Ripples: Louie Varland's Return (Sort Of), A Huge Umpire Change Tonight, and a Proposed Rule Change

Monday night's Twins-Rockies tilt was a crisp affair, played in 2 hours, 9 minutes and with a bevy of balls in play. Twins pitchers struck out 10 Colorado batters, but only issued one walk, and on the flip side, they only struck out and walked twice each on offense. 

That wasn't surprising, because Monday's home-plate umpire, Alfonso Márquez, is one of the game's more hitter-friendly (and balls in play-friendly) arbiters. Of 77 qualifying umps since the start of 2023, Márquez is 67th in Adjusted Strikes Looking (SL+), at 96.6. For that stat, 100 is average, and higher means more called strikes than expected, based on the location of pitches not swung at while they're behind the plate. He's also 19th in In Play% among those 77, meaning that when Márquez is back there, the ball tends to keep moving.

It's hard to come by a much larger change than the two teams will see tonight, as Lance Barrett dons the mask and chest protector instead of Márquez. Barrett is third in SL+, at 106.3. Whereas Márquez's calls have added 9.8 runs to scoreboards since the beginning of last season, Barrett's have prevented 17.7. Barrett's games also tend to involve more of the two least interesting true outcomes.

Since the best umpires have the least impact on the runs in either direction, it probably won't shock you to learn that Márquez ranks 55th in Adjusted Correct Call % over this sample, and that Barrett is even worse, at 72nd. For the very patient Twins offense, there's either a quick adjustment or an evening of frustration ahead. In four games with Barrett behind the dish over the last two seasons, they're 2-2, but have batted just .211/.264/.398, striking out 25.5 percent of the time and walking just 5.5 percent of the time.

Life With Louie
It's just a spot start for Louie Varland Tuesday night; he's not guaranteed anything beyond this chance to help the team stretch its starting rotation and get key pitchers some rest. However, this feels like a golden opportunity for the young righthander to have some success and reestablish his confidence at the MLB level. After the exceptionally tight zone that governs Triple-A baseball, Barrett's will feel positively oceanic. It's up to Varland, who has admirably lowered his walk rate during a St. Paul sojourn, to show he can make use of that space.

As you've heard by now, Varland has tweaked his pitch mix to optimize his development while pitching for the Saints, with more sinkers and changeups. The idea is to finally get him comfortable attacking the arm side of the plate, inside on righty batters and away from lefties.

The focus has also been on reshaping the changeup. Varland has seen a drop in the velocity difference between that pitch and his fastball while with St. Paul, but it's also moving more, both vertically and horizontally. That's a good trade for Varland. Tuesday will give him a chance to test some of his changes, and then he figures to get another chance to hone things in the minors.

It's Not Your Day, Kid
No less a luminary than Bill James once suggested that, for player safety and conflict management reasons, a pitcher be ejected automatically if they hit a second batter in any game. His theory was, if you plunk two guys in one game, you don't have adequate control that day--or there's something nefarious afoot.

That's too extreme, but as I watched the frustration (and injury risk) mount and tensions wind unnecessarily high Sunday afternoon, I couldn't help thinking that James was on the right track. Ben Heller of the Pirates didn't have any semblance of command that day, and it put the Twins in danger. It also invited anger that could have boiled over into a brawl.

Heller had already done some damage and angered some people in the Minnesota dugout by the time he hit Kyle Farmer, the third HBP of his day, and the game was over. The Pirates left him in, though, to continue absorbing a beating and spare their bullpen. It's not really fair to Heller that he was forced to do that, and it's even more unfair to the Twins that they were subjected to that risk longer than anyone would have called acceptable, except that the Pirates didn't want to use any more arms in a lost cause.

I wanted to see what it would look like to draw a line, somewhere, and automatically eject pitchers who plunk three batters in a game. For my money, it's viable. There have been 46 outings since the start of 2021 in which a pitcher did hit at least three batters, and in 18 of those, the hurler in question worked at least into the sixth inning. That's where we need to check on this, because if the rule were going to push a bunch of pitchers out of starts unnecessarily, it would be a no-go.

Instead, of those 18 appearances, only four would have been curtailed sharply by this rule. An automatic ejection after a third HBP would have knocked Yu Darvish out of a 2022 start in the first inning, and Zac Gallen out of one in the second. Both Chris Bassitt and Alex Wood would have been thrown out of starts in the third in 2021, even though they went on to at least see the sixth.

Much more often, though, third plunkings act as a sign to a skipper that his guy has lost it, anyway. While with the Marlins in 2022, Pablo López was voluntarily removed after hitting his third batter of the game, in the seventh inning. Tanner Houck has twice been lifted immediately after hitting his third batter of the game in the sixth inning, and Carlos Carrasco got the same treatment in one game last season. Another handful of times, pitchers got between one and three more batters after their third HBP.

Were this rule instituted, umpires would have to be slightly more strict in their enforcement of the rule against batters leaning into pitches. You don't want hitters forcing pitchers out of the game by trying desperately to get hit. At the same time, it would make each hit-by-pitch more interesting, and hitters could still find ways to draw an extra plunking here and there, to apply pressure to the pitcher and their manager.

Games like the one Heller had are inevitable. Their potential negative impact on the game and its players can be blunted, though, and I think we should seriously consider doing it.