MLB and the MLBPA made a deal.

[Lou]

On March 14, 2019 at 7:27 PM, Jeff Fletcher said:

Ok, we actually spent 15 minutes debating this with Ausmus as we tried to understand the rule. Mostly because I misread it. 

Here’s the deal...

the purpose of a pitcher limit is to keep teams from making too many pitching changes which slows down the game. They haven’t decided the limits yet but I expect it will be 13 pitchers when the roster is 26 and 14 when it’s 28. They just don’t want you having 15 or 16 pitchers. 

Now, they want to exclude two way players from counting against the pitcher limit. 

You establish your two way status by pitching 20 innings and playing 20 games as a position player/DH. You can start the season that way if you met those criteria the previous year or you can gain the status during the year. 

Since Ohtani isn’t going to pitch this year, he won’t start 2020 as a 2-way player. They’ll call him a pitcher and once he has 20 games as a DH they’ll make him a 2-way player. 

As for Cowart-Walsh, they have all of this year to establish a status for 2020. If they don’t make it, it would probably depend on their preferred role which way the team goes at the start of the year. For Cowart it would probably be as a pitcher and for Walsh as a position player. 

 

this post should be pinned for everyone to read.

I hope everyone appreciates having @Jeff Fletcher's contribution to AW. 

[Lou]

11 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Not sure, but there were 1159 one batter appearances last year.

 

38 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

In 2431 games.

 

Any idea what the breakdown was between leagues?

[Jeff Fletcher]

10 hours ago, Lou said:

 

 

Any idea what the breakdown was between leagues?

In NL parks there were 624 1-batter appearances. In AL parks there were 521.

1- or 2-batter appearances: 1243 in NL parks, 1059 in AL parks.

There were 1216 games in NL parks and 1215 in AL parks.

I have no idea how many of these 1- or 2-batter appearances ended an inning, which means they could still happen. 

[nate]

Hopefully they put the DH in the NL soon.  It is the one rule I was hoping they would get done.

[Jeremiah]

12 hours ago, Lou said:

 

this post should be pinned for everyone to read.

I hope everyone appreciates having @Jeff Fletcher's contribution to AW. 

I agree.