Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

D.C. talks about the plethora of rule changes coming to Major League Baseball for the 2020 season which were made official last week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you, Joey Martin. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, once again, better late than never. It's Locked-on Mariners with me, your host, who just can't seem to get on track this week. I am still D.C. Lundberg, reminding you that you can download, rate and subscribe to Lockedon Mariner's on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or whichever podcasting app you care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariner's podcast and follow the show on

Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-U-N-Skore Mariners. And you might as well follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G if you are scoring at home. Going to talk a little national baseball news today, but it's national news that affects the Mariners and every other team in Major League Baseball. Last Wednesday, some rule changes to Major League Baseball were made official. All but one of these rule changes were known about. for quite a while. But in case you haven't heard any of these, or even if you have,

I'm going to list them and talk about them a little bit. And forgive me if I get a little bit salty during some of this. There are times that Commissioner Rob Manfred makes me miss Bud Sealing. And that's saying quite a bit. Lots of the new rule changes had to do with the structuring of rosters.

The first of which is that the active roster will now be 26 players rather than 25. There is also a maximum number of pitchers a team can carry. a team may have up to 13 pitchers on its active roster. Honestly, I have no idea why this was changed. It seems completely unnecessary to me.

I guess it was changed because teams were running out of pitchers at such a high pace last year, but most teams carried 13 pitchers anyway, so that won't help. What would help is if managers learned how to manage pitching staffs correctly, which has not been the case for the last several years. As a result of this ridiculous rule changed, the so-called 26, man on rosters for doubleheaders is now the 27th man. There is a new position designation that is a two-way player, like Shohei Otani of the Angels. This is now an official designation, and teams may designate one player as its two-way player.

They are allowed to be on the roster as a position player, but still pitch and not count against the team's 13 pitcher limit. according to an MLB.com article written by David Adler, quote, players have to meet certain criteria to qualify as two-way players. In either the current MLB season or the previous one, they have to pitch at least 20 innings in the majors and start at least 20 games as a position player or DH,

where they bat three or more times, end quote. This one became necessary as the result of the previous roster change I talked about. because of the new 13 pitcher limit that muddies the area of letting position players pitch somewhat, hence the need for this designation. Which kind of leads us to the next one. There is a new specific rule on when position players not designated as the team's two-way player are allowed to pitch. Position players are now only allowed to pitch if their team is losing or winning by six runs or more, or if a game goes extra innings. Major League Baseball either almost set or did. set a record for position players pitching last year.

So, of course, that needed to be stopped. Someone call the fun police. This limiting of position players on the mound, limiting a team to a number of pitchers and forcing them to designate a player as a two-way player, this just all strikes me as micromanagement. The powers that be are going in and meddling with things that don't need to be meddled with.

It's just unnecessary. September rosters will also look much different. You know how teams out of playoff contention can call up a ton of prospects from their minor leagues and have their entire 40-man roster on the active Major League roster? Yeah, those days are gone. Instead of the max 40 players allowed to teams September 1st through the end of the season, teams may now only carry 28 players, including a max of 14 pitchers. This was changed to try to quicken the pace of play in September games, which usually featured much more pitching changes, pinch hitters,

defensive changes, and the like. I understand why this. was implemented, Commissioner Rob Banford has tried to find every way possible to speed up game times. But I don't like this one either. Part of September Baseball is giving young minor leaguers or even older minor leaguers a chance to play at the big league level. And while 40 may have been a little excessive,

hardly any teams carried the max of 40, and cutting it all the way down to 28 seems like too much. Heck, even All-Star game rosters these days have more than 28 players. I don't like this one either. All right. Time to switch gears and go to the League Commission Fantasy Minute.

And you know my fantasy is one day being good enough to be a PBA touring pro, making a television show, and then throwing a perfect game to win a major title. But I can talk about that a little later. Fantasy Baseball Time, and today's featured fantasy player is one of the Mariners' veterans, Kyle Seeger. Last year was another tough year for the M's third baseman. He started the season on the injured list and didn't see any action until May 25th. He got off to a very slow start again.

but picked it up somewhat in the second half and actually hit 323 in August with decent power. That tells me he still got something left. His overall slash line last year was 239, 321, 468, which is certainly better than the 221-273-400 slash line he produced in 2018. If he gets off to a decent start, doesn't even have to be a great start, just a not horrible start, then I think his numbers will improve somewhat from where they were last season. Hopefully no injuries befall him in spring training and he can get out of the gate well.

I do not expect him to put up numbers similar to those he produced while he was in his prime, but I still think it'll be better than the last season. And this has been the Fantasy Minute sponsored by League Commish. Say, what are you doing for the game? It's a universal question. Whether the casual follower, the tweets everything, the beginner, the diehard, the stat nerd, the smack talker, the appetizer guy, the couldn't care less or the makes everything into a competition person. We all have our place in the sports world. The same personalities apply to

fantasy sports and league commish exists to ensure that your fantasy sports experience is the best one for you. We match managers to leagues as we lay the foundation for your new league. It's as easy as signing up with your preferences, get matched, and approve that match before any commitment. on your end. Sign up with League Commish by February 29th, Leap Day, and receive 15% off by entering the code locked on in the referred by section of the sign-up form. The first 25 people to sign up using our code receive their first match for free. What are you doing for the game? Find your next Fantasy Sports League at leaguecomish.com. And with that, today's Mariners trivia question. At the trading deadline in 1996, the Mariners acquired two veteran left-handed starting pitchers

to bolster their injury-riddled rotation for the stretch run. Jamie Moyer was one of them acquired from the Red Sox for fourth outfielder Darren Bragg. Who was the other pitcher the Mariners acquired? I'll tell you who it is after the break, and we'll go to said break after I remind you that if you've got a question or a comment on the show, to please email the question or comment to Locked-on Meritors at gmail.com, and I will consider using it for the Friday mailbag segment. And remember, you can ask me anything.

Doesn't have to be a Mariner's question, doesn't have to be a baseball question. A couple people asked me about pancakes for the last mailbag. You can ask me about curling. You can ask me about anything. Just keep it appropriate, and I probably will answer it on the show. Locked-on Mariners will continue

as soon as I put Rob Menfred's picture on a dartboard. Welcome back to Lockdown Mariners. Once again, your host, D.C. Lundberg. Yes, indeed. Thank you for sticking around for the second half of Locked-on Mariners and the answer to the trivia question. At the trading deadline in 1996, the Mariners acquired two veteran pitchers

to bolster their pitching staff for the pennant run. Jamie Moyer was one of them. Who was the other? The answer is Terry Mulholland. The Mariners acquired Mulholland from the Phillies for prospect Desi Rulliford. Moyer wound up pitching for the Mariners for nearly a decade, while Mo Hollins signed with the Cubs prior to the 1997 season,

he wound up being a rent-a-player, but he did help the Mariners down the stretch. All right, gang, back to present day and back to the new rules instituted by Major League Baseball for the upcoming season. The next rule change has to do with pitching. There is now a three-batter minimum for pitchers, meaning that each pitcher must face at least three batters

before being removed from the game. If a pitcher is injured or is otherwise physically unable to complete this minimum, the rule changes waived and a new pitcher may enter in his stead. Also, if a pitcher finishes an inning, he may be removed prior to the start of the next inning, regardless of how many batters he's faced. This was done to improve pace of play. In recent years, managers would burn through their entire bullpins routinely, bringing in a new pitcher after every hitter, it seems. Well, that certainly is no way to manage a bullpen, and something had to be done to correct this.

I'm not sure this is the way to go. But then again, I've tried to figure out a way to fix the bullpen problem, and honestly, I don't have an answer. But on the other hand, I'm not sure this rule changes better than what had been the status quo. I've got mixed feelings about it. I don't think I'm a fan of it. It just strikes me as legislating something that doesn't need to be legislated. This rule goes into effect on March 12th in Cactus and Grapefruit League play,

or as Balke-Bartocamus would have said, grapefruit. There are new changes coming to. the injured list as well, or as it was known prior to last season, the disabled list. Still not used to it, and I still think changing the wording was completely unnecessary. Anyways, the length of time players will be on the disabled list is changing. While the 10-day injured list, or I-L, as it were, will remain for position players, pitchers will now be subject to a 15-date I-L, which is somewhat going back to the way it was

prior to the 2017 season, where there was no 10-day I-L or D-L, but a 15-D-L. day DL. Another change affects the time required to recall a pitcher from the minor leagues after he's been sent down. Previously, a team must have waited 10 days to recall any player from the minors after optioning said player to the minors. Pitchers are now subject to a 15-day waiting period, while it will remain the same for position players. Honestly, this one just seems like another unnecessary change for the sake of micromanaging. I get the differing times for the injured list somewhat, although I don't know what was wrong with the blanket 15-day injured or disabled list for all players. There is one final rule to discuss, and this is the one that had

not been publicly known before this report was released last Wednesday. Managers now have 20 seconds to challenge a play after its completion rather than 30 seconds. It's a minor change, yeah, there's not really much to say about it. It's fine, I've got nothing against it, and I've also run out of the things to say about it. And since, for some reason I am completely tongue-tied today and I have got one hell of an editing job in front of me. I'm just going to end the damn show now. Please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to Locked-on Mariners

on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or whichever podcasting app you personally like to use. Also remember that you can ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners podcast or any of the other podcasts here on the Locked-on podcast network or T-L-O-P-N or T-Lop-N or T-Lopin. Follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. And remember that I'm on Twitter as well at D.C. underscore Lundberg.

It's looking like tomorrow's going to be another afternoon show, unfortunately. For some reason, I just cannot get on track this week. I apologize, gang, but there will be a show tomorrow, I promise you, of that. I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope you've been enjoying this show. And we'll be back here again tomorrow. Have a good evening. This is Joey Martin, saying join us back here next time

for another edition of Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.