Making Baseball Great Again
Last night, a Friday, my wife Gale and I went to a Washington Nationals game against the Cincinnati Reds. We are big Nats fans, we have season tickets, and we go to 12-15 games a year. We were enthused because the Nats are in first place and have a very strong team (OK, other than the league’s worst bullpen). Weekday games involve fighting awful traffic and parking a mile from the stadium to avoid $20 parking fees, but we’re used to that. The threatening rain held off and the evening turned out to be balmy and dry.
It was a pretty good game. The Nats went behind early when Strasburg gave up 4 runs in the first, but the Nats sluggers kept pecking away with solo home runs. They tied the game, the bullpen came through and kept the Reds in check, and they went into extra innings tied 5-5. Then in the 10th, Bryce Harper hit a dramatic walk-off single to score Trea Turner from 3rd and win the game. Huge excitement, Harper being chased around the field and drenched in ice water, fans high-fiving their neighbors.
Only we missed it. We left for home at the end of the 9th, at that point 3.5 hours after the scheduled 7:05 start time. We were tired, we had no idea how much longer the game would go, and above all we were worn out with modern baseball’s excruciating approach to pitching. Specifically, the constant use of relief pitchers. In this 10 inning contest, the Reds used 8 pitchers, the Nationals 5—13 pitchers in all. The real sin here falls on the Reds, who made 4 of those changes in the middle of innings, stopping the momentum of the game and forcing everyone to endure minute after minute of players and coaches huddling around the pitcher, the new pitcher jogging in from the outfield, and then throwing 8 warmup pitches, since for some reason the extensive warmup in the bullpen is assumed to evaporate in the time it takes to get to the mound.
Everyone knows the use of relievers has been on the rise for decades. In 1980 teams used an average of 1.5 relievers a game; today that number has doubled, to almost 3 per game. The number of innings thrown by relievers has only risen a bit, from 2.5 to about 3. More relievers throwing about the same number of innings=more pitching changes.
In addition to making games longer, reliever mania has changed the game in other ways, mostly for the worse. Super relief specialists who throw 100 mph or have one unhittable pitch help keep down hitting and scoring, preventing the time-honored and natural offensive damage that deserves to be inflicted on tiring starters. Super-relievers strive for strikouts, which take longer and mean fewer balls are put in play, making the game less interesting. Pitchers who throw less can be pushed to throw harder and harder, meaning they are more likely to get hurt. This is happening at younger and younger ages.
Enough. Baseball keeps grappling with ways to speed the game up, and Commissioner Manfred is on the warpath to reduce the time between pitches, keep batters from calling time, and lower the number of mound visits. He succeeded this year in—finally—letting teams issue intentional walks without actually throwing four balls. Thank you. But it’s not working; the average game time is still going up. A much more aggressive approach is needed. Here is my solution.
1. No pitching changes will be allowed other than at the beginning of an inning or half-inning, with the following exceptions.
a. Each team is allowed one (1) within-inning pitching change every 9 innings. This allows a team an additional change for extra-inning games.
b. After using their one allowed within-inning pitching change, any additional changes can only be made because of injury. Therefore, any pitcher relieved under these circumstances will automatically be placed on the 15-day disabled list, effective immediately upon removal from the game.
I think this rule change would sharply reduce the number of within-inning pitching changes, and the number of changes overall. The game will speed up, offense will improve, and we can all stay for those great extra-inning comebacks. Let the hate mail begin.