Atlanta Braves 2 Out Magic: Could that Dynamic Part of Baseball Change?

Here is how it works:

“When the game is 0-0 or tied, baseball is played exactly as it is today—three outs per side. But when the at-bat club has or takes a lead, it gets two outs instead of three. For example: Your team is in a scoreless contest. Then your slugger hits a home run to go up 1-0. Now your inning ends at two outs. Not three. As long as you keep a lead, your at-bat innings are two outs. That’s it. Tie game, three outs a side. Get the lead, play with two outs. If you take the lead with two outs, the lead stays, but the inning ends.” – Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal

Hey, while we’re at it, can we go ahead and start hitters with a 1-1 count and you’re out on a second fouled ball? Oh, and if you hit more than 2 homers in a game, it’s an out for the team.

What’s that you say? You don’t have any more position players? Oh, that’s too bad. Guess you’ll have to take an out when that spot comes up in the order.

Look, this isn’t a bash on Gay here, he actually writes a nice piece, these aren’t his ideas, after all. However, he does seems to champion it though. He even goes as far to include sabermetric-like evidence from the two academics. Apparently studies were done on over 50 years of baseball encompassing entire seasons, even post-seasons.

Uh, that’s a lot of research.

According to that research, the average margin of victory went “from 3.21 runs to 2.15 runs”. What about time shaved off of games? They covered that too.

Meanwhile, there was a dramatic reduction in the length of game. Because fewer outs are necessary, outs-per-nine-innings dropped from 52.5 to 45.9—a drop that Brams and Isaksen believe shaves 24 minutes off a nine-inning baseball game.

No kidding? Really, that’s fascinating. No, seriously, Captain Obvious:  who would have thought that if YOU ELIMINATE OUTS YOU WOULD DROP IN OUTS-PER-NINE YOU’LL SAVE TIME!!!

Mind-boggling.

This line really struck a chord with me, though.

The Baseball Haves were not so advantaged over the Have-Nots.

The baseball … WHAT?!

OK. Wait just a galldurn minute here. Are we seriously taking the “everyone gets a trophy” stance here? Did we just seriously crossover to the “this isn’t fair” territory? So what, the losing team is losing so we’re going to pity them? They’re going to cry and take their ball and go home to cry to mommy? This is BASEBALL!

I was raised constantly being told “Tough! Life isn’t fair, so get over it”. I know it sounds horribly cliche, and it is, but it’s also true. If you didn’t like something, then DANGIT, you did something about it. If you were losing, you played better. You’re supposed to learn from losing.

OK. I think I’m done with this part of the rant. Maybe …

Why Stop Here?

Anyway, back to the article. A friend of mine said this today about the article.

Hmmm … interesting, on all counts, indeed. Yes, baseball is the only one of the 4 major sports to not have a time limit. It was one of the last sports to jump on the replay bandwagon (which is still flawed).

I was willing to at accept experimentation of a pitchers clock in the minor leagues. But somethings are so fundamental to history, you can’t change them. And it’s not even about can’t or won’t, it’s about whether or not you should change it.

It’s been 1, 2, and 3 outs for almost 150 years, not 1, 2, and eh, you have a lead, so you only get 2 chances to try and score. You’re done, my turn to hit … YAYYYYY!!!

It’s like we’re 6 again in our friends backyard.

You’ll be at the plate and you let a center-cut lollipop go by and not even swing it. It’s called a strike. Then, you yell out at the pitcher and catcher and say, “nuh-uh … I never swung the bat. It’s not a strike, it’s a ball”.

That is what this is.

Tom Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan would be rolling over in his fictitious grave right now. There’s no crying baseball?  With this, the crying is already assumed!

How This Could Impact the Braves

Here’s the thing. If you’ve watched any Braves games this year, you know they have done a lot of their damage with 2 outs in the inning – well over 50 of their runs, in fact. With this rule in place, that damage depreciates in value.

Think about it. Under the proposed rules change, any run scored with 2 outs to give a team a lead, immediately ends the inning. Therefore, ANY runs the Braves scored after that initial run to go ahead would have never happened. How many losses does that equate to? How many wins? Is there a difference at all? I would argue, yes!

The Braves this year have done their most work with two outs this year in a big way. How about a .268/.349/.437/.786 slash line?  Not enough for you? They have had 30 batters intentionally walked, hit 103 doubles, 48 home runs, 243 RBI, 34 stolen bases, and have a BABIP of .321.

The Braves are literally doing their best work offensively with two outs and when the chips are down. There isn’t one guy who sticks out as THE clutch guy. The whole dang team is flipping clutch. They have been getting it done all year.

Now imagine if when they scored one of those runs with 2 outs, that they would have to stop and take the field, because “it wouldn’t be fair to other team” to keep going on hitting and scoring runs. God forbid the team with the most runs wins the game.

Might as well just not even play the games and flip a coin. Best 3 out of 5 wins. No need to keep stats. No need for records. No MVPs, Rookies of the Year, No Hall of Fames…

Shaken to the Core

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This rule proposal compromises the core fundamentals of the game. It questions the sanctity of the game as we all have known for decades. I try to keep an open mind, I do. The rule changes in the name of safety I’m all for it. Pitching clocks in the minors?  Fine. It’s not a big difference maker anyway. Timing the pitcher between pitches is all right.

But this? Taking an entire out away if YOU’RE WINNING after breaking a tie? Are you serious? I don’t care if it takes an hour and half of game time away. This is baseball. It’s a game that requires thinking and mental stamina.

When are people going to realize the game isn’t broken. You don’t need to change the rules to attract a younger demographic. It’s not baseball’s fault we are where we are.

In today’s day and age of immediacy, video games, faster technologies, and attention spans shorter than a Julio Teheran outing, the problem isn’t baseball. It’s us. We as a society can’t sit still long enough to focus three hours on a baseball game, yet this generation can sit for hours on end playing Fortnite or Overwatch.

Maybe my friend Josh Brown was right after all. Nothing Matters. Nothing matters at all.