How extra-innings rule change benefits Tampa Bay Rays

Tampa Bay Rays: MLB is trying to make this happen in 2020. They’ve made a lot of tweaks to the game, today we look at how the extra-innings rule changes will impact the Rays.

The Tampa Bay Rays may have some serious advantages should a game finish the first nine innings in a tie this season. First, let’s take a quick look at what this rule is and why Major League Baseball has chosen to utilize it for this strange season.

Baserunners start in scoring position in extra-innings – In an attempt to prevent games from turning into seven or eight-hour marathons in such a cramped schedule, the league will begin every half-inning of extra innings with a runner in scoring position. According Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, since the rule was implemented in the minor leagues two years ago the results are real. Prior to the implementation of the rule, only 45 percent of extra-inning games were concluded in one inning. Over the past two years with the rule, that number sky-rocketed up to 70 percent.

Important Notes

The runner on second will be the last batter from the previous inning. So, if the number three hitter is due up in the 10th innings, then the number two hitter will be on base.

If the runner scores then the pitcher will not be charged with an earned run.

Pinch runners can be used.

The schedule currently calls for 60 games in just 66 days. To accommodate this insane workload on the teams, the league has essentially expanded the 26-man rosters to 30 players at the start of the season and expanded the traditional 40-man rosters to a 60-man taxi squad.

We will now take a look at how the Rays could benefit from these wild extra-inning rules in the 2020 season.

Tampa Bay Rays – Extra Innings Advantage – The Bullpen

As we recently noted in an article supporting ESPN’s Buster Olney’s assertion that the Rays are his World Series favorites, I pulled out my calculator and did some math to highlight how dominant the Rays’ bullpen was last season.

The other 29 major-league teams had an average of 603.23 relief innings used per team.

The Rays led the league with 772 relief innings. 28% more than average of the rest of the league.

Only two other teams even crossed the 700-inning threshold, the Angels (761.2), and the Blue Jays (729).

The other 29 teams’ relievers posted an ERA of 4.34.

 The Rays’ bullpen led all of baseball with a 3.71 ERA, despite pitching 28% more innings than the average of the 29 other major-league clubs.

2020 Upgrades: Last season, the Rays only got 21.1 of Nick Anderson’s 65 incredible innings. Jose Alvarado was dealing with some issues that appear to be in the rearview mirror. As crazy as it sounds, the Rays’ relief group has a chance at being even better than last season’s.

That’s a very impressive statement considering how dominant they were last season. Fangraphs shows the Rays led all of baseball with 7.7 reliever WAR, finished second in FIP by .02 points, first in ERA, fourth in BB/9 with 3.05, and seventh in HR/9 with 1.18.

Perhaps my favorite stat shows how outside the box the Rays were last season and perhaps gives them a leg up in this 2020 season. The average major league club earned an average of just under 32 wins from their bullpens in 2019.

The Rays earned a whopping 56 wins from their relievers.

The elite bullpen makes the team more likely to shut other teams down despite starting the inning with a runner on second no outs.