Front Page: Quick Hitter: New Rules for 2020

[lecroy24fan]

Regarding the change to a 28 man roster, I found this from MLB Trade Rumors in March saying it is a 28 maximum, so you cannot go up to 40. Also mentions a possible maximum pitchers being half the roster, which would be 13 as I was thinking.

 

 

 

Effective Beginning in 2020

The standard roster size in regular season games and postseason games will increase from 25 to 26 players. Beginning on Sept. 1, roster size will expand further to a 28-player maximum (as opposed to the current 40). A maximum number of pitchers will be designated by the Joint Committee. (Passan reported that the league has proposed no more than half a team’s players can be pitchers.)

Edited November 16, 2019 by lecroy24fan

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

As I understand it, there is no limit to how many players you have in the dugout, just how many are available to be used.  For example, when a player gets hurt, he is free to sit in the dugout during the game even if he is on the IL.  If indeed in September you can change your 28-man roster without needing to option players, the 12 players not on the "active roster" will likely just sit in the bullpen/dugout.  As other posters have pointed out, if this is the case, all 4 starters not scheduled that day will be deactivated, meaning it's not really a 28 man active roster, it is a 32 man roster (with only 1 starter active, each team can have a mix of 27 relievers/position players).

 

There is no limit to how many people you have in the dugout, but as you note there is a limit to the active roster size. And in order to have a "daily active 28" in September from among the whole 40-man roster, you'd need a pretty big change to the rules -- allowing teams to call up players, but not put them on the active roster. That's not currently allowed, and it could affect options, service time, benefits, postseason eligibility, etc.

 

I'm not so sure that's part of the deal here, but official details have been scant so far.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Great rule change on upping the number of batters to 3. That in fact will certainly improve pace of play more than anything that's been done so far.

Well, just about anything could improve the pace more than the pointless "mound visit limits" or "automatic intentional walks", so that's a pretty low bar.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Do we have any numbers on which teams used relievers the most for less than three batters and didn't finish the inning?

I haven't seen a team breakdown, but this article listed some league-wide numbers:

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/how-3-batter-minimum-will-change-baseball

 

 

 

How much will this actually change things?

We need to split this up into "relief appearances of zero, one, or two batters where the inning is ended," thus freeing the reliever from the requirement to stay in, and "where the inning is not ended," because that's now important. If we look back at the last 20 seasons, we can see that the number of relief appearances that don't stretch to three batters has increased markedly ... but the number of appearances where a pitcher did that and didn't get to the end of the inning hasn't.

Basically, we're looking at about 800 or so of these soon-to-be-banned relief appearances each year, plus a small impact to the length of "opener" appearances, because we're looking just at relievers for this data. While that hasn't changed appreciably over time, it's still notable. There are 26 weeks in a Major League Baseball season, and we saw 779 of these appearances in 2018. That's about 28 times per week, or roughly one per team per week.

(emphasis mine)

 

In terms of pace / time of game, I think this is closer in effect to the automatic intentional walk and mound visit limits than people think. MLB has yet to address the elephant in the room, which is all of the extra idle time between pitches.

[Cap'n Piranha]

 

There is no limit to how many people you have in the dugout, but as you note there is a limit to the active roster size. And in order to have a "daily active 28" in September from among the whole 40-man roster, you'd need a pretty big change to the rules -- allowing teams to call up players, but not put them on the active roster. That's not currently allowed, and it could affect options, service time, benefits, postseason eligibility, etc.

 

I'm not so sure that's part of the deal here, but official details have been scant so far.

 

Right, this is total speculation at this point.  Either the active roster will be the same as the 40 man roster, or it won't.  UP until this point, in September, the 40 man and the active roster have been the same thing, so the only question will be if this rule is a "Game Day" rule, wherein 12 players need to be "healthy scratches", or if it will be a true reduction to 28, requiring roster moves in order to change the active roster.

 

If it is the latter, the other question will be if there is a relaxing of transaction requirements; for example, if a player is removed from the 28 man, but not the 40 man, does he need to spend 15 days not ont he 28 man roster (other than due to injury), or can he be reinstated sooner?  It obviously can't be for the very next game, otherwise it's the same as doing "healthy scratches", but perhaps it would be reduced to 5-10 days, or maybe even allowed to reset for every new series.  It will be interesting to see! 

[jkcarew]

 

I haven't seen a team breakdown, but this article listed some league-wide numbers:

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/how-3-batter-minimum-will-change-baseball

 

(emphasis mine)

 

In terms of pace / time of game, I think this is closer in effect to the automatic intentional walk and mound visit limits than people think. MLB has yet to address the elephant in the room, which is all of the extra idle time between pitches.

Agree...don't think this will have much impact at all on average game length. The biggest opportunity, by far, is figuring out how 300+ pitches can be delivered in less time. Although, I'd like to see some thought/discussion...even trials...go toward figuring out how 9-inning games can average something less than 300 pitches, as well. But, that's a tougher solve...with a relatively small (vs time between pitches) payoff.