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Offseason Update: Jan. 25, 2022

We’re still here, waiting for Godot the spring, working on the player capsules, hoping for something truly significant to happen…

I’ll be headed back to Greenville, SC this week for an email marketing conference, which, TBH, I didn’t think would actually happen. I’m hoping that once I’m away from the worst part – the airports; no direct flight this time – and back with my fellow email geeks, it won’t feel so surreal.

But that’s where I was on March 11, 2020 so I’m pretty sure there will be some serious déjà vu all over again.

I only bring this up in hopes of reverse-jinxing things on this front since the odds of a “this can’t wait ’til you get back” work request are about even. Like, say, we need you to email everybody about this pandemic thing.

THREE NATS NAMED TO BA TOP 100
A year after getting shut out, the Nats have not one, not two, but three players in Baseball America’s 2022 Top 100 List. Keibert Ruiz comes in at #11, Cade Cavalli moved up to #27, and Brady House is #59. Odds are pretty good though that by the time the Boys in Durham decide on their pre-midseason edition (or is that the post-preseason?) Ruiz will have graduated from the list, and if the MASN/WaPo Commenters have their way, so will Cavalli.

TOP LISTS BESIDES BA AND MLB PIPELINE
We’re still waiting for an equivalent “third way” to re-emerge with the retirement of John Sickels from the prospect game. I’ll give a shoutout to ProspectsLive.com, which I’m still evaluating but have liked so far (read: paid to read more detailed stuff) in finding scouting reports beyond the Top 10’s currently available from BA. I’ve also liked 2080baseball.com, but it feels like the pandemic has slowed them down, if not shut them down (i.e. no reports newer than 2019).

Mr. Boss has the skinny on another service, Prospects1500.com, which, for my money is too fantasy-focused, but Todd has a good point that they’ve done a good job of aggregating video on “our guys.” And I’ll be honest, when I’m researching injuries, the fantasy guys often seem to have the intel.

“SUDDEN DEATH” EXTRA-INNINGS
“Purists,” a.k.a. those who like automatic outs and letting the lineup determine pitching changes, all seem to hate the man-on-2nd in extras rule, even if their claim that “it’ll just be a sacrifice followed by an intentional walk” has been demonstrably false in the minors. Because most of them tend to ignore the indys, they’re probably unaware that the Frontier League was using a HR derby to break ties in 2021. But I think it’s pretty safe to presume they hated that even more.

Given the smaller rosters and the threat of losing a pitcher or two at any given moment, this year the Frontier League is trying something new: a sudden-death tiebreaker. Put simply, it’s one inning with the free runner, which if it fails to produce a winner, then gives the home team a choice: bat with a runner on first and nobody out and try to score a run to win, or defer to the visitors with the same conditions and get three outs without the run scoring.

The upshot: No game lasts more than 10½ innings (8½ in a doubleheader), which has long been cited as a goal to reduce workload.

Of course, it may be heresy to suggest, but we could just start having ties in the regular season like they do in Japan. Would that really be so bad? Especially in the minors, where they claim that wins and losses are secondary to development.

Something to think about…

16 Commments

  2. I hate the unearned runner rule. It cheapens the game. Winning in extra innings doesn’t feel fun anymore.

    I could get behind games ending in a tie after twelve or thirteen innings, provided those extra innings were played as *extra* *innings* rather than as the mini-game MLB turned them into the past couple seasons. (And no, I didn’t and don’t like the rule in the minors, either.)

    But honestly, some of the games that left the biggest impression on me were decided in extras, under the previous rules that I hope MLB returns to. There was the minor league game in Hillsboro when the skies opened up after regulation, no one wanted to call the game, and the home team finally managed to load the bases — no gifts from Rob Manfred needed! — and walk off on a missile up the left field line. There was the marathon game against the Twins in which the key plays were a Bryce Harper pinch-hit home run, an an Óliver Pérez bunt, and a Chris Heisey walkoff. The game against the Braves in which pinch-hitter Max Scherzer and Wilmer Difo teamed up to win it late. And of course, there was the tragedy of Game 2 in 2014, a gut-wrenching loss that made me realize just how much I loved baseball and how much the Nats meant to me.

    I have similar feelings about the designated hitter rule. Yeah, pitchers can’t hit, but that makes it all the more special when they DO hit. The Scherzer game mentioned above, the other Scherzer game against the Braves in which he pitched brilliantly AND hit safely AND stole second base. The Stephen Strasburg game against the Braves in which he hit a three-run jack and finally, finally danced in the dugout. The Joe Ross game against the Phillies in which he battled and fouled off like four or five pitches before finally lacing a double down the line. The minor league game in Fresno when Kyle McGowin did it himself by ripping doubles to the wall in back-to-back plate appearances. I’m sure the days of pitchers hitting are over, but you’ll never convince me the DH is genuinely better for the game.

    1. By chance, I have spent my life in or near four NL cities. I don’t particularly understand games with a DH because I’ve never regularly watched games with it, night in and night out. Guys on AL benches seem like Maytag repairmen, with nothing happening to force their potential participation. I don’t particularly “like” watching pitchers hit, but I do enjoy the forced strategy involved. And as Sao notes, when something does happen, it is particularly memorable.

      FWIW, Cavalli was a two-way player in college so presumably could be a “good-hitting pitcher.” If pitchers are still hitting . . .

    2. Totally agree. National League games are more like chess and American League games are checkers.

      I think we’re going to lose this one.

      1. Except in the A.L. the manager can’t hide behind the lineup for making a pitching change. In a close game, a mediocre N.L. manager *cough* Davey Martinez *cough* can lift a guy too soon but won’t catch the same flak if it blows up on him because “the pitcher was going to lead off the inning, so…”

        No such luck in the AL: pull a guy too soon? Your fault. Leave him out there too long? Your fault.

        Put another way, if FP Santangelo could predict what the manager will do and be right 90% of the time, is it really chess?

    3. Remember the Oliver Perez bunt hit – fabulous! Mentioning Max, how in the world did he go 0 for 59 last year? He’s no Gio, but holy cow!

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  5. How about allowing the managers to re-do their lineups every inning after 9? That would bring the best hitters to the plate every inning. If no winner after 12, then call it a tie.

    1. That’s actually not a bad idea… it would kind of be like the shootouts in hockey.

      I think what a lot of folks don’t grasp is that in the indys the threat of losing a pitcher or two is very real. And MLB just dipped into their pool a little bit by creating the Draft League. The Frontier League has always had age-related rules, so they can’t activate their pitching coach like they used to do in other indy leagues 15-20 years ago, since the odds are pretty good he’s over 29. And at this level, if they lose a guy it could take up to a week to get a replacement.

      In the big picture, I don’t think ties are all that bad… You can do things like award points (e.g., 3 pts for a win, 2 pts for an EI win, 1 pt for an EI loss) to offset any worries about luck or playing for the tie. If this were implemented in the affiliated minors, I honestly don’t think they’d change their approach. If they’re not going to play small ball with the free runner in the 10th, odds are they won’t go for the win with the same tactics in the 8th or 9th if the leadoff man gets on.

      1. I also don’t have an issue with ties in the regular season. In many ways that’s probably better than a gimmicky approach to extra innings, as each team would benefit in the standings.

        As Luke noted, if they’re going to do a gimmick, at least do like the NHL and award a point to the team that loses by gimmick. (NHL awards two points for a win and one for an OT/shootout loss.)

        I like Fred’s idea but would modify it in a couple of ways. First, just say that the top of the order will be up in the 10th, instead of reshuffling. Second, only go through the 11th.

        Baseball really has to do something along these lines, based on how the game is played and managed now. Most teams have used four or five pitchers (or more) by the end of nine innings. They don’t have the arms to keep going well into the wee hours. Is it “strategy” to have to use a resting starter for the 14th and 15th innings? Or is it smarter in the long term to just go to the utility infielder who pitched in high school?

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