Author: Rice Cube

The Roster Check Before the Storm

The Cubs did make their transactions prior to the nontender deadline, and the 40-man roster is at 37 for the moment:

I just downloaded the image from @Cubs because who the hell knows if Twitter will die now?

As we said in prior posts and in the latest Dreamcast, there were some very obvious nontender candidates, and it wasn’t too surprising to see the three names on the announcement. As stated in Bastian’s rundown, Vizcaíno was on the restricted list and probably hates baseball now so we will see if the Cubs actually try to keep him on a cheap deal or let him go. Ortega at this point, if the Cubs know what’s good for them, is extraneous at best if they find some money in the couch cushions and actually upgrade the team. Brailyn Marquez has been broken for a while which is very unfortunate given the potential. I did forget that most of the other names who weren’t on the announcement were automatic renewal players, so there was no reason at this time for the Cubs to just let them go just yet. The Winter Meetings are during the first full week of December so barring some surprises, we likely won’t see any major deals until then, with certain names we’ve mentioned before expendable to fit the new signings on the roster. There is also time to potentially pass some guys through waivers and outright them off the roster to grab some extra space before the Rule 5 Draft, just in case.

Bubble Guys to Toss For More Space (If Needed)

I think of the remaining players, these are the ones that would be taken off the roster for upgrades but only when it comes necessary at this point:

  • Mark Leiter Jr
  • Manuel Rodriguez
  • Zach McKinstry (now that they have the redundant guys that were claimed/traded for)
  • Alfonso Rivas

Keeping in mind I’m pretty sure they can’t throw a guy onto the 60-day injured list until just before Opening Day, so the rest that I haven’t mentioned probably have to be outrighted.

Nontendered Players of Interest From Around the League

MLBTR did a good job of tallying up all the nontendered players from the AL and NL, so we’ll use those as a jumping point for some depth adds should their former teams not bother re-signing them:

From the NL list:

  • Jeff Hoffman – a former first round pick, he was actually DFA earlier so this isn’t a non-tender, just means he is potentially available; he was ok for the Reds this past season and could be an interesting bullpen pickup for the Pitch Lab
  • Jackson Stephens – nontendered by Atlanta, he’s a bit older but for whatever reason I just thought he did fairly well and so this was a tad surprising but I guess they needed the space
  • Jorge Alfaro – could probably use catching depth that isn’t PJ Higgins
  • Garrett Hampson – he can’t hit for shit, but the dude is fast and if rosters are limited to 13 position players, maybe have a guy who can back up the infield positions as well as steal a base or two?
  • Dominic Smith – he almost got some Brian Roberts level hype from certain corners of the Cubs blogosphere but he’s probably redundant given all the outfielders already locked into the roster, but he is a lefty bat with some power, at least once upon a time…
  • Cody Bellinger – this is the one everyone seems to be salivating over, we all know he’s a former MVP with lots of power if he ever figures out how to make contact again, plus he can play center field more than adequately, plus the lefty bat, so there’s a fit there if the Cubs somehow outbid every other team for a guy who the Dodgers didn’t want to pay

From the AL list:

  • Adam Engel – the former White Sox is considered a good defensive player so might work as a glove first guy on the bench, but that really depends on how many upgrades the Cubs get otherwise
  • Ryan Yarbrough – kind of meh for the Rays before they nontendered him this season, but he’s a lefty and maybe Pitch Lab can fix him?

Rule 5 Draft Preview

We saw the Cubs protect four of their top prospects in the previous check-in, but like most of MLB, they couldn’t protect everyone. The MLB.com article does a good job tallying up who was protected and who was left exposed, and there are a lot of names on the lists I simply do not know. Obviously they have at least three spots to play with, so if you guys want to take a crack at who to prioritize, that might be fun. Probably means I have to learn these prospects better whenever I have more time again.

Dreamcast 53: Ode to an Overhaul

Berselius joined me tonight to talk some Cubs free agency (or at least we fantasized about spending all the Ricketts’ money) and we also built a relatively realistic dream team should Jed Hoyer remember how to be aggressive in building a good team we actually want to watch. Hopefully some signings happen soon after the Friday nontender deadline, lest the fans riot come Cubs Convention time.

If you have a moment, please rate this thing on Apple Podcasts.

Roster Check in Advance of Rule 5 and Free Agent Additions (If Any)

Most of the stuff I was tracking was in the previous post, but the official list is out with no DFAs (yet) since the Cubs had room:

The Cubs will therefore roll the dice on the other Rule 5 eligible guys, but since most rosters are still stuffed to the gills, they’ll probably be okay for the most part. Now we just need to see if all those rumors of Carlos Correa come to fruition…

Quick Cubs Roster Check

By the time this publishes the Cubs might decide to finally designate Jason Heyward for assignment, but for now he’s safe on the 40-man roster, which will likely also be updated soon:

Per the prior status check, the roster should be at 36, but for some reason I’m counting 37, and if we remove Esteban Quiroz and Jared Young as the announcement claims, then we are at 35, not 34:

So we can wait for the transaction log to reconcile, but before Tuesday’s deadline, I think the following players will be removed so they can protect Rule 5 eligible prospects:

  • Alfonso Rivas — He unfortunately didn’t take advantage of his playing time and generally just sucked even though he seems like a nice guy
  • Jason Heyward — The Cubs have been open about eating the last year of his contract
  • Rafael Ortega — I just don’t think he has a spot on an allegedly competitive 2023 Cubs team
  • Nelson Velázquez — Same as Rivas, just didn’t take full advantage of any opportunities David Ross actually gave him

The next are maybes, because there are a lot more prospects that folks are fearing may be Rule 5 Draft casualties without protection, so to clear out any extra space:

  • Alexander Vizcaíno — was on the restricted list because apparently he hates baseball now (or has other things he needs to do/would rather do, more power to him and best of luck) so I’m unsure if he will be retained even if he decides he wants to still play
  • Manuel Rodríguez — Manny did return late in the season but there seemed to be major command issues and a noticeable velocity drop so I think even if they dumped him off the roster, he’s not going anywhere (AZ Phil says he’s not eligible for minor league free agency yet)
  • Mark Leiter Jr — Out of option years and while it would be nice to have a multi-inning guy, I feel like the Cubs could easily replace his utility with someone else
  • Ethan Roberts — I think this is a last resort thing but I only put him here because he had so little MLB playing time despite showing flashes of solid play before he hurt his arm, that the Cubs might be able to retain him even if he got waived and outrighted and/or DFA, but AZ Phil did note that he has the right to refuse an outright so this is really just a “maybe” type listing

All told we are looking at an additional 4 to 8 spots cleared up before Rule 5, free agent additions, trades, etc. I do think the Cubs want to keep a couple spots open for drafting Rule 5 guys if they are available and signing early free agents, but they do have to protect some guys for sure. And because AZ Phil is awesome, he did update the Rule 5 eligibles list. So let’s start listing guys to protect, assuming at most 32 spots on the roster and 8 spots available:

No-Brainers

  • Brennen Davis
  • Kevin Alcantara

Most Likely

  • Ben Brown

Toss-up due to their lack of higher level experience, but could potentially be drafted anyway

  • Luis Devers
  • Yohendrick Pinango
  • Cam Sanders

Obviously the rules are meant to make sure minor leaguers don’t wallow in the minors forever, and the negotiations for a collectively bargained MiLB contract are underway to hopefully offer them better protections even accounting for that lapse in Rule 5 Drafts. So some guys on AZ Phil’s list are likely to remain unprotected and the front office will leave their fates up to the baseball transaction gods. I don’t envy Jed Hoyer and friends here, and it is very unlikely that trades are used now to resolve this so close to Tuesday’s deadline.

So we will take a wait-and-see approach.

Sports and Sustainability

I’ve been on a sustainability kick, what with driving my gasoline-powered car way less (we’ll probably sell it at some point) and switching over to my electric car. It’s been disappointing to realize that maybe only 10% of the stuff I throw in the blue bin actually gets recycled, and if only a few billionaires pooled their resources to set up a better recycling workflow, this might reduce the amount of plastic whales get in their diet, but I digress (only for a moment).

The impetus for this shart of a post is the Cubs installing LED lights for night games:

I can see plenty of benefit here, wherein the Cubs will draw less energy from the grid, directly saving money that can (theoretically) be used to pay better players, and the indirect effects with using less energy is less coal or whatever being burned and spewed into the air as pollution and more carbon dioxide to fry us alive. I think they can certainly do more, what with the mountains of plastic cups used to set up cup snakes in the bleachers and all the various wrappers and cardboard containers. I’ve even seen people leave their $15 (probably more now) nacho helmets behind, so there’s more plastic waste for ya. And while there are plenty of bins around the ballpark to deposit refuse and recyclables, since a lot of people don’t care, they all get mixed up anyway, and if the custodial staff when I was in Chicago in both labs and classrooms were any indication, they’re all going in the landfill anyway. It’s really rather disappointing and alarming given everything science has told us about global climate change.

Another motivation for this side toot is a retweet from David about France wanting more solar power or whatever:

Solar power is an excellent idea, but as we well know, unless you’re on the space station and have no choice, there are many more efficient ways to generate electricity that do not involve fossil fuels. Solar is good because the sun isn’t expected to burn out for another few billion years, and it would be nice if humans could figure out how to harness it as efficiently as plants and other photosynthetic organisms do. I think switching to solar would be great if it wasn’t so damned expensive to set up in the first place, which is yet another problem of accessibility. More people would switch to electric cars and solar if it weren’t some glorified status symbol like when South Park made fun of people with hybrids. I have my own private beef with Tesla, but I’d bet they would be more adopted outside of rich bastardville if they didn’t cost $60K+. I suppose it would look super weird if the Cubs installed solar panels on the roof of the grandstand, but that might at least be more practical than a giant windmill above the Harry Caray statue (did they move him too? I forget).

One of the more annoying parts of going to the ballpark if you’re environmentally conscious is all the trash left over, not to mention the mixing of landfill waste with organics and recyclables. Even when I visited Oracle Park in San Francisco, where they’re big on responsible sanitation or whatever (San Francisco has their own set of social problems that we won’t get into but you probably know anyway), often you will see food waste in with the recycling and plastic cups in landfill containers. There just isn’t enough desire or personnel to make sure everyone does their part to keep waste properly separated. So no matter how much the ballpark (Wrigley or Oracle or otherwise) claims to be green, even if some of it is greenwashing, the impact is diluted by the apathy of the masses.

I’d like to think that in the future, it will be economically viable for everyone to truly pitch in. The apathy can hopefully be tempered with better education. We’ve got a long way to go.

Redefining Expectations Vs. The Flow of Stupid Money

We are at the lull between Major League Baseball contests, where winter leagues are not always accessible to the lay person, where we sit just under 100 days until spring training and 140ish days from Opening Day. While the GM meetings go forward in Vegas, we’ve already gotten a few snippets of what the Cubs are likely to do (at least what they’re willing to spew to reporters) that may make our ideal offseason more of a pipe dream after all.

I still think the Cubs will sign some rotation help, since they have proven capable of building a bullpen on the fly, but someone still has to eat five or six innings before going through the gauntlet. The Cubs have been connected to Japanese pitcher Kodai Senga, who is also getting perceived interest from many other clubs. If the crowdsourced contract is right, the Cubs have no reason not to acquire his services.

Even with Jason Heyward’s expiring contract and arbitration raises still on the payroll, if the Cubs land Senga, they still have around $100MM to play with before they skirt up against the first luxury tax threshold, and they should spend some of it for sure because the offense last year was abysmal. Along with pretty much everyone else, I anticipate Willson Contreras is gone despite how much I’d love him to stay. And when I look on the free agent list, I keep saying to myself that the Cubs should just sign one of the big name shortstops already.

That’s easier said than done, partly because it isn’t my money, and partly because the signals being given off by the Cubs to their reporter buddies is that they’re not going to commit to huge long-term contracts, at least not on the surface.

The Cubs will be involved in the deep end of the big-name shortstop market this winter, but they have no appetite for another Jason Heyward-length contract — and probably not even a contract for a year or two less than his eight-year deal. Especially given the fact that all of the Big 4 free agent shortstops are 28 or older. Look for maybe a five-year offer for Trea Turner or Xander Bogaerts. The Cubs are said to be a serious player for Carlos Correa, too, but sources, perhaps obviously, say he’s seeking the lengthiest deal of the group, and that Cubs interest may wane in proportion to the number of years he seeks.

From Gordo

My first impression is that such a sentiment is incredibly cheap (when in reference to a team that should be swimming in money even if they cry poor), and my second impression is that it’s really stupid. Given the lack of other plausible bats on the market and what value the big three shortstops can provide in at least the first chunk of their contracts, if the Cubs want to be competitive, they will have to pony up. Even with a revamped rotation, the team needs to score runs to win games, and we can’t realistically expect a shutout or quality start every time up. There is a possibility that these guys will get caught up in massive bidding wars, although you never know if the owners and front offices are in double secret collusion.

The Cubs’ default position should be to maximize their available funds and ensure they land at least a Carlos Correa (no qualifying offer, and the youngest option available). They can do some fancy accounting if they need to, but this needs to happen or else the offense is most likely going to be mediocre, barring some major trades that I doubt will happen because they did just restock the farm.

Cubs Convention tickets go on sale soon, so hopefully they make it worthwhile for the fans to actually show up to both the winter festival and to actual games.

The Catch(er) of the Day

Now that Dusty Baker has won the World Series since most of the world outside of Houston, Texas, refuses to acknowledge the team he managed, trades can be made with impunity and we’re less than a week from full blown free agency (though teams can sign their own outgoing free agents, like the Mets just did with Edwin Diaz). Before we dive into the free agency wish list again (you can read back if you’d like for some of the suggested names to target), here’s something else from Passan that might be intriguing, assuming you can read through the entire thing:

Aside from the usual narrative of a successful campaign and team building and us-versus-the-universe, there was one bit that would be relevant to us Cubs fans:

The Astros and Chicago Cubs were in agreement on a trade to send star catcher Willson Contreras to the Astros for starter Jose Urquidy, four sources familiar with the deal told ESPN. The straight-up trade was agreed upon, pending owner approval. That approval never came.

… And when Click tried to execute the trade for Contreras — a pending free agent who is not regarded as a good defensive catcher but would’ve ably filled the hole at designated hitter that plagued the Astros during the postseason — another prominent name let his opposition be known: Dusty Baker.

“Much as I like Willson Contreras, Urquidy was one of our best pitchers then,” Baker said. “I needed a guy that wasn’t going to complain about not playing every day. And this is his [free agent] year. See, that’s tough. When you trade for a player in his [free agent] year. Everybody’s about numbers and stuff, and I can’t blame them, no doubt. But that’s not what we needed.”

Via Passan & ESPN

This harkens back to the discourse around the trade deadline that surrounded the narrative that Willson Contreras, despite his energy and his plus throwing arm, was not a good catcher. I will admit that I was happy when Contreras stuck with the Cubs past the trade deadline, and he can yet net the Cubs some compensation via the draft pick from him refusing the qualifying offer and then signing with *shudder* the Cardinals or something, or he can just be paid to be a DH and sometime catcher for a year if he accepts, or the Cubs might decide to throw him some cash and keep him around as a veteran clubhouse guy (would not object). But chances are he is gone, and a lot of it may be due to his devaluation as a primary catcher, considering how much time he spent as a DH this past season and also that narrative.

If the primary issue is pitch framing, then that is just a matter of poor timing since the automated strike zone is not among the rules coming for 2023 despite its effectiveness in minor league play so far. As seen on Baseball Savant’s catching leaderboards, Willson Contreras is dead even on framing runs in his time behind the dish (his brother William is a few runs worse, which was interesting). The two primary catchers during the Astros World Series, former Cubs legend Martin Maldonado and trade acquisition Christian Vázquez, were marginally better, so it’s not just the pitch framing that scuttled the would-be trade (we’ll get into that a bit later).

The thing with Willson is that his teammates love him, but the obstacle is that even with the obvious leadership and clubhouse chemistry, he has to also be good with the pitchers. For the most part, at least in public, the pitchers speak well of how Willson handles himself behind the plate, but I guess there’s more to catching than most of us realize (myself included, I’m not an expert) that he can’t provide as well as others. I think the consensus was that attempting to shoehorn in a catcher (who wasn’t actually that good at catching despite his best efforts) into an existing pitching staff during a pennant race would be disruptive, and that also reduced the chances that Willson would be traded.

When I took a look at the FanGraphs leaderboards (someone will have to help me out here because I don’t think it necessarily differentiates between PAs as a catcher vs other positions), the catcher with the highest wOBA was Willson Contreras when you consider those with at least Willson’s number of plate appearances. The guy I think the Cubs should target if they let Willson go is Omar Narváez, who his a plus framer per Baseball Savant, but hit worse than Yan Gomes this past season. While I think catchers should primarily handle the pitching staff to maintain their health and effectiveness, I would prefer that the spot not be a black hole in the lineup, but I guess you can’t have it all! And it’s not like you can count on Gomes or PJ Higgins to suddenly become offensive dynamos (and in Higgins’ case, to be a better defensive catcher).

As stated above, it really is too bad that the automated strike zone won’t come to MLB until at least 2024, because Willson’s arm and control of the running game could be an incredible weapon without having to worry about the umpire behind him calling pitches correctly. The bat is probably not elite enough to just hide him at first base, and I don’t know how he would be at other positions since those are pretty much spoken for (whether assuming new additions or the existing personnel).

So I think if the Cubs do retain Willson, they have to at least take advantage of what he is good at behind the plate even if he costs a number of strikes. The hope at that point is that the bat will continue to be All-Star level and compensate for the strikes/runs given up. Alternatively, as it seems a lot of teams are willing to do now, they should probably just sign Omar Narváez and do a timeshare with Yan Gomes, which will likely boost the pitching staff overall and make up for the runs that are lost when they come up to bat. For me personally, it does suck to potentially lose a long-time Cub who was loads of fun to watch play, but since I have no choice in the matter, this is the eventuality we have to prepare for. We’ll find out in less than two weeks what Willson does with the qualifying offer, and probably sooner whether the Cubs snag a new catcher (possibly through trade too, since the A’s are purposefully tanking anyway and Sean Murphy could use a new home) while juggling their roster in advance of the tender and Rule 5 protection deadlines.

Random Crap For the Off Day

We have to wait for the World Series to end before anything will happen that necessitates any level of “analysis,” so I figured it was fine to just pull a Seinfeld and write a post about mostly nothing.

I thought about some of the silly baseball terms that people still argue about online (at least until Twitter dies, but I’m sure we’ll move elsewhere sometime after that) and let’s take a look below.

Batting Around vs. Batting Through

It is no surprise that there’s an article about this, but what is a surprise is that it is over seven years old. I offer this:

If you consider every plate appearance as a unit of time, then nine units of time are covered by the entire lineup, and those nine plate appearances will complete the circle. So for me, batting around is nine batters once that circle is completed.

Semantics about Perfection and Immaculate…ness?

I do see this some and I myself have stirred the pot a bit, but a “perfect” game is defined as one in which no baserunner reaches safely, basically 27 up, 27 down. Is it really “perfect” though if the pitcher has to rely on his defense and/or the umpire to help make outs and call strikes?

So if you really want an absolutely perfect game, maybe it’s either 27 popups to pitcher or 81 swinging strikes for those outs.

Along the same vein, an “immaculate” inning is three strikeouts in nine pitches. That includes called strikes and foul balls. But if you want to be “immaculate,” I feel like the batters shouldn’t make contact at all, not even a foul tip. Nine purely whiffy swinging strikes or GTFO!

Stuff about Hits and BABIP

A lot of accounts on the Twitters involve umpire scorecards, whether the home run would’ve been a home run in other parks, etc. And of course we have the usual angst with the exaggerated shift when there’s a guy standing right where the ball is scalded. There’s a sense, with exit velocity and launch angle and what have you, that some hits and homers are deserved and some are not, but they all count.

Jumping off the train of thought from above with pitchers making their pitches, the eternal battle between pitcher and batter is decided by the narrowest of margins, between a pitcher’s guile and deception and the batter’s ability to at least get wood on the ball. If the beauty of baseball is in the chaos, maybe it’s okay if a ball ends up in the Wrigley basket on a day when the wind blows out, or a ball hangs in the air for a few seconds before dropping untouched in no man’s land. Maybe just enjoy what happened and don’t try to analyze it to death? Speaking of which…

What’s Up with the Cycle?

Since baseball has been around for a very long time now, it seems like the 339 cycles in MLB history aren’t all that much. But if it happens at least twice every season, you kind of wonder why it’s such a bit deal when it’s happened more often than a no-hitter or an unassisted triple play (now those are rare! and cool). I guess it’s just one of those quirks people like to talk about, like home runs hit during a full moon on a Tuesday. It would be more productive to have Kris Bryant’s full house game where he hit three doubles and two homers (or was it the other way around?) or one of those four-homer games (which are rightly celebrated), but baseball does love their random trivia. And speaking of no-hitters…

Combined No-Hitters

This comes on the heels of Philly getting no-hit by an arsenal of Astros pitchers. In an era where pitch counts are strict, the three-times-through threshold is gospel, and max effort specialization even with the three-batter minimum is the norm, having a single pitcher complete a no-hitter is more rare than before, and a perfect game hasn’t been achieved since Félix Hernández did his thing a decade ago.

Looking at the list of no-hitters in MLB history, a large portion of the no-hitters in the past few years have been of the combined variety. Obviously no-hitters are a team effort and pitcher safety and health are a priority, but there’s something about the combined no-hitter that makes it seem so ordinary even if they are counted in the record books. It’s too bad they don’t let pitchers just keep going until they give up that hit, but then again, you probably don’t want your guy throwing 150 pitches like Edwin Jackson because he happened to walk nine guys doing it.

Like Kyle Schwarber said, why give a shit about a no-hitter? Especially when it’s a relatively ordinary combined no-hitter, just move on.

The Cubs Should Probably Keep Ian Happ Around

The Gold Glove Awards were doled out today, and one Cubs All-Star (the only one to get a finalist spot if I’m not mistaken, sorry Nico Hoerner) got himself the prize:

Never mind the irony that a gold plated glove wouldn’t be able to very effectively catch a baseball, but apparently this was well-deserved for Ian Happ, both by the numbers and by the eye test:

Obviously the Cubs will promote this until he’s traded for Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani:

All kidding aside, this is a pretty solid year for Ian Happ, who made just under $7MM in 2022 and should be closer to $10MM if not exceeding it (if MLBTR is in the ballpark, which they usually are) in his final arbitration year. The prevailing thought is that Happ will be an extension candidate, and I think that’s wise for maintaining some level of veteran leadership, continuity, and also because he’s pretty solid even if Aisle424 still hates him. Based on what I can tell with my eyeballs and rudimentary understanding of baseball, Happ has always been above average offensively, and while I wish he had shown more ability at center field or second base, he’s looked alright in left field, and this past season he has at least made you think, “yeah, he should probably win a Gold Glove” and that’s saying something even if FanGraphs might not be as kind.

If he is anchoring LF, then you do wish he would hit for more power, given that his ISO has been dropping for a while yet, but I think he’s also been hitting better against lefties while batting right handed, which I hope is not a fluke. And despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, Happ has also recorded his lowest K-rate of his career in 2022, so he seems capable of adjusting in an era that is definitely not kind to hitters. I am at the point where I would welcome the continuity and would not object to Happ sticking around for a few.

The entire Gold Glove winners list, if you care about these things:

A Wish List For Fun Baseball

So anyway, while waiting for the World Series to resume and then for the offseason rumor mill to start churning at maximum speed, I was thinking about what new stuff to throw up on this website and decided to take another crack and stuff that I really like about baseball that need to be emphasized. Part of this is to amuse me (hence why I do this and the random podcast episodes nobody listens to these days) and much of it is to find a way to promote the sport to the masses and gain new fans so baseball doesn’t actually die as predicted by various sci-fi shows and media outlets every so often. Without further ado, and until Josh brings back the Hope Monster, let’s take a look at what I think would be fun. Maybe you’ll agree, or maybe you’ll have other thoughts, I can’t tell you what to do.

A Question of Balance

In my youth, I really enjoyed the Splinter Cell series of games, where you played as a super spy who snuck around everywhere and was essentially invisible to the enemy as he performed operations for national security or what have you. The sequel in the early 2000s, Pandora Tomorrow, introduced a spy-vs-mercenary mode where spies would try to neutralize an objective while sneaking around stronger, more heavily armed and armored mercs. The chief complaint at the beginning of the height of gameplay was that the spies were overpowered, so patches were made to balance the game so the merc team had a chance to win.

I haven’t played the game in years, and haven’t actually held a controller for a long time now, but this is akin to the huge imbalance in baseball which is forcing three-true-outcomes offense. It is obvious that the pitchers are well ahead of hitters due to velocity, spin, tunneling, etc. Strikeouts have increased dramatically, batting averages are down, and home runs are basically the highlight du jour for most clubs because the only hope hitters have most of the time is to swing and hope they run into one. I do love home runs, but like everything, I think they should be blasted in moderation because all those dinger highlights might get stale after a while. I think most of the items coming soon will rebalance the game for the offense somewhat, but we won’t know until actual games are played.

The Ghost Runner

I’m glad they don’t do this in the postseason, but I think most players do like the rule of putting a man on second in extras to shorten the game. As some on Twitter have said and also Rob Manfred, most people would be in favor of a rule that lets them go home early from work:

Boob’d

As an extension of this, I think baseball is more exciting when the pitcher is stressed because there are baserunners. They can’t do the windup, they have to hurry to the plate to reduce stolen base attempts, and the offense has a better chance to make some noise. I think I’d rather do something like the NHL in that there’s an actual overtime period before they go to shootout, but in the case of MLB, have the 10th and 11th innings played as normal before implementing the automatic runner from the 12th inning onwards. If the home team can’t win within 11 innings anyway, they deserve the chaos. Baseball being a sport designed for random outcomes should be full of chaos! But yes, save the mega-chaos until later in my opinion.

The pitchers already have the advantage, let them be the ones stressed out! The batters at this point probably need all the help they can get.

The Pitch Clock and Restricted Defense

I think we will obviously need to see Spring Training 2023 to determine how teams are leveraging the new rules and how players respond to them, but I do think that the major new rules that involve a pitch clock and restricted shifting are good for the game. I know that most people don’t think that will prevent batters, especially left-handed batters, from swinging for the fences or pulling the ball anyway, but I’ll try to address that later.

I think the pitch clock would be great for stolen bases and for keeping the pace going, and since the clock also forces the batter to stay in the box or suffer an automatic strike call, it isn’t biased toward one side or the other. Having extra hits squeak through where they would’ve been gobbled up by shifts before means extra base runners, so I’m cool with that as well. I’m well in favor of anything that adds baserunners even if it naturally lengthens the game, because offense is fun.

I also think that the pitch clock will reduce max effort pitching due to a shorter recovery time, which gives batters a better chance to make contact, thus increasing balls in play and action. Action is good, and will also increase the opportunities for the defense to make spectacular plays! More action in a game that likely finishes in three hours seems like a win-win to me.

Run Like You Stole Something

The larger bases that are coming next season should hopefully increase the incentive to steal more bases. I know stolen bases have almost become a lost art due to analytics. I don’t think analytics are bad overall because ultimately we want the team to win more games, but I also think that rebalancing the game to incentivize the analysts to attempt more steals is a good thing. Action plus opportunities for great throws and tags make for a more aesthetically pleasing game.

While this isn’t going to stop the development of power pitchers, because reducing the time for opportunities to steal will still be critical, I think rewarding athletic players on offense (fast steal-happy guys who take advantage of holes in the defense with line drive hitting) and defense (have to make up more ground due to more balls in play with pitchers possibly trying to induce contact to go farther in games) is going to be great for both us hardcore baseball fans and the casual fan in the long run. Hopefully MLB also remembers to make the ball more consistent so a ball that is squared up justly rewards the hitter with extra bases or the (hopefully just occasional, let’s say 10% of the time) home run.

Rewarding Excellence

This stems from AC’s previous fun blog about revamping the postseason, but I’m definitely in favor of anything that gives the best team an edge in the playoffs. If the front office, with the backing of ownership’s money, builds a team that can churn out 100+ wins, they deserve to be rewarded with a reasonable advantage while the rest of the field gets run through a woodchipper.

Respecting the Fan’s Pocketbook

This part stems from the fact that my hometown Oakland A’s might be pulling a Major League to move to Las Vegas (never mind the whole thing about the Colorado River running out of water because nobody should be living in those states, much less diverting all that water, but this isn’t an environmental awareness blog I guess).

Bah.

I think, having matured in my thinking and my understanding of the world around me, that asking a community to finance a rich bastard’s pet project is gross. I’m glad that Chicago basically told Tom Ricketts “no” when they asked for funding to renovate Wrigley Field, and I’m glad Oakland flatly told the A’s “no” when they asked for public financing for a new stadium away from the Coliseum site.

Given how much we shell out for game tickets (with supply and demand still considered), the owners shouldn’t expect taxpayers to further foot the bill for a stadium that might be deemed obsolete once the rich folks get bored. I’d like to see some revenue sharing-associated penalties for certain teams *cough cough* Pittsburgh *cough* who just bag the funds without trying to improve their shitty ball club, but perhaps that is too much of a pipe dream.

Stay Tuned!

As the World Series games slog on into the dead of night (at least on the East Coast), I’m excited to see what the new rules do in spring training, and how teams will maximize their roster flexibility to take advantage. I’m going to trust that the people who get paid to run the Cubs know far more than I do, and as the saying goes, let’s see what happens.