At the risk of sounding like a hopeless nostalgic, I have to admit baseball is changing way too fast for me, to the point where the game today is barely recognizable from the game of just a few years ago. Based on some of the things he’s been saying since the All-Star Game last July, I suspect the Commissioner of Baseball feels the same way.
I’m talking specifically not of the over-emphasis on analytics or the increasing utilization of shifts, but rather the new norm “six-inning starting pitcher.” We saw this coming, once they began relying more and more on pitch counts to determine a pitcher’s durability and resolve. No surprise the number of complete games pitched in the majors has decreased precipitously from 856 in 1980, 429 in 1990, 234 in 2000, to 165 in 2010 and 83 last season.
What’s disturbing, at least to those who go back far enough to still appreciate the combined durability, tenacity and artistry of Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer, is that six innings-and-out today is slowly being accepted as the equivalent of a complete game effort. Just look at the headlines this week for our locals’ first victories of the young season: On Tuesday it was “Syndergaard Dominates Braves in Mets’ Opening Win” followed up on Wednesday with “CC Stifles Rays to Point Yanks in Right Direction.” Both headlines were accurate but also very misleading. Syndergaard did indeed dominate, but for only six innings, while Sabathia’s “stifling” effort lasted just five innings, or two times around the order.
Now conceivably Syndergaard, who had to leave the game with a blister, will pitch numerous games into at least the eighth inning this season, but by leaving after six, it turned the Mets’ opener into two separate games — and this is what has Commissioner Rob Manfred concerned. Back in July, in discussing potential remedies for speeding up the games, Manfred talked about how too often the action comes to a screeching halt once managers turn the games over to a parade of relievers for the last 3-4 innings.
“I’ve got nothing against relief pitchers,” Manfred said, “but they do two things to the game: They slow the game down and our relievers have become so dominant at the back end that they actually rob action out of the end of the game.” Manfred went on to say that baseball might have to consider a rule that would limit the number of pitchers a manager could use in an inning.
Earlier this week, the commissioner elaborated on that for me.
“We have to accept the game is changing, maybe faster than some of us would like,” he said. “Our job is how best to manage the change. My first priority is the dead time issue, especially late in the game, which we have started to address with changes such as limiting the instant replay time, waiving of the four-pitch intentional walk and (still being negotiated) limiting mound visits. After that, there may have to be a next round of changes which could affect the competition (like the limiting of relievers in one inning), some of which may not be realistic.”
The “six-inning starters, two separate games” new baseball was in “full flower” display last October in what many maintained was the worst managed World Series in history when, for the first time ever, not a single starting pitcher pitched into the seventh inning. It got its impetus when Cubs manager Joe Maddon lifted Jon Lester, his first-game starter, after just 5.2 innings and 97 pitches. This is a guy whom the Cubs signed for $155 million — but in the biggest game of his life, Maddon preferred Pedro Strop over him to get the final out in the sixth inning. You could just hear Cubs owner Tom Ricketts saying: “How much are we paying Lester?” Actually Lester pitched into the eighth inning in only five of his 32 starts last year, but — what the hey — he was their ace.
I don’t know what Manfred is going to be able to do about the “second game” aspect of the new baseball insofar as its inherent curtailing of the action. Maybe instead of eliminating trips to the mound, he should seek to eliminate pitch counts. What I’d like to know is how all the baseball analytics experts can justify to their owners how it makes good sense to continue doling out $100-$200 million contracts to starting pitchers who, more and more, are going to be out of the games after six innings. Last year’s World Series assured that.
You can bet at least one team has seen the foolhardiness of that. Thanks to giving him an opt-out in his previous record-breaking contract, the Yankees have been paying a little more than $8 million per start to Sabathia, now the poster guy for the six-inning starting pitcher. All through spring training and into his Opening Day start, all you read and heard was how Masahiro Tanaka will also be opting out after this season. I can assure you, if that happens, Hal Steinbrenner will throw a champagne party for getting out from under the remaining $67 million to a fragile pitcher in his early 30s.
@bmadden1954
