MLB: Extra Inning Rule Smart For 2021, Still Stupid Overall

MLB and the MLBPA keeping that extra runner in extras still makes sense this year, but remains the height of stupidity long term.

While the universal DH and expanded playoffs remain a non starter, MLB and the MLBPA did actually agree on a couple things Monday:

Seven inning double headers, and that extra runner on second for extra innings, will be returning for the 2021 MLB season.

And for the 2021 season, with the unprecedented realities of the Covid-19 pandemic still needing to be considered, that makes perfect sense. Yesterday’s agreement was part of a codification of health protocols given the ongoing state of things. Agreeing on those protocols, ways to ensure basic human safety, took months last time around. It is good that they agreed far more quickly this time. Shortening games in this way is in everyone’s best interest, player and executive alike. Throw in the fact that fans (some anyway) will likely be in the stands now, and that becomes even more prudent.

However, none of that changes the fact that MLB needs to chuck this extra innings rule on the scrap heap of history as soon as it is safely possible to do so. For it is only as a safety measure that particular tweak has any merit, any place in the game at all.

Keeping that extra runner on second in extra innings permanently, as part of a misguided effort to make things “exciting” or hasten the pace of play though? That would be the height of stupidity, and insulting the integrity of the game. Which, unfortunately, puts it right in MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s wheelhouse.

Now the other part of this rule carryover, the seven inning doubleheader, doesn’t thrill me either. Yet that one I’m more than willing to chalk up to being a set in my ways traditionalist. Baseball players probably don’t ever need to be guaranteed a minimum of eighteen innings in a workday, even if generous concessions are made for expanded rosters when they come up. Even the player feedback on this one has generally been positive.

That extra runner though? The players have been pretty scathing, once you stick a pin in health and safety. Miami Marlins closer Brandon Kintzler didn’t shy away from calling it a stupid rule last year, and Kintzler wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Stephen Vogt took a more measured tone yesterday, making clear he wanted it gone as soon as conditions permitted.

Bottom-line, it cheapens the unique to baseball experience that a game can just go on forever. Someone is kicking a field goal in the NFL. Someone is winning a shootout in hockey. The math of NBA scoring generally tends to cap a game to no more than an extra ten minutes. There is a magic in the timelessness of the MLB game.

And more to Kintzler’s point, there is a completely inequitable

advantage for the hitter with that extra runner rule. A pitcher can technically lose a game by recording two consecutive outs. That’s…not normal.

More than that, it’s stupid. Unless, of course, there’s even the slightest chance it saves lives. Keep it for 2021, MLB. But please, not one inning longer.