A Double-Shot Of Manfred Shittiness

"I hate baseball and I hate people enjoying baseball. It's as simple as that."

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wants baseball to keep the new rule of starting extra innings with a runner on second base. He also supports an expanded postseason format. Any rule changes for 2021 must be approved by the Players Union.

Manfred believes the three-batter minimum for relief pitchers is "here to stay". He claims that everyone in the game supports it, which is almost certainly complete bullshit.

"Complete bullshit" also serves as a succinct description of Manfred's entire portfolio of "improvements" to the game. The no-pitch intentional walk and the three-batter minimum were enacted, in part, at least, to speed up games, something that the lords of basebal have been complaining about for well over 100 years. 

In 2020, the average nine-inning game lasted 3:07.46, an increase of two minutes, 11 seconds from the previous year! 

Great work, Rob! . . . What's next? . . . Only two outs per inning? . . . Batters get one swing per plate appearance? . . . Outlawing home run trots might save some time. . . . Speaking of which, how about pitchers throwing only fastballs? Those off-speed pitches can really slow the game down.

Rob Manfred Discusses State Of MLB In Wide-Ranging Interview
Associated Press, October 20, 2020

Ahead of a World Series capping the pandemic-shortened season, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said he hopes to keep two of this year's innovations: expanded playoffs and starting extra innings with runners on second base. 

"People were wildly unenthusiastic about the changes. And then when they saw them in action, they were much more positive," Manfred said Tuesday during an interview with The Associated Press.

. . . After Opening Day was delayed from March 26 to July 23, MLB and the players' association agreed to expand the number of teams in the playoffs from 10 to 16.

Even before the pandemic, Manfred advocated a future expansion of the playoffs to 14 teams.

"I like the idea of, and I'm choosing my words carefully here, an expanded playoff format," Manfred said. "I don't think we would do 16 like we did this year. I think we do have to be cognizant of making sure that we preserve the importance of our regular season. But I think something beyond the 10 that we were at would be a good change." . . .

"I think the players like it," Manfred said. "I think it's really good from a safety and health perspective that keeps us from putting players in situations where they're out there too long or in positions they're not used to playing."

Union head Tony Clark said it was too soon to commit to changes for 2021. The sport's labor contract runs through 2021, and the union's agreement is needed to alter the 2021 structure. . . .

Manfred was pleased with the rule he pushed for forcing pitchers to face a minimum of three batters or to finish the half inning.

"There's nothing about what happened this year that has changed, not only in my mind, but anybody in the game's mind about it, and I think that's here to stay," he said.

He would not say whether he favors keeping the expansion of the designated hitter to the National League, citing the need to bargain on the topic with the players' union. . . . 

Manfred also did not draw conclusions about the average time of a nine-inning game, which increased to a record 3 hours, 7 minutes, 46 seconds, up from 3:05:35 last year. The cause likely was tied to expanded rosters and increased pitching changes. He also thought it was difficult to analyze whether the drop in the major league batting average to .245, its lowest since 1968, was cyclical or an anomaly.

"What people are telling me about kind of every measure for this year in terms of statistics is that 60 [games] is just not a great sample size and you shouldn't really put too much weight on it," he said.

Manfred's decisions run counter to what fans want, if this Yahoo poll I voted in last night means anything. 

Why does Manfred think the best way to make baseball more popular is to impose radical changes that  the majority of fans do not like?

As the shortened season began, SB Nation react voters were against the new rules. 59% did not approve of beginning each extra inning with a runner on second, and . And even though 41% liked the rule, only 27% thought it should be used beyond 2020. A whopping 73% said the rule should be for 2020 only. Also, 58% said they do not like two seven-inning games for doubleheaders.

An MLB Trade Rumours poll from June reported that 80% of voters did not like the extra-inning rule.

MLB Promised Free COVID-19 Testing For Essential Workers. We're Still Waiting.
Bradford William Davis, New York Daily News, September 24, 2020

Tucked away in Major League Baseball's 113-page manual for playing through the coronavirus pandemic is a subtle assurance from the league and its owners to the public that baseball in 2020 would offset whatever resource drain might result from the business of baseball.

As Section 2.1.5, titled "Voluntary Testing of Household Members and First Responders" read: "MLB will offer free diagnostic/PCR and antibody/serology testing for . . . healthcare workers or other first responders in the Clubs' home cities as a public service."

MLB would clean up after itself, in other words, supplying free tests aimed at the workers cheered on by clanging pots and pans . . . Even if these tests might exclude other "essential workers," and if the manual barely defined how MLB planned to set any of this into motion, it was something.

Or it would have been something, if it had happened. Exactly three months after the manual was shown to the public, and two months after Opening Day, MLB is only now beginning to return its attention to promises made in June.

Of MLB's 30 teams . . . only one team, the Red Sox, has confirmed a testing plan aimed at frontline workers in its community. The Giants, who say they have made their testing site for players and coaches available to the city of San Francisco, are the next closest, but have not made specific plans to provide testing for frontline workers.

Most teams either didn't respond to the Daily News' inquiries or formally declined comment. Others deferred to MLB, which then deferred back to the individual clubs. . . .

For months, baseball has devoured about 10,000 tests per week for players and personnel. Those tests have to come from somewhere. The number may not be particularly large compared to the overall number of tests needed across the country, but it adds stress to an already overtaxed system, and grants priority and preference to players and team personnel who could otherwise be perfectly safe at home on their couch.

While MLB has spun up its own testing, the rest of the country is facing massive testing shortages, drive-through lines stretching for miles, and week-long waits for test results. Black and Latino communities across the city and nation continue to bear the brunt of the consequences of America's testing failure. These communities are disproportionately poor and lower-income, making it hard to afford a concierge testing program delivering results in 24 hours. And they make up a disproportionately large share of the "essential worker" class, putting them in the line of the virus for which we still cannot test cheaply or reliably. . . .

After multiple requests for clarification, an MLB representative provided a partial explanation: Testing health care workers and first responders was "an optional program that MLB and the MLBPA chose to implement."

Even if that is how the league officially views the situation, the language of MLB's health protocol manual never refers to the public service testing as "optional." . . . 

"Multiple clubs have activated programs or have plans in development, benefitting various healthcare institutions in Major League markets," the statement continued, while adding that the league provided test kits that were available by request to be distributed for "members of their community" at the club's discretion. So far, the league claims, there have been "thousands of recipients" of MLB's free COVID-19 tests.

It did not clarify who received these tests, or how "members of the community" might access tests flagged for their use.

When the News asked MLB to clarify which teams have or will launch programs in concert with 2.1.5 (ii), the league deferred, saying that "[individual] clubs can comment on their specific efforts."

Again, most teams did not. Seventeen of MLB's 30 teams, including the Yankees, did not respond to The News' repeated inquiries about their administration of the league's community testing initiative.

Finally, a bit of good news.

There will be no DH in the National League in 2021, although whether it will be AL-only in 2022 and beyond will be a topic of discussion after next season when negotiations begin on the sport's next collective bargaining agreement.