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Proposed Rule Change: Starting Pitchers Must Go 6 Innings
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Post by bluechip on Aug 15, 2024 9:48:57 GMT -5
ESPN had an article today explaining a rule change being considered by MLB, requiring starting pitchers to go six innings: This rule, which obviously would drastically alter the modern game, would force it to resemble the historic game. Say goodbye to the strikeouts we see today. Pitchers would need to pitch to contact. You’d probably also see a decrease in velocity as pitchers did not throw every pitch with maximum effort. www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40847173/mlb-rule-changes-2024-six-inning-starting-pitcher-injuries-tommy-john
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pd
Veteran
Posts: 324
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Post by pd on Aug 15, 2024 9:55:34 GMT -5
If pitchers had to throw with less velocity and pitch to contact I think you'd see many of them get to 4 earned runs pretty quickly. Modern hitters are pretty damned good.
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Post by nelledouville on Aug 15, 2024 9:58:50 GMT -5
I like the idea of incentives to encourage longer starter stints. I wonder though about a specific limiting rule.
Throwing this out there. How would reduced pitching staff sizes (same number of roster spots but with a restriction on how many can be pitchers) affect things? I'm sure there would be both intended and unintended results.
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Post by ematz1423 on Aug 15, 2024 10:08:38 GMT -5
This is all stupid and unnecessary in my opinion, I really don't like Manfred at all.
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Post by brendan98 on Aug 15, 2024 10:16:29 GMT -5
You have to go 5 innings to get a win, so why wouldn’t you make the rule starters have to go 5, still accomplishes the same thing. I still don’t want it, but why 6 innings out of thing air?
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Post by puzzler on Aug 15, 2024 10:27:12 GMT -5
This would need to be accompanied by some kind of limit to offense. The only two things that really come to mind for me are limiting bat weight/size and deadening the baseball. I don't think baseball has the guts to limit homeruns, so I don't really see how the pitching rule will be possible.
That said, for everyone that says this is unnecessary, then there has to be some kind of accountability/responsibility taken for all the pitching injuries. It has massively degraded professional baseball and will ultimately ruin the game if it isn't addressed. Beyond almost eliminating some teams potential playoff hopes before the season even begins, I would bet that it is having a huge impact on overall pitching development of minor league systems. I'm looking at someone like Perales - this guy could potentially be a stud and before the flower has even bloomed, it's potentially dead. That's not healthy. 20-25 year old pitchers should not be having TJ type surgeries on a regular basis.
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Post by bettsonmookie on Aug 15, 2024 10:40:18 GMT -5
I can't imagine the MLBPA being supportive of something that lowers the amount of spots on the MLB roster. I don't like the sound of this at all. Yuck.
Pairing this idea with the pitch clock also feels cruel and unusual to the health of pitchers. Is there an abundance of evidence that pulling the velo back marginally dramatically improves arm health?
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Post by greenmonster on Aug 15, 2024 10:40:25 GMT -5
This would need to be accompanied by some kind of limit to offense. The only two things that really come to mind for me are limiting bat weight/size and deadening the baseball. I don't think baseball has the guts to limit homeruns, so I don't really see how the pitching rule will be possible. That said, for everyone that says this is unnecessary, then there has to be some kind of accountability/responsibility taken for all the pitching injuries. It has massively degraded professional baseball and will ultimately ruin the game if it isn't addressed. Beyond almost eliminating some teams potential playoff hopes before the season even begins, I would bet that it is having a huge impact on overall pitching development of minor league systems. I'm looking at someone like Perales - this guy could potentially be a stud and before the flower has even bloomed, it's potentially dead. That's not healthy. 20-25 year old pitchers should not be having TJ type surgeries on a regular basis. Perhaps I am mis-reading this but are you suggesting that requiring pitchers to pitch 6-innings would reduce injuries?
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 15, 2024 10:51:35 GMT -5
Maybe deadening the ball will help.
I'm tired of the three true outcome era. In tired of bullpen games and cruising starters getting yanked at 80 pitches and the outcome of games being constantly determined by variable disposable middle relievers.
It fits in with this bat dodging pitch away from contact game we see now.
I like seeing stolen bases, team defense and even bunting to score a needed single run return to the game.
Deadening the ball would help accomplish this.
Maybe if they do this perhaps they can limit pitching staffs to 11 or 12 pitchers and it would get managers to keep starters in longer.
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Post by puzzler on Aug 15, 2024 11:03:29 GMT -5
This would need to be accompanied by some kind of limit to offense. The only two things that really come to mind for me are limiting bat weight/size and deadening the baseball. I don't think baseball has the guts to limit homeruns, so I don't really see how the pitching rule will be possible. That said, for everyone that says this is unnecessary, then there has to be some kind of accountability/responsibility taken for all the pitching injuries. It has massively degraded professional baseball and will ultimately ruin the game if it isn't addressed. Beyond almost eliminating some teams potential playoff hopes before the season even begins, I would bet that it is having a huge impact on overall pitching development of minor league systems. I'm looking at someone like Perales - this guy could potentially be a stud and before the flower has even bloomed, it's potentially dead. That's not healthy. 20-25 year old pitchers should not be having TJ type surgeries on a regular basis. Perhaps I am mis-reading this but are you suggesting that requiring pitchers to pitch 6-innings would reduce injuries? I'm suggesting there is an epidemic of arm injuries that has nothing to do with whether you throw 4 innings or 6 innings or 9 innings. Through the years we've just sort of guessed at what causes arm injuries (pitch counts, mechanics, velocity, etc etc etc). I look at the pitch clock as a similar issue. Why are games faster with a pitch clock than without? The players will not proactively make any changes to what they do, no matter how bad things get. They'll sit there and scapegoat random rule changes before they make any kind of meaningful changes themselves. (I'm not absolving owners of anything here, I'm just stating a fact). So the reality is that nothing happens without them being forced or coerced into doing it. I don't think MLB is proposing the rule change with the idea that they want there to be more injuries for pitchers; so I choose to believe it is a beginning effort to force players into doing something different. It may be misguided, it may not work and it might even be really stupid. But doing nothing is allowing the problem to get worse. So to answer your question, yeah if the players continue to do everything exactly the same and do it more, there probably would be more injuries. If it causes them to stop for half a second and say, we can't keep throwing the same way, then maybe it will result in fewer injuries. I'd say that anyone that doesn't want the MLB to come up with 'stupid' rules should really be focusing their anger on the fact that the teams and players have taken ZERO responsibility for the injury issue.
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Post by bluechip on Aug 15, 2024 11:06:50 GMT -5
This would need to be accompanied by some kind of limit to offense. The only two things that really come to mind for me are limiting bat weight/size and deadening the baseball. I don't think baseball has the guts to limit homeruns, so I don't really see how the pitching rule will be possible. That said, for everyone that says this is unnecessary, then there has to be some kind of accountability/responsibility taken for all the pitching injuries. It has massively degraded professional baseball and will ultimately ruin the game if it isn't addressed. Beyond almost eliminating some teams potential playoff hopes before the season even begins, I would bet that it is having a huge impact on overall pitching development of minor league systems. I'm looking at someone like Perales - this guy could potentially be a stud and before the flower has even bloomed, it's potentially dead. That's not healthy. 20-25 year old pitchers should not be having TJ type surgeries on a regular basis. Perhaps I am mis-reading this but are you suggesting that requiring pitchers to pitch 6-innings would reduce injuries? I think the idea would be, and this could be an incorrect assumption, that making pitchers go 6 innings will result in pitchers throwing less maximum effort pitches. With less maximum effort pitches, there will be less injuries.
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Post by puzzler on Aug 15, 2024 11:11:38 GMT -5
Perhaps I am mis-reading this but are you suggesting that requiring pitchers to pitch 6-innings would reduce injuries? I think the idea would be, and this could be an incorrect assumption, that making pitchers go 6 innings will result in pitchers throwing less maximum effort pitches. With less maximum effort pitches, there will be less injuries. Yes this. There have been far longer stretches in MLB history where pitchers threw more pitches over more innings with shorter time thrown between each pitch than over the last 20-30 years AND with way fewer arm injuries. I have no evidence to back this up, but arm injuries most certainly a combination of max velocity all the time and all the modern day mechanics affecting elbows and shoulders.
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Post by bellhorndingers21 on Aug 15, 2024 11:35:15 GMT -5
I have my doubts. Would teams go to 6-7 starters with lesser bullpen demands? Starters would still air it out knowing they'd only have to go once a week. Pitchers will always take the risk of injury if the reward is making a major league salary.
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Post by manfred on Aug 15, 2024 11:53:38 GMT -5
I certainly love going back to real starts as a norm, but I don’t know that you can or should mandate it.
I mean, you might just say a starter has to go 3 innings. Once you are beyond 3, you are more than an “opener,” and I think most managers would ride you for 5 (unless you hit 100 pitches or give up 4+ runs). So that is less draconian but likely has mostly the same results.
But as much as I hate openers… why ban it? It is not that *regular* a practice. Most teams seem to do it as an emergency spot start. Won’t this make those emergency games less competitive by forcing a team to extend a guy who can’t/shouldn’t go 6?
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Post by incandenza on Aug 15, 2024 12:01:11 GMT -5
A few scenarios off the top of my head where this rule would be problematic:
- A starter gives up a bunch of unearned runs because of an error with two outs and they've completely lost it, but they're forced to remain in the game. - A starter working back from injury wouldn't be able to pitch on a limited pitch count. - A starter that maybe sort of tweaks something but doesn't want to come out of the game because they'd be forced onto the IL instead tries to soldier through and injures themself worse.
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Post by Foulke_In_Athol on Aug 15, 2024 12:16:08 GMT -5
How about raising the mound, and or allowing the use of sticky stuff/rosin . Pivetta was talking about the fact that sticky stuff greatly increased both control and the ability to spin the ball without as much torque. Could help avoid arm injuries a bit.
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Post by wanderingdude on Aug 15, 2024 12:52:17 GMT -5
I think the idea would be, and this could be an incorrect assumption, that making pitchers go 6 innings will result in pitchers throwing less maximum effort pitches. With less maximum effort pitches, there will be less injuries. Yes this. There have been far longer stretches in MLB history where pitchers threw more pitches over more innings with shorter time thrown between each pitch than over the last 20-30 years AND with way fewer arm injuries. I have no evidence to back this up, but arm injuries most certainly a combination of max velocity all the time and all the modern day mechanics affecting elbows and shoulders. I’m not doctor but the velocity increase has almost matched exactly with TJ injuries so i would assume they are correlated. The problem is we have the evidence to say throwing harder and maximizing spin is the best way to get hitters out. So, how do we tell teams and players to purposefully do something that would make them worse? Everybody gives the rays shit for getting pitchers hurt, but how many of them would have just flamed out of the league without doing what they wanted them to? If you’re an org guy is it better to take on the injury risk if it makes you good, or is it better to protect yourself but potentially not be good enough anyway?
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Post by bcsox on Aug 15, 2024 13:01:26 GMT -5
I can’t imagine that this gets through. Hitters are ahead of the pitchers in this day and age. If you mandate that starting pitchers need to throw 6 innings you are going to get a ton of pitch counts at 125, 130, 140. Literally the pitchers and their agents will file a class action lawsuit.
Is it better to put in play something like starting pitchers have to throw a minimum of 90, maybe 95 pitches?
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Post by ixnayexxus on Aug 15, 2024 13:02:09 GMT -5
Yes this. There have been far longer stretches in MLB history where pitchers threw more pitches over more innings with shorter time thrown between each pitch than over the last 20-30 years AND with way fewer arm injuries. I have no evidence to back this up, but arm injuries most certainly a combination of max velocity all the time and all the modern day mechanics affecting elbows and shoulders. I’m not doctor but the velocity increase has almost matched exactly with TJ injuries so i would assume they are correlated. The problem is we have the evidence to say throwing harder and maximizing spin is the best way to get hitters out. So, how do we tell teams and players to purposefully do something that would make them worse? Everybody gives the rays shit for getting pitchers hurt, but how many of them would have just flamed out of the league without doing what they wanted them to? If you’re an org guy is it better to take on the injury risk if it makes you good, or is it better to protect yourself but potentially not be good enough anyway? With amateur prospects, it would be even harder to approach; velocity and spin rates are what allow pro scouts to quantify whether a player is likely to succeed at a higher level, and if you go to a scouting site like PerfectGame or Prospects Live, things like velocity and spin rate are clearly prioritized in terms of rankings. If a scout were to hear of two pitchers at the high school level, each having thrown the same amount of innings, collected the same number of strikeouts, and each having not allowed a run; the first thing the scout will ask is how hard these players are throwing. If one is averaging 80-82 mph while the other is sitting in the low 90's, it's obvious which one will be given priority.
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Post by seamus on Aug 15, 2024 13:41:50 GMT -5
MLBPA would only go along with something like this if the whole early career compensation structure was reworked. Otherwise, teams are incentivized, even compelled, to burn through starting pitchers before they reach their prime earning years. I could see something like Manfred (the forum member, not the commish) suggested, requiring starters to go 3 innings to eliminate openers, but that seems like a solution in search of a problem.
They could keep the same calendar but reduce the number of games so that starts can more regularly get 5+ days of rest, but that will never happen. I'd like to see something like an expansion of the roster to 27 and have 6 guys who are only allowed to start (maybe some exceptions allowed, like blowouts or extra innings). Maybe enabling teams to go to a 6-man rotation during busy parts of the schedule will help keep guys healthy and also make teams feel more comfortable leaving a starter in for longer.
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Post by julyanmorley on Aug 15, 2024 13:54:02 GMT -5
I think the proposal would more or less work. The main reason starters throw fewer innings is because very few as effective as even lower tier relievers later in a game. I doubt you would see a significant decrease in the stuff of the starters.
Getting the MLBPA to agree to it sounds like a tall order.
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Post by greenmonster on Aug 15, 2024 13:58:18 GMT -5
maybe a corresponding rule that teams can not bat around the order. When the first batter is set to return to the batters box the inning is completed regardless of how many outs there are. This will help take some of the load off of the pitcher that can't be removed despite getting his doors blown in.....
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Post by puzzler on Aug 15, 2024 14:40:20 GMT -5
I think the proposal would more or less work. The main reason starters throw fewer innings is because very few as effective as even lower tier relievers later in a game. I doubt you would see a significant decrease in the stuff of the starters. Getting the MLBPA to agree to it sounds like a tall order. MLBPA has I think 4 members on the committee. There's one umpire. There are 6 MLB committee members. It doesn't necessarily require MLBPA to agree at all if I'm reading it correctly. And I agree with you on the stuff of the starters. In fact, I think Cora would be wise to go back to giving Sox starters a longer leash given the state of the bullpen.
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Post by 0ap0 on Aug 15, 2024 15:30:56 GMT -5
I've got it. New rule: any fair ball that leaves the playing area is considered a ground-rule double. The three true outcomes are now K, BB, and 2B. Incentive to swing for the fences is reduced and pitchers don't have to fear the long ball.
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Post by ematz1423 on Aug 15, 2024 15:34:25 GMT -5
Let's ban pinch hitting while we are at it, no more strategy in baseball!
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