Human Rain Delay
Welcome back for the fourth season of the Baseball Bench Coach! This past offseason was a torturous one, complete with a 99-day lockout, a shortened spring training, and a week delay in the start of the regular season. I heard a baseball expert muse that the labor negotiations were about as slow as the game of baseball itself. Ouch! I don’t know about you, but when the media reported on the progress of the negotiations, the millions of dollars in dispute were just difficult to fathom. Frankly, the only numbers that I care about are the median age of a baseball fan nowadays (unbelievably, 57 years old!), the average time of a game (a record 3 hours and 11 minutes in 2021), and the average number of pitchers used by each team per game (4.43 last year). The settlement between management and the players’ union did result in some measures to address these trends. Let’s take a look.
The pace of the game has long been a problem. It’s no secret why the younger generations turn to other major sports. But how did this happen? I believe the genesis of the problem rests squarely on the shoulders of one person, Mike Hargrove, an MLB player for 12 years (1974-1985) and manager for another 19 seasons (1991-2007). You see, as a hitter he developed a habit of stepping out of the batter’s box between every pitch to adjust his helmet and batting gloves, pull each sleeve on his uniform up, wipe his hand on his uniform pants, and then sometimes do it all over again. He aptly received the nickname of the “Human Rain Delay”. While I am facetiously blaming today’s slow play on him, the trends over the past years are clear – numerous pitchers entering the game, batters working at-bats deep into the counts, and fewer balls put in play, just to name a few.
Financial terms aside, the labor agreement settlement resulted in important changes on the field. The headliner of course is the adoption of the universal designated hitter. Since we will no longer have to witness many pitchers struggle at the plate, the upside is that more balls will be put in play and hence more action will take place on the field. MLB did retain a COVID-driven rule that in extra innings each team will start a runner on second base this year. The rule has effectively done away with marathon games. Because of the rule, there was only one game played in 2020 and 2021 that went beyond 13 innings. And I must mention the adoption of the so-called “Shohei Ohtani Rule”, a pitcher who is in the starting lineup as a hitter can remain in the game as a DH after he pitches. Seeing more of this generation’s version of Babe Ruth can only lead to greater excitement in the game.
The big change is that MLB now allows teams to use PitchCom, an electronic device that transmits signals from catchers to pitchers. Catchers wear a wristband with nine buttons, each button designating a pitch type (fastball, curve, changeup, etc.) and zone location (inside corner, outside corner, off the plate, etc.). The catcher transmits an encrypted signal to the pitcher via a receiver that fits into the band of the pitcher’s baseball cap. The pitcher hears a voice from the receiver telling him what pitch to throw and where to place it. Three additional players on the field may have access to the transmitted signal, in most cases the middle infielders for positioning.
MLB executive Theo Epstein explained the impact of the new device in an interview this past week on “The Athletic”. Epstein noted: “We’ve all seen what happens to the flow of the game when runners get on second base. Things grind to a halt . . . with runners on second trying to figure out the sign sequence and get the pitch and pass it on to the hitter. The catcher has to come out from behind home plate. He has to get on the same page with the pitcher about whichever sign systems that they you’re using. . . . And with the PitchCom technology, that would be eliminated from the game.” Players agree. Texas shortstop Corey Seager emphasized that the new device makes it easier for defenders to position themselves in places where it is not easy to read the catcher’s signals.
What baseball is doing is forward thinking – embracing new technology, reconsidering established rules of the game, and adapting to the needs of the next generation of fans. In many of my past blog articles, I’ve taken the traditionalist’s view of not tinkering with the game. Frankly, baseball has arrived at a crisis point with a continuously aging fan base. So it was indeed time to make changes, and perhaps soon consider even more changes, like eliminating defensive shifts, or dare I say it, shorter regular seasons. Maybe at some point it will be all too clear that the game itself is at stake. Let’s play ball this season and well into the future!
Until next Monday,
your Baseball Bench Coach