THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Was baseball meant to be 9 innings?

Recap of Bill James, Poz, Costas panel, where Poz said:

“Some of the drama of the game is lost, and the length of the game just stretches out with that lack of drama. So its like alright, well, instead of seeing your starter in the eighth inning with two on, one out, is he going to get out of this? Lets go to a commercial and wait for this guy you don’t care about to come in and pitch.” - Joe Posnanski

Back in the old days, the starter would pace himself so he could go nine.  And, as relief talent started to become better, and perhaps a realization that a fresh reliever might be a better option than a starting going through the lineup a 4th time, there was a push to limit the starter from pitching through the whole 4th order.  Until gradually, we are where we are, with starters pitching to 25-27 batters per start.

The problem is that we still have 39 batters to face every game.  And while you can have one top flight reliever pitch to 4 or 5 batters, he can’t face the other 7 to 10 other batters.  And to make up for that, we have to bring in two additional relievers, over and above the ace reliever.

In short, as Poz said, you have to bring in two extra relievers that you don’t care much about to pitch to the star hitters.

Suppose that starters didn’t pace themselves in the older days, suppose that the lively ball was always around, and we had the game of today in terms of hitting, but back in 1893.  Pitchers would not want to pace themselves, and so go all out.  It would become clear that their bodies couldn’t hold up for nine innings. 

If the intent is to have your star pitcher be able to pitch as much of the game as possible, and hopefully be in a position to complete half of them, then would baseball have been 9 innings?  No, it would probably have been 7 innings.

And then today, having been brought up to baseball as a 7-inning game, the nature of the game always being 7 innings, would we then clamor for a 9-inning game, that we’d be able to sustain that by having a bevy of no-name relief pitchers to fill in the gap between the starter and ace reliever?  No, I don’t think so.

The 9-inning game is arbitary and capricious, as are most rules in most sports.  If you make it a 7-inning game instead, you remove instantly 2 relief appearances each game from the no-name group.  Then it’s a question of whether the starter will pitch that final inning, or they go to the relief ace.  Isn’t this better?

And then I’d have double-headers every Sunday too.

***

Yes, yes, yes, any rule changed proposed for baseball is stupid and silly and ridiculous and whatever other negative thought you have in your head, thoughts you would not have for all your other favorite sports, but you do for baseball, because baseball is pure, it’s your baby, etc.

Don’t repeat this in the comments.  It’s been said and you are in the far majority.