Rules

In the National League, the elongated double switch shows again why pitching statistics are quite poorly attributed.  A traditional double switch involves the manager inserting a position player into the game  for the current pitcher and a new pitcher for a position player--typically one who just made an out, so that the new pitcher won't be batting for nearly a full trip through the lineup.

Continue reading "More Thoughts on MLB Pitching Statistics"

Here'e another quirky entry into the "Win" category:  http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4318608.  If we used Team pitching statistics, that win would simply go to the Nationals pitching staff, which clearly it should have.

Continue reading "Another Reason Why MLB Needs Team ..."

I got into a discussion with Sean yesterday about the post I made a couple of weeks ago concerning when a runner has officially taken possession of a base.  We consulted the rule book (online at baseball-almanac.com, a great site) and found no specific details about the situation.  (Though, admittedly, I did not carefully pore over every bit of it research-style, since we were simply having an entertaining discussion.)  While shifting through various alternative scenarios to try to tease out the answer, this fun one came up:

Continue reading "More Baseball Rules Discussion"

I thought it would be fitting for my first post to discuss a rules question I've thought about for baseball for quite a long time. Here's the situation: Runner on first, less than 2 outs.  The pitcher accidentally goes into the windup, and the runner takes off for second.  (Or the runner takes off, then the pitcher goes into the windup.)  There is a strange combination of blazing speed in the runner and very slow motion in the pitcher's windup.  The runner reaches second base before the pitch reaches the plate.  The batter hits a lazy fly to the outfield.

Continue reading "Rules of the game (MLB)"