Fixing MLB’s Problems Being Exposed During the 2024 Playoffs

Fixing MLB’s Problems Being Exposed During the 2024 Playoffs0 of 5

Remember when starting pitchers mattered?Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images

If one of your favorite fall traditions is watching the MLB postseason and griping about all its imperfections, you’ve come to the right place.

The idea here is to think of how MLB’s biggest problems could be solved once and for all.

Among the issues ripe for scrutiny are the outsized influence of home runs, the steady flow of umpiring miscues, the diminished relevance of starting pitchers and the degree to which money has shaped the 2024 playoffs.

To be clear, there is no magic bullet for these issues. However, we should all agree that it’s in MLB’s interest to try to fix them, as the potential reward is nothing short of a better product beloved by all.

Yet before we get into it, let’s acknowledge that this October has been rough for the griping enthusiasts among us.

Disclaimer: The MLB Playoffs Are Healthy in 20241 of 5

Freddie FreemanRob Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images

I wrote a version of this same article in 2021 and again in 2023. Both times, it wasn’t hard to find things to write about.

That is not the case in 2024.

With the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers now in the World Series after entering the postseason as No. 1 seeds, the argument that MLB’s 12-team playoff format unfairly punishes top seeds doesn’t really land anymore.

And the drama? It’s been high indeed.

The average leverage index—which measures the pressure of a given moment based on potential swings in win expectancy—per plate appearance for the 2023 playoffs was 0.86, well below the average of 1.0. In 2024, it’s over the line at 1.02.

This helps explain why viewership was up even before the star-studded Yankees and the just-as-star-studded Dodgers renewed MLB’s most classic World Series rivalry. And the numbers are still going up:

MLB Communications @MLB_PRThe 2024 World Series is averaging nearly 30 million viewers combined in the U.S. and Japan, where the country is drawing record viewership. pic.twitter.com/FMgUrZLbMb

Meanwhile, the strikeout rate in the postseason dipped to 22.9 percent this year since ballooning to 27.0 percent in 2022. There have also been 22 more stolen bases than there were that year.

Further, interminable playoff games continue to be rare in the pitch clock era. A total of 17 games lasted at least three-and-a-half hours in the 2022 playoffs. There have been only seven such games in the two postseasons since then.

None of this is ideal for professional whiners like yours truly, but it is unequivocally good news for Major League Baseball. You can hardly blame Commissioner Rob Manfred for being in a good mood.

But since imperfections to the general formula remain, let us commence the part where we put on our hard hats and get to fixing things.

Everything Still Revolves Around the Long Ball 2 of 5

Giancarlo StantonRob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images

The Problem: Hitting Home Runs Remains the Surest Way to Win Games

As always, the biggest complication with framing home runs as a problem is that they always have been and still are veritable bundles of fun.

And yes, there have been some doozies in these playoffs. Giancarlo Stanton’s go-ahead moonshot from Game 5 of the ALCS is still in orbit somewhere, and Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam from Game 1 of the World Series is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things.

MLB @MLBIT’S GONE
IT’S GONE
IT’S GONE
IT’S GONE
FREDDIE FREEMAN #WALKOFF GRAND SLAM pic.twitter.com/LlVU1ZGyGx

The issue, though, is just how strongly correlated home runs and wins remain.

There have been 41 games in the playoffs, and only 11 of them have seen the two teams hit the same number of home runs. For the other 30, the team that won the home run battle won the game 27 times, against just three losses.

It’s a far cry from the 2014 playoffs, when there were 13 neutral home run battles and the team that won a home run battle had just a 12-7 record. Yet this year is hardly an anomaly, as this postseason largely resembles the previous nine regarding home run battles and wins.

The Solution: More Patience Is Needed

We’ve noted that strikeouts and stolen bases in the playoffs are trending in the right direction. Only 60.5 percent of all plate appearances resulted in a ball in play in the 2022 postseason, but that figure is up to 62.7 percent in 2024.

At 11.2 percent, the rate of fly balls clearing fences for home runs is on track for its lowest rate since the 2014 playoffs. Put all these things together, and there’s a hint for teams that the long ball’s postseason influence is on shaky ground.

Besides, what would you have MLB do? Outlaw home runs? Carry out yet another experiment with the baseballs? These are things nobody actually wants.

Umpires Are Still Too Often in the Spotlight3 of 5

Tripp Gibson (L) and Miguel Rojas (R)Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The Problem: It’s Still Too Easy to Second-Guess Umpires

Come October, instances of people getting Big Mad at umpires are about as certain as Halloween candy and the New York Jets being largely useless.

The strike zone has inevitably morphed into odd shapes on occasion, including when Carlos Torres was behind the plate for Game 1 of the World Series. Umpire Auditor has the deets:

Umpire Auditor @UmpireAuditorUmpire Carlos Torres (ranked 32nd of 90 umps) missed 14 calls in Game 1 of the World Series.

His correct call rate of 90.9% matched the 84th ranked Laz Diaz.

Of the 14 bad calls, 9 went against the Yankees#Yankees #Dodgers #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/lpz0Ij6yEz

It bears noting that both missed strikes and missed balls are a lot less common than they used to be in the postseason. But until either rate gets down to zero, there will always be a chance for bad calls that are annoying at best and legitimately damaging at worst.

The Solution: Hurry Up with Those Innovations, Plus a Novel Idea

There’s already an automatic strike zone in the minor leagues. The only question is when it will come to MLB, and Rob Manfred says that will be sometime in the next four years.

It’ll be a good day when that happens, and ditto for whenever the new check-swing challenge system is also ready for prime time. If nothing else, what can already be said about the latter is that the tech is pretty darn cool.

In the meantime, MLB should seriously consider allowing umpires to listen in on PitchCom. If they know what’s coming, they hypothetically won’t get short-circuited by unexpected movement or velocity.

Otherwise, what if TV broadcasters couldn’t show the strike zone and how Statcast registers each pitch in real-time? These are nice-to-haves, but they also create an impossible standard for umpires to live up to for those watching from home.

The Diminishing Relevance of Starting Pitching4 of 5

Dave RobertsHarry How/Getty Images

The Problem: Workhorse Starters Are Going Extinct

It has been seven years since anyone pitched a complete game in the postseason. And at this point, you have to wonder if there will ever be another.

The longest a starter has gone in the 2024 playoffs is eight innings, and there’s been a downturn in the collective workload of starters. They account for 48.4 percent of all batters faced, compared to 55.4 percent in the 2022 playoffs.

Derek Jeter is hardly alone in feeling like starting pitchers just don’t have as much influence, and Tony Clark isn’t wrong to see the problem as a cultural one in which durability has been devalued in favor of pitchers only ever giving maximum effort.

“As soon as they seem to run out of gas,” MLBPA’s executive director said prior to Game 1 of the World Series, “as the data suggests that they’re going to, [teams] recycle them out and to burn out another pitcher.”

The Solution: Basically Anything Other Than a 6-Inning Minimum

Back in August, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reported that MLB was considering a six-inning minimum for starting pitchers.

It’s a lousy idea if you ask me, and it’s nice to know that Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal agrees:

Foul Territory @FoulTerritoryTV”I think that’s stupid. I mean, so stupid.”@TarikSkubal doesn’t like the proposed six-inning minimum rule for starting pitchers. pic.twitter.com/hoE0qFk5ka

Of all the problems a magic bullet can’t solve, this one is especially vexing. Though MLB could try new rules for roster construction (i.e., fewer relievers) or shortening the season (i.e., to 154 games), ultimately, the culture must change.

This will take some time, as the max-effort approach to pitching goes down to the youth level. But it might be changed from the top down if teams prioritize cultivating and valuing workhorse starters and ensuring they’re fairly compensated.

Basically, what MLB needs is more Logan Webbs.

Payroll Disparity Is on Full Display5 of 5

Mookie Betts (L) and Shohei Ohtani (R)Harry How/Getty Images

The Problem: In 2024, Wealth Equals Wins

Geez, how is the little guy supposed to compete in a playoff field like this?

All six of the highest-spending teams in MLB qualified for the postseason, leaving just six spots for the other 24 teams. And in the World Series are the teams with the second-and third-highest payrolls.

Front Office Sports @FOSMLB League Championship Series Payrolls:

Mets: $350.3 million
Dodgers: $339.8 million
Yankees: $314.7 million
Guardians: $140.3 million pic.twitter.com/Rie9ho0fxj

At $70 million, the average annual salary of Shohei Ohtani alone matches the luxury-tax payroll that the Athletics ($81 million) had this year. And they’re but one of 15 teams that didn’t even go halfway to the New York Mets’ $350 million tax payroll.

At best, this kind of payroll disparity is bad optics. At worst, this season proves that it’s legitimately bad for competitive balance.

The Solution: Close the Gap from the Other End

Then again, dollars and wins going hand-in-hand is not a fait accompli.

The three highest-spending teams of 2023 didn’t make the playoffs. And even this year, competitive balance took another step in the right direction since getting out of hand in 2019.

Per Travis Sawchik of The Score, half the teams in MLB carried payrolls in 2024 that were less than half the revenue they generated in 2023. As such, it may be feasible to enforce heavy fines on teams that don’t commit at least half of their yearly intake to players.

Think of it as a reverse luxury tax, with the idea being to send a message to cheapskate owners: If the money is going to come out of your pocket either way, it might as well be used to service the product on the field.