Home Run Derbies
In professional baseball’s neverending quest to address a problem that doesn’t actually exist, two United States-based unaffiliated leagues have implemented new tie-breaking rules for the 2021 season. The Pioneer League and Frontier League have both turned to the home run derby as their extra innings decider. The Pioneer League announced their implementation of the derby first but the Frontier League announced they would also be instituting a derby shortly thereafter.
The Pioneer League calls their home run derby the Knock Out round. It begins if the game is tied after nine innings and consists of each team selecting a hitter to receive five pitches. Whichever player has more home runs after these five pitches wins the game for their team. If they hit the same number of home runs then the teams select two more hitters to go through the same process and this repeats until finally, one player hits more home runs in their five pitches than the other player does.
The Frontier League doesn’t have any fancy name for their home run derby but it does exist under slightly different rules. First, any games tied at the end of regulation will play one extra inning, and then if the game is still tied they move to the home run derby. Each team selects three hitters, with a possible fourth if needed. The first two hitters face-off and whoever ends up with the most home runs after eight pitches wins the game for their team. If it’s tied after those eight pitches it moves on to the second set of hitters, then the third, and finally the fourth. There hasn’t been any word on what would happen if things were still tied after four pairings of hitters but I imagine they would just move to a fifth player and so on.
Both leagues have already implemented their home run derbies this season. Press releases were sent out after each game and they were heralded by their respective leagues as historic occurrences. The reality is, that despite all the initial hand-wringing that took place when these tiebreakers were announced there hasn’t been much attention paid to the actual home run derbies themselves. Most fans seem to not care, they didn’t really pick up any traction in the wider baseball or sports world, etc. There hasn’t been any sort of uproar against or cheering for the new rule.
The brass tacks of the institution of these home run derbies are that they exist to address a problem that resides only in the head of Rob Manfred. Major League Baseball’s Commissioner is the main figure behind changing the pace and length of professional baseball games. Only, he’s not really interested in changing either of those things. If he were he could solve those issues quite easily by shortening advertising, promos, time in-between innings, etc. He doesn’t want to do those things though, rather he wants to peck away at a game that is meant to be free moving and languid. Manfred’s animus towards the length of baseball games has trickled down to the unaffiliated leagues and that’s why you get leagues that don’t have any sort of length or pace of play issues instituting rules meant to solve that nonexistent problem.
I was opposed to these home run derbies, and still am. I have no problem with calling a tie game a tie game. Sure, I’d rather there be a winner, but if after 12 innings the game is still tied I have no problem following suit with other unaffiliated leagues and declaring the game a tie. That is a much more natural occurrence than a runner on second or a home run derby. The main takeaway from the home run derby rule found in the Pioneer and Frontier Leagues has been that people don’t seem to care. Both the folks against the rule and in favor of the rule have remained nonplussed about the actual instances of the rule being used. (The only mild chirping has come from my corner of the internet and is mainly concerned with these home runs not being counted towards these players’ statistics despite them being hit during a now regulation ballgame.)
If a rule isn’t helping the game, isn’t making it more exciting, and is having no actual effect on fan enjoyment or excitement then why use that rule? Why change something that doesn’t need to be changed? That’s been my only problem with rule changes like home run derbies and the like. I don’t believe in the idea of baseball purity, but I also don’t believe change needs to take place just for the sake of change. The home run derbies are exactly that and that is why most fans don’t seem to care one way or another about the implementation of the new rule. Once the mid-season break rolls around both leagues should take a look at the rule and likely ditch it, but chances are they will keep it and an unnecessary change will become the new normal.
