Colorado Rockies: Bud Black’s thoughts on the 2020 rule changes

On Wednesday, Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black spoke with the media and he was asked about his opinion on the 2020 rule changes.

Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black spoke with the media extensively on Wednesday and there was a lot to cover as it was his first time speaking with the media as a whole since the regular season ended in late September.

One of the things that he was asked about was his opinions on the five main changes to baseball in 2020:

• A runner on base to start extra innings
• The universal designated hitter
• Expanded playoffs, both in the number of teams and games in the Wild Card series
• Seven inning doubleheaders
• The three batter minimum for relief pitchers (unless the inning was completed before facing the three batters)

Black, a self-called baseball “traditionalist,” told the media, including Rox Pile, that he was skeptical of most of the changes heading into the season but for most of them, he wouldn’t mind if they were kept. Let’s look at his opinions on all five.

Extra inning baserunner starting on second to start the 10th inning

This is one of the changes that Black said that he was skeptical of entering the season but he grew to like it a lot.

“[For t]he extra-inning [baserunner] rule, I liked it,” said Black. “Going in [to the season]–again, [I’m] more of a traditionalist, thinking ‘let’s play this out [with] real baseball’ but, you know, I grew to like it. I grew to like how that instant intensity grew when that guy went out to second base in the 10th inning. [It’s] not quite ‘sudden-death’ but [it’s] a pretty good start.”

He would consider a possible change to the rule, though: not starting in the 10th inning but perhaps later.

“The only thing that I would think about [changing] there would be possibly, maybe, play 10 or 11 innings of baseball as we know it and then maybe shift gears to putting the runner on second [base] in the 11th, 12th, [or] 13th inning or something like that that we can talk about in some form of a committee,” said Black.

Seven inning doubleheaders

Once again, like the extra inning baserunner rule, Black liked this one but he would still like to tweak it a bit.

“[For] the seven inning doubleheaders, I think that was a good one as well as far as expediting what we needed to do as far as the health protocols this season, for sure,” said Black. “And I think [it was necessary for] where the pitchers were as far as stamina and durability, especially early in the year. But, again, I think that one has merit. [I would m]aybe add a little adendum there where the first game is nine [innings] and the second game is seven [innings] or something like that. That could be discussed to change that up a little bit.”

Expanded postseason (both the number of teams and games in the Wild Card series)

This is yet another change that Black likes and would like to keep going forward.

“I like that one too,” said Black. “You know, I like that one, whether it’s 16 teams or 14 teams or whatever works, I do like the added clubs in there. I think it lends itself to more teams, obviously, in a pennant race but I like that one. And I like the two out of three scenario as opposed to the one-game Wild Card. There’s a lot of variables along with that–if we have to knock [the]162 [game schedule] down a little bit to make this work in October–there’s a lot of discussion but I do like expanded playoffs.”

For a team like the Rockies that has had troubles playing playoff baseball consistently, this could be a way to have more of an avenue into postseason play and revenue. Perhaps, the regular season schedule would be trimmed down to 154 games (like it was prior to the expansion era, aka 1961 to the present).

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The three batter minimum for relievers

This is the one rule that Black did not like. On both High Heat and with the media as a whole, he didn’t delve into it much but this is what he said to the media, including Rox Pile

“I think that’s worth a discussion of changing that,” said Black.

He, essentially, said the same thing on High Heat but he said that he would like to discuss getting rid of that with a rules committee.

This is obviously not his own words but if I had to guess, it would be due to the lack of strategy. Sometimes, two pitches into an appearance, you can just flat out tell that the reliever doesn’t have it so, with the game presumably being on the line since it’s in the later innings, you’re just supposed to watch the game go out of reach all because a rule says you can’t relieve him in order to “cut down” on the time of game. It doesn’t save much time, if at all.

Spoiler Alert: More pitching changes don’t make the game that much longer. Commercials do. Go check out a game from the 1970s or 1980s (there’s plenty out there). They played games (even the postseason that were two and a half hours or less because they had commercials of 1:30 or less, not 2-3 minutes every half inning. The problem is commercials make money for teams and for MLB. Pitching changes do not.

We’ll have plenty more from Black in the coming days since he discussed a wide array of topics.