MLB to test radical extra-inning rule change in Minors, WBC
Michael Dixon
MSN
February 8, 2017
More
@EasyAce ?
Foolish idea. I like the idea of just signaling an intentional pass and handing the hitter his base without
the pitcher having to throw four wide ones for show. That'll cut a minute at minimum off the time of a
game, but it's better than the foolishness of starting each extra inning with a man on second.
But then baseball government isn't yet looking at a
major cause of elongated games: the commercial spots.
There doesn't need to be a commercial for every call to the bullpen in a game, to name just one culprit.
Though speaking of the bullpen, I have one idea that would speed up the games and, while we're at it,
save pitching arms and shoulders:
unless a pitcher is coming in to relieve a pitcher who's been injured during
the game,
eliminate the eight-warmups tradition before facing his first batter.
It'll hurt the incoming pitcher not.
one. bit.
Not even if he was warmed up in a hurry before he came into the game.
Are you nutzo?!?No---because other than a few loosen-up tosses,
he's been throwing pitches in that bullpen.
Sometimes, oftentimes, you have a guy who was warming up from the beginning of an inning before he
was brought in. He's probably thrown
equal to two or even three innings' worth of pitches
beforeyou brought him in. He was ready before you gave the signal to bring him in.
Now---if you warmed up a pitcher but didn't bring him in that inning, take a leaf out of Whitey Herzog's
book: if he warmed you up but didn't bring you in that inning or the next, you had the rest of the night
off. (The White Rat followed that rule especially with his long men; if his starter got into early trouble and
he got his long man up, one of two things would happen: the long man would come in; or, if the starter
found his way out of the jam and the long man didn't come in, that long man had the rest of the game
off until or unless it went to extras.)
Herzog would never warm up a pitcher, sit him down, warm him up again later in the game and then
bring him in . . . because he's probably already gassed. Bring him in after two separated warmup spells
and he's likely to either walk the bases loaded or walk a run in, or get himself clobbered out there.
He'll have little to nothing left. And don't think the hitters aren't watching the other guys' bullpen
and following who's been warmed up how often. If the other guys warmed up Reliever A twice already
and
then brought him into the game, those hitters are probably figuring out their new RBI totals,
the bump in their on-base percentages from the walks they're going to work out, or the distance their
home runs are going to travel when that gassed pitcher serves them up a meatball on a plate.
I learned that reading Herzog's
You're Missin' a Great Game. Two managers who
never got
the hint: Tommy Lasorda and Pete Rose. Both those managers had some terrific relief pitchers, and
most of them ended up burning out before their time in due course.
Here's the White Rat himself:
[T]he man won 1,600-some ballgames and two World Series and that's no accident, but the fly in
his ointment---and it baffled me, because Tommy was a pitcher himself---was that he never figured
out how to handle a bullpen. He'd take a reliever and warm him up four or five times during a game
and not use him; then he'd do the same thing the next day. The day after that, he'd put the
guy in a game. He'd have nothing out there, and Tommy'd say, "Hell, you ain't pitched in two days,
what's the matter with you?" Some managers think if a guy's not actually in a game, he's not
pitching. But if he's tossing on the sidelines, man, he's getting hot. Over the years I dealt some of
my pitchers to L.A.---[John] Tudor, [Todd] Worrell, Ricky Horton, Ken Dayley---and they always came
back with the same report: Tommy was still messing up the pen . . .
Pete Rose was like Tommy. Wonderful baseball man but he was impaired when it came to handling
pitchers. Here he had three world class relievers, Norm Charlton, Rob Murphy, and Rob Dibble,
all in the same pen. Two were lefties. Dibble, the righty, threw 100 miles an hour. With those three
guys on your side you shouldn't lose games after the sixth. But Pete found a way.
He'd get Murphy up in the third; he'd warm him up in the fourth. Then he'd sit him down. He'd
get Charlton up in the fifth. Sometimes I'd look down there, and he'd have both lefthanders going
at the same time. Why would you warm 'em both up at once? You're only going to use one lefty
or another! Then, after he'd worked 'em out three or four times, Pete would put one in the game
and be surprised he had no zip. "He can't be tired," he'd say. "He ain't pitched in three days!"
Somebody counted how many timed he warmed Murphy up one year and it was over 200. I like
Pete, boy---but I loved managing against him.
So eliminate the eight warmups out on the mound unless the reliever was brought in to spell
a pitcher who was injured and had to come out. If you use, say, three relievers in the game,
eliminating those warmups knowing your guys were plenty warm and ready when you brought
them in would shave about ten to twelve minutes off a game's time just by itself. And it would
probably put a few extra innings into their careers, too.
