2024 rule changes

[imref]

https://apnews.com/article/mlb-postseason-mets-rsn-robot-umpires-ec614b087a28efc739a56de165f13833

[Count Walewski]

Critics of the current system often use the argument that the regular season becomes "meaningless" if 100-win teams are eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by scrappy Wildcard teams getting hot at the right time.

Perhaps - but do you know what else feels meaningless? The regular season in August and September in years when all of the division leaders have 10-game leads and there is little to no drama about who makes the playoff. The Wildcard and especially the expanded wildcard has made late-regular-season baseball extremely exciting to follow.

The ghost win system described in the article sounds like a decent solution that allows us to have our cake and eat it too.

[nobleisthyname]

Baseball is a high variance sport and combined with the playoffs is also high parity. Combine the two and higher seeding is practically meaningless. There is very little difference between a 90 win team and a 100 win team across even a month of baseball, let alone a 5 or 7 game series.

This is the price of expanded playoffs.

[nfotiu]

I don't know why they can't go with an egregious ball/strike correction of some kind.   Have the zone be a baseball width wide.  If the full ball is out of it, and it's a strike, then overturn, if the full ball is in and it's a ball, then overturn.  Everything else stands as called.     

[imref]

Passan reports the league is considering cutting the pitch clock with runners on base from 20 seconds to 18 seconds. Bases empty clock would remain at 15 seconds. They are also considering reducing the # of mound visits from 5 to 4.

[Natsinpwc]

Passan reports the league is considering cutting the pitch clock with runners on base from 20 seconds to 18 seconds. Bases empty clock would remain at 15 seconds. They are also considering reducing the # of mound visits from 5 to 4.

Nola’s price just dropped $5 million per year.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

the mound visit thing I don't get. I guess they want it to be more of a constraint. Very few games involve burning through all 5 visits. Tightening up the total visits will not appreciably decreases the time of games. IIRC, the rule came into place before the pitch clock and wasn't all that noticeable.