After a lockout that went on way too long, baseball is back. There are some changes in the game and I’m going through some of them from worst (DH in the NL) to best (no more runner on second base to start extra innings).
The DH will be used in the NL. I hate this so very much. I want to boo the DH every time I go to a game in an NL stadium (including the Dodgers’ DH). The American League game was so much less interesting than the NL game. And the DH benefits the Dodgers because they have so much talent, but I don’t care. They will get 20-40 home runs from their designated hitters this year and they will not be interesting. Joe DiMaggio said, “You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.” I was there on Opening Day in 2013 when something wonderful did happen when Clayton Kershaw hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. The Dodgers scored three more runs and Kershaw finished off the shutout. It was amazing.
Hyun-Jin Ryu’s home run in 2019 was another example of how awesome it was when a pitcher did something at the plate. And now we will never have moments like that again.
I did some googling back in February to find an email address for Rob Manfred and found rob.manfred@mlb.com and tried it. I got a response from Manfred@mlb.com:
First of all, Rob Manfred needed to have better things to be doing in February when the lockout was going on than responding to my email. Second of all, the idea that he needed to include the DH in the NL to get a deal done was absurd. Manfred just gave that to them. There was no attempt to get a deal without the DH. If he had just said we’re not having the DH in the NL, that was not going to be the reason the players wouldn’t agree to a deal.
Yes, most pitchers are bad hitters. I don’t care. That’s what makes the rare home run or extra base hit by a pitcher awesome. And I like that managers have to deal with the pitcher’s spot in the lineup. You mess up a double switch and it could cost you a game. Now they don’t have to think about that anymore. Using the logic of the DH, why not just have nine players in the field and nine different players hit? Of course, that would be a terrible idea also. Playing baseball like football would make it less interesting. Playing football like baseball would make football more interesting. Peyton Manning would be a bad defensive player, but it would be a more interesting game if he had to play defense. And what if you lost a player for the rest of the game once you took him out? That would be more interesting, but there are legitimate reasons not to play football that way since it’s a much more violent game. There is no legitimate reason for the DH. There’s no rule that pitchers can’t be good hitters. I guess Shohei Otani has to be my new favorite non-Dodger. We’ll get to him. I was thinking about what games I would watch on Opening Day and how I would just default to NL games because they’re more interesting than AL games, but now they’re going to be the same anyway with the DH.
The runner on second base to start extra innings is back. I hate this slightly less than I hate the DH. If I go to any non-Dodger games that go into extra innings this year, I’m leaving after nine. The people who defend this rule say that they don’t want games going 18 innings. First of all, that is a complete straw man argument as that is so rare. Second of all, when that does happen, it’s amazing. Who are these people that want great games to end? I remember the Mets and Cardinals going 20 innings in 2010. When there’s a game like that and I don’t care who wins, I’m disappointed when it does end. Now I’m just disappointed if a game goes to extra innings. Supposedly this rule is just going to be for this year, but I don’t trust Manfred at all. Like the DH, there was absolutely no reason for this. They literally made a deal that didn’t include this (and that was what I was most looking forward to this year) and then they decided to do this again this season. I despise Manfred so much.
As much as I hate this rule, I heard Bill SImmons on a podcast come up with three ideas that were even worse. First was ties after 12 innings. What is this, tee-ball? The second idea was having all nine hitters bat for both teams in the 10th inning. So your team could make seven outs or something. People complain about games being too long, but he wanted to guarantee at least 10 batters in extra innings (if the home team managed to not allow a run and then hit a lead off home run) and quite possibly have 18. That made absolutely no sense. And the third idea was that a team could win without scoring a run. Like if the home team didn’t allow a baserunner in the top of the tenth, all they needed to do to win was get somebody on first base. If the road team didn’t score and stranded a runner on second, the home team would win by getting a runner to third. When you can come up with three ideas even worse than one of Rob Manfred’s terrible ideas, that’s impressive.
They’re changing the schedule after this season. Starting next season, each team will play the other 29 teams. The right way to go here was less interleague play, not more (you would need to expand to have an even number of teams in both leagues, but they can’t do that until they figure out what’s going to happen with the Rays and A’s). I would much rather see the Dodgers play NL West teams (or NL teams in the other divisions) than see them play the Cleveland Guardians or any other AL team. Right now each team plays 20 interleague games. I don’t think they’ve given details on this, but my guess is that it will be 46 next year. Each team would have one team in the other league that they play four games (the Dodgers and Angels would play two in Los Angeles and two in Anaheim since the Angels play in Anaheim, not Los Angeles). Then you play three games against every other team in the opposite league. Then you play each team in the other divisions in your league six times each (60 games). That would leave 56 games to play against the teams in your division. You would play each division opponent 14 times (instead of the current 19 games). I fear that this is a precursor to radical realignment. I saw one plan on the internet with the Dodgers in the NL and the Cardinals in the AL. Those are the two best franchises in the history of the NL. Don’t put one of them in the AL. Also, it had the Cubs still in the NL so it would be splitting up the Cubs and Cardinals, which is also stupid. But I could totally see it coming.
The All Star Game would have a home run derby instead of extra innings. We have a home run derby the night before. Play real baseball. Of course these days, managers want to put every single player into the game. I had the solution to this. Some players should be designated as extra innings players. They could only get into the game if it goes into extra innings.
There are new places where games are going to air. Notre Dame fans hated having a game on Peacock and now there will be baseball games exclusively on Peacock. There will be games on Apple TV+ (which is supposedly going to be free). Why are they making it harder for people to figure out how to watch the games?
Players can now be the pitcher and the DH. Before this year, the Angels would choose not to use the DH if Otani was pitching, but then when he left the game, they had the pitcher’s spot in the lineup rather than the DH. It doesn’t make sense to punish them for having Otani hit when he’s pitching so now he can leave the game as the pitcher and still be the DH. While I acknowledge that the old way isn’t fair, they went the wrong way to fix it. If we’re going to have the DH (gross), a better way to go would be tying the DH to the starting pitcher. If you take out your starting pitcher, you lose the DH and the pitcher gets put into that spot in the lineup. And then the DH would actually do something to help improve the game. It would encourage teams to keep their starting pitcher in longer. The opener would forever be killed if you did this. Nobody is going to intentionally have a starting pitcher go one inning and then not have the DH for the rest of the game. There is one problem here is that if you don’t write that rule correctly, it gives the road team the advantage. The road team could have their DH hit in the top of the sixth and then take him out the starting pitcher in the bottom of the sixth. The home team would need their pitcher to finish the top of the sixth for the DH to hit in the bottom of the sixth. The way to fix that would be that for the DH to hit, the starting pitcher has to face a minimum of three batters in an inning. So if the road team has the DH hit, the starter has to go out and face at least three batters in the bottom of the inning. If the home team takes out the starting pitcher after he gets one out and walks two guys in the top of the inning, the DH could still hit in the bottom of the inning. Then there’s no advantage for the road team.
Rosters will have 28 players until May. I don’t care about this too much, but I’m really not looking forward to starting pitchers going an average of three and two-thirds innings (that might be optimistic) because of the short spring training and huge bullpens. The Dodgers are starting the season with 12 position players and 16 pitchers. That just sounds terrible.
Playoffs are expanding to 12 teams and the first round will be best of three. I’d say that I’m slightly positive on this one. They will also use tiebreakers from now on so we won’t get anymore Game 163’s. That’s the bad news. A Game 163 was fair (and awesome) when two teams were tied after 162. But I get it. With that many teams in the playoffs and with a best of three first round instead of a one game wild card round, it makes sense to use tiebreakers. A Game 163 for two teams who were tied was awesome, but the Dodgers having to play what was essentially the same as a Game 163 last year against a team that finished 16 games behind them was not an enjoyable experience (fortunately they won in awesome fashion). I’m glad they settled on six teams from each league and not seven. If you’re the seventh best team in the league, you have no business having a shot at a championship. You really don’t deserve it if you’re the sixth best team either, but I’m okay with it because it’s a way to give an added advantage to the second best team in the league. If we had the same standings as last year, this is what it would look like:
1. Giants 107-55
2. Brewers 95-67
3. Braves 88-73
4. Dodgers 106-56
5. Cardinals 90-72
6. Reds 83-79
I would make two changes. First, I would not give the three division winners the top three seeds automatically. I would say the top two seeds (the teams that get the byes) should go to the best division winners. After that, everybody is just seeded based on record. Why do they get an advantage over the Dodgers for winning a terrible division? Under my system, this is what it would look like:
1. Giants 107-55
2. Brewers 95-67
3. Dodgers 106-56
4. Cardinals 90-72
5. Braves 88-73
6. Reds 83-79
And the second change would be that they should absolutely reseed after the first round. The Giants’ reward for having the best record in the league was playing the Dodgers in their first playoff series. I don’t feel bad for them because I hate the Giants and it was awesome when the Dodgers won, but it made no sense that they had to play the Dodgers before the NLCS. Under the current system, the Giants would be guaranteed to play the team with the second or fourth best record and the Brewers would be guaranteed to play the team with the fifth or sixth best record, which makes no sense. That could have been avoided by making the Dodgers the three seed and/or by reseeding for the second round. If the Reds pulled off an upset in the first round, the Giants should get rewarded by playing them rather than a team like the Dodgers in the next round. Under my system, the Giants would have played the team with the fourth, fifth, or sixth best record and the Brewers would have played the team with the second, fourth, or fifth best record.
Seven-inning games in doubleheaders are gone. This was supposed to be half of the good news when they settled the lockout and were returning to real baseball. Of course, the other half was not having the runner on second base to start extra innings. Instead they changed their minds and brought back the much worse rule of the two. I’m happy that we’re back to nine-inning games in doubleheaders, but I was not nearly as offended by seven-inning games as I was by the DH or the runner on second in extra innings. Why? Because you can have games that are shorter than nine innings. If the home team has the lead after four and a half and then a storm comes, that’s the game. And as long as it’s a true doubleheader, fans were getting 14 innings for the price of nine. But there were some instances last year of split doubleheaders with separate admissions. Fans were getting seven innings for the price of nine. That was wrong.
Possible changes for next season include a pitch clock, bigger bases, and banning the shift. I’m fine with a pitch clock, but I’m not convinced that it’s going to make a difference. As for bigger bases, if they just did this and didn’t say anything, most people probably wouldn’t notice so whatever. If it led to more stolen bases (since the bases are slightly closer together), that would be a good thing. And they definitely should do something about the shift. There should be two infielders on both sides of second base and they shouldn’t be on the outfield grass. That would encourage more balls in play and third basemen would be required to, you know, play third base instead of short right field. If they were getting rid of the shift this year, that would have been my favorite change.
So yeah, on the whole, I’m not excited about the changes in baseball. Can we just make Derek Jeter the commissioner? He has to be better than Rob Manfred, right? Anyway, I already have tickets for Dodgers-Mets in August. I’m hoping to get out to Los Angeles at some point this summer. Ideally I’ll get to see the Dodgers in at least one more city and get to a Rangers game in Texas since that’s the only current stadium I haven’t been to and that’s where the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020. Hopefully there will be some minor league games somewhere along the way. For now I’m looking forward to drinking some Sam Adams Summer Ale and watching baseball on TV. Hopefully the season will end with some Summer Ale (if you know me well, you know that I will absolutely still be drinking Summer Ale in late October and early November) and Octoberfest to celebrate the Dodgers winning the World Series this year.
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