In baseball, change not always for the better
Spring training is upon us, and change is in the air. Which is not to be confused with anything official. It’s just a bunch of speculation, floating around in space.
Assuming this baseball season will be status quo, let’s address three of the more controversial issues:
The universal designated hitter. We keep hearing that “it’s coming,” but multiple sources indicate that the National League won’t have to adopt the DH until the current collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2021 — and thus the 2022 season, at the earliest. This is heartily welcomed by the 3-Dot, long a proponent of a game in which everyone bats and fields. In the wise words of Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, “If you like the DH, you like checkers. If you like NL style baseball,
you like chess.”
Relief pitchers entering the game must face a minimum of three batters (no carryover into the next inning). This sounds good on the surface. We all get exasperated by the endless pitching changes, and it’s always baffling when a pitcher out there dealing, his stuff at an absolute peak, gets pulled after only one batter in a percentage move. (Jeremy Affeldt always comes to mind.) But on the real side: No. There’s no place for artificially imposed strategy in baseball.
Picture this: The Angels have no intention of pinch-hitting for the left-handed-hitting Shohei Ohtani in a crucial late-inning situation, and the opposing right-handed pitcher has faced two batters. Ohtani hasn’t squared up a really sharp lefty curveball in a couple of weeks. But you can’t bring in a lefty here? That’s just wrong.
Or put it this way: The first of those three batters hits a 480foot grand slam, turning your 4-0 lead into a tie game in the bottom of the ninth. The second hitter walks on four pitches so wild they all sailed off the backstop. Now you’re forced to leave the poor guy in?
The pitch clock. It just might be time. More than half of MLB’s pitchers have experienced this in the minor leagues, with near-universal acceptance. “You get all worried, and it’s really no big deal,” goes the typical response. “After a while I didn’t even notice it.” The hitters adjust, too — they’re often the most egregious dawdlers — and the game moves along faster.
Commissioner Rob Manfred has the right to unilaterally install a pitch clock, but he’d rather it be added through an agreement with the players. That sounds fair, and there’s certainly not enough time to make such a radical change for 2019. But why not experiment with a pitch clock right now, in spring training games?
Starting a discussion
Great to hear Giants pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzjia offering such a spirited rebuke to the “opener” trend, in which a relief pitcher starts the game and faces just a few batters before turning it over to a rotation starter or a ludicrous parade out of the bullpen. Who really enjoys this, aside from those concocting an analytics-driven breakdown? Any self-respecting starter wants to take the mound after the national anthem, pitch deep into the game, maybe even finish it. Managers find themselves using multiple relievers, and if an “opener” started every game, a bunch of those relievers would be burned out by August. Fans aren’t thrilled about the constant breaks in the action . ... What’s really maddening: As opposed to past decades, when pitchers were trained to develop endurance, they’re now told that a fourinning appearance is just dandy, don’t worry about it. At this rate, the type of shutout-minded starter who really stirs the soul — Bumgarner, Max Scherzer, Jack Morris, Juan Marichal— will become a thing of the past . ... Flashback: Game 7, 1968 World Series, St. Louis down 3-0 to Detroit in the bottom of the eighth. With one out and nobody on, pitcher Bob Gibson steps to the plate. He strikes out, but there is no great commotion. Gibson was a respectable hitter (12 career homers at that point), a hellacious competitor and the most respected man on the team, if not the entire National League. Of course he was allowed to hit . ... Suggested rule change that should be imposed immediately: Expansion of the daily rosters from 25 to 26 players, with a key component endorsed by many club executives: a 12-man limit on the pitching staff. Now you’ve got six-man benches, especially valuable in late-inning National League games, and a curb on pitching changes.
One disturbing aspect to Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins’ return, likely to be rectified as time goes on: His inability to score around the basket. Teams are stripping the ball or changing his shot, and he doesn’t yet have his customary fine touch . ... Upon hearing that the Warriors are the first team since the 1975-76 Celtics to start five players selected to the previous year’s All-Star team (Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, Paul Silas and Charlie Scott), people wondered about the great Knicks teams of the early 70s. When the Knicks took the floor in the ’73 playoffs, they had seven players who had made All-Star teams in the past (not all in ’72): Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley, Jerry Lucas and Dick Barnett . ... Don’t forget that the current Warriors have six such players, including Andre Iguodala, who played in the 2012 All-Star Game for the 76ers (scoring 12 points on 6-for-7 shooting) . ... Not to be left out of any such discussion: From 1960 through ’66, the Boston Celtics put Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Tom Heinsohn, Sam Jones and Havlicek in the All-Star Game.
The Mavericks contest remains on hold, but its treatment of women’s surfing is having a significant impact. When the California State Assembly introduced a bill this week that would require equal prize money “for all athletes competing on state property used for recreation,” it was a direct result of the World Surf League’s decision not only to include women in this year’s Mavericks event, but to offer equal prize money throughout its global surfing tours. It was a California State Lands Commission ruling last year, requiring such equality in order for the WSL to secure a Mavericks permit, that spurred the change. “It’s going to reach the point where women get paid equally in every sport,” said San Francisco’s Bianca Valenti, a Mavericks surfer who heads up the Committee For Equity in Women’s surfing and spent years lobbying for state and local agencies to insist on gender equality in the contest. “This really validates all the work we’ve put in.”