By now, we should know not to freak out over some of the things that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says. There isn’t a pitch clock. He hasn’t banned shifts. Calm down. Deep, cleansing breath. And another. Inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Feel better now? Good.
OMG THEY’RE GOING TO PUT A RUNNER ON SECOND BASE AT THE START OF EXTRA INNINGS!!
Well, OK, it’s only in the rookie-ball Gulf Coast League and Arizona League this summer. And it’s only an experiment. And the force behind it appears to be chief baseball officer Joe Torre, not Manfred. But let’s freak out, by all means!
Why doesn't MLB use the extra inning format they tested? Have the teams play until the commish is sleepy or bored and call a tie.
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) February 8, 2017
Another kill-two-birds-with-one-stone extra innings solution: If home team's crowd did the wave during the game, the home team loses.
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) February 8, 2017
A person might ask, “How big of a problem is this?”
I’m going to answer this two ways. First, the easy/snarky answer. Torre said, “It’s not fun to watch when you go through your whole pitching staff and wind up bringing a utility infielder in to pitch. As much as it’s nice to talk about being at an 18-inning game, it takes time.”
While reasonable people can disagree about the inherent fun-ness of watching a utility infielder pitch, let’s consider the second of Torre’s sentences. While conceding that an 18-inning game does, in fact, take time, how frequent are they?
Well, here’s a graph showing the frequency of 18-inning (or longer) games since 1998, when the addition of the Rays and Diamondbacks gave us 30 teams.
Yep. Two games per season in each of the past five seasons. Sorry, patrons of the July 1 Cleveland at Toronto game (in which two utility infielders, Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney, pitched) and the July 17 Pirates at Nationals game (boo, none), your suffering doesn’t make for an epidemic.
But yeah, I’m being a jerk, picking on Torre for throwing out that 18-inning phrase. Let’s look at extra-inning games in general: How often do they occur and how many innings do they entail?
Since 1998, an average of 8.5 percent of all games have gone into extra innings. In 2016, only 7.6 percent did, tying it with 2005 for the lowest in the 30-team era. And since 1998, there have been an average of 446 total extra innings played per season. In 2016, there were 426. Since 1998, there have been only four seasons with fewer than 425. All told, baseball is coming off a season with the fewest extra-inning games and fewest extra innings in general in years.
Granted, that doesn’t negate Torre’s argument, since he didn’t base it on a rising tide of extra-inning games. But it’s odd, isn’t it, to be talking about this when games lasting more than nine innings are at a nadir?
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There is no reason that a team should have to wholesale sell out a coin flip game that counts just as much as the next day's game. Once you get into the playoffs remove this rule. Teams have more off days, and are more likely to be facing the same opponent the next day.
When both teams have an advantage isn't there really no advantage?
But yeah, I'm more open to messing around with the 12th inning than the 10th and it's only to end the game, not to save time. (so maybe we should be OK with ties?.... maybe. I'm just throwing this out there)
Youth leagues use this rule to more quickly resolve tie games. It doesn't alter the integrity of the game a bit in my opinion.
Kidding aside, you make a great point. This will create a new stathead vs, guys on the field fault line, potentially, regarding optimal bullpen strategy.