Yeah, I think the downstream negatives would be mitigated and it would feel more like a nudge than a universal mandate. The flipside is that it wouldn't have as big of an impact, and it would be convoluted to track and enforce — "you must do X once every Y games" is not a paradigm of rules that currently exists in baseball.
Isn't the answer then to mandate that a team's starting pitchers throw a cumulative 972 innings per year (6 innings per game x 162 games). This allows teams to "bank" innings with starters going 7+ to offset shorter starts. The penalty could be losing a first round pick or having it moved back 10 spots or so. Something that carries enough of a penalty for front offices that this would factor into team construction more than affect on-field gameplay decisions. You could even tweak the total down to 900 if you want a round number (basically an average of 5.55 innings/game) and to allow for some leeway.
The fear would still be in teams leaving a toiling starter in to bank innings in a lost-cause game, which might increase injury risk. However, maybe then the League could counter with mandatory 15-day IL stints for pitchers who throw 110+ pitches in a game their team loses? There's a number of ways to game this.
Great write up! I’m a former minor league pitcher and have been following this with interest. I love strikeouts and hate runs, but that’s just me 😁
Here’s my bold prediction - the “unintentional” intentional walk will make a comeback if this passes. Why give a free pass and throw zero pitches when you could throw four low-stress pitches off the plate and get closer to the 100 mark, giving the manager more flexibility sooner?
Here’s to hoping this is implemented (if it happens) better than MLB’s past efforts. I’m still heated over the sticky stuff mid-season rule change that caused ridiculous numbers of pitcher injuries. I know they’re not incentivized to protect their players, but one can always hope.
Thought of another one - we might get entire games that a team throws away because they don’t have pitching. They could toss a minor leaguer out there for 100 pitches to comply with the rule if they wanted. I’d do that if my team was locked into a playoff spot and someone needed a rest day, or if they were totally out of the running and a young prospect had a sore arm that day. We could even see this position players pitching nonsense to start games, which would be an embarrassment.
It would be awful for the fans - more incentive for top arms to take days off. More chance the guy you paid to see doesn’t actually pitch. More non competitive games.
Nice piece. I agree this idea seems too rigid and the unintended consequences you point out aren’t ideal. The 100-pitch exception especially seems like it could be exploited in a way that’s not great for style of play.
I’m much more interested in a way to incentivize starters pitching deep into games instead of just requiring it. Linking the DH to the starter is the most appealing to me at this point.
Do you think incentives would be better if you had to have at least N starters reach inning 6 over 7 days rather than every starter?
Yeah, I think the downstream negatives would be mitigated and it would feel more like a nudge than a universal mandate. The flipside is that it wouldn't have as big of an impact, and it would be convoluted to track and enforce — "you must do X once every Y games" is not a paradigm of rules that currently exists in baseball.
Isn't the answer then to mandate that a team's starting pitchers throw a cumulative 972 innings per year (6 innings per game x 162 games). This allows teams to "bank" innings with starters going 7+ to offset shorter starts. The penalty could be losing a first round pick or having it moved back 10 spots or so. Something that carries enough of a penalty for front offices that this would factor into team construction more than affect on-field gameplay decisions. You could even tweak the total down to 900 if you want a round number (basically an average of 5.55 innings/game) and to allow for some leeway.
The fear would still be in teams leaving a toiling starter in to bank innings in a lost-cause game, which might increase injury risk. However, maybe then the League could counter with mandatory 15-day IL stints for pitchers who throw 110+ pitches in a game their team loses? There's a number of ways to game this.
Great write up! I’m a former minor league pitcher and have been following this with interest. I love strikeouts and hate runs, but that’s just me 😁
Here’s my bold prediction - the “unintentional” intentional walk will make a comeback if this passes. Why give a free pass and throw zero pitches when you could throw four low-stress pitches off the plate and get closer to the 100 mark, giving the manager more flexibility sooner?
Here’s to hoping this is implemented (if it happens) better than MLB’s past efforts. I’m still heated over the sticky stuff mid-season rule change that caused ridiculous numbers of pitcher injuries. I know they’re not incentivized to protect their players, but one can always hope.
Thought of another one - we might get entire games that a team throws away because they don’t have pitching. They could toss a minor leaguer out there for 100 pitches to comply with the rule if they wanted. I’d do that if my team was locked into a playoff spot and someone needed a rest day, or if they were totally out of the running and a young prospect had a sore arm that day. We could even see this position players pitching nonsense to start games, which would be an embarrassment.
It would be awful for the fans - more incentive for top arms to take days off. More chance the guy you paid to see doesn’t actually pitch. More non competitive games.
But the MLB digs the long ball, so there’s that.
Nice piece. I agree this idea seems too rigid and the unintended consequences you point out aren’t ideal. The 100-pitch exception especially seems like it could be exploited in a way that’s not great for style of play.
I’m much more interested in a way to incentivize starters pitching deep into games instead of just requiring it. Linking the DH to the starter is the most appealing to me at this point.