Pittsburgh Pirates: Opinion on MLB Rules for 2021 Season

Just like 2020, the 2021 season isn’t going to be the most normal season ever. Far from it as Major League Baseball continues to try new rules. Here is my opinion on some of those.

On Tuesday, Major League Baseball and the Players Association reached a deal on their health and safety protocols for the upcoming regular season plus Spring Training. As of right now, things are slated to get started as usual for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the rest of MLB with a 162 game season and full Spring Training.

However, some of the new rules we saw in 2020 will return while others will not. This season the rosters will be 26-man rosters until September when they expand to 28-man rosters. Expanding rosters is a good thing for baseball in general as it gets more players playing time in the Major Leagues.

Another rule that will be returning is the 7-inning double headers. While I do not enjoy the 7-inning double headers, I do understand they may be necessary until all players get the COVID-19 vaccine.

A handful of teams had to miss weeks of playing time due to teammates catching the virus. The St. Louis Cardinals missed nearly an entire month of playing time because of it. The Philadelphia Phillies missed a decent chunk of time because they played the Miami Marlins, who tested positive after a series in Philly. If teams want to play 162 games without delaying the season, then they need to prepare in the event a team catches the virus and misses a week or more of playing time.

Thankfully, the Pittsburgh Pirates were not impacted all that much by COVID-19 in 2020. However, that does not mean that will be the case again in 2021. After all, COVID-19 remains unpredictable with a lot of luck needed to stay safe.

One rule that isn’t returning is the expanded playoffs as playoffs will go back to the 10-team format. Last season, over half of the total teams in the MLB made the postseason as it was expanded to 16 total teams. I am not opposed to expanding the playoffs, but it has to be reworked from the 16-team format.

There are two reasons for this.

My first reason is that I don’t think a sub-.500 deserves a playoff spot, yet two teams lost more games than they won and still got a Wild Card spot. The Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros both had 29-31 records yet still clinched a spot in October. My other point is that it will give owners less of an incentive to spend. As an owner and businessman, would it make sense for you to invest that extra $20-$30 million into players to win 90 games instead of 85 when you can make the playoffs either way? Overall, player salaries would go down and less exciting baseball may occur. More often, you’d see division winners win 80-85 games instead of 90-100 games.

Last season, we saw the introduction of the universal designated hitter for all 30 MLB teams. However, that won’t be returning for 2021. The universal DH has long been something rumored to come to the National League. Up until this point, teams didn’t get a definite answer as to whether or not it would be part of the game next season. While the universal DH does take away strategic moves such as the double switch, it’s something that I wouldn’t be opposed to.

Pitchers have never been good hitters and rarely does a team have someone who is competent with the bat. Since 2000, only 17 pitchers have had a season where they posted a wRC+ of at least 90, or 10% below league average, in at least 50 plate appearances (not counting two-way players like Brooks Kieschnick, who pitched and played a decent amount of the outfield or Micah Owings, who was a starter and pinch hit many times). However, of all the rules that MLB is trying, it’s the most likely to become a long term staple of the game.

The rule I am the most opposed to that is returning to the MLB is starting a runner at second base in extra innings. To simply put, I hate it. The reasoning behind it is to cut down on average game time and to essentially put an end to marathon games. However, the amount of games it is impacting is so small, to me, it’s worthless to add in.

According to Tomahawk Take writer Fred Owens, from 2011 to 2016, only 0.75% of all extra inning games made it to the 12th inning. Less than 0.2% made it to the 15th. Now I’m not arguing that the marathon games aren’t hard on pitchers’ arms, because they are. However, this is changing a fundamental part of the game to stop something that happens maybe once every other month. Not only is this changing such an integral part of the game to affect such a small amount of games, but it also isn’t going to drive in a notable amount of fans. How many more people are going to start becoming avid fans of baseball because of fewer 12+ inning games?

Now nothing is set in stone yet. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement coming up next off season, many of these rules may change, be left out, or return for 2022 and beyond. The relationship between the MLB team owners and Players Association has been pretty tense over the last few seasons. There is a chance of a strike, but we shall see what happens next offseason.