Late Tuesday night, the Nats sent six players to minor-league camp:
| OPTIONED | REASSIGNED |
| OF Rafael Bautista | LHP Bryan Harper |
| 1B-LF Jose Marmolejos | RHP Jaron Long |
| RHP Wander Suero | C Jhonatan Solano |
Ordinarily, that might have been enough to pull the plug—it’s usually somewhere between Julius Caesar saying “Ow, my back!” and the monks at St. Capistrano saying “Great, now we have to clean up after all these birds”—but with still a little drama regarding Victor Robles and Erick Fedde, I’m going to keep the lights on for a few more days.
As the headline notes, yesterday the minors announced it will implementing speed-up rules including a limit on the number of mound visits, a 15-second pitch clock, and placing a runner on second base to start each extra inning. The latter is probably the most controversial, prompting some pearl-clutching that it’ll be “99% probable that an inning will start with a bunt followed by an intentional walk.”
I tend to doubt it except when the batter in question is an accomplished bunter, which we know is not as common as it is in the majors. And why stop at just one intentional walk? Might as well load the bases if you’re the visiting team and playing for two. In fact, you may actually see some savvy managers making sure the opposing team’s fastest runner won’t be the guy on second if there’s another extra inning – especially if it can set up making a catcher the last out.
The “runner on second” rule has already been instituted in the DSL, GCL, and AZL last season. The sky remains blue and above us, so I don’t see the harm in expanding it to the rest of the minors as a trial run. The so-called purists, a.k.a. the opponents of the DH rule that was first proposed in the 1890s, can stain their doilies with the ink splattered from their fingers trembling to keep their quills steady as they write their letters to the editor (OK, fine: as they text from their flip-phones).
I don’t see this as being all that different than the college football overtime rules or the three-point line in basketball. We’re not talking about reducing the number of balls and strikes for walks and whiffs or games could end in a tie. The minors already are different than the majors in terms of pinch-hitting, how relievers are used, players learning a position “on the job,” etc.