of a sudden a game changer for the Pirates, but hey, the Pirates have for years struggle to fill in when they have an injury. This is an example of a guy who should be able to come up and if not miss a beat, he should be able to provide a very capable replacement for Ryan Hurr.

00:19:36
Speaker 2: That's Baseball America's JJ Cooper on the pass word. I think that was the key for me. Aj. Yeah, he's not necessarily going to be the star spark right from the jump for a Pirates team that actually needs a little jump start. Again, but they used to replace their injuries with guys that you know would be instantly to the bottom of the lineup and maybe not ready for the big leagues. This is helpful depth.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not Losing a Hearn is a big deal for the Pirates. I mean he was better hitters, so that that's a big deal. We just need to be replacement level. This is where I love War because War is like Ryan O'Hearn, Well, who's replacing Ryan o'harn. It was like when Mike Trout, who's replacing Mike Trout. I mean, yeah, of course he's not going to be as good well the pass word, I'm not even trying to say his name, but yeah, you can be somewhat serviceable until Hearn comes back. That would be a big win for the Pirates. And yes, this is something nice that the Pirates now have the ability to do is have major League ready people in the minor leagues that can come up and actually help them.

00:20:35
Speaker 2: Red Sox Yeah, Jose Tinson, Okay, you'll handle it from.

00:20:43
Speaker 5: The Red Sox. And this is where the Pirates have to he has to step up.

00:20:49
Speaker 4: He has to be able to be somebody that not only contributes offensively, because then they're just going backwards when they have injuries. They have injuries like that's that's the reality of it. And they played some tough games this weekend against the Phillies team that was hot.

00:21:11
Speaker 2: Hey, we asked the Knights and simple question on Twitter over the weekend, and let's do rapid fire reactions to responses from fans. We said, how would you critique your favorite team up to this point in the season. We used a photo of a Mets fan with a brown paper bag over their head, but probably about a third of the league has fans with brown paper bags over their head at games sometimes throughout the year. So let's roll it. Let's just read and react here for the next few minutes and see what we have. And I've been told we're going to start with a photo. That photo is somebody happy and sad? Eric replied, the Reds so far? What was the wind streak for them? Does anyone remember? Was it nine? It is at least eight?

00:21:57
Speaker 4: They were rolling, Yeah, they weren't. Then they hit the Then they hit the Cubs. Chicago's a place right now. Up and down, up and down, op and down.

00:22:12
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Next up, Tigers. Dana lifelong Tigers fan, not gonna lie this year is making me crazy. Lots of injuries, no excuse to the poor play, too many nights.

00:22:23
Speaker 5: There you go. That sums it up right there. That's perfect.

00:22:27
Speaker 3: Poor play, bad, bad fundamentals, whatever it is. They've they've had everything, injuries, everything, they've they've bad hitting, bad pitching.

00:22:33
Speaker 5: They've kind of seen it all in and motown this year since the second half of last year. Like let's this could be a scary trend for this team.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: Next up, William bleeping destroyed any hope or belief in this team with letting Pete and Edwin walk without giving all out max offers to keep them. Oh he was talking about Stearns. A Mets fan here not happy with the decisions made by the team this offseason. A lot of people were questioning it and now they're questioning it even more. Actually to play to that. We didn't cover this earlier, but Jorge Polanco seems to have one of those issues that's not going to go away this year. They just keep getting the news that spills out as guys are hurt that it's going to be worse. So it's up to the Baby Mets. Maybe the Baby Mets have it. Got to see the prospect shine.

00:23:29
Speaker 5: I'll see a tough division though, with two solid teams.

00:23:32
Speaker 2: Yes, Braves are great. Phillies look really freaking good right now too. Next up, Oh, another photo. It's Mark contributing a dumpster fire and writing red Sox. That would be their offense.

00:23:49
Speaker 5: Ajay, Yeah, did you see? I was on Twitter today and I saw Veritec's wife wrote something. It was interesting. If you guys haven't seen it, go will or go on Twitter. It was something like.

00:24:03
Speaker 3: Something about Jason, why Jason wasn't instill in the organization and she wrote something along the lines of smartest guy in the room in quote, smartest guy in the world or smartest guy in the game in quotes, knows what he's doing or something like that. I forget exactly what she how she worded it, but it was it was interesting. So yeah, they've already fired their manager, and yeah it's been interesting in Boston. Dumpster fire would be a mild way to put it.

00:24:27
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Well played, and I will go look for that tweet after this one. More raise? Yes, let's finish on a fun note. Raise thirty and fifteen, and they're showing wedding crashers partying, So what.

00:24:44
Speaker 5: Does that mean?

00:24:45
Speaker 2: Is that?

00:24:45
Speaker 4: Is that more what that fan truly thinks? It is like wedding crashers, like just oh, we're gonna enjoy it whileunteer because I don't know if it's gonna continue, or does that mean like, hey, we celebrate it because we're celebrating everything.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: You go to something bougie and you crash it with something that is rugged, and that is the raise.

00:25:10
Speaker 5: Do they keep it? Do they keep it going?

00:25:12
Speaker 4: That's whether their pitching as healthy.

00:25:18
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they're not gonna win one hundred twenty games, but can they win ninety two games?

00:25:24
Speaker 5: Sure?

00:25:25
Speaker 4: But where did this pitching? Where does pitching come from? They find pitching everywhere, so why couldn't they just keep finding pitching?

00:25:32
Speaker 5: Hurt them? Send the next one in