Here’s a couple of stupid ideas to enliven your morning.  First, what about a four-point field goal in football?

            I’m sure I’m not the first person to suggest something like this, but here’s my idea.   The goal posts in the NFL are 18 feet, 6 inches wide. . ..222 inches wide.   Suppose that you take the middle third of that, and create a “box” in the center of the goal posts which is a 74-inch square, essentially a six-foot square.    Two rules:

            1)  If the ball bounces off the face of the grillwork (as opposed to the regular goal posts), it counts as a regular field goal.

            2)  If the ball goes through the box, from a distance of 40 yards or more, it counts for four points.

            Six points for a touchdown, four for a field goal. . .wouldn’t this encourage coaches just to take the field goal?

            No, it wouldn’t.  First of all, as you know very well, it’s really seven or eight points for a touchdown, not six.  Second, only about 10% of field goals would count for four points.   If you’re inside the 20, the four-point field goal isn’t a realistic option.  If you’re outside the 20, the four-point field goal isn’t an option you can count on.   It’s too difficult an option for coaches to base decisions on the assumption that they can execute that.    Logically, perhaps, coaches should go for two after a touchdown much more often than they do.   They don’t because it is difficult enough to get the two that coaches don’t feel they can count on it.    It is hard enough to kick a 40-yard field goal.   Kicking a 40-year field goal inside a box that is a third the width of the goal posts and of limited height. . .it’s too hard.   When you can do it it’s good, but you can’t count on it.

            People won’t go for the field goal more than they otherwise would, but what they will do is back the kicker up a couple of yards deeper than normal to let him take a shot at the bonus point. 

            I see this rule as having the following benefits:

            1)  It adds pressure and excitement to the kick.   A relatively routine 40-yard field goal becomes a little bit more of an adventure.

            2)  It adds a dimension to the kicker’s game.  

            3)  It adds a strategic decision for the coach.   Do I take a 35-yard field goal, or do I back him up and try to add one?  

            Late in the game, it will be obvious from the score whether you do back the kicker up or whether you don’t.   There will be situations, late in the game and down four, where coaches will back up the field goal kicker 15 yards behind where he normally would be because they have to have that fourth point. 

            But earlier in the game, it won’t be so obvious whether you back him up or not.  Would you rather have a 34-yard field goal which can only go for three, or a 40-yard field goal try that could be four but would probably be three?  It depends on how much confidence you have in your kicker.   You have to make a decision.

            I think it would improve the game.  I also think there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Panama that the NFL is going to consider such a rule change, which is an interesting thought in itself.   One of the things that happened to baseball about 1955-1965, that caused the game to drop behind the NFL in certain popularity indexes, is that the game got calcified by the belief that it was perfect.   “We have a perfect game”, baseball in essence decided, “therefore we don’t need to consider any changes.”   This allowed things like excessive pitching changes, endless throws to first base, and bats that shattered into splinters to get established in the game, because. .well, we have a perfect game.  They didn’t regulate those things in 1935, so we don’t need to regulate them now.

            I have always somewhat envied the NFL, which has a more practical approach to its rules.   Does this make the game better, or not?   If it makes the game better to widen the hash marks, we widen them.   If it makes the game better to allow a team to try to for two points after a touchdown, we’ll allow it.

            But here I realize that the NFL, too, is becoming calcified by its success.   They’re not going to consider a four-point field goal, regardless of the merits of the idea, because. . .well, they didn’t do it in 1965, did they?   In a sense this is a re-assuring thought.

            My other stupid idea for the morning is the three-man starting rotation.   I get asked sometimes whether baseball will ever go back to the four-man starting rotation.   What about a three-man rotation?

            My goal in this little article is to convince you that this is actually a workable plan.   Suppose that your policy was that the starting pitcher always came out of the game

            1)  After five innings, or

            2)  After 90 pitches,

            Whichever comes first.  

            If you do that, you can use a three-man starting rotation.   Using a three-man rotation, the top starters would start about 52 times a season. . .in theory 54, but with rain delays, double-headers, etc., 52 is a lot more likely than 54.  

            How many innings would a pitcher pitch, working on that plan?   If he lasted five innings every game, 260 innings.  I ran some simulations on it.   A starting pitcher would leave the game because he reached the 90-pitch limit in the first five innings between 8 and 15 times a season, and would pitch 240 to 249 innings with great regularity.   In my simulations, the workload very, very rarely went under 240 innings or as high as 250.   It locked in on 244, 245.    Is that doable?

            Of course it’s doable.   I’ve written this before, but it’s relevant here, so. . . .my understanding of what happened in history is that, between 1975 and 1990, managers made two changes in an effort to reduce injuries to the starting rotation.    First, they switched from a four-man to a five-man rotation.    Second, they imposed pitch limits—pitch limits starting around 135 pitches, and walking down from there. 

            These changes reduced the number of innings pitched by the hardest-working starting pitchers from about 300 innings to about 225 innings.  (Between 1970 and 1975 the one hundred hardest-working pitchers in baseball worked an average of 296.2 innings each.    Between 1995 and 2000, the one hundred hardest-working pitchers in baseball pitched an average of 235.1 innings.)

            In spite of these changes, the gains in starting pitcher injury rates were very modest.   At least one of these changes was useless; maybe both of them were useless, but at least one of them.   The better evidence is on behalf of the pitch limits.   The pitch limits probably accomplished something; the fewer starts probably didn’t.   The reduction in the number of starts came first.   The reduction in the number of pitches per start came about because reducing the number of starts didn’t do anything.  

            It is my argument that pitching 52 games, 245 innings in a season would be less stressful than pitching 33 games, 200 innings.   Why? 

Because the most stressful pitches are those thrown when the pitcher is tired.   Which is more stressful:  Two starts in which a pitcher throws 100 pitches each, or one start in which he throws 141 pitches? 

In modern baseball, one start in which a pitcher throws 141 pitches would be regarded not as twice as stressful as a 100-pitch outing, but something more like ten times as stressful.   But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it is twice as stressful. 

If a 141-pitch start is twice as stressful as a 100-pitch start, that implies that the stress from a start is proportional to the square of the number of  pitches thrown; 141 squared is (essentially) the same as 100 squared times two.   

If you assume that the stress from an outing is proportional to the square of innings pitched—which is to say, that you assume that the stress occurs when the pitcher is at or near his fatigue limits—then compare two pitchers.  Pitcher A makes three starts, throwing 97, 105 and 101 pitches.   Pitcher B makes five starts, throwing 83, 72, 90, 66 and 78 pitches.   Compare the stress:

Pitcher A

              97 squared =   9 409

            105 squared =  11 025

            101 squared =  10 321

         Total Stress        30 635

Pitcher B

            83 squared =   6 889

            72 squared =   5 184

            90 squared =   8 100

            66 squared =   4 356

            78 squared =  6 084

       Total Stress        30 613

That’s 389 pitches in five starts for Pitcher B. Assuming he pitches 245 innings in 52 starts, that’s 23.56 innings in five starts, 16.5 pitches per inning times 23.56 innings, that’s 389 pitches.  

            Five starts pitching five innings or 90 pitches are essentially equal to three starts in the current system—but we’re not suggesting a 5-to-3 increase in starts.   We’re suggesting a 52-33 increase in starts; 58%, rather than 67%.  

            Backing off. . .not that long ago, some pitchers pitched 300 innings in a season, and some pitchers were able to do that without injury.    We’re talking here not about 300 innings, but 245—but we’re talking about 245 innings in a much, much less stressful arrangement.   We’re talking about zero pitches a year over the 100-pitch mark.   I simply don’t believe that pitchers couldn’t do that.   They could.

            They could do it, and, within a few years, they would learn to love it.   A starting pitcher working in this pattern would probably have 28 to 36 decisions per season, occasionally as many as 42, whereas in the current system a starting pitcher typically has 20 to 26 decisions per season, occasionally as many as 31.   With more decisions you’d have many more twenty-game winners, and many, many more pitchers going 25-7 or 24-11 or 26-9—records that occured in the 1960s, but haven’t been seen much since then.    One might, occasionally, see a 30-game winner. 

            Of course, starting pitchers would at first be averse to coming out of the game so early.   People are change-averse.   But within a few years, once they realized that they had the opportunity to pitch more innings and rack up more decisions in this system, free agent pitchers would be fighting for the chance.  

            There are other advantages.  Since the bullpen would work every game, essentially four innings every game, the manager would be able to schedule the work of his relievers, rather than bringing them into the game on an as-needs basis.     The modern pitching staff is 12 or 13 pitchers—5 starters, 7 or 8 relievers.  With the more scheduled relief work, this could run with 11 pitchers—3 starters, 8 relievers.   Assuming the starting pitchers pitched 4.7 innings per game, that leaves 700 innings per season for the bullpen.   That’s 88 innings per reliever.   That’s a little more than we get in the current system, but again, it’s not an unrealistic number.  Let’s say that you have three relievers working 2 innings each every third day—54 games, 108 innings each.   That leaves 376 innings for the other five relievers, which is 75 innings apiece.   It’s not a problem, and you’ve gained a slot on your bench for a pinch hitter, a fifth outfielder or a third catcher. 

            The other idea, the four-point field goal. . .that’s never going to happen, and I understand why.   If you get every nitwit in the country suggesting rules changes to improve football and you start actually adopting those rules, in twenty years it is no longer football.   I understand that.

            This change. . .it’s got a shot.   There is a logic to it, and sometimes the game forces you to do what you reasonably can do to try to get as much out of your players as you can.   There is a momentum to events; there is an attraction of logic.   In the short run the momentum of habits and training often crushes reason, and keeps us from doing what we could do.   In the long run, history finds the most logical arrangements.