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

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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.