Play a hard nine?
Unwritten is a song, not a rule book
On June 18, 1953, the Boston Red Sox put up 17 runs in a single inning against the Detroit Tigers. A day after trouncing the Tigers 17-1, the Red Sox would send 23 batters to the plate in the bottom of the 7th on their way to scoring 17 runs in a 23-3 victory. Those 17 runs in a single inning are a modern-day record that still stands today nearly 70 years later.
Now why am I talking about single inning scoring records? Well, the unwritten rules of big leads in baseball have been the talk of the town lately after the San Francisco Giants stole a base in the second inning of a game with a nine-run lead and then bunted for a hit in the sixth inning of the same game with a ten-run lead. And the resulting reaction from the Giants and Padres managers and talking sports media heads brought it to the forefront.
On the side a team with a big lead continuing to play hard, it’s Giants’ manager Gabe Kapler who pointed out that continuing to play hard has ramifications beyond just the one game. “Our goal is not exclusively to win one game in a series. It’s to try to win the entire series,” he said post-game. “Sometimes that means trying to get a little deeper into the opposition’s bullpen. I understand that many teams don’t love that strategy. And I get why.”
He’d also add to reporters that it’s not about running up the score on anyone, but about “trying to see as many relievers as possible and make as few outs as possible.”
It’s hard to argue against this perspective. Everything gets measured in wins. And if you can give yourself a better chance to win this game and the next game at the same time, why wouldn’t you take it?
On the opposite side for teams with a big lead to stop playing hard, is Cardinals’ manager Oli Marmol who was asked about it and talked about the team’s internal policy that is used across the organization to stop certain actions when the lead gets to a certain point as he neatly sidestepped his own personal opinions on them. “We were always taught within this organization, as you come up through the system managing, there’s a certain point where you just stop,” he told Derrick Goold this week. Stop stealing bases, stop swinging 3-0, stop laying down bunts, etc.
It’s also hard to argue against this perspective. As a player who has been on both sides of blowouts, there does come a point where enough is enough.
The problem that I have with the idea that teams with a big lead should stop playing hard is that you’re teaching players to adjust the way that they play the game. I feel like it conditions them that their best efforts are not always required when they stop onto the field and that can create bad habits in those situations. As a manager, I would want the best effort from my players every time they play. There are still lessons that can be learned in at bats whether you’re up or down by ten runs and you should never waste an opportunity to get better.
Often times the argument for easing up on your opponents after getting a big lead is that it is disrespectful to your opponent to keep pushing and running up the score, intentionally or otherwise. But this isn’t college football where you have a Division I championship contender dropping 100 points on some Division II school you’ve never heard of. This is professional baseball.
I would argue that giving your opponent anything less than your best is far more disrespectful. Your actions would say, “You’re so bad, I don’t even have to try hard.”
For teams on the losing end of a big lead it sucks. The root of the argument is that at some point you just want to get the game over with and move onto the next one. But if that’s the point, why are you even swinging the bat? Just let the opposing pitcher strike you out on three 60 mph tosses down the middle. Why do you expect the other team to stop trying, but you get to keep trying?
That’s really the hypocritical notion with the “unwritten rules” in this situation. As long as you’re still trying to mount a comeback, the other team should still be trying to keep you from coming back. And if you’re the team on the losing end just going through the motions, why don’t we just put a rule in writing and get rid of the ambiguity? MLB already has the bones of a mercy rule on the books, so let’s just expand it and make it a thing.
Before the 2020 season—and ultimately only becoming effective in 2021 after the COVID shortened 2020 season—MLB put new rules in place on position players pitching. Under the new rules, position players can only pitch during extra innings or if their team is losing by six runs or more. The logic behind this is that allowing a position player to pitch is a mechanism used to protect the bullpen for the next day’s game.
So why not just take it a step further? Allow the manager to end a game at any point when their team is losing by six runs or more. Eliminate the gray area of how much effort players should be putting in and allow teams to save their bullpens to eliminate the strategic advantage the Giants attempt to use.
The question is always how the fans would respond to such a rule, and I imagine that most would act like they hate it because it’s less baseball and there’s something to be said about “fighting” until the very last out. And I’ll admit that that’s something I love about baseball. But we already have an inconsistency there as well. When the home team has a lead, we already let them skip out on playing the bottom of the 9th if they have the lead, and if they get the lead in the bottom of the 9th or later, we end the game too. If we’re all about playing to the advertised length of the game, shouldn’t they still have to play it?
I think that in practice, deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, fans would like it. Think about the scenarios.
If you’re a fan of the winning team, you’re going to be happy that your team won the game, and you’ll leave the ballpark or turn off the TV with a smile on your face.
If you’re a fan of the losing team, if you’re still watching, you’re not going to happy losing in six innings or in nine innings either way. And it might be nicer to just put you out of your misery rather than forcing you to watch your team go through the motions for the final half of a game.
So, if the players don’t want to just suck it up and worry about how they’re playing, and not looking across the field at the other dugout and how the other team is playing, MLB should just go ahead and put a rule on the books and save us all from these discussions or the potential of guys getting thrown at in the future over something as stupid as this.
Who’s Hot, Hitter’s Edition (last 10 days, minimum 25 plate appearances)
Nolan Arenado, 311 wRC+ (3rd in MLB)
Tommy Edman, 209 wRC+ (13th in MLB)
Tyler O’Neill, 114 wRC+ (99th in MLB)
Harrison Bader, 94 wRC+ (123rd in MLB)
Paul DeJong, 93 wRC+ (124th in MLB)
Who’s Hot, Pitcher’s Edition (last 10 days, minimum 10 batters faced)
Giovanny Gallegos, .146 wOBA (27th in MLB)
Jordan Hicks, .164 wOBA (35th in MLB)
Aaron Brooks, .215 wOBA (104th in MLB)
Jake Woodford, .250 wOBA (141st in MLB)
Miles Mikolas, .256 wOBA (147th in MLB)
