Forfeits! More ties! Extended World Series! New (weird) ideas for MLB’s future

In the early days of baseball, it was considered cheating for a pitcher to try to deceive a batter. His job was to serve a pitch, underhanded, to start the run of play. Overhand pitches and curveballs? Heresy!

But the game is always in motion, constantly evolving. At one point in the recent past, the idea of a pitch clock might have led to your forced removal from a ballpark. Yet, we will see a pitch clock next season. MLB is changing a bunch of rules. Pitch clocks, bigger bases, banned shifts.

How far is too far? What might the future hold? What unpopular opinion today might someday become common in baseball?

With the evolution of baseball in mind, here are some ideas to tweak the game, some from the past and some with an eye toward the future. Some of these are dumb. Others may just win us a Nobel Prize. What do you think? And what changes would you make? Let’s dig in.

More forfeits

How absurd is this idea? Depends on who you ask. Levi actually made former player/GM/TV analyst Tom Grieve angry by asking him this question, so for baseball lifers, it’s borderline offensive. But we maintain that it’s logical!

Would MLB ever do it? It’s technically legal, so MLB has already allowed for it. But would managers ever do it? Joe Maddon isn’t currently employed, so … probably not.

This will sound antithetical to the entire point of competitive sports, but hear me out: teams should quit more.

We’re not talking about “Eh, it’s 7-4 in the fourth inning, and I am le tired …” This also isn’t referring to blowouts where a manager has a long reliever who hasn’t pitched in a week and needs to get some work to keep his arm stretched out.

But what about this scenario: It’s 15-2 in the sixth inning. You’re a manager whose middle- and long-relief guys are already a bit over-taxed from a rough stretch, and all you have left is your set-up guys and closer, and a position player or two. Is there really any benefit in burning your good arms in a game that has long since been decided? Do you love the idea of trotting position players out to do something their arms aren’t really conditioned for? Are you going to keep your defense on their feet for another hour wasting energy just to prove a point that you’re not a quitter?

Or should you — in the barely-intelligible words of the great Farmer Fran of “Waterboy” fame — “live to play another day”?

There hasn’t been a forfeit in baseball since 1995, and only one MLB team has ever done it deliberately (the 1977 Orioles). But think of the benefits: you keep your back-end relievers fresh for tomorrow’s game, which you currently have a realistic chance to win, unlike today. And at a time when we’re all trying to figure out the best way to keep arms healthy, you’re not putting your tired arms at any risk of injury. You give your position players a bit of a break and you boost your run differential; instead of losing by 13 runs, you lose 9-0 (as per the official rules).

The best argument against this isn’t based on grit or machismo. It’s based on pure economics. Forfeits are an early end to the day at the ballpark, so teams would theoretically sell fewer concessions, and fans would be upset. So for “financial reasons,” it’s not “feasible.” But look: if it’s 15-2 in the sixth inning, fans saw what they came to see. Nobody is sitting on the edge of their seat to see how this turns out. They’ve already hit the concessions stand out of pure disinterest and boredom. A 15-2 game is not short, so they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

Wave the flag — not as a quitter, but as a tactical genius.

Bounced strikes

How absurd is this idea? It’s not that absurd!

Would MLB ever do it? They should!

Per Section 5.05 of MLB’s official rules, a batter becomes a runner when he hits a fair ball. Off any pitch, period. But if a pitch touches the ground and bounces through the strike zone, it is necessarily considered a “ball.” So, a batter can take advantage of a bounced pitch but not a pitcher? This is bogus.

In the Dominican Republic, kids play a game called La Plaquita. It translates as “little plate” because they use a crimped license plate (or the like) standing on an edge behind the batter. If the pitcher can knock over la plaquita, then the batter is out. Pitches routinely bounce off the street, kinda like cricket. Vladimir Guerrero Sr. learned his aggressive approach as a hitter playing the game as a kid.

Corey Dickerson has hit three (!) doubles (!) on bounced pitches in his career. It’s a skill. Why not extend that skill both ways? Let the pitcher use the ground, too.

In theory, maybe this sounds wild. In practice, bounced pitches would probably still be rare. The easiest way to throw a bounced strike, it seems, is with a looping curveball that lands far enough in front of the plate to bounce into the strike zone. That leaves a lot of uncontrollable variables. Command would rely on the inexactness of crude dirt. The only outside influence on a pitch from hand to mitt is the density of air.

There are only so many pitches a pitcher can throw, and only so many ways a ball can spin on its axis. It’s time to open a new world with bounced pitches.

More ties

How absurd is this idea? The debate is real.

Would MLB ever do it? Ties exist already, but momentum is working against them.

Ties have a long history in the major leagues. Before 1918, ties were common. Three World Series games, even, ended in ties, as recently as 1922. But back then, there were no lights or night games. Can’t play baseball by candlelight.

A few years ago, a quiet movement started percolating in the minor leagues to allow for more ties, and for some of the same reasons they used to be common. Travel can be a hassle, especially in the Pacific Coast League, where teams are spread apart in the Western U.S. It can make for haywire playing conditions. And besides, at a level where development is more important than the result, what does it matter anyway?

The argument against ties came from coaches. They agreed that development was paramount. And learning to win was the most important lesson of them all. If winning doesn’t matter at Triple A, then a player might take that indirect lesson into the major leagues, where it should.

In 2007, commissioner Bud Selig altered MLB’s rules to further bury the possibility of ties. Now, the only way a game can end in a tie is if weather ruins the regular end and that game is the last of the season between those two teams and the result has no effect on the postseason. The Cubs and Pirates played the last tie game, in September of 2016.

The problem of extended games and altered travel still exists. MLB has bent over backward to limit extra innings with a little league-style “California tie-breaker” that puts an automatic runner on second base. Ties are a more elegant solution. Rob Manfred doesn’t agree. Neither does Ted Lasso.

Run the bases in either direction

How absurd is this idea? Extremely.

Would MLB ever do it? Absolutely not.

Look, there’s no point trying to justify this as a logical rule change. There’s one reason and one reason only to advocate for this: maximum chaos.

There are two ways to go about this. One is more uniform: once a batter is on base, the team has chosen whether they’re going clockwise or counterclockwise this inning. The other option — and the one more conducive to pandemonium — is more interpretive. Each batter makes up his own mind. Got a runner on third and hit a grounder toward the first-base side? Book it to third base and do your best not to collide with the runner headed home. Bonus chaos? Once a batter reaches second base, they could opt to change course and score by going back to first base. Maximum über-chaos? Multiple runners on the same base. You could (and should!) have two runners on first base at some point, one taking his lead off toward home to score, and the other leading off toward second base.

It’s mayhem. We’re asking for mayhem. Baseball needs more hilarity, and this would be the baseball version of “The Office.”

But think about the implications! One obvious and immediate effect would be that third basemen would have to stay positioned relatively close to the bag, just in case. You could ostensibly have a double-pickoff. Runners could intentionally bait a double-pickoff to induce a double-rundown to try to trick their way into scoring a walk-off chaos-run. No more assumption that you can stick a weak-armed outfielder in left field — they might have to prevent a triple by throwing it to first base now. Speaking of triples, first basemen could no longer abandon their position and become an automatic backup or cut-off man: the runner could simply pivot at second base and go back to first for that third bag.

It would radically alter the mechanics of the game. It will never happen. But maybe we could convince the Savannah Bananas to try it for one game, just to indulge in the maniacal entropy that would unfold.

Circular bases

How absurd is this idea? Wait, what?

Would MLB ever do it? Now that you mention it …

At a convention of baseball players in 1857, back in the weird, early days of baseball, a diagram of the field was codified. They decided that “home base” should be “a flat circular iron plate, painted or enameled white.” The other bases were to be one-square-foot canvas bags, painted white and filled with sand or sawdust. Home plate didn’t become a pentagon until the dawn of the 20th century.

Starting this season, for the first time since 1877, MLB will change the size of the other bases, from 15-by-15 inches square to 18-by-18 inches. The league hopes a bigger base will increase offense and decrease the threat of injury from collisions and slides.

Maybe we should reconsider circular bases. A circle with the same area as a square would push the base out on its long ends while cutting off its corners. Why bother, you ask? Theoretically, it would allow a longer runway for a player sliding through the base at full speed. It’s frustrating to watch a runner slide in time into a base, beating the tag, but see his momentum push him a slight hair past the base and be called out. That’s dumb.

On the list of priorities facing this league, the shape of the bases must be down next to deciding the flavor for the second bucket of sunflower seeds. But that’s what we’re here for.

Best-of-nine World Series

How absurd is this idea? Not very.

Would MLB ever do it? Probably.

Yes, we have posited ourselves as the mad-scientist ruiners of the game, but let’s take the opposite position here. The only reason to do this would be for the almighty dollar. More games = more revenue. Maybe fans would be happy to have more baseball, too, but the playoffs have already begun bleeding into November with the expanded field.

Seven games is plenty to decide a winner. It’s already nearly twice as long as any regular-season series, and while tradition has taken a severe walloping in this article, there’s something to be said for sticking with what works. Every World Series record would be broken in a few years’ time, and you would end up with some Juan Pierre-type player having a good run on a dynasty team and breaking Derek Jeter’s record of 302 career postseason total bases or David Freese’s single-postseason record of 50 in 2011 (this can be viewed as a feature or a bug, depending on your rooting interests).

In an article fraught with bad ideas, this bad idea is the one that is most liberally fertilized by greed — which is why it’s probably the one on this list most likely to actually happen.

Healthy scratches

How absurd is this idea? Totally reasonable.

Would MLB ever do it? Ask the MLBPA.

Shoutout to our NHL friends. Here’s an idea borrowed from hockey: A roster would be made up of more players than are eligible on game day — a few of them would be scratched and out of uniform. During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, MLB adopted a similar idea, a so-called taxi squad. More players traveled with their teams than could play in a given game.

Right now, a game roster includes 26 players, then increases to 28 in September. If a team wants to make a roster change, they usually need to fly in a player from the minor leagues. A healthy scratch system would allow them to have more players on hand — let’s say 30 with four healthy scratches. Those players could take batting practice and go to meetings and throw bullpens, but when the game starts, only 26 would be available. The next day, though, a healthy scratch could play and somebody else would sit instead.

This would solve some bullpen burnout issues and allow for more dexterity in manager lineup decisions. It would also require that owners pay 30 big leaguers instead of 26. And that, well, that just cannot happen. How could they possibly afford to pay four more players?

(Photo of Jeremy Peña at the 2022 World Series: Harry How / Getty Images)