Three batter minimum for pitchers in 2020
 

It's beginning to look like the 2020 season will require a three batter minimum for pitchers entering the game. My question is if this is something that can be coded into OOTP 21 or are we going to be on the honor system for this?

http://m.mlb.com/glossary/rules/three-batter-minimum

I would hope that such a thing would end up being an optional rule.

It has to be or historical wouldn't work. Is there any rule in OOTP that isn't optional other than the real basics like how many strikes is an out? Seems to me that you can change any rule that would be similar to this one in that it is only applicable to a certain era.

They are ruining baseball with dumb rules like that just to speed up the game.

R.I.P. Loogy

Absolutely!

Personally I don't think it is ruining the game (yet), first because we haven't even played a season with it.
2nd we don't know if this will go the way of the mound visit or be as debated as the DH.

I don't like this rule, I think it takes away perfectly good strategy especially during the playoffs when every PA matters.

I really understand the desire to get the game shorter but they really should take 1 30sec commercial off each break that would make the game go faster.

I'm not sure it is possible to speed up the game. All the things they try are band aids. I have taken the time to watch old ball games on YouTube. It is just a different game. Guys worked the count a whole lot less, pitchers didn't take as long to deliver the pitch, and it seems guys put the ball in play more. (But that may not be true, haven't analyzed the numbers, it just seems that way) For better or worse the game has naturally evolved.

I always thought the best way to reduce the time of the game was to reduce number of commercial breaks.

This idea only works if the DH was universal.

Instead of changing sides after the 1st 3 outs just clear the bases.

I'd propose doing this with two sets of 3 then alternate like traditional baseball for last 3 innings.

It would reduce the # of commercial breaks from 17 to 9 or 16.67 Minutes

So this :

T1, B1, T2, B2, T3, B3, T4, B4, T5, B5, T6, B6, T7, B7, T8, B8, T9, B9


Becomes

T1 - T2 - T3, B1 - B2 - B3, T4 - T5 - T6, B4 - B5 - B6, T7, B7, T8, B8, T9, B9

If they want to shorten the game, they should really shorten the season by a month.

I think it's an improvement, including speeding up the game.

It can be good strategy to bring in a lefty to face one lefty batter. It's also boring. Shortening the commercial break when that happens would make it only slightly less boring (if the commercial break is half as long then it's still half as much boredom).

Also, just as I don't support the DH, I don't support roles for other one-dimensional players, like a guy who can only face lefties. Force pichers to only come in if they are capable of facing the next three batters.

Though the biggest problem with today's baseball of it being too much HR or K, is something they won't address because they think people like huge amounts of HR's.

I enjoy watching the old ball games, too, especially from the 1980s. I think one key element of the game that is missing today is speed. Not just the speed of the games, but speed in general. Back in the 1980s when you had teams like the Cardinals, Reds, Expos, and Royals stealing hundreds of bases as a team, the game moved faster. It wasn't just watching guys trying to hit balls out of the park and striking out 200 times a year. The cookie-cutter, Astroturf parks might have been ugly compared to the retro parks with grass, but the game was much more fun to watch then IMHO.


I still think speed is a great weapon to have for your offense and you can still have speed without sacrificing power. Look at the 1989-1990 Oakland Athletics. They had lots of power, but they also had Rickey Henderson leading off and he could steal between 50-100 bases a season. You could go further into the late 1990's with the New York Yankees of 1998. Not one player on that team hit 30 or more home runs yet they had a great combination of speed and power, not to mention, patience.


I know it'll never happen, but I'd like to see the Kansas City Royals bring back AstroTurf to their ballpark and build that team on speed like they did during the late 1970s/early 1980s. Have a bunch of rabbits in the lineup who could steal 50 bases a season and a couple of bashers in the middle of the order. Other teams like Tampa Bay and Toronto could apply the same strategy, but I really like the Kansas City idea.

Going back to two divisions per league with no wild cards would shorten the entire season by about a month.

I don't mind the change of to min 3 batters. In my eyes this all started because pitchers are being taken out very early in games. If pitchers would go the distance then this rule never not have been needed.

Release the pitcher!

I think this can all be traced back to the fact that today's athletes are so much better than they were 100 years ago. Back then "putting the ball in play" made sense since defense was so awful. Also, not many guys could hit the ball that hard compared to today's athletes so pitchers could get away with "pitching to contact" which allowed them to use less pitches per batter and thus last longer every start. Today though for hitters just "putting the ball in play" isn't as important because today's athletes are such good defenders. Therefore hitters need to be pickier and be willing to take walks and risk strikeouts in order to get a pitch they can drive. Pitchers have also had to adjust to this. Trying to "pitch to contact" today will just get you blasted by today's hitters. Therefore you need to risk walking more guys in order to try and get more strikeouts and less balls hit with solid contact. I think all of this has changed baseball from a game where the average hitter maybe saw three pitches per PA to a game where they might see an average of over four pitches per PA? Just guessing at those rates but I expect the change from then to now to be at least as dramatic. So blame it all on better athletes who can defend better, hit harder and throw harder and with more spin as to why each plate appearance seems to take twice as long as it most likely did 100 years ago.

Pitchers' arms would fall off, think what happens now when a pitcher works an extended inning, it cuts his total pitch count to less than his average, even when he rights the ship and has clean innings after the trouble one.

How about a rule starters have to go six innings?

Actually the problem is pitchers pitch fewer innings because the can't let up on any batter. It is because of the DH and because the 9th hitting second baseman is a home run threat.

You must be very young if you believe that. Putting the Ball in Play is the key to winning.
Read this article:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...lls-in-trouble

Other than a comment from one person, that article doesn't say that "Putting the Ball in Play is the key to winning" it simply relates the entertainment loss from a game that doesn't value putting the ball in play. At no point does it suggest that moving away from "strikeout or home run mentality" will create more wins, simply that the game is less interesting the way it is played today.

I think that, unfortunately, the way the game is played today is probably more efficient in using the abilities of the players you have to both score more and try to stop the other team from scoring more. For me, this efficiency comes at the expense of entertainment.

"When you don't put the ball in play, you have no chance to get on base. Absolutely none, unless the catcher can't catch," Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire says. "The point of baseball is to get on base. I don't think that will ever change.
That was in the article.