JULY 31: The 7-inning doubleheader rule is now official. There’s no word yet on the proposed roster extension.
JULY 29, 2:04pm: These measures are union requests that the league is presently considering, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter).
1:45pm: It appears that the recent run of COVID-19 infections within the Marlins organization has prompted further contemplation of rules changes. The MLB Players’ Association has reached out to its members to gauge their sentiment regarding a few potential tweaks, per Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic (Twitter links).
Most notably, it appears the union has discussed with the league the possibility of keeping the 30-man active roster in effect all season long. The plan had been for it to ramp down to 26 players over the course of the campaign. But there’s now consideration of maintaining maximum flexibility for the entirety of the season.
The idea here, presumably, would be to make it easier for teams to manage workloads and deal with any coronavirus-related matters that arise. With more players to work with, for example, it’s easier to be proactive with isolating anyone who may have experienced possible transmission.
The other potential modification relates to doubleheaders. It’s possible the league could utilize a pair of seven-inning games or a regular nine-inning contest followed by a shorter, seven-inning affair. That would make it easier to squeeze in twin bills, as may well be needed to accommodate the scheduling modifications that have already proven necessary.
In both cases, the matters appear only to be under consideration at this time. Ghiroli cautions that “no firm decisions” have been reached just yet.
It’s logical to keep the 30 man roster.
I wondered to myself when the roster size rule changes were announced why cutting back was the right call as the season progressed. If anything it should expand to keep flexibility down the stretch… like you said seems like the logical move
Just make it a 30-40 man roster but only 26 can be active for a game
Nah that makes to much sense
Agree on limiting the game size but also limit it to 11 pitchers per game with the previous four starters included. no more than six true relievers.
Know what else is logical?
FOLLOW THE DARN PROTOCOLS.
Seriously, these guys are still getting paid hundreds of thousands, or much more. They just keep quiet and stay quarantined for 60days.
60 DAYS
it’s not that hard!
The rumor is that a bunch of the Marlins went out clubbing, correct? I know it’s been kept fairly quiet, but my wife mentioned to me she had seen a blurb somewhere that this is how the virus got into the clubhouse in such a brutal fashion, that more than one “host” was in the clubhouse at once. Like some of the NBA bubble players, they just don’t get it, still think this pandemic is a big joke / conspiracy.
Inside knowledge, Marlins had a few groupies (strangers outside the bubble), back to their hotel.
Rumor and inside knowledge is “I believe” and “I think” by an irresponsible journalist. Actual facts and evidence would be helpful to support his speculation.
It’s more than 60 days! If your going to rant get you facts straight!
OK, 66 days for the regular season plus who knows for the playoffs (30 days?). You’d think they could deal with it. But this is why I hate the mass travel MLB decided on. Hub cities with multiple stadiums could’ve worked (IE: NY/Chicago/LA) and reduced the risk significantly. Ah well, that ship has sailed.
They screwed the pooch with the schedule. The best thing MLB could have done was….
1. Play 2-5 game series, 1 home and away versus every divisional team.
2. Play 1-4 game series at the same park with teams from the opposing league. Have each team be the home team for 2 games.
3. To minimize travel, play the two teams in the same area on the same trip. So, if you are the Phils, and you are going on the road to NY, play both the Yankees and Mets
Same for Marlins and Rays, Orioles and Nats. This would have worked in every division. Much of the travel would have been eliminated.
He meant 60 GAMES.
Who cares. They simply should not be paid if they can’t follow the rules approved by the PA.
Or how about realizing testing is a joke. Up to 75% of all influenza infections are asymptomatic….and nobody overreacts with asinine testing despite the chance death from influenza is real.
Trumper grow up. COVID is real, is has killed over 150k Americans so far, or more than 5 times those who died in 9/11. People like you who take it too casually are now part of the problem. Here in Canada we have banned you guys until you finish your time out and grow up and join the rest of the civilized world.
Fact check: 50 times not 5 times.
500+ FB friends and ~250 at work and not one case of Covid. Where are these happening?
Yeah tell me about it. Where indeed are these happening.?
Data is not the plural of anecdote.
The biggest issue is the 40 man. Teams can call players from their 60 man player pool if a load of the roster goes down with COVID, but then they will have to DFA players some players off the 40 man when those others return, and risk losing players they want to keep. They need to scrap 40 man rules for the season or just make it a rule that you can cal anyone up and down from your 60 player pool with no consequences to rostering or service time.
Thank you padre. Finally someone talks about the 40 man. These games would not be getting cancelled if teams, eg Marlins phils, could bring in replacements. 30, 28, 26 would be irrelevant if they followed ur suggestion UK
Why does it matter if they have 26 or 30, if they’re going to shut down a team for 2 positive tests? They’re not going to play anyway, so having four extra players means nothing.
There was a twin bill last night. Keep ‘em at 9 a piece please
Please, no 7 inning games. The extra inning runner, NL DH and 3 batter pitcher minimum is about all the change to the actual game I can take.
Agreed. It is starting to look like Pony League baseball.
The doubleheader thing has nothing to do with the virus this is all Rob Manfred insane attempt to make the day at the ballpark as short as possible
If you actually bothered to read the article, you would have learned that these are potential changes that were put forward to the league by the players union. In other words, this isn’t Manfred’s idea. Having said that, Rob Manfred is a broken tool.
It’s asisine to make DHs 7innings. That would mean last call in the 5th. No thanks.
All we need are the asterisk wars about 7 inning perfect games/no-hitters, interrupted hitting streaks, etc.
Those already exist. There have been a number of called game no hitters
A 5 inning perfect game too – David Palmer for the Expos in 1984. What is funny is the Expos also had a 9 inning perfect game lost in the 10th (Pedro Martinez in 1995) for the other extreme.
Mark Gardner from the Expos pitched a no-hitter for 9 innings against the Dodgers and lost the no-hitter and game in the 10th inning, 1-0.
What about a combined 2 hit shutout going into the 7th. No score? Will Manfred approve the games too?
No to 7 inning games. This is MLB.
What risk would a 7 inning game reduce, anyway?
Virus moves around more freely in the 8th and 9th innings when bullpen door opens and closes multiple times.
I like the 7 inning idea for both games in a DH, as well as the 30 man. Maybe make it to 32
Absolutely not. No seven inning games. We might as well just bring in aluminum bats and have a thirty second pitch clock.
Leave the game alone
Keeping the roster at 30 makes sense. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be mid to late August before most of the starters stretch out. After a week of 3-4 inning starts, that is pretty obvious.
The other thing I was wondering, not sure if it has been discussed, why didn’t they propose changing the 40 man roster to 60, say until December 1st or something like that? It would seem like trying to make roster moves due to pandemic conditions could be challenging, and a team shouldn’t have to expose players to waivers just to activate someone who can replace someone going on the IL. Say your best starter goes down, and the obvious replacement isn’t on the 40 man. You have to risk losing another player to bring him up? In a normal year, I get it, but this year, it seems like the union and teams would have pushed to expand the active roster.
Then what do you do when it goes back down to 40 over the winter? That’s 20 guys you have to expose to waivers.
Maybe an amnesty allowing roster moves on a given day without having to expose the player? Just thinking out loud, as I can see some teams losing people they don’t want to SOLELY because of the virus. In a normal year, I’m completely fine with the system, it just seems like this year may require a bit more leniency.
,
I agree… they’re going to have to do something to either expand the 40-man roster or make exceptions for calling up and sending down players without having to expose them to waivers. I mean the Marlins don’t even have 30 healthy guys on their 40-man roster right now and if something similar happens to another team we’ll be in the same situation again. Additionally lots of teams have a few guys on the “40-man roster” who are purely prospects and not ML-Ready so tons of teams could be in serious roster trouble if they were to even have say 5 positive corona virus cases unless The traditional 40-man roster is expanded/rules adjusted.
I thought the same thing about the 40 man roster. However, I believe Rosenthal noted that anyone placed on the 10 day covid IL, can be freely replaced on the 40 msn roster. In order to activate the player, a 40 man roster move would have to be made.
How many more gimmicks can they come up with to cheapen the money-grab of a season this is?
The union came up with the ideas…
Yeah, and? Do you think the owners are the only money grabbers in this whole situation? The players are just as greedy as the owners. Their bankroll just happens to start out smaller.
I am glad they are trying to put a product on the field.
With the new extra inning rule this year is there really a difference between 7 and 9 innings anyway? Can we at least keep the game length the same as its always been? This seems pretty cut and dry to me, and represents a significant fundamental change to the game. It shouldn’t happen, just play 9 please.
What needs to be done is mandated social distancing on the benches. Most teams have set up a make shift bench 1/2 way to the foul pole and still the whole team sits beside each other in the actual dugout.
Face masks need to be made mandatory on the bench as well. You see too many players with a mask hanging around their neck or covering their mouth, but not their nose.
Do players on the short-term IL count against the 40-man roster?
Every game on the 28th was decided before the 7th, except for 1. They should have scheduled all games at 7 innings and had a double header everytime. They could have gotten 120 games in just 2 months. Expand the rosters to do it.
Here’s a crazy thought…. why not just have 1 game, but have it count as either 2 wins, or 2 losses?
Don’t beat me up. Just a thought….
Good try, but there would really be no point to that, just inflated totals….
Let’s just do 3 inning games with smart counts like the show, permanent DH, and a runner on 2nd to start every inning.
This is getting way to corny and dangerous. Nice try, but before they kill a player, coach or support staff they should just call the season off. For one year, let all that money take a back seat.
Sounds like a good idea to me actually.
If you have a 30-man roster, then isn’t that enough to cover for full 9-inning games during doubleheaders?
They need to do something about players being exposed to waivers when brought up to replace COVID-infected players. No team should be forced to expose their resources to waivers in order to cover for something like what the Marlins are going through at the moment.
It would be nice if the fuddy duddy club could work it’s way into the 21st century, never mind the horror of a pandemic. Babe Ruth never faced a black pitcher (or for that matter a dark skinned Hispanic, never traveled West of the Missisippee, etc.,etc.,etc. All “historical” stats are utterly ridiculous, and a paradigm of fake news.
30/25 active rosters,7 inning doubleheaders, possibly 7 inning games. Changes like these MIGHT keep MLB affloat, and MIGHT guarantee it’s survival.
None of the modern players had to travel by train to games, or play without modern surgical procedures. Or play without even antibiotics. And they still managed to pitch more than 6 pitches without getting tired and needing a replacement.
With all these changes, I hope baseball dies. I at least want to recognize the corpse at the end.
Babe Ruth didn’t have a choice in the matter.
The Times They Are A-Changin’
The 1 run slaughter rule for speeding up the pace of play? This isn’t all that much more egregious then starting the 10th with a runner on 2nd.
Have a feeling this offseason Manfred will like the 7-inning idea. That will come if certain journalists start writing articles on how great it is to see starters finish games and how fast the games go. That will build momentum to the rule change Manfred wants. If you do not think Manfred wants to change these rules then you haven’t paid attention to his work in recent years.
30-man rosters could also become the norm, which is fine. Then raise the luxury tax considerably to accommodate the change. Players will unanimously approve.
Too dangerous. At least put plexi glass between batter and catcher and umpire. How many marlins will die because of owner greed?
Should have canceled the season. How many poor marlins would have gotten sick if they stayed home with a canceled season. You can’t fault them for clubbing when they have to play games all day.
Bull- stuff , stay in your room and spit in your hand
How about they hit off a tee or self hit it? And then the pitcher covers the plate. Dont need a catcher anymore….or maybe make it a triangle and have only 3 bases instead of 4……no more climbing the wall to rob a homer, can be construed as racist….or we do socialist baseball, when a guy hits a grand slam, for no reason the other team gets 2 runs…we only play 6 innings so theres more complete games and possible higher batting averages and real low e.r.a ‘s…. ( kind of like some pro am/amateur bowling tournaments where theres automatic strikes in the 3rd,6th and 9th frame)each team gets a zero in the 4th,5th and 6th innings.. manfred’s an idiot, he will go with a cpl of these
This 7inning DH thing better be for this season only. 18 inning games suck but how often do they actually happen? 4 maybe 6 times a year. If the game isn’t over after 15innigs. Postpone it til the next day (if possible) then play a normal 9 inning game a few hours later. The likelihood of a the 2nd game of the double header will go past to the 8th and 9th. This is not little league bs.
Heres a new one..no nore wooden bats only whiffle ball bats instead
I hate this rule but I see it’s need as well. They are trying very hard to keep the season going and in an already shortened season what else can you do to catch teams up?
Any rule changes on crotch grabbing ,bare handing the ball, or breathing?
Next up:
Losing by 7 runs after 3 innings – game over.
Losing by 5 after 5 – over
Down by three after 7 – over
1 hour 45 minute game limit – no inning can start after 1:45.
Ten minute maximum innings- no new at bat can start after 10.
Every at bat starts with a 2 ball/1 strike count.
One minute between innings, no commercial breaks.
Players sleep at the ballpark, arriving directly from the airport. All players and team personnel are confined to ballpark property. Small trailers to be set up in every stadium parking lot for players instead of hotels.
Maybe they can play two innings, then simulate the rest of the game on The Show.