Collective Bargaining Agreement

Yesterday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that MLB’s Competition Committee was considering trimming two seconds off the pitch clock when runners are on base. That isn’t the only potential rule change under discussion this offseason.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports a number of additional, fairly minor, alterations that’ll be considered. Perhaps most notable would be a requirement that pitchers work from the stretch whenever a runner is on base. Pitchers tend to work from the stretch to hold runners on but sometimes throw from a full windup or hybrid delivery when there’s a runner on third given the unlikelihood of that runner trying to steal home.

The committee is also considering reducing the number of mound visits per team in a game from five to four. A team that used all four would still get one extra visit in the ninth inning.

Another potential change: requiring a pitcher that warms up to face at least one batter. A pitcher who comes out of the bullpen is already required to face at least one hitter, barring injury. Unless that pitcher completes an inning within the first hitter or two, they have to go up against a minimum of three batters.

That only applies for a new pitcher entering the game, however. A pitcher who has faced three or more hitters and concluded the preceding inning can warm up for the beginning of an ensuing frame before being subbed out. While a rare occurrence, this sometimes happens when the batting team calls for a pinch-hitter that spurs a pitching change, usually to mitigate the pinch-hitter’s platoon advantage. Since the oncoming reliever throws warm-up pitches of his own, that can lead to consecutive warm-up breaks with no at-bat, causing a few minutes of dead time. Requiring a pitcher who warms up to face the first hitter would eliminate that occurrence (while offering a slight advantage to the offense in such scenarios).

Free agent infielder Whit Merrifield, one of the player representatives on the committee, proposed a change designed to prevent fielders from blocking a runner’s direct path to any base. The goal of that proposal is to minimize fielder-runner collisions and eliminate scenarios in which an infielder uses his lower body while receiving a throw to shield a runner from sliding into a base. That happens somewhat frequently on stolen base attempts.

Rosenthal covers a few more changes under consideration in a piece that’s worth a full read for those interested in rules minutia. The competition committee consists of six MLB officials, four player representatives and umpire Bill Miller. A simple majority can implement those changes without approval of the Players Association, essentially giving MLB control over on-field rules adjustments.

Major League Baseball’s competition committee is considering a reduction of the pitch clock with runners on base, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. In 2023, the clock was set at 20 seconds with runners on but the new proposal would see that reduced to 18 seconds next year. The 15-second clock with bases empty is not under consideration for a change. The committee is also considering a reduction in the number of mound visits each team is allowed per game, from five to four.

2023 was the first year with a pitch clock at the MLB level and it had the desired effect of reducing game times and speeding up the pace of play. Per a report from Ronald Blum of the Associated Press at the end of the regular season, the average game time was two hours and 40 minutes in the most recent season, a 24-minute decrease from the season before. However, Passan’s report today indicates that gradually crept up as the season went along and players adjusted to the new rules. The average game length was 2:37 in April but inched up to 2:44 by September. It seems the league hopes to stop that trend by reducing one of the two clocks.

This is likely to get push back from some players, many of whom wanted adjustments to the clock for the postseason out of concern for increased injury risk. However, it was reported in September that no such adjustments would be made. Passan reports that players have similar concerns about this new development, though they may not have much sway to stop it.

The players are outnumbered on the competition committee, as there are six members representing teams, four representing players and one umpire. This structure was agreed upon in the most recent collective bargaining agreement. That gives the league the power to implement rules even if players object, though doing so runs the risk of further souring relations that led to a lockout not too long ago. The players would reportedly be more open to the reduction if it also came with an increase to the bases-empty clock, but the league is apparently uninterested in that.

The committee can implement a change with 45 days’ notice. Since Spring Training starts in February, they would probably want to make a final decision before the calendar flips over to 2024. With the baseball world generally slowing down for the holidays in late December, it’s possible there’s some resolution on this matter in the next month or so.

MLB’s rule change initiatives headed into 2023 have largely had their intended effects, improving the run scoring environment while cutting down on game times. That being said, those changes haven’t stopped players from hoping that the rules surrounding the pitch clock, which limits pitchers to 15 seconds between pitches with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on, would be relaxed somewhat during the postseason given the heightened importance given to each play during a win-or-go-home series.

It seems as though those players will be disappointed, however, as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci reports that MLB has decided not to adjust the pitch clock during the postseason this year. Per Verducci, the league informed the Competition Committee yesterday that they would not propose any amendments to the rules for postseason play this year. It’s easy to see why the league would be satisfied with the changes and not look to mix things up, given the average game time has dropped from 3:03 in 2022 to just 2:39 this year. While Verducci notes that game times have crept up throughout the year as hitters have increasingly made use of their timeout during plate appearances, August’s average game time of 2:41 is still more than twenty minutes shorter than last year’s average.

While there won’t be changes to the pitch clock this postseason, that doesn’t mean the league isn’t contemplating changes at all. Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper recently noted that, starting on September 5, the pitch clock at the Triple-A level will be tweaked significantly. Rather than the previous 14 seconds with the bases empty and 19 seconds with runners on at the level (one second fewer than in the majors in both situations), Triple-A games down the stretch will instead operate with a single, 17-second clock for all situations. Cooper notes that the change is made possible thanks to the level’s widespread use of PitchCom, which allows pitchers and catchers to communicate without the use of signs.

Other, smaller changes at Triple-A are planned as well with an eye toward preventing pitchers and catchers from gaming the pitch clock, such as lowering the number of mound visits. While the changes at the Triple-A level are by no means guaranteed to reach the majors, it’s nonetheless worth noting that the league is still experiment with the specifics of the pitch clock in hopes of further optimizing the rule.

In addition to the incoming pace-of-play related changes, the Triple-A level is also poised to see a change to its ABS system for automating the strike zone. While previously, ABS has used percentages of a hitter’s height to determine the top and bottom limits of the strike zone, that has created issues due to varying body types between players that a human strike zone would normally account for. As such, Cooper relays that going forward the ABS system will be altered to use visual tracking when setting the strike zone to create a custom strike zone for each individual player. While the new strike zone is expected to more closely mimic a human strike zone, the top of the zone will still be lower than the major league strike zone, an intentional feature implemented in hopes of lowering the number of strikeouts on fastballs at the top of the zone.

The change toward an individualized strike zone more akin to the ones created by human umpires seems to be a step in the right direction as people from all sides of the game look toward the possibility of an automated strike zone of some variety reaching the major leagues in the coming years. An automated strike zone wouldn’t necessarily remove the entire human element of calling the strike zone; while half of all Triple-A games are called with a fully automated strike zone, the other half utilize human umpires while offering both pitchers and hitters a challenge system that utilizes the automated strike zone to determine the outcome of the challenge.

Rob Manfred addressed a key point of the league’s economic structure in an appearance at the World Congress of Sports this evening. The MLB commissioner expressed support for a limitation on contract length, calling it a desire of ownership groups around the league (link via Evan Drellich of the Athletic).

“A reform that has been of interest to ownership for a number of years is a limitation of contract length,” Manfred said in response to a question about a potential upper bound on long-term deals. “Obviously players love it, it gives them financial security for a very long period of time. The difficulty — and I think players will come to appreciate this as time goes by — those contracts result in a transfer from the current stars to yesterday’s stars. At some point, that has to be true. And I think it is an issue that is important for us to stay focused on, because it creates inflexibility that affects the quality of the teams that you put on the field.”

The notion of a maximum contract length drew a sharp rebuke from MLBPA executive director Tony Clark. “The public statements from Rob Manfred about the owners’ desire to limit guaranteed contracts is just one more in a series of statements attacking fundamental aspects of baseball’s free market system and the freedom of clubs and players to structure deals in the best interests of all parties,” Clark told Drellich. “The ability of individual clubs to act in their own self-interest in determining how best to put an exciting product on the field for their fans is not something that should be restricted. Anyone who believes that players would ever endorse an assault by management on guaranteed contracts is badly mistaken.”

It’s not shocking to hear of league interest in capping contracts, nor is it a surprise Clark framed that notion as a non-starter. Any kind of contract length cap would have to be collectively bargained. It’s impossible to envision the union entertaining that possibility during the next round of CBA negotiations four years from now.

Debates about contract length have been prevalent since the advent of free agency. Teams’ risk tolerance to commit to players deep into their 30s waned as research mounted about the likelihood of the aging curve sapping production towards the end of a deal. There’s certainly some truth in Manfred’s assertion that the back end of long-term contracts (particularly free agent deals) tend not to offer clubs’ a great return on investment.

However, overpaying for diminished production towards the back of a player’s career is a risk/reward calculation for clubs. Teams are left to weigh long-term downside versus the short-term benefit of adding a player for potential prime seasons during the early portion of a contract. Accepting some potentially unproductive seasons towards the back of a free agent deal is often the tradeoff for upgrading the roster in the short term. A contract length limit would have some element of protecting teams from their own decisions.

The game’s current economic structure is built on the premise that free agency is a right secured by players later in their careers. Pre-arbitration and arbitration salaries are designed to pay players at below-market rates for their first six-plus years. While some players debut young enough to hit free agency right as they’re entering their prime, the majority of first-time free agents get to the open market in the middle or at the tail end of their expected best seasons.

In many cases, teams are disincentivized to extend long-term contracts in recognition of the risk of diminished performance down the line. However, in some instances, the existence of another measure designed to limit spending paradoxically pushes clubs in the direction of longer-term deals.

Teams’ luxury tax calculations are based on the average annual salaries of their contractual commitments. In the past few offseasons, some high-spending franchises have elected to stretch deals over an extra season or two in order to reduce the AAV and associated tax hit. The Phillies’ deals for Bryce Harper (13 years, $330MM) and Trea Turner (11 years, $300MM), Mets’ contract with Brandon Nimmo (eight years, $162MM), and Padres’ agreements with Xander Bogaerts (11 years, $280MM) and Yu Darvish (five years, $90MM) are examples to varying degrees.

MLB was reportedly planning to intervene on contract length at one point last offseason. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman wrote that San Diego was preparing to offer Aaron Judge $400MM over 14 years, a deal that would’ve run through age-44. Judge returned to the Yankees regardless, but Heyman reported that the league would’ve viewed that contract as a circumvention of the luxury tax had it been accepted. How the MLBPA would have responded is unclear.

That intervention would have been specifically about a team going too far (in MLB’s view) to massage its tax bill. It would not have had anything to do with a categorical limit on contract length. San Diego’s 14-year extension with Fernando Tatis Jr. garnered league approval a few years ago, as it “only” ran through Tatis’ age-35 campaign.

A limit on contract length is not without precedent within the North American sports landscape. The collective bargaining agreements for the NBA and NHL each have variable maximum contract lengths based on whether a player previously played for the team signing the deal (and in the NBA’s case, an age-based provision). Those leagues each have salary caps, though, reflecting lesser leverage on the part of their respective Players Associations than the MLBPA has. The MLB players union surely won’t have any interest in entertaining this question so long as they have negotiating leverage.

It was reported earlier this week that MLB was considering modifications to the various rule changes that are being implemented this year. A pitch clock, limits on defensive shifts, pickoff attempts and bigger bases will all be part of the 2023 season and have been in use during spring games. The Competition Committee consists of six league appointees, one umpire and four players and is responsible for deciding on rule changes for the sport. They met earlier this week to discuss concerns that have been raised after the players have spent the past few weeks getting adjusted to the new rules.

After deciding on some small changes, the league issued a memo to teams to outline what’s new. Though some fans might have been wishing for sweeping alterations or perhaps abandoning some rule changes altogether, the memo actually consists of many minor tweaks, with Jeff Passan of ESPN and Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com among those relaying the details. As noted in the memo, the changes are achieving their goal of quickening the pace of play, with the average running time of a spring game dropping from three hours and one minute to two hours and 36 minutes. Given that, they’re not abandoning the key pieces, such as the 15-second pitch clock with the bases empty or the 20-second clock with runners on, nor the requirement that the better be alert with eight seconds left.

The changes are as follows:

• The rule that Passan highlights as the most important involves replays of defensive shift violations. There was some concern that teams would challenge defensive positioning on key plays, hoping that one of the four infielders had a toe or a heel beyond where they were supposed to be standing. Today’s memo specifies that only the position of the player who first fielded the ball can be challenged. For instance, on a groundout to the third baseman, the batting team can’t challenge that the second baseman was violating the positioning rules.
• MLB players began using PitchCom last year, an electronic device that allowed catchers to call pitches, which arrive to the pitcher as an audio message via a receiver in their hat. If a device malfunctions, the player must inform the umpire, who can grant time and stop the clock. Bob Nightengale of USA Today adds that a pitcher won’t get more time if they forget their PitchCom in the dugout at the start of an inning. This is to prevent players from deliberately forgetting the device for any reason.
• Bat boys and bat girls will have standards applied to their responsibilities of retrieving equipment from the field of play. As part of the pace of play efforts, the league can ask clubs to replace them if they are deemed not quick enough.
• Umpires can delay the start of the pitch clock, or wave it off if the operator has already started it, on brushback pitches or “big swings” where equipment falls off or the hitter falls to the ground.
• When pitchers leave the mound to make a defensive play, the 30-second between-batters clock will be delayed and will restart when the pitcher is back on the infield grass. If the pitcher is in foul territory to back up a play, it will restart once he is back in fair territory.
• Umpires will have some discretionary ability with the clock when it comes to catchers who finish an inning batting or on base. The two-minute and 30-second between-innings clock can be paused at the 30-second mark if the catcher isn’t ready, provided they made a “reasonable effort” to do so. In that case, the catcher will be allowed to receive one warm-up pitch and make a throw down to second base.
• After a hitter calls time out, which is allowed once per plate appearance, the clock would restart from 15 or 20 once he was alert in the batter’s box. Now the batter has the onus of telling the umpire when he’s ready, regardless of where he is standing, thus restarting the clock. Castrovince notes that in the rare instance that a batter uses his timeout and is then replaced mid-at-bat due to injury, the pinch-hitter will not be awarded an additional timeout.

There’s also another rule change that hasn’t yet been implemented but seems imminent. Some pitchers and catchers have been flipping the PitchCom system, where the pitcher relays the signal to the catcher. Though some have been experimenting with this setup this spring, it hasn’t yet been approved for regular season usage. Passan reports that it is expected to be approved, perhaps as soon as this week.