The Blast Bonus and Other Ways to Build Baseball Back Better

Back in 2015 I wrote a Media Rant called "Sports Journalism Sucks." Somehow in seven years since it's actually gotten suckier. Proof? Talk to people who rely on mainstream media for news and ask them what the major league baseball lockout is all about. The honest among them will say something like, "I don't have a fucking clue." The rest will repeat back mainstream media clichés: "it's a pissing contest between greedy players and greedy owners," "no one cares about the fans," "I don't know but I will be pissed off if they delay opening day," etc. 

The best piece I've seen on the lockout is by ESPN's Jeff Passan. He writes: "Major League Baseball is in a crisis of its own making, a self-inflicted wound borne of equal parts hubris, short-sightedness and stubbornness from a class of owners who run the teams and seemingly have designs on running the game into the ground." That baseball finds itself in this position, according to Passan, "is no accident. It is a study in the consequences of bad behavior -- of indignities big and small, of abiding by the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit and, worst of all, of alienating those who make the sport great . . . The players are angry at the trajectory of the negotiations, which have inched along for almost a year with little demonstrable progress. More than that, they're tired of the game they love saying, in ways both active and passive, it does not love them back."  (Listen to an interview with Jeff Passan HERE.). 

Team owners locked out the players on December 2, 2021. As of 3/1/22 the lockout is the second longest in baseball history, surpassed only by the strike year of 1994/95. As of this writing, the League has set a deadline of 5 p.m. on March 1st for a deal to be reached in order to avoid canceling regular season games. 

The issues dividing the owners and the players are no doubt difficult. Amateur draft lotteries, competitive balance tax thresholds, service time manipulation, salary arbitration eligibility, revenue sharing, bonus pools, intentional tanking, minimum salary, and others are not easy to explain in two minute television and radio packages. But the failure to cover such issues adequately allows most team owners to remain virtually anonymous even as they wield monopoly power giving them significant advantages in talks with the players' union. 

Regardless of how the negotiations end, we know that team owners will continue to amass huge profits. Minor league players, who are among the most exploited workers in the country, will continue to be treated like crap. The shameful exploitation of players in Latin American baseball "academies" will remain invisible and get worse. And to add insult to injury, in 2022 we will probably see commercial advertising on major league team jerseys. That will only add to the owners' bottom line at the same time they continue to price out the average fans. 

Baseball needs to build back better. 

The moral shortcomings of MLB are inexcusable in any context, but they get magnified when you consider the fact that the modern game just isn't very exciting. As noted by Jeff Passan, "There is ample room for improvement to the sport itself, which has grown too plodding for a wide swath of young, would-be fans who regard it as slow and boring." Offense-crippling shifts, high strikeout rates, unlimited pitching changes, interminable instant replay decisions, and other factors have conspired to make the 21st century game a bore. If I were the baseball commissioner, an owner, or a players' union rep, here are ten reforms I'd advocate for: 

1. Ban The Infield Shift:  Imagine a player spending his formative years mastering the third base position, only to find out that when he gets to the major leagues he'll move to short right field whenever a lefty power hitter comes up. The extreme shifts not only make a mockery of the spirit of the game, but they also wreck careers. Phillies' slugger Ryan Howard had his career derailed by the shift, as did the Reds' Jay Bruce and many others. 

Here's an example of what has become a typical shift in MLB. With a left-handed power hitter at the plate, literally the entire defense except the left fielder is on the right side of second base

Last year Tom Verducci wrote about Jay Bruce as a representative anecdote of shift madness in a great piece for Sports Illustrated. He concluded, "Seven years of evidence is enough. The shift is harming baseball and must go. The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. It is too late for Bruce, but not for the next generation of hitters—and fans."

2. Three Foul Balls After Two Strikes And You're Out: Since ending the infield shift would help batters, we have to do something to help the pitchers too. Under the current rules, if a batter bunts the ball foul with two strikes, he's out. Most batters do not bunt with two strikes, and very frequently they hit numerous foul balls before getting a hit, striking out, or walking. This drives up the pitcher's pitch count and makes a pitching change more likely. 

After two strikes, I would allow the batter two more foul balls. On the third foul ball, he's out. This would not only reduce pitch counts and help minimize bullpen usage, but it would also speed up the game. I mean is anyone really impressed by at-bats of eight or more pitches? In 2018 the Giants' Brandon Belt had a 21-pitch at-bat (including 16 foul balls) that ended in a fly-out. Belt's at-bat was a little over 13-minutes long, roughly the same length as Iron Maiden's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." If I'm going to suffer through a headbangable 13-minutes, I'd rather that it be with Iron Maiden. 

Increase Roster Size to 30:  The 25-man (now 26) roster has been one of those sacred cows in baseball for decades. The 25-man roster probably made sense when there were far fewer teams and much less travel. Today, the 162-game schedule is grueling, and with teams carrying so many pitchers there just are not enough position players on the bench. I think a 30-man roster would extend the careers of some of the games stars by making it easier to give them days off. Just as important, an expanded roster would allow players trapped in the minor leagues to get a shot at big league playing time. Yes it would cost the owners more money, but that's always the weakest argument against reform. 

4. Tie After Ten Innings: The last two years MLB experimented with placing a "ghost runner" on second base during extra innings in an attempt to increase the chances that games would end at a reasonable time. I'm not a fan of the ghost runner (it seems a bit too little leagueish), but I also don't find anything particularly appealing about 12, 13, or 14 inning games. I suggest that during the regular season MLB add a Tie column to the standings. All games would go a maximum of 10 innings. If there is no winner after 10 innings, the game is officially in the record books as a tie. Shorter games protect the health of the position players, and the modern fan really is not all that impressed by games that don't get settled until midnight or later. The tie provision would be suspended in the postseason playoffs and World Series so that no more than 5 or 7 games would have to be played in any round. 

5. Universal Designated Hitter: The National League has steadfastly refused to adopt the designated hitter even though we have the absurd situation of pitchers who have not hit since high school having to go up to the plate against people throwing 98-mile-per-hour fastballs. It does look like the Universal DH will in fact be tried out in 2022, so at least one item on this list will become reality! 

6. Position Player Designated Hitter: When the American League incorporated the Designated Hitter in the 1970s, one of the major reasons was to bring more offense to the game. All these years later, offense is once again in need of a boost. I suggest that in addition to having the standard DH in their lineup, each team also be allowed to have one Position Player Designated Hitter (PPDH).  Suppose, for example, the Yankees conclude that catcher Gary Sanchez's defense is hurting them behind the plate. Under the PPDH rule, they could have backup catcher Kyle Higashioka play the field while Sanchez would be the PPDH. The PPDH would not have to play the same position as the person he is PPDHing for. (For example, the Yankees could have Higashioka catch and make Aaron Judge the PPDH).  

I know that the PPDH sounds radical, but so did the DH rule back in the day. The PPDH would not only enhance offense, but it would also extend the careers of the star players. Players would be able to get breaks from playing defense without having to give up their bat. 

7.  The Save Goes to the Highest Leverage Reliever:  Imagine this scenario. A relief pitcher comes into the game in the 8th inning with a one run lead. He faces the heart of the opposing team's lineup, gets out of the inning and keeps the lead. Then in the 9th inning a new pitcher comes in (the "closer"), faces the weakest part of the opposing team's lineup and gets the three outs necessary to win the game for his team. Under the current rules, the closer gets the "save" while the 8th inning guy only gets a "hold."  But who really saved that game? The 8th inning guy who faced the heart of the lineup or the closer who faced the inferior bats? 

My suggestion is to allow the official scorer of the game to decide who gets the save. The official scorer should make his/her decision based on a judgement of which pitcher faced the most high leverage situation. It might turn out, for example, that a relief pitcher who came in  the game in the 6th inning with the bases loaded, no outs and two runs already in deserved the save if he shut the door on any more runs. This reform suggestion would be great for middle-relief pitchers who never get treated well in contract negotiations because they don't have the prestigious "save" label in their stats. 

8. Four Pitcher Maximum: The growth of the relief "specialist" (i.e. the guy who comes in to throw one inning) has increased the number of pitchers per game. As a consequence, we've seen longer games, more strikeouts, and reduced offense. Excessive pitching changes added to the extreme shifts in the field are probably the two factors most responsible for making the game as boring as it is today. 

In 2019 Nate Silver of 538.com wrote a great piece on how "relievers have broken baseball." From the piece comes this chart showing how much the number of pitchers per game has increased over the years

My suggestion is to limit each team to a maximum of four pitchers per game. If a team chooses to use more than 4 pitchers, the opposing team would get 1 run for each additional pitcher. So if a team uses 6 pitchers, they are giving up 2 runs. The four pitcher maximum rule would result in starting pitchers going deeper into games, and would also revive the lost art of middle relief pitching (i.e. the guy who comes in to the game and pitches 3-4 innings). Fewer pitchers would also speed up the game. 

9. Instant Replay Reform: For me, one of the real charms of baseball "back in the day" were the arguments between managers and umpires. Managerial giants like Earl Weaver, Leo Durocher, Billy Martin, and Lou Piniella became famous for their antics. Instant replay has eliminated most of that. Call me old-fashioned, but I would much rather watch Billy Martin kick dirt on an umpire than watch two headphone-clad umpires for two minutes as they await the replay call from a New York studio. It's also not clear that instant replay has had much impact on the overall won-loss records of teams. Without instant replay, each team probably benefits from blown calls as much as they suffer from them; it's a wash. 

Instead of banning instant replay, I would limit it to high stakes calls occurring in the 7th inning or later. By "high stakes" I mean a call that resulted in a lead change. So if it's the bottom of the 8th inning at Fenway Park and J.D. Martinez is called safe at home on a questionable call to give the Red Sox the lead over the Yankees, then that would be a perfectly appropriate use of instant replay. For innings before the 7th, let's give the game back to the umpires and hopefully see a return of the colorful managers. 

10. The Blast Bonus: In baseball, the "tape measure" home run is worth same number of runs as the "cheapie" that barely gets over the fence. Maybe it's time to change that. My proposal is that if the projected home run distance of a ball is 450 feet or greater, the hitter's team would get a "blast bonus" of an additional run. At the end of the season, the player responsible for getting his team the most Blast Bonuses would receive the "Mantle" award for his efforts. (Mickey Mantle of the New  York Yankees hit the first home run that was called a tape measure.) 

I think the Blast Bonus, like the previous suggestions, would add an element of fun to the game that is missing in the current version. Major League Baseball cannot truly build back better until it's rescued from the clutches of greedy owners and the league officials that enable them. But until that happens, can't we at least make the game fun again?