Knobler - UNWRITTEN: bat flips, the fun police, and baseballs new future

Contents

Introduction: What Are the Unwritten Rules and What Happened to Them?

YASIEL PUIG LEARNED HIS BASEBALL IN CUBA. Kenta Maeda grew up in Japan. Kenley Jansen comes from Curacao.

In every one of those countries, the rules of baseball are the same. Three strikes, youre out. Circle the bases, you score a run. Nine batters in the lineup, nine innings in a regulation game.

Its all in the rulebook, everything from 1.00, Objectives of the Game (win by scoring more runs than the opponent), to 9.23 (d), Suspended Games (all performances shall be considered as occurring on the original date of the game).

Its all in there except the part that tells you when its alright to flip your bat and the part about when its acceptable to retaliate when your teammate(s) get hit by a pitch and when no one will have a problem with you bunting for a hit or speaking to a pitcher who hasnt yet allowed a hit.

Theres more, because the unwritten rules of the game are nearly as extensive as the written ones.

This isnt the NFL, where the rulebook determines how and where you can celebrate, and what you can use as a prop. In baseball, the players decide that. Cross the line, and your teammates will let you know. Cross the line by too much and the opponent will let you know, with a 99 mph fastball to the ribs.

The unwritten rules tell you how the game really should be played, both at the major-league level and while youre coming up through the minor leagues. Everyone who wants to play the game right has to learn them. Every fan who wants to watch the game and fully understand it should know them.

The only problem is the unwritten rules change over time. The written rules change, too, but Major League Baseball publishes a new version of the rulebook every year with changes noted.

The unwritten rules change more gradually. They change as society changes. They change as the players change. They become the reason some guys get called old school and some dont.

There was a time when rookies were expected to shut up and know their place. Not true anymore.

There was a time when playing for one run made perfect sense, so teams used the sacrifice bunt with regularity. Definitely not true anymore.

There was a time when as soon as the leadoff man in an inning reached first base, youd wonder if the manager would put on a hit-and-run play. Now, the hit-and-run is so rare that when I asked major-league scouts how often theyd seen it done in a full season, most said they could count the number on one hand.

There was also a time when a pitcher might throw at a hitter simply for taking a big swing, and certainly for taking a little extra time getting around the bases on a home run. It was expected, and perhaps even accepted, that a hitter who had great success against a certain pitcher could expect a brushback pitch to come his way soon.

The few times that happens now, it becomes a major controversy and the pitcher who does it gets criticized and suspended.

In todays game, I think theres a mutual respect, said Chili Davis, who debuted as a major-league player in 1981 and has been around the game as a player or coach ever since. Guys dont throw at guys because they beat them.

Pitchers throw harder than ever now, but when you ask scouts and coaches how often theyve seen one of todays pitchers use intimidation as a weapon, many of them say, Never, at least not intentionally. If a pitcher comes far inside, its often because his command just isnt very good and he missed his spot.

Oh, and that starting pitcher? Theres a good chance he wont make it three times through the opposing batting order. Thats a big change, because in the game as it was played 20 and especially 30 years ago, a manager wouldnt go to the bullpen if he had a lead and his starter was still throwing the ball well and getting hitters out.

In 2018, several teams regularly began games with an opener, a pitcher who was designated to throw the first inning or perhaps the first and second innings. The Tampa Bay Rays didnt have a traditional five-man rotation at any point during the season.

It wasnt a rules change that brought that about. It was more of a culture change, a change to what smart baseball people thought.

The embrace of analytics and all forms of big data has changed the game and changed the definition of playing the game right. Many analytics-inclined fans and even executives wish and hope that it will change more, especially in areas like bullpen usage.

Todays general managers are more open to change than ever. Todays managers are, too, even some you might think of as decidedly old school. Bob Melvin admits now that he was resistant to analytics when the Diamondbacks new front office turned to them heavily in 2006. He became so comfortable with the new methods that in 2018 he was in his eighth year with the Oakland Athletics, working for Billy Beane of Moneyball fame and using an opener rather than a traditional starting pitcher regularly in a pennant race.

Don Mattingly never seemed completely comfortable with the Dodgers after Andrew Friedman took over baseball operations and big data dictated decisions beginning in 2015. But in 2018, when Mattingly was managing the Miami Marlins, he didnt brush away a question about whether he would consider using an opener.

I dont think youll see us doing that, Mattingly said. But I think you have to be open-minded to anything. Analytics, shifting you have to evolve with the game. You should never close your mind to anything. Ive always heard that youre looking for the best way, not looking for your way.

Thats a long way from, Its either my way or the highway and were going to weed out the rats, as Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson told his team when he took over the Tigers in 1979.

Anderson was a brilliant manager, several steps and several innings ahead of most of those he managed against. But he was also the guy who once said, If I need a computer, it means I dont have a brain.

Computers are standard for just about all of us now, and laptops, smartphones, tablets, and even smart watches are a common sight in any managers office. The information generated by computers shows up every night in every major-league dugout and influences nearly every decision made in every game.

So of course the unwritten rules have had to change. But they didnt disappear.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged as much at a press conference in 2016. Asked how he felt about celebrations, bat flips, and the like, Manfred said the players determine how the game should be played.

Overall, baseball has always had unwritten rules that kind of govern whats appropriate and whats not appropriate, Manfred said. The way I think about the changes weve seen in the last couple of years, is that we have a really exciting, new, young generation in the game. And just like the players 20 years ago, they are going to develop a set of unwritten rules as to whats acceptable and whats not.

Plenty of players and more than a few managers wish Manfred and other executives would stick to the idea that players can govern the game themselves. Many of them believe baseball has gone too far with changes in the official rules and with heavier suspensions for what they see as simply policing the game.

Changes in the official rules have affected the unwritten rules. Baseball has basically outlawed collisions at home plate and hard slides to break up a double play, taking away what once would have been considered essentials for playing the game the right way.