THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

>“All contracts for old players should be incentive based.”

As I understand it, the only incentives allowed are for playing time.  Would you favor loosening the rules so players can sign contracts that pay them based on their production?

>“One pickoff throw per runner per inning.”

My feeling is that one pickoff throw might not be enough.  How about: if the runner has to dive back into first base, you get another one?  Or, if the runner takes off on a (non 3-2) foul ball, you get another one?  Or have a line two steps off first base, and if the runner crosses it, you get another one?  Or: every pickoff throw after one counts as a ball?

I just don’t want to see the runner get too much of an advantage.

>“… marketers from tobacco ...”

I don’t think the marketers from tobacco are necessarily good at appealing to kids.  Tobacco is appealing to kids for reasons of kid culture.  I’m sure marketing could help, but I think tobacco companies are so limited these days that they expertise is very niche: how to stealthily market tobacco to kids when doing so is illegal, when kid smoking is illegal, and when millions of eyes are on them. 

But I agree with you about family outings.  If you want adult baseball fans, you gotta hook ‘em as kids.

One pickoff throw per inning is basically giving the runner the next base if your throw fails, right?

Regarding the bean balls, I’d be more strict.  If you throw at anyone intentionally, anywhere, I’d boot you from the game.  Not that he was intentionally hit, but how much do you think Nomar getting hit on the wrist cost him?  $50 million?  Hall of Fame?  I honestly think so.  And for someone who intentionally throws at a batter’s head, I’d suspend them for a month.  Minimum.

Phil, someone mentioned here a few months ago that incentives were only playing-time based (may have been you, I forget).  Schilling’s contract has both a weight clause, and a Cy Young vote clause.  Maybe these are both in there via some roundabout loophole, but those seem like incentives to me.

Just doing based on innings played is fine by me for incentives.

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Putting a line on the field for the runner to cross as carte blanche (ligne blanche!) for the pitcher is a GREAT idea.  I remember Raines would take a huge lead, and it would be when his foot would be on the turf, basically daring the pitcher to pick him off.  I love the line idea, as it’s like dropping the gauntlet. 

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I’d bet all the cartoon characters that tobacco companies created decades ago were not done to appeal to the construction workers.

There are two aspects: intentional and reckless. Throwing a pitch at or near someone’s head is reckless, and grounds for ejection.

Proving a hit pitch is intentional is something else (be it at head or not).  If it’s obvious, the umpire will give an automatic ejection, and the league can further suspend him.

I’d definitely like to see fewer throws to first. Maybe you could charge a ball for each throw over after the first one. I’m not sure what the effect would be, though, since base-stealing percentages are at all-time highs with unlimited throw-overs.

I’d like to see rules to:

-- Reduce mid-inning pitcher changes. You could require that a pitcher face two batters or record two outs before being replaced. Call it the no-more-LOOGYs-rule.

-- Add to the cost of an intentional walk. Perhaps you could require a pitcher to throw a strike before issuing one. Not sure how you would design a good rule for this.

-- Penalize batters whose bats break and fly onto the field.

-- Turn the draft into an auction somehow, although it would be extremely difficult to do.

I don’t like the idea of punishing a player for his bat breaking.  It’s not something he can prevent.

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I don’t mind the pitcher being replaced mid-inning.  Otherwise, you have to have a “health exception”, and that’s rife for abuse.

What the NHL did to combat this issue with goalies switching (they used it as a way to buy some time) is no warmups.  So, the goalie has to go in there cold. 

If you want to bring in a pitcher, he can’t warm up on the mound (only in the bullpen), just throw it right in there.  Allow the warmup for one pitcher mid-inning, but not subsequent pitchers.  I like your idea of having to face multiple batters, and so, if a mid-inning pitcher faces at least three batters, the next same-inning pitcher does get his warmups.

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The extra throw to 1B for the pickoffs I would prefer to see it as an automatic ball for the batter (equivalent to a pitchout), rather than treat it like a balk.

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The intentional walk, or more precisely, the 4-pitch walk (4-0), could come with more penalties. 

You can make it so that the baserunner at 2b moves to 3b.  This way, the manager has to choose whether he wants Pujols at bat, with a runner on 2B, or the next batter at bat, with Pujols at 1B and a runner on 3B.

If there’s only a runner on 3B, Pujols gets to 2B.

Basically, it’s a two-base penalty, with either the batter moving 2 bases, or the batter getting one, and a runner getting 1.

A 4-0 walk with runners on 2B and 3B scores the runner and puts Pujols on 1B.

By the way, 4-0 walks on Vlad should be banned.  The guy is there representin’.  He’s willing to swing at pitches outside the strikezone.  “Guys, if you promise not to walk me, I’ll promise to swing at anything close, and then some.” For a pitcher to STILL throw him 4-0 means that he is a big p-ssy in the fans’ eyes.

Rule Changes:

Pitching changes are conducted by the manager telling the umpire, which starts a clock for the next pitcher to be ready to pitch.  Managers are allowed 3 non-injury related time-outs (of a set length) to go onto the field to talk to their pitchers/other players, or to argue with an umpire.  Otherwise, the manager and pitching coach stays off the field.

Teams are limited to a 25-man roster for each game in Sept (the roster can change from game-to-game).  It’s a minor thing, but I don’t see the point of giving manager basically unlimited choices for any situation.  Let them pick (usually) an extra infielder, outfielder, catcher and pitcher and go play that days game.  Having unlimited choices is too much for a lot of managers, and it can make those games drag out.

Going back to the IBB, think about this: they are not necessarily trying to IBB Pujols, but he still has them at 3-0.  Normally, he’d take the next pitch.  But, he knows that if they get him to 3-1, then the IBB is a normal walk, rather than the 2-base walk the 4-0 is.  All of a sudden, a 3-0 count will no longer be an automatic take.  The batter has to start swinging because the pitcher will have even more incentive to throw it down the middle.  But, if the batter swings too often (and hits it hard), then the 4-0 count might become more appealing.  Ideally, the pitcher would want the 3-0 count to be followed with a foul strike.  I think it’d be a rather fascinating change in approach to hitting at 3-0.

I think the batter does have some control over whether the bat breaks—the bats are essentially designed to do that because of the effort to get more power at the bat head. We’ve already had one player injured by a flying bat piece.

As far as replacing a pitcher mid-inning, you could specify that the pitcher being replaced couldn’t pitch for the next three games. Or you could allow one mid-inning pitcher change per game, with a penalty for a second mid-inning change. Or something.

I just like to see the game move—pitchers should throw to the hitters, and the batters should get in and hit. Intentional walks, throws to first and mid-inning pitcher changes may be good strategy, but they don’t make the game more fun to watch or think about.

I like the penalty idea.  The first mid-inning pitching change in the game is a freebie.  The next mid-inning change (same inning or otherwise) gets the batter to 1-0.  The next mid-inning change puts the batter at 2-0 (which is enormous, as it turns a league average hitter into Pujols).  All subsequent mid-inning changes puts the batter at 3-0.  (You’d basically accept doing this if you intended to walk the batter anyway.)

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If the control of the batter breaking the bat is based on how much effort he exerts, I definitely don’t want to penalize for effort!  You’re saying he should swing too hard.  I’m sticking to my guns here.

Craig: an ever-changing 25-man roster is fine by me.  That’s what the NHL does, as each team has 23 players plus injuries, and each game, the team designates its “scratches” for that day so that they can ice 20 players.

Really, why doesn’t each league look to the other leagues in this country (and world) and see what works, and what they can apply.

To speed up the game, I wish there was a rule that prevented the batter from leaving the batter’s box in between pitches unless he swung or had to avoid getting hit by the pitch, etc. 

A similar rule could apply to the pitcher leaving the mound.

In baseball there would be no difference between an ever-changing 25 man roster and a 29 man roster.  On any given day I can tell you exactly who will not be on the daily 25: the 4 starting pitchers who aren’t starting today.

It might bring back platooning a bit, but more likely we’d just see even more pitching changes.

Not if we control pitching changes as we’ve described, meaning they’d mostly come in to start an inning.

And the ever-changing 25-man roster would only be in September.

As far as the IBB, why increase the penalty, when the IBB is already, on balance, either neutral or a plus for the team being IBBd.

How ‘bout NO pickoff attempts to 1st, and the runner must keep his foot on the bag until some certain moment in the pitcher’s delivery.

As far as hit batsmen, I’m all for having stronger disincentives for the pitcher to throw at a batter, but it should work both ways. A batter should not be able to try to get hit. The pitch he gets hit by must be X distance out of the K zone.

And move the fences back, so most of the best hitters are not simply HR hitters. I’d really prefer it if the best offensive players were not primarily R Howard, P Fielder, D Ortiz types…

One change I’ve wondered about is 4 strikes for an out, with 2 strike fouls counting as strikes. The main idea is, having a definite endpoint or final pitch for an at-bat ups the drama, and doesn’t let it drag on. Whether the extra strike impact would be balanced by the new foul rule I’m not sure--someone could run a simulation to see.

The IBB rule is for the benefit of the fan, not the team.  The fan wants to see Bonds, Pujols, Vlad hit, not walk.  Whatever incentive you can make for that to happen, while keeping their value, is good.

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The “stick to 1B” is common in little league.  I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that either, but I like the “ligne blanche” rule.

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Agreed on the hit batsman.  Ideally, you would enforce a batting box rule to support that.

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Agreed on the fences back.  You and I are probably a product of the 80s.

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I actually like the two-strike foul rule.

As far as the IBB, why increase the penalty, when the IBB is already, on balance, either neutral or a plus for the team being IBBd.

Because it’s more fun to watch good hitters hit than to watch them get walked. Because if I paid 20 bucks for a ticket (or if I just decided to watch on TV) and there’s a chance to watch Billy Wagner face Albert Pujols with the game on the line, I don’t want the Mets to duck it.

Watching an intentional walk is the equivalent of watching the Tar Heels go into the four corners back when they could do that. Yuck.

As to the IBB, the problem is that if you increase the penalty, the pitcher will simply not do the IBB thing but instead throw 4 pitches in the dirt (or whatever). So, you would have to increase the penalty for all walks, which I wouldn’t want to see. If someone can figure out a good practical way around this, I’m willing to listen.

As far as liking 2 strike fouls---think about how much you might like a “final” pitch, if the at-bat goes that far. An out or an on base event (with an avg swing of, say, .9 runs) is going to happen NOW.

I’d be willing to consider any four-pitch walk with runners on base and first base open intentional. I’d be willing to allow a team to reject a four-pitch walk and restart the at-bat, too. Not sure how practical that would be.

When was the last time baseball made a rules change that seriously affected game play or strategy? The DH, maybe?

1. Salary cap and floor.  Penalties for violating either.

2. A major league team for San Francisco.  When will they ever get one?

vr, Xei

David, I’ve been calling it a 4-0 count, rather than “intentional”.  I don’t care about the intent, just the outcome.  Any 4-0 plate appearance results in the two-base penalty I’ve described.

I definitely don’t want to “reset” the PA back to 0-0.  A two-base penalty will be quite unsettling.

I’d be fine with a two-base penalty—you could also allow the next batter to go to first base, although I guess that would be three bases.

Just looking at 2007 AL, the intentional walk was most likely to be given with runners on second and third—almost 9 percent of the PAs. A two-base penalty with a run scoring would eliminate roughly all of those, I think.

I just want the pitcher to throw one strike. One. Is that asking too much?

I live in Korea. The games move along quite nicely except for the pitching changes. You can change the pitcher mid inning if (a)the tying run is at the plate (b) 25 pitches that inning (to protect pitchers) (c) injury (must be put on a 10 day DL). For a and b circumstances, the new pitcher gets no warm up pitches. Also, bring the stopwatch and keep the pitchers “humming and chucking”. I hate in a 6-1 game seeing the manager with the lead pull a pitcher after a single or a double.

Instead of extra penalties for 4-0 walks why not give the batter the choice to refuse a 4-0 walk until a strike is thrown or the count reaches 6-0.  The two base penalty would incur at 6-0. The pitching team can decide to take the two base penalty and send the batter to first at any time during an at bat.  Lots of strategy involved.  The good hitters should get more chances to hit.  No extra penalty for pitchers who reach 4-0 unintentionally (happens about 400 times a year).  Plenty of drama on the 4th and 5th pitches when there is a high probability of a strike.  An opportunity to save game time with an automatic walk.  And plenty of work for sabermetricians figuring out the run values for various counts.

Oh, I like that too.  Once you get to 4-0, the batter has the choice of taking one base automatically, or allowed to, essentially, reset the count to 0-0, but now, the maximum balls allowed is 2 (instead of 4), and if the pitcher reaches it, we invoke the 2-base penalty.

I’m from Sweden and a relativly new convert to watching baseball so some of my suggestions might be naive and/or upset traditionalists.

I have no big problem with the time of the game or “pauses” (for comericial breaks) in the action caused by pitching changes on the times that I get a game live.

This is in contrast to the BFL where comericial breaks really bother me. I think this is because even though the total game time and number of comercial breaks are similiar the structure of the game means that in MLB the breaks happen in a more predictable fashion.

As for the intientional walk thing I agree that having umpires trying to deduce “intent” is a nightmare. Either apply the penalty to all 4-0 walks or limit the umpires desicion to the closeness of the balls in question. By that I mean that you could have a rule that any 4-0 walk where none (or perhaps no more than one) of the balls is a close ball is an “agravated walk” and caries extra penalties.

For the penalty itself I would suggest awarding one ball to the next batter for each open base when the aggravated walk is called. So if (for instance) you want to IBB A-rod with a man on 2nd you still can but then you might have to pitch to Giambi with a 2-0 count. This should severely discourage intentional walks.

As for what changes I would like to see myself I would like to see fielding beeing more important.

I would also like to see more balls in play at the expense of foul balls. I would prefer that any ball that hits the ground in fair territory in the infield is in play (i.e. as the outfield is today) and that any ball hit to the outfield that stays inside the side walls is considered fair.

I would also like more flexibilty in how stadiums are constructed. Some things I would like to see in some or most stadiums include inclined (sloped) outfields, longer outfield grass, more high walls á la the green monster, including non-flat ones with multifasceted surfaces.

I asked Bill James on his site about a couple of our radical ideas.

He likes the penalty rule in #11 for mid-inning relief changes.

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He also likes the two-base penalty for the 4-0 walk (bottom of post 6), but an even more radical form.  He says allow a batter to refuse any walk (4-0 or not), forcing the count to be reset.  Then, if a walk again occurs (a “double walk"), then the batter gets two bases.  Almost always, the batter, if he were to refuse, it would be on a typical IBB situation.

I like either way, and I’d have to think about it alot, and work it out, to see which I’d prefer.